This post is inspire (or is as a free adaptation) from an article written by a french IT project leader Olivier Mansour under the title Réfléchir c’est mal (thinking is bad).

Olivier Mansour illustrates his point with an extract of the comic Dungeon Twilight Vol3, The New Centurions (art: KERASCOËT, text: SFAR et TRONDHEIM p. 16 & 17). Marvin explains to some Dragons Monks how to fly with a new armor using two fire cannons fixed on their arms – see picture attached -.

It may look idiot but let’s take a minute to think about what Marvin said:

– he always flew instinctively,

– he never planed or anticipated this, he just done it naturally,

– he explains that the worst would be (to try) to understand how to do it: Thinking is bad.

The rest of Marvin’s explanation is quite surprising as he point out to:

– just go, even if you don’t know exactly what is going to happen,

– don’t over think about the possibility to fail. If something goes wrong we will adjust and

– if we are wrong it is no big deal. It would not be the first time and we are well protected (ain’t we?)

In fact Marvin does a criticism of over thinking, a bit like Barney in HIMYM (joking about Ted)

– Lily: Don’t Ted-out about it.

– Ted: Did you just use my name as a verb?

– Barney: Oh, yeah, we do that behind your back. « Ted-out »: to over think. See also « Ted-up ». « Ted-up »: to over think with disastrous consequences. For example, « Billy Tedded-up when he- »

– Ted: All right, I get it!

I do like this approach for complex project or initiative, like changing country or starting a large IT project. Just get as quickly as possible the minimum requirement to start in a safe environment. Get the enough specs for developers to code. Once the project on track, we will be able to adjust and correct potential errors. The project moving ahead will create the synergy to get all actors on board and provide more pertinent feedback on process design or functionalities needed.

This method also prevent to project to be block in a never ending design phase where we are trying to plan ahead things that might never happen, preventing the project to start.

So, don’t be afraid, just go for it!