80/ 20.
80/20.
Eighty/Twenty.
It is one of the tools that helped me the most in
managing delivery,
managing a team,
or fixing a broken processes.
80/20 means figuring out
the most prominent knobs.
The 20% of knobs
that control 80% of the problem.
Knobs of any situation,
risk,
project,
team,
or function.
It’s about finding the hidden assumptions,
hidden risks,
hidden processes.
It reminds me to Divide and conquer.
Don’t solve everything in one go.
Focus on fixing the top 1 to 2 things at any time.
This is thinking on grand scale,
small scale.
It’s a muscle I have to train again and again.
I need to be ruthless in clarity and ruthless in prioritization.
That’s 80/20.
Or in most cases,
the 99/1.
It takes effort,
time
and thinking eking these out.
It’s hard.
But it pays dividends.
It works.