7 ways to avoid the “Centipede’s Dilemma”

In a previous post I’ve described the “Centipede’s dilemma” that may affect your team.

Here’re some rules to avoid this Centiped’s dilemma and make your team as efficient as possible :

1. be clear on the objective : if team members know what they have to achieve, they will not loose time in discussions.
2. be as clear as possible on the plan : what are the milestones, the deliverables.
3. be clear that the team has to success, not to explain the failure.
4. on a project reuse standard templates from previous projects (for minutes of meetings, …) : we need to reuse,  reuse, resue… No creativity is needed for templates, templates will help people to focus on the essential.
5. set a standard who / what / when template for action lists : people should not spend days to put in place action lists
6. define proper governance model with at least 2 level (operational / steering) and be sure to make it work as soon as possible.
7. be sure to involve experienced team members. They will detect “centipede dilemma” effect and react immediately to propose ways to proceed.

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