A Deliberate Approach

“Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.”

~ Napoleon Bonaparte

In response to your kind questions and comments regarding my previous post, I mentioned that I would be writing a post to address some of those questions and comments. This is not that post (I’m still in the middle of that).

In the meantime, and hopefully to preserve some sense of momentum, might I invite you to advise me on your feelings about approaching the journey ahead (e.g. building a thing we may come to refer to as a community of principle) with a modicum of deliberate intention? Specifically, it has been my habit to follow an approach evolved over many years for this sort of thing. Presently this bears the name “Javelin”. There’s a paper on Javelin which you might care to read. Please accept my apologies in advance for labelling it a process, and for its anachronisms.

In a nutshell, the approach entails, at its heart:

• Choosing a name, for easy referencing of “this thing which we have come together to build/grow” (Name).
• Discussing our various perspectives re: our (common) purpose, leading to a Statement of Purpose.
• Listing key stakeholders and their respective needs (what they say they need, not what we’d like them to need).

The approach aims to address a bunch of risks inherent in this kind of endeavour, including the risk of spending precious time and effort on building the wrong thing(s).

Put another way, what’s the minimum amount of structure that will serve us in approaching our joint endeavour?

How does this sit with you? What advice can you offer me? Upon receipt of this advice I will be better placed to decide whether this kind of  approach might fly, and what else to do instead or in addition.

– Bob

Further Reading

Our Javelin Process ~ Bob Marshall