Making ideas happen
Thomas Edison famously said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Every day, new solutions, revolutionary cures, and artistic breakthroughs are conceived and squandered by smart people. Along with the gift of creativity come the obstacles to making ideas happen: lack of organisation, lack of accountability and a lack of community support.Scott Belsky has interviewed hundreds of the most productive creative people and teams in the world, revealing a common trait: a carefully trained capacity for ideas execution. Implementing your ideas is a skill that can be taught, and Belsky distils the core principles in this book.While many of us obsess about discovering great new ideas, Belsky shows why it is better to develop the capacity to make ideas happen - using old-fashioned passion and perspiration. Making Ideas Happen reveals the practical yet counterintuitive techniques of "serial creatives" - those few who make their visions a reality.
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- In the last five years moved from development, to leading the development team to more of a product management role. Fully agree with that DanielBMarkham it's "the people part of things is where you'll screw up", so I'd focus on communication and team-building as much as processes.
I've found a few books really useful:
* The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6667514-the-checklist-ma...)
* Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6452796-drive)
* Making Ideas Happen: Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7696135-making-ideas-hap...)
* Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6828896-delivering-happi...)
* Rework (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6732019-rework)
These days I get the most value from articles and videos. Here is a list of my recommended articles on Medium, which might be useful - https://medium.com/@nickboyce/has-recommended. Some great stuff in the list recommended by ravivyas too.
Edit: Something else I have been experimenting with is buying executive summaries of major books, in order to familiarise myself with as many perspectives as possible.
- There's a whole book on this type of topic called "Making Ideas Happen" that discusses the idea of the "Backlog" for all your ideas. There's also a dedicated website called http://99u.com/ that supports the materials in the book. Check it out.
- Making ideas happen by Scott Belsky is another killer one.
- Where Good Ideas Come From by Stephen Johnson - interesting exploration of how connectivity facilitates ideation.
Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky - great nuts & bolts conversation on moving ideas into execution
Comfortable With Uncertainty (re-reading for the Nth time) - 108 short meditations and stories on finding peace in the context of constant change
- I highly recommend you read "Making Ideas Happen" by Scott Belsky (the99percent). I was already using Evernote for much of my idea-keeping but this inspired me to organize it better. The initial idea is but one piece of the puzzle. As you brainstorm (no matter where) you need to record the ideas and then take action. Too many ideas die not because they were bad but because a plan of action failed to take root.
My routine: 1) write down the idea and all related points in Evernote and that goes in backburner tagged appropriately. 2) Mindmap the idea out. 3) Start wireframing
- note this is just fleshing the idea out. All the while be searching for competitors and testing out what they have done. Take note of likes, dislikes, and not implemented differences with you.
4) Check google trends and keyword generator to see how many people have been searching for your solution. Do not be discouraged if you don't find a lot here... sometimes things really are novel (like, what keywords would one search for if looking up a twitter like service?). 5) Start talking to everyone about your idea. Hit up tech meet-ups and anyone who would be your potential client regarding the idea. People will be really nice and say nothing but good things. Do not let this idea ego-stroking go to your head (think about it... when have you ever asked another entrepreneur the hard question "why?" when you're really thinking the idea is without merit?). Ask everyone you share the idea with "How would you improve upon this?" or "Is there anything out there that you've seen like this?" or "Is there anything about this that you think is off?". When asked people will volunteer their honest opinion (or complete misunderstanding of the concept). Again, don't take any of this wrong... you may just be lead in a whole new direction or be given some great ideas to add to it that you never considered. 6) Take it all in and break it down to its absolute core. Then take that core and break it down again. Take all the esoteric meaning you've given it out and break it right down to the true MVP. Then get coding.
- Read "Making Ideas Happen" by Scott Belsky. I am in the same position as you and have picked up some wonderful ideas from that book.
First: Nag, nag, nag! You say nudge, I say NAG! Nagging works as people just want to get you to shut it and they know the only way to do that is to get the task done.
Second: Are you absolutely clear in your goals and have you assembled a team which is aligned with those goals?
Third: There's the old adage of hire slow and fire fast. If you have done everything with one of the team members to get them on board and they still refuse to align with the team goals then you must let them go.
