I'm quite cynical about my own ideas. If I actually stop and think about them when I have them I tend to dismiss them because I focus on the flaws more than the good bits. Writing them down and coming back later helps immensely.
Somewhat tangentially, this is one of the reasons why I dislike a lot of meetings, or, more specifically, meetings that don't have an agenda or a one-page doc upfront. If I'm in a meeting and someone drops an idea on the attendees expecting an immediate evaluation I'll say what I think but that's very often quite wrong and not really what I think. My first impression of things is driven by what I can see as flaws and problems and I don't see the good bits particularly well.
If you give me 24 hours and a doc outlining what you want to do you'll let significantly better feedback. I believe this is true of everyone.
Could not agree more. I hate speaking off-the-cuff and being forced to evaluate an idea with only a split-second of contemplation time within a meeting.
We're trying to move to 6-pagers (a la Amazon) or at least a documentation-first culture but buy-in has been difficult. People find it easier to simply drop a meeting on everyone's calendar and then aimlessly toss out ideas for 30 minutes. When I try to send a document ahead of time, no one has read it when they show up, and they bristle when asked to take the time within the meeting to read it.
Has anyone had success moving to this kind of format? How do you change the culture of an organization away from blathering and toward thoughtful writing?
Somewhat tangentially, this is one of the reasons why I dislike a lot of meetings, or, more specifically, meetings that don't have an agenda or a one-page doc upfront. If I'm in a meeting and someone drops an idea on the attendees expecting an immediate evaluation I'll say what I think but that's very often quite wrong and not really what I think. My first impression of things is driven by what I can see as flaws and problems and I don't see the good bits particularly well.
If you give me 24 hours and a doc outlining what you want to do you'll let significantly better feedback. I believe this is true of everyone.