No context, no response

Having worked in numerous large-scale projects, often supported by external consultants, I had to learn the hard way how to keep the scope clean, avoid unnecessary or duplicate work, and tell the difference between important and urgent requests.

I keep telling my team: If you get a request, ask the following questions before you even start working on it:

• Am I in charge? Multi-functional projects are complex, and not always does everyone understand which work stream is in charge of what. Hence, requests may be thrown over the wrong hence. Redirecting work to the right owner is essential.

• Is it urgent? Is my input necessary to move on? Does anybody wait for my input, and is dependent on it? Many times, what is presented as urgent turns out not to be. To understand actual urgency, these questions help big time as the request may simply come from someone who set a timeline for their own convenience.

• Which problem are we solving with this request or which question do we try to answer? Unfortunately, requests rarely come with context, but rather as an instruction “I need this data set or information by x date”. Yet, without understanding the context, you cannot tell if the request makes sense in the first place, or if there is an easier way to reach the same goal. I made it a rule to not deliver information without understanding what it is for.

• Who is the information or request for? Are we crafting a high-level overview for an update to senior management, or is this the basis for a game-changing decision to be made by the steering committee? Unless you know your audience, you cannot tell which level of detail and which format is appropriate. You may overdo, your work ending up in the backup section of a 200-page slide deck…

If you stick to this checklist, you avoid scope creep and focus your time on value-adding work rather than random activity.