Sometimes Good Enough is Good Enough

Sometimes good enough is good enough

Introduction

Today I'm tackling something lots of leaders wrestle with. The fact that there's rarely room for perfection when you're leading lots of functions in a business or a multi-disciplined teams. If you stopped to strive for perfection in everything you do, you'll be a bottleneck.

That "I'm a bit of a perfectionist" claim that many people make may sound admirable, and it could be viewed as a positive trait. But more often than not it leaves them sorely disappointed, because perfection is, for the most part, unachievable.

It doesn't matter how many times you iterate a "thing" behind the scenes, you won't consider every possibility of how it will fare when it's released into the wild.

The Reality

In the real world of work, whether in technology or otherwise, there are commercial pressures, shifting deadlines, external forces and unavoidable constraints that make perfection impossible, or at least, impractical, to achieve. 

Sometimes, good enough really is good enough. 

The question to ask yourself, in this very subjective area, is “what level of quality do we need to get to in order to solve the problem or realise the benefit and move the business forwards?”.

That doesn’t mean cutting corners or delivering sloppy work. It means being intentional about when to stop refining and start delivering.

In the technology world, particularly in software development, this is sometime wrapped up in delivering the simplest, leanest solution that gets the job done. This allow teams to test and learn for the least amount of effort and cost, enabling the identification of bad ideas or ideas that need changing as early as possible.

And this isn't just Tech

The same principle applies in almost every other functional domain in a business. You need feedback to determine whether your ideas are good or not.

The best feedback is any feedback and the worst feedback is no feedback.

And so the only way to get feedback is to get the "thing", whatever it is, out there and scrutinised. And from there on all feedback is a gift.

In practical terms the "thing" might be a presentation that don’t need another round of wordsmithing, a report that doesn’t need every possible chart, or internal processes that don’t need to be entirely watertight before they can be used and add value to the business. Perhaps with a few manual interventions or workarounds thrown in for good measure.

If another iteration would just be polish without materially improving the outcome, call it done, get it out there and start taking feedback.

Conclusion

As a leader, you set the tone for this balance. It’s not an excuse for laziness or poor quality. A rushed, low-quality solution isn’t “good enough”. The success comes from identifying when you start to enter the realm of diminishing returns from further effort.

Your teams will benefit as well. If you constantly push for perfection, the team might feel like they’re never going to be finished. Get them to think about stopping when some clear outcomes have been reached, and they might avoid the demotivation or paralysis that comes from their fear of falling short of perfection.

When it is good enough, stop and move on.