How to Make Things Faster

Chapter 33. Look Left

This happens a lot:

We’re seeing heavy consumption of x, but our x administrator tells us that our x is performing great.

The poor x administrator is in the corner of the meeting room, periodically interjecting truthful statistics that show he’s not the problem, as debate rages. There’s even a saying around the company: “It’s always the x.” You know that other companies have the same saying, because when you say it at a conference, everybody laughs.

Here’s what I encourage you to do. First, make sure you’re looking at the right it. Something has happened in these people’s past to make them incriminate x as their highest priority problem. But x doesn’t have a priority on its own, because it’s not a symptom, only a cause—and only a potential cause at that. The only priority a cause can have is the priority of the symptom it creates. So, find out what the real symptom is that they’re worried about.

Here’s a secret. No businessperson cares about their x, unless:

1. That person believes that the only way to get technical people to listen is to try to “speak their language.”

2. There’s an unsubstantiated belief that x causes an important symptom.

3. There’s a substantiated belief that x causes an important symptom.

The only legitimate reason to care about x is c: “There’s a substantiated belief that x causes an important symptom.” You shouldn’t worry about x until the trace of an important symptom implicates x as a cause (current or future). Once you’ve implicated ...