Going From Ideation to Execution — A Rookie’s Guide For Small Teams

The process of thinking is just as important as the process of execution. Your thoughts usually determine the trajectory that your execution will follow.

If your thoughts on a particular subject are based on certain philosophies or a particular perspective, your execution is invariably going to be based on those philosophies.

Thoughts and ideas with reference to perspectives and their respective contexts make up the very foundation of execution, making it extremely important to get the thought process right from the onset.

Businesses or business owners (the founders) need to promote the culture of thinking (then planning) and then executing almost immediately, thus determining quickly which ideas work and which do not, and then WHY.

A practical approach.

Typically, you have a team of people who you have decided to hire (or work with) based on their individual proficiencies, working together at a level that makes up the “collective proficiency” of your team.

At every point in time you need to get your players wired up to something I like to call the “canvas of the mind”.

The canvas of the mind, unlike the name implies does not exist in the mind. It is a physical representation of thoughts and ideas on a particular subject or a project.

The canvas of the mind could be in the form of a Trello board (with a healthy dose of checklists and comments), a spreadsheet, or a shared doc. At FishByte, our canvas is a combination of all three.

The bottom line? Everyone on your team has access to the canvas — and must refer to it (regularly) for guidance. It affords teammates the opportunity to stay on the same page.

Teammates must also contribute their quota of ready to implement ideas and actual thoughts (about a project or a product) broken down into bits that are easy to digest and reason about. Ideas should be expanded into processes (or the workflow for that specific [type of] project) then action items, as it relates to the idea or project. The canvas needs to account for the sequence of execution with reference to tools, milestones and KPIs where applicable.

The canvas of the mind is meant to help everyone understand clearly what a project is about and should answer a few questions along the lines of the following.

1/ What are we trying to do?

2/ What results are we looking to accomplish?

3/ How are we going to go about it?

4/ Are there stages that this project can be broken down into?

5/ What are the stages?

6/ How do we know we are making progress?

7/ What are the metrics for our success i.e. how will success be measured?

8/ Who is involved in this project?

9/ What roles are the people involved going to play? OR What “skills” are required and who is going to provide them?

10/ What is the timeline of the project (as well as deadlines for the different stages and tasks)?

11/ And so on…

There is a caveat though, obsessing over the process often leads to little or nothing being done. A good workaround for this is to determine the process for each specific task type beforehand and re-use processes for similar projects. Take a few hours to map out how certain things should work, then share with your team. Have them make notes and drop questions or ideas then refine the canvas — your “map”. Once you have a refined canvas, you can call for a physical meeting and review it with your team, then begin the project whilst updating the canvas as you progress.

This is much harder to do if you don’t have A-players that already “know their jam”. While it is sometimes in your best interest as the leader, to teach (and possibly mentor your younger or less experienced teammates), it is also important that your earliest teammates are leaders themselves — at least in their own fields. Leaders who are masters or at least on their way to becoming masters of their craft. More-so, leaders that know what needs to be done and do not need to be reminded to do it. Leaders that take initiative and are somehow always (perhaps sometimes by sheer luck but in this case by deliberate training, practice and discipline) in sync with the “vision” for a particular project and even the entire business as a whole.

The vision or “the end picture”, the goal, the expected results, drive the execution of these leaders with help from other traits like discipline, commitment, and a firm understanding of the task at hand as well as the knowledge and skills required to accomplish said task; without which they won’t be leaders in the first place.

Conclusion

The art of thinking is something everyone must master. Team players need to constantly be in sync with each other, flowing in the same direction albeit swimming a tad differently.

This is much more difficult but more so pertinent in the early days of starting a venture. You don’t want any dead weight on your team.

You also don’t want people stuck not knowing what to do next. That’s where the art of thinking (and planning) strategically or your team’s process of going from idea to execution as well as your process of execution across various subjects and/or projects, comes to play.

PS: This is a rookie’s guide in that it was written by me; a rookie. I hope you find it useful.

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