Show me a business problem and I will try to avoid it.
Written by Jason Fried, founder and CEO of Basecamp.
“One of the best ways to avoid trouble is to simplify them. When you complicate a problem very much - and only a few high priests in each department can pretend to understand it - most often you will find that these high priests do not understand at all ... Such a system often gets out of control "- Charles Munger
Many business problems arise spontaneously. Many wounds are self-inflicted. In competition, you can win, but most often the competitor loses to himself.
Entrepreneurs are very well able to complicate everything for themselves. I have spoken to many of them and I see it everywhere. If they only put more effort into avoiding future problems , rather than solving the current ones that they had created for themselves before, they could have made much more progress in less time.
We built our business to avoid problems. This is the fundamental reason why we are able to do what we do, and we continue to do it - with a profit, and with a small team - for 18 years. Whenever we make important decisions, we evaluate their consequences. In general, the question is: how bad will everything be if we do it today?
')
We are not looking for glory in dealing with difficulties. We would prefer to make an obvious choice and avoid predictable problems altogether.
Here are some examples that we avoid:
We specifically keep Basecamp small. Serving over 100,000 paid customers and several million users with a staff of just over 50 people. Small firms avoid the problems that big companies have. Fewer managers, fewer layers of management, less loss of information transfer, significantly fewer bottlenecks and formal processes due to which people have to wait for permission to get started. In smaller companies, everything is simpler and every employee is closer to consumers. Of course, some small companies are not capable of what they can do big, but from our point of view it is very good.
We specifically retain the size of the staff, including forming teams of intentionally small size. Almost every project in Basecamp makes a team of three people or less (two programmers, one designer), and a substantial number of groups consist of one person (programmer or designer). Can we solve more significant problems with large teams? Maybe - but at the same time large teams will create bigger problems. Orwchinka not worth the candle. We like to do a lot of small projects in smaller groups. We still achieve all our goals - just smaller steps. This facilitates course adjustment along the way. And frankly, this is the best way to work anyway.
It is difficult to find something more demoralizing than a long-term project with no end in sight. Although from time to time infrastructure projects occur without an end date, but almost everything that we do fits into a maximum of six-week cycles ( I wrote about this in detail earlier ). Many projects are intentionally reduced to fit in a few days or a couple of weeks. So even if we set aside 6 weeks for some work and are unhappy with the result, we lost only 6 weeks. We avoid all the complications that arise when trying with all our might to put on dubious projects. Compare this with the projects that are described with the phrases “too big to fail,” “will be completed when done,” and they last 6, 8, 12 or more months ... You are unlikely to refuse the results of the work when it is finished. Long-term projects - the graves of morale.
Similar to the previous point, we do not look into the future further than for 6 weeks. We have some ideas of a general nature, where we want to develop, but we keep these ideas in mind and rarely write them down. This is an informal oral tradition. We also rarely make promises about the future. Such promises are a rich source of headaches and conflicts. It’s easy to agree to something in the future, because it doesn’t require effort right now. But when the time comes, you hardly want to do what you promised a long time ago. Past promises are the source of many problems in business. We run from such promises as from the plague. On this subject, I also wrote earlier .
Scaling! Scaling! Everyone wants to scale And WE DO NOT WANT! We try to avoid projects, a necessary condition of which is scaling. We are looking for projects that will be successful on any scale - small or large. For most companies, scaling is synonymous with the fact that now the ends do not converge, but over time they will converge. Do not run ahead of the engine - grow at a reasonable pace. Come out as a plus as early as possible with a minimum number of clients, and not with an imaginary set.
We have deadlines, but we avoid terrible deadlines. These are such deadlines that don't give a damn about you. They make hurry and run, but continue to tease with a fake finish line. This is not what you are aiming for. Worse, you not only do not see the finish, but not necessarily it will be a real finish if you see it. “We need to put more pressure on”, “we will never make it on time ...”. The mood falls, the quality suffers, and people tend to just pass the project, rather than perform it qualitatively. Any pleasure disappears if you constantly lag behind the schedule.
Companies have no problems with understanding, they have problems with misunderstanding. Every extra person you add to a conversation increases your risk. As Osmo Vio said, understanding is usually unattainable, except by chance . Small companies and small groups by their nature have an advantage in communication over large ones. Of course, two people may not understand each other, but this is pure mathematics: small teams, small groups, small companies significantly increase the chances of correct information transfer, compared to large ones.
Big companies constantly offer us cooperation. They want to be our partners. “We are wondering if you want to enter into a partnership on any topic” ... A big red flag. Previously, we succumbed to such proposals and they always came to a standstill. Big loss of time. This is especially true for unbalanced situations where a huge company wants to cooperate with a small one. Considering all the circumstances, usually it all comes down to a huge amount of work for you (a small company) and a tiny amount for one of their employees who do not need to do anything themselves. Get away from it!
We avoid things that stop the flow of information and hamper movement forward. We do not create management structures or rules that require permission. So far, what you are doing cannot destroy the company - just do it. In the role of a bottleneck can be a person, a process, paperwork, obtaining permission. We prefer the process to go its course, rather than stop and check at every step. Naturally, in this vein, something can go wrong, but this rarely happens, much more often everything goes as it should, without problems. Noah used to write about it .
Maybe a strange metaphor, but I still say ... It's like washing dishes after a meal. If you eat and immediately after eating you wash the dishes, then you never need to wash anything later. You avoid difficulties and additional work in the future. If you add dirty dishes together, then in reality you create more work for yourself - or for someone else. Food remains dry, burned, harder to clean. You increase the level of difficulty of work. In the future, the pile of dishes begins to frighten - it often grows simply because everyone is afraid to take on it. What is another dirty plate? Just throw her there. But if you wash the dishes after a meal, then everything happens much faster, as part of the process of eating (and not a separate procedure), and you will never return to this work - it has already been done. Future free and clean.
Do not leave dirty dishes at work.
“One of the best ways to avoid trouble is to simplify them. When you complicate a problem very much - and only a few high priests in each department can pretend to understand it - most often you will find that these high priests do not understand at all ... Such a system often gets out of control "- Charles Munger
Many business problems arise spontaneously. Many wounds are self-inflicted. In competition, you can win, but most often the competitor loses to himself.
Entrepreneurs are very well able to complicate everything for themselves. I have spoken to many of them and I see it everywhere. If they only put more effort into avoiding future problems , rather than solving the current ones that they had created for themselves before, they could have made much more progress in less time.
We built our business to avoid problems. This is the fundamental reason why we are able to do what we do, and we continue to do it - with a profit, and with a small team - for 18 years. Whenever we make important decisions, we evaluate their consequences. In general, the question is: how bad will everything be if we do it today?
')
We are not looking for glory in dealing with difficulties. We would prefer to make an obvious choice and avoid predictable problems altogether.
Here are some examples that we avoid:
Growth
We specifically keep Basecamp small. Serving over 100,000 paid customers and several million users with a staff of just over 50 people. Small firms avoid the problems that big companies have. Fewer managers, fewer layers of management, less loss of information transfer, significantly fewer bottlenecks and formal processes due to which people have to wait for permission to get started. In smaller companies, everything is simpler and every employee is closer to consumers. Of course, some small companies are not capable of what they can do big, but from our point of view it is very good.
Big teams
We specifically retain the size of the staff, including forming teams of intentionally small size. Almost every project in Basecamp makes a team of three people or less (two programmers, one designer), and a substantial number of groups consist of one person (programmer or designer). Can we solve more significant problems with large teams? Maybe - but at the same time large teams will create bigger problems. Orwchinka not worth the candle. We like to do a lot of small projects in smaller groups. We still achieve all our goals - just smaller steps. This facilitates course adjustment along the way. And frankly, this is the best way to work anyway.
Long term goals
It is difficult to find something more demoralizing than a long-term project with no end in sight. Although from time to time infrastructure projects occur without an end date, but almost everything that we do fits into a maximum of six-week cycles ( I wrote about this in detail earlier ). Many projects are intentionally reduced to fit in a few days or a couple of weeks. So even if we set aside 6 weeks for some work and are unhappy with the result, we lost only 6 weeks. We avoid all the complications that arise when trying with all our might to put on dubious projects. Compare this with the projects that are described with the phrases “too big to fail,” “will be completed when done,” and they last 6, 8, 12 or more months ... You are unlikely to refuse the results of the work when it is finished. Long-term projects - the graves of morale.
Plans and promises
Similar to the previous point, we do not look into the future further than for 6 weeks. We have some ideas of a general nature, where we want to develop, but we keep these ideas in mind and rarely write them down. This is an informal oral tradition. We also rarely make promises about the future. Such promises are a rich source of headaches and conflicts. It’s easy to agree to something in the future, because it doesn’t require effort right now. But when the time comes, you hardly want to do what you promised a long time ago. Past promises are the source of many problems in business. We run from such promises as from the plague. On this subject, I also wrote earlier .
Scaling
Scaling! Scaling! Everyone wants to scale And WE DO NOT WANT! We try to avoid projects, a necessary condition of which is scaling. We are looking for projects that will be successful on any scale - small or large. For most companies, scaling is synonymous with the fact that now the ends do not converge, but over time they will converge. Do not run ahead of the engine - grow at a reasonable pace. Come out as a plus as early as possible with a minimum number of clients, and not with an imaginary set.
Terrible Deadlines
We have deadlines, but we avoid terrible deadlines. These are such deadlines that don't give a damn about you. They make hurry and run, but continue to tease with a fake finish line. This is not what you are aiming for. Worse, you not only do not see the finish, but not necessarily it will be a real finish if you see it. “We need to put more pressure on”, “we will never make it on time ...”. The mood falls, the quality suffers, and people tend to just pass the project, rather than perform it qualitatively. Any pleasure disappears if you constantly lag behind the schedule.
Misunderstandings
Companies have no problems with understanding, they have problems with misunderstanding. Every extra person you add to a conversation increases your risk. As Osmo Vio said, understanding is usually unattainable, except by chance . Small companies and small groups by their nature have an advantage in communication over large ones. Of course, two people may not understand each other, but this is pure mathematics: small teams, small groups, small companies significantly increase the chances of correct information transfer, compared to large ones.
Partnerships
Big companies constantly offer us cooperation. They want to be our partners. “We are wondering if you want to enter into a partnership on any topic” ... A big red flag. Previously, we succumbed to such proposals and they always came to a standstill. Big loss of time. This is especially true for unbalanced situations where a huge company wants to cooperate with a small one. Considering all the circumstances, usually it all comes down to a huge amount of work for you (a small company) and a tiny amount for one of their employees who do not need to do anything themselves. Get away from it!
Bottlenecks
We avoid things that stop the flow of information and hamper movement forward. We do not create management structures or rules that require permission. So far, what you are doing cannot destroy the company - just do it. In the role of a bottleneck can be a person, a process, paperwork, obtaining permission. We prefer the process to go its course, rather than stop and check at every step. Naturally, in this vein, something can go wrong, but this rarely happens, much more often everything goes as it should, without problems. Noah used to write about it .
Maybe a strange metaphor, but I still say ... It's like washing dishes after a meal. If you eat and immediately after eating you wash the dishes, then you never need to wash anything later. You avoid difficulties and additional work in the future. If you add dirty dishes together, then in reality you create more work for yourself - or for someone else. Food remains dry, burned, harder to clean. You increase the level of difficulty of work. In the future, the pile of dishes begins to frighten - it often grows simply because everyone is afraid to take on it. What is another dirty plate? Just throw her there. But if you wash the dishes after a meal, then everything happens much faster, as part of the process of eating (and not a separate procedure), and you will never return to this work - it has already been done. Future free and clean.
Do not leave dirty dishes at work.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/332952/
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