A constant battle in my work is the balance between being attentive to detail and being proportionate when addressing issues in relation to the goals of the business. It is easy to spending alot of time ‘perfecting’ things whilst ignoring more pressing business issues. This is not a post advocating a lax approach to work – I pain over detail – but I acknowledge there is a line to draw.

It is easy to lose sight of what you as a member of a business unit is trying to achieve. I won’t spend any time in this post going into what a business unit’s goals should be – it will differ for every unit. What’s important is to know what the business motivations are and how your unit can impact the overall business the most.

I find its helpful to reconsider what my top priorities should be on a regular basis (let say weekly). This involves weighing the guidance you get from above, from stakeholders and those challenges that impact your work overall, your day-to-day performance and more longer term efficiencies.

Pressure to take the quick and nasty approach to tasks (often complete aesthetically and functionally but completely destructive in terms of maintenance for you and your co-workers) often looms from your own pragmatism as well as from those with a limited understanding of the challenges of development.

The real difficulty is in reconciling your own interpretation of this balance with that of others. The danger all workers is to believe that every issue that can be described is worthy of immediate attention. It is also to favour the small tasks over significant challenges that might require longer than a few hours of someone’s attention.

We’ve done some great things at my workplace over the years which has been testament to a dynamic approach to our work. I can’t say we’ve got it right everytime but I can say that we’ve embarked on some projects which have taken us out of the small-task cycle to instead expand our business to greater opportunities.

Stumble it!