“What’s the hard part?”
A useful way to get in sync.
“What’s the hard part” is a question that everyone on the team should be able to answer. But you won’t find out unless you ask the question.
You might discover that many people think the hard part is directly related to what they do all day. And you might discover that some people insist that the hard part has nothing to do with what they do all day–even if it does.
What is the difficult work that, if it went well, would transform the impact of this project? Where are the projects worth focusing on, the things that would be difficult to outsource in a productive way?
When we roll all of this up to the enterprise, it’s up to the CEO to be clear about what the hard part really is – the solvable problem that if it were solved would make a significant difference for the enterprise.
Almost all the cycles involved in creating and building something aren’t particularly difficult. They’re important, certainly, we can’t ride the bike unless it has wheels. But wheels aren’t hard to find and purchase at a fair price.
A team’s awareness and focus on the hard parts dramatically shifts the prospects for the project.