A Browse Through My Bookshelf: Why Debriefing Is a Powerful Step Often Neglected in Business Systems

If you do, email me its title so I can add it to my library.

I’ll share mine.

The Debrief Imperative by James Murphy and William Duke.

This book provides a system for planning, briefing, executing, and then debriefing to achieve better results.

When I shared my Scorecard, you may have noticed the boxes Debrief and Traction. More on this later in the article.

Let me start by sharing some thoughts based on this book. It may be useful if you have a team, are thinking about building a team to support your publishing, or are a team of one.

While others and I talk incessantly about planning, the added step of Debrief institutionalizes the information to improve overall success.

This is similar to the idea of using a decision log or journal to help you assess what could be improved after the act. Even though you will be the only person involved, a formal planning, briefing, execution, and debriefing process has its merits.

Now, let’s see if this resonates with you.

I can easily envision the perfect system, but the journey from nothing to perfection is daunting. Take Author Nation as our example. I have a great team, I know what we want to achieve, and we have finite resources in terms of money and time until the results are due.

We are building the airplane as it flies, and that will take most of our effort, but if we make notes and work to try and use the ideas along the way, we will be in a better place for the next round.

Back when I put that box on my Scorecard in learning, I didn’t actually have a metric to hold to. I have an idea that the team embraces the ideas and uses them to get better over time. If we are all on the same page and talking the same language around debriefing at the end of year one, then I’ve hit the mark. Now, I can debrief and see what we need to do to level up.

As you follow this season, apply these ideas in an ugly, imperfect, real way, then adapt and improve.

This can be harder when working with others because you don’t want to make more work for them, and your hope is they help you to be more productive. Take the time to get agreement that what you are looking to achieve is cooperation on an improving system. Most people are down for it.

Do you see how much of your business is repetitive tasks?

This means there are ample places to get incremental improvement. Give yourself permission to let this be iterative and build out a better system over time.

The idea is a formal process to plan, brief, execute, and debrief.

Planning

• Have a clear objective
• Identify threats
• Identify resources
• Develop a course of action with individual accountability
• Plan for contingencies

The very act of planning will improve your results because you think through all the things you will need. I recently used my Decision-Making Journal to think through a big decision.

How to use debriefing to level up

The book is The Debrief Imperative, so the bulk is about reviewing after the fact. You may have a great launch plan you follow, but do you ever review a past launch?

Do you ever assess if the results were as expected?

Understanding the basics of evaluating task saturation (too much to do in too little time), cross-checks, mutual support, or checklists could help you do better next time.

There is also the idea of feedback when the future vision needs to change. Over time, as more facts come to light, you should evaluate if your larger strategy is still serving you.

A good place to start is to plan the time and effort to build the plan as you go.

Accept you’ll never have the time to do this perfectly, and any effort will compound over time.

Start by taking out your launch plan, or start one if you don’t have one.

As you go through it, insert where it may make sense to evaluate threats or resources.

Also, identify where you should have checklists and cross-checks. These are so important when you are running around at 500 miles an hour with your hair on fire during the closing hours of a launch.

Then, on the next launch, build these things. Yes, you’ll lose some time on this round, but you’ll make it up on all the following rounds, eventually outpacing your prior effort.

Read: How ‘10x is Easier Than 2x’ Will Help You Take Your Business to New Heights