Organising Chaos

We recently hosted our second Lunch & Learn series of 2021, and this month we were joined by Fariz Bashirov.

As the Product Leader at smava GmbH, the leading Berlin-based credit comparison platform, Fariz gave his advice around maintaining organisation amongst the chaos when facing situations where nothing is clear…

Balance and Control

Fariz began his presentation by explaining what he means by a chaotic situation:

• Several stakeholders each pushing many topics at the same time
• Many urgent issues blowing up simultaneously
• Too many tasks and not enough time for prioritisation

The two key components for organising chaos are balance and control. Using a metaphor of a tightrope walker, Fariz highlights taking one step at a time for balance, whilst repeating the same processes for control.

How do you take one step at a time whilst handling your different stakeholders? Fariz outlines three steps:

1. Start with grouping things by product
2. Split into smaller groups with a clear common business result in each
3. Kick-off with the most promising one and then move on to the next – consider the business impact and complexity of delivering this now vs. not now

Repeating this process regularly with each stakeholder enables you to keep control of the situation and organise chaos. Tools you should consider using as part of your repeated processes, include regular stakeholder meetings, team group meetings, business reports and monitoring with automation alerts.

Talking about the benefits of following these steps and processes, Fariz mentions being able to explore new opportunities with stakeholders whilst your tech team are clearly focused on delivering one project at a time, winning smaller but finishing projects faster and being able to apply these principles irrespective of the development iteration scope.

Thank You

I’d like to thank both Fariz, for taking the time to talk and offer his experiences and advice, and the attendees for contributing to such a great event.

We are already in the process of planning our next Lunch&Learn series, if you’d like to get involved, or have any particular topics you want covered, don’t hesitate to get in touch!