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Guest post by: Kate Marsden Become an Author

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There is a well-known story which goes something like this ... At the height of the Space Race, the Russians and Americans were faced with the same dilemma – how to use a pen to write in zero gravity up in space. The Americans solved the problem by spending hundreds of thousands of pounds developing a gravity proof pen – a scientific breakthrough that the team was very proud of. The Russians solved the problem in a very different way – by using a pencil. Not interesting, not exciting – but it simply got the job done.

Now, before any critics start to defend the American approach (which by the way went on to be a very successful commercial product), I know sometimes that the complicated and perfect answer is the right one. Sometimes. But all too often businesses become so caught up in trying to get a perfect solution that they lose sight of the obvious one – and often that is the simplest one. And the people working on it lose sight of the original goal – in this case to write in space, not to develop a commercial product.

I know a number of small businesses who have spent time and money getting themselves ready to trade. They spend time on their website and stationery before they get started. These are the people who will research and evaluate which finance system they should buy to manage their invoices - before they actually have an invoice that needs managing. Talk about a sledgehammer to crack a walnut!

Yes, it’s a fine balancing act. For example, you want to bring something new to market. It needs to be good, so that your customers will buy it. You need to comply with legal regulations and policies and contractual things. And if you are in a larger business you probably need to go through hoops to satisfy your own boss that this is the right thing to do. But you also need to make profit from what you are doing.

So before you go down a costly, complicated route ask yourself:

• If I had to do this within half the time, what would I do?
• If my budget was taken away, could I still deliver?
• Which of the steps actually make a difference to the end customer?
• What is the actual risk if I do not do some of these things and is it worth it?
• Can I do it simply, initially, whilst work on a more sophisticated solution?
• If I don’t do this, will my competitors beat me to it?
• If I was working in another sector, how would I do it?
• If I was Richard Branson (or whoever else you think keeps things simple), how would I do this?

So next time you are developing something in your business, ask yourself what would the Russians do?

Take action NOW – find a complicated process in your business and go through the questions above.

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