Principles are simply a set of guiding rules. Here are the key principles for Agile Results:
- 80/20 Action. Rather than spend 80 percent stuck in analysis and only 20 percent doing, it’s about shifting to spend 80 percent of your time in action.
- Change Your Approach. Tune and adjust as you go. If it’s not working, let it go.
- Continuous Learning. As you change and as things change around you, use your learning to improve your results.
- Deliver Incremental Value. Find a way to flow value. Chunking up your results helps you build momentum. It also helps you build credibility with yourself and others. Rather than wait for a big bang at the end, you can flow value.
- Less Is More. Bite off what you can chew and reduce work that’s in flight.
- Factor Action from Reference. You should keep your action items separate from reference. This helps reduce the signal-to-noise ratio.
- Set Boundaries. Set boundaries in terms of time or energy. Consider boundaries for the following Hot Spots: mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, and fun. The key is to have a minimum in some categories and a maximum in others.
- Fix Time, Flex Scope. Treat time as a first-class citizen. First set time boundaries. Next, bite off what you can chew within those boundaries.
- Rhythm of Results. Focus on daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly results. Building a rhythm builds a habit that you don’t have to think about. The habit becomes a ritual that produces a feeling of accomplishment.
- Version Your Results. You can improve your results on each pass. Version 3 will be better than version 2 which will be better than version 1. This helps you fight perfectionism and produce incremental results.
