Outcomes or Activities

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting Chris Michel (original founder of Military.com then Monster.com and now with Affinitylabs - part of Monster). He wrote this blog (http://gigaom.com/2007/06/06/outcomes-vs-activity/) last year and I think the content is still incredibly relevant.

It's very easy to bury oneself in "busy" work - we run from meetings to meetings with the thought that high levels of activity will eventually lead to outcomes. But we rarely stop to assess the connection between the activities and results. What I like to do is to map my projects and initiatives on a 2x2 matrix with effort on one axis and impact on the other. The activities that result in high impact with low effort are obvious priorities... and then triage the rest to assess if they are really needed or if they can be delegated.

Thoughts anyone?

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