commoncraft

Own It

leelefever — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:18:12 -0400

What is the point where many projects get off track? We think it's when decision making becomes a burden. Indecision, lack of ownership and unclear reasoning often means stasis and frustration. Over the past year, and likely through traveling together, Sachi and I have evolved a system that helps us be productive without wasting time. It's a system of ownership - of being personally accountable for the small decisions that contribute to the overall goal.

Early in the process, we talk a lot about the goal - the big ideas, the vision. Then, we can see how our independent roles will contribute. For example, Sachi (among other things) is our editor. From cutting the audio to stop-action to color correction, she owns it. Once she starts the process, all the decisions are hers. She can always ask for my thoughts, but my input is not required. By the time I see something, it's mostly done and we can iterate from a big picture perspective.

The same is true for me with the art work. I own the process of storyboarding and creating the artwork. I conceive the scenes and how they all fit together. Only after the bulk of the creative work is done do we come back together to make decisions before production. This way, I have a chance to own the vision of the video - a vision that may not be clear until all the pieces come together. I don't bother Sachi with the details - I own them.

We expect the same from our clients. The best projects, the projects that stay on schedule and produce the best outcomes are the ones where the project leader on the client side owns the project. They have the ability to make decisions and be accountable for their outcomes.

The lesson here? Ownership = efficiency, for us at least. Ownership mean understanding the goal and having the confidence to make independent decisions that contribute to it. It means not wasting time discussing every step along the way. It means getting work done quickly so that it can be evaluated as a whole. It means being accountable and ready to stand up for why we made the decisions we did.

Of course, this isn't to say we don't collaborate. When I wrote about being a video making team, iteration was a big theme. When we do come together to review, and especially to shoot a video, everything is subject to change. What we own are the chunks that make up the whole.

Own It

leelefever — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:18:12 -0400

Own It

leelefever — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:18:12 -0400

Own It

leelefever — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:18:12 -0400

Own It

leelefever — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:18:12 -0400

Own It

leelefever — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:18:12 -0400

Own It

leelefever — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:18:12 -0400

Own It

leelefever — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:18:12 -0400

Talkin' Bout My Education

leelefever — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:56:06 -0400

Looking back at my education, I wasn't a great student. I made decent grades and went to a good university and grad school, but school was never my thing. Looking back, I can pin-point a couple of points at which I lost faith.

It was sixth grade and I was in a math class with Mrs. Paine (it's true - Paine). The subject was least common denominators. I didn't get it. My worksheets came back with red marks, but I didn't really understand what I was supposed to be doing. The class moved on while I was caught up in trying to memorize the details. Instead, what I needed was an understanding of the reasoning - not how, but why. It was at this point that I fell behind and began to dread math, as I do today.

Another example was college and grad school - I went to business school and took a few accounting classes. Again, the light bulb just didn't go on. I passed, but not because I fully understood the reasoning of Accounting as I do now. I remember the first day of my first accounting class. The instructor went directly into T accounts, debits and credits, revenue and expenses. I felt blind-sided. My first reaction was to try to memorize all the debits vs. credits instead of looking at it from a broad perspective of how money flows. I had no context to build an understanding.

Looking back, context is what I have always missed in education. If someone could put a new idea in the context of the real world or show me how it enables other things, I would get it. It's just my learning style - I need the big picture before the details make any sense. By diving directly into T accounts and least common denominators, I got caught up in trying to memorize instead of understand. What I needed to know was why - why this works the way it does - and why it matters to me.

So, I think the connection to our style of videos is obvious. They are based on all the things that don't work for me in education. When I see explanations on the Web, the remind me of school - they assume too much. They sometimes dive directly into how something works and spend little time on context.

For me, it's a big problem - a problem that I believe others feel too. When it comes time for me to try to explain something, it just feels right to look at the world from the perspective that would have made sense to me that first day of accounting class - build meaning with context first, then explore details.

Talkin' Bout My Education

leelefever — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:56:06 -0400