The productivity cycle that I haven’t managed to implement (yet) in our team

We have made a significant leap since the introduction of Jira, Confluence and calendars for scheduling meetings. The latter seems basic and nonsense, so it is a miracle that we have worked and gotten things done before then. It is true that the difference with now is noticeable. Even so, we still have a long way to go. We are still very far from where we want to be.

Until recently, I was not clear about what it was that was keeping us from functioning like a Swiss watch. Now I have an intuition. It is the productivity cycle that we need to improve.

Generate ideas

Everything starts with an idea. But ideas are cheap. Anyone with a brain generates an idea at some point. It’s impossible to avoid it. It’s what excites us the most. Good ideas come and go just as quickly.

Testing ideas

Potentially good ideas are forgotten due to a lack of follow-up. The next action is not set. When I remember, I ask for a follow-up meeting to give it another go. If we agree that it is worthwhile, we get going and test it.

“Systematize”

I may have just made up a word. What I mean is that if an idea has not been discarded but has been considered good, it must be implemented within the existing routines. This is the most difficult part. We often fail at this. We have tested but then there was no follow-up.

Continuous improvement

There are things that are done every week. These are shipments to Amazon, listing creation, purchases, etc. There are tasks that require continuous monitoring because that is where improvement comes from. Work fields such as Amazon Ads, pricing, etc. are two examples that only manage to implement improvements through the combination of testing + measurement.

There is room for error at every point in the process. The problem right now is that there are still too many things that depend on me. If I don’t detect that we have a point ahead that requires implementing the productivity cycle, things get lost. The team is capable of generating many good ideas but then they remain in internal conversations that I am not part of.

It is also the discipline of each person. Ideas are cheap. Jotting down tasks in Jira, scheduling a meeting, documenting something in Confluence already has a cost. It will cost us, but we will get there.