'Tis Better to be Effective than Efficient
September 20, 2017
Outcome vs. Output Focus for Software Teams
Better. Faster. Cheaper. Many IT organizations are constantly seeking the “best” practices that will deliver those characteristics, and the fact that they continue to search indicates they haven’t found them yet.
It could be they are looking in the wrong place. Most efforts around achieving better, faster, cheaper center around becoming ultra efficient.
Effectiveness may just be the better target.
Join Kent McDonald to explore the difference between efficiency and effectiveness and learn three simple, yet powerful, techniques that he has found can help teams be more effective. You’ll learn how to:
- Build a shared understanding of the problem you are trying to solve
- Establish clear guard rails for distributed decision making
- Measure progress based on outcome, not output
Along the way he’ll share stories about how he has used these techniques and help you figure out when these techniques may work in your situation.
You may be able to get faster and cheaper with efficiency, but in order to get better outcomes, you need to be effective.
On demand recording
Meet our panelists
Kent McDonald
Kent McDonald – Kent is a writer and product manager who helps product people deliver powerful internal products. He has IT and product development experience in a variety of industries including financial services, health insurance, nonprofit, and automotive. Kent practices his craft as Content Curator at Agile Alliance andshares his ideas and experiences at KBP.media. When not writing or product managing, Kent is his family’s #ubersherpa, listens to jazz and podcasts (but not necessarily podcasts about jazz), and collects national parks.
Kent is author of Beyond Requirements: Analysis with an Agile Mindset and co-author of Stand Back and Deliver: Accelerating Business Agility
