Sticky Note Power

Ah, the power of the sticky note. That little piece of genius has freed me from brainlock once again.

Sometimes when your faced with a problem that is just too big to wrap your head around it is tough knowing where to start. I am the type of person that likes to see the big picture before I dive into the details, so figuring out that big picture from a big pile of details can leave me stuck in analysis paralysis.

I've been dealing with a problem at work about how to best start an effort moving that has been stalled out for a very long time. Everyone agrees that the end game is a good idea, and everyone wants to do the work, but nobody has been able to figure out how to get started. And I have to admit that I beat my head against that same wall myself for over a month. Then, I decided I had to change my perspective.

When Sherlock Holmes would get stuck on a particular problem, sometimes he'd climb up on a piece of furniture to look at a room in a new way. The theory was that if you can radically change your perspective new things can emerge from the new way of looking at your problem. That same theory is at the heart of my sticky note technique.

The technique is basically an effort to break apart logically grouped tasks, ideas, and issues and to recombine them in new ways until a new picture jumps out at you. So, in this circumstance, I started pouring through my inherited lists of requirements, budgets, issues docs, use cases, anything I could get my hands on. And every time I came across a new piece of information I wrote it on a sticky note and stuck it on my wall. I didn't care if the information was an outstanding task, a risk, a needed capability, or whatever. If it represented potential work, it went on a sticky note.

You'll find that as you write and stick your notes on the wall logical groupings will emerge. Often that first set of groupings will be how you stick the notes on the wall. But soon, you'll see that lots of notes don't fit nicely into the groups you had in your mind. Those things are the things that are preventing you from moving forward. They're good. Keep writing them down. Try to create new groups in which to put those notes.

Eventually, you'll start moving notes. Ones you thought were in one grouping really belonged with a bunch of stuff you didn't have in any group at all. Don't be afraid to abandon your old groupings. Those old groups are what has gotten you into this problem in the first place. Reorder and regroup your sticky notes over and over until their groupings just feel right and every note has a home.

Then, it's time to cull the weak notes. Start combining and eliminating notes. Try to get your notes to the same level of granularity. Chances are some of the things you thought you needed to do aren't really that important after all when you see your new groupings. Set them aside or chuck them in the trash.

Once you feel you have good groupings, then lay out a basic timeline on a big wall and start slotting each of those notes into the timelines you'd like to hit. Use horizontal rows to show basic dependency.

Presto! You now have a new plan of attack and can build out your more detailed execution plan.