Constant change, including frequent shifts in strategy and priorities, negatively impacts employee productivity. It overwhelms teams by increasing stress, adding confusion, disrupting routines, and ruining focus. I’m not debating whether the business should pursue X or Y next; I just want to highlight a fact. I believe we should be flexible so our vision can adapt and change. Markets shift, and priorities evolve. The best companies maintain short product cycles, which is exactly what I usually do for the companies I work for. For example, introducing production releases every sprint (with Feature Flags 😄) allows us to pivot confidently when the data suggests a change; most of the value should already be in production since we deploy frequently. That’s how we stay ahead.
However, the business must understand that pivoting has a cost. They need to recognize the impact of such decisions. Should we abandon an in-flight and unfinished project? That will result in significant loss of productivity and completed work, including requirements, solution design, and delivery plans. Additionally, a strong relationship with the business might be lost or affected, leading to frustration from stakeholders.
Two other factors that I see affecting our vision and productivity are:
- When priorities are set hastily, there’s often insufficient time to properly plan for the next fiscal year and consider all essential steps. This can lead to unrealistic goals and missed opportunities.
- I notice the business frequently sets too many priorities, which dilutes focus and effort, leading to burnout and reduced effectiveness. This, unfortunately, results in comments at the end of the fiscal year, such as, “You didn’t do this and that,” which was never feasible from the start. I would suggest stopping the chase for too many priorities. A survey of 1,800 global executives (see Booz & Company’s Coherence Profiler) revealed that as an executive team’s priority list grows, the company’s revenue growth declines relative to its peers. The good news is that the reverse is also true: executives with the most focused set of strategic priorities (one to three priorities) were the most likely to say they had achieved above-average revenue growth. Based on my experience, that seems to happen more often than we expect.
A clear vision ensures the right technology investments are made at the right time and that efforts align with the company’s long-term goals. Here are some ideas to achieve that:
- Utilize a framework that helps businesses identify their internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats (like SWOT Analysis). Then create a clear vision and strategy for your company based on this analysis (1-2 years).
- Establish Clear and Measurable goals (focus on 1 year, possibly extending to 2 years). Similar to the OKRs framework, commit to what you believe is feasible and achievable, and include 1-2 stretch goals too.
- Ensure that vision and strategy are established well in advance to prevent productivity loss due to changes. Ideally, dedicate an entire month to this process.
- Finish what you started. Don’t rush to complete priorities; instead, focus on achieving ROI before shifting gears.
Here is the link to the articles with similar ideas
Lean Stack 
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