We first observed this counter-intuitive idea with best practice teams and then again and again on projects we've worked on over the years. The most successful managers and executives have always been willing to push to the edge of failure in order to succeed. Some call it risk and others avoid this at all times, but in the end, they lose.

We have recently seen the re-emergence of re-engineering as companies search for ways to optimize and rationalize their operations in order to cut cost.

“Be quicker than the others. And don't make mistakes. Even if things fail, have the discipline to find a new way, rather than embarking on a pointless emotional journey."

We’ve observed two distinct types of thinking, the process mindset associated with producing many things requiring an understanding of volume, yield, and quality--and then a second thought process associated with projects; which have a start and finish and where something is created... when done the team moves on. However, with the former, the team stays and continuously improves it.

Being roughly rightis a key characteristic of the high performerswe’ve worked with over the past 20 years. They’ve made the conscious trade-off between having all the information to reduce risk versus being roughly right with a decision which is made sooner, and then using the time gained to refine the decision through a continuous improvement process.

We were asked by a client to define the factors that determine the duration needed to create sustainable change.

Problem: Create a means to get across a waterway (without getting wet). Solution: Build an un-bridge

A few recent client situations sent me rushing back to my Stephen Covey book, “The Seven Habits of Effective People” and specifically to look up his Urgent/Important matrix where Covey classified tasks according to their importance or urgency. It is a good reminder of what to stay focused on — the Urgent and Important tasks.

Professor Pólya makes some interesting points about teaching and learning. He said that teaching (and learning) is a process of helping students "discover things by themselves" and that all great scientific discoveries were conceived by "First guessing, then proving."

There are subtile differences in thinking when trying to make a development project go faster. It is important to understand them because they a so very different from one another.

Our Critical Thinking workshop (also called Challenge Workshop) has generated a number of breakthroughs from the project teams engaged to date.

Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” concept works well to describe the three elements of a decisionAccelerator model.

We use a process called Challenge to facilitate breakthroughs in thinking with teams, such as accelerating a schedule or finding a way to reduce costs in a system.

The ability to structure a problem and converge quickly to solve complex problems, in multi-variable environments, and during challenging times separates us from traditional solutions from both within the company and externally. Our clients use us as a catalyst for change.

Economist and Financial Times Columnist Tim Harford writes that, “Business success always begins with failure.” Admit and fix, rather than hide and stay the course. Create a culture that encourages fail-fast behavior.

We’ve successfully used this process to “discover” strategic schedule pull-in opportunities on complex projects. By “strategic” I mean large schedule acceleration opportunities.