Clarity Cuts Choices

The new Avatar movie taught me about productivity.

Suggests James Cameron:

“So, the flexibility offered by digital performances means you start to question yourself: why was the camera overhead? It can now be anywhere. I could be a helicopter or a drone, or I could be right on the bridge of their nose.

And so the question is: how do you keep from being paralysed by all the options? This turns out to be a major problem in this work.

So, what I do is ask myself: why am I on the shot? How's it advancing the story?”

Something in my head clicked.

Every organisation has finite resources. This demands focus - to say “no” to doing the wrong things.

But, in order to know what we shouldn’t be doing, we first need to know what we should be doing. This, in turn, requires us to understand where the organisation is trying to get to with the limited resources it has.

Building this understanding starts with asking “why?”: “why is this work important to the organisation?”. Answering this question helps us understand where the organisation most wants to be, and therefore which work is more likely to take us there, and - most importantly - which work will not.

The takeaway? Asking “why” brings clarity and cuts choices, so we can more easily prioritise progress towards our goal ... and scene.

Note: This article was inspired by Corridor Digital. Quotes adapted for brevity.