How To Eat The Elephant: Insight Into How A Complex Problem Can Be Simple.

“How do you eat an elephant,” the joke goes. “Well don’t start in the rear, that’s for sure.”

I was struggling with how to break down what seemed to be an extremely complex business process for our sales and contracts teams in order to overlay this into our eDMS and workflow solution.

Luckily, the team leaders within the departments had fairly well fine-tuned their process (as much as they could given leasing company regulations), but it was the different entry points a sale could manifest that was really throwing me for a loop.

I was sitting at my desk, scribbling on a notepad, when a colleague (and friend) walked in. He inquired what I was doing, and I went on to inform him I was trying to figure out how to eat an elephant. He quipped off a pithy remark.

Don’t start in the rear, that’s for sure!

After seeing me laugh, he sat down and listened a little while to my evident frustration with the process. He sat there in silence for a little bit, and then asked, “Why don’t you treat each entry point into the process as it’s own process?

“From there,” he suggested, “simply overlay all of the process and compare and contrast them.”

I think chagrin is the correct work to describe what I felt. It was such a simple answer. Why didn’t I think of that?

For whatever reasons, I couldn’t see the trees because for the forest (yes, reversed). In other words, I got where we were going, but I couldn’t see my way clear of the obstacles. He set me straight with that simple comment.

Ask for Directions (or have a GPS handy):

First and foremost, you must know what the objective(s) is(are). Once you have a clear understanding of what is to be delivered you can begin to operationalize the details.

The List:

I’m not a list-kind-of-person.

I’m not into too many details, but have slight tendencies towards OCD. In other words, while I prefer thinking about things like vision and direction, I can make myself focus on the details. However, I often get sidetracked on a specific detail that I just can’t get past – I just can’t move on until I’m sure it ‘feels right’. All of that makes for a very interest personality.

So to say, “I’m not into lists” is probably an understatement. I mean, you are talking to a guy who tried reading Getting Things Done – twice – and haven’t finished it all the way through once.

Needless to say, lists help me maintain discipline. One of the first things I do in the morning is create a list of things I have to get done, followed by a list of things I would like to get done.

Once you know where you want to go, backing into how to get there is one of the most important disciplines I have learned. David Allen, in his book Getting Things Done, understood the importance of keeping projects small. Allen points out that if we were to simply write down the very next action item required of us to complete a project, life would be infinitely less complex, and our to-do list would always be checked off.

So remember 2 simple rules:

1) Don’t place yourself on the wrong end of a problem.

2) Maintain an actionable list of to-do’s.

image courtesy of nickandmel2006