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4DX: Focus on WIG

Posted on May 25, 2019May 25, 2019 by Tomek Kaczanowski

This blog post is based on my experience with 4DX (4 Disciplines of Execution) framework (check this blog post if you are new to 4DX). This time we will learn about the first step of 4DX: the WIG.

Focus

It is all about the focus. The ability to concentrate team’s efforts on one goal. This goal is called WIG: Wildly Important Goal.

Focus truly is the king. It has been proven many times in the history of humans that when a group of people works collectively towards a goal (even a very ambitious one) then they are able to achieve it (also against some serious obstacles). But first, the team must understand what is really to be done

Wildly Important Goal

“If we don’t achieve WIG then all our other accomplishments are worthless”.

This is probably the shortest definition of WIG. The WIG is something really important, more important than any other goal you might think of.

And what if you don’t have anything that important? Then select the one that would bring the most bang for your buck.

Be precise

We tend to use the “goal” term for different things, some of them not really worth to call them that. In the 4DX world the WIG is always specified in a very precise manner:

“from [initial value] to [desired value] by [deadline]”

Which means that you should understand:

  • where you are – [initial value]
  • where you want to be – [desired value]
  • when you want to get there – [deadline]

If you follow 4DX your goals should be clearly measurable.

Priority or priorities?

Some of us believe there can be only one priority at any given moment. Some are more relaxed and their priorities list fits on two pages (using font size 6). 4DX is much closer to the former approach suggesting that:

No team focuses on more than two WIGs at the same time.

People can’t multitask, but teams can, so probably it makes sense to allow the team to focus on more than one task at a time. But no more than two or you spread yourself too thin!

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