Directing people

A friend once told me that to succeed as a manager, you need to command. It's not the only criterion, but being able to command both attention and respect go a long way towards getting what you want. That and providing direction. Command and Direct. That, in a nutshell, is what managers do.

Today was a case in point. The boss (who is actually pretty good at this stuff) was away today, so I was able to do some commanding and directing of my own.
During a workshop intended to clarify some concerns with our requirements specification, it became clear that we were still unable to get answers to all our questions. On a project with deadlines as tight as this one, further delays are just not good enough. So, I directed. I commanded. I said, "minute the agreements, assumptions and actions we have agreed here today, then put all the unknowns in the Functional Specification under the heading of 'Out of Scope'. Then focus all your attention on all the stuff you do know about".

Unfortunately, this has the side effect of potentially delaying things even further, because with the requirements baselined, any changes will now need to be assessed via the change control process. This might be considered an overhead, but it's the only way of ensuring that the high priority requirements are delivered on time.

Attention must be focused on what's really important.