4 Disciplines of Execution

The 4 Disciplines of Execution is a model for focusing work on important goals despite the daily interruptions and distractions. In the book by the same name, Chris Mcchesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling explain it as an “Operating system for achieving the goals you must achieve”.

Although the model was developed for project execution, there are significant parallels with modern product delivery, and the model can be used very effectively to direct product work and as a framework for many popular product delivery models. In particular, by focusing both on leading and lagging indicators of value, this framework helps to avoid Air Sandwich plans.

The model has 4 steps:

  1. Focus on The Wildly Important
  2. Act on the Lead Measures
  3. Keep a Compelling Scoreboard
  4. Create a Cadence of Accountability

Focusing on the Wildly Important Goals

The core of the model is to identify a small number of Wildly Important Goals (or WIG), and then “focus the finest effort on one or two goal that will make all the difference, instead of giving mediocre effort to dozens of goals.” The authors suggest that there are three major types of WIG goals: financial, operational or customer satisfaction.

All these goals are effectively stated from the perspective of the organization performing the work. In the terminology of the Value Exchange Loop, the WIGs should describe the value captured by the business. In the terminology of Impact Mapping, the WIGs represent business value goals. In the terminology of the GIST model, a WIG is one of the Goals.

A WIG needs to be actionable, so it is not aspirational or visionary. It should not be mission statement, nor does it represent the organizational strategy. It needs to be one big thing that is valuable and can be achieved within a set timeframe, usually a quarter or a year.

Acting on leading measures

The metrics applied to WIGs are “lag measures”, as big goals tend to take time to achieve, and the results may come only after a significant delay (especially when looking at market-share, product adoption or profit). In order to drive towards the goals effectively, the second discipline of execution requires identifying leading measures for activities that will enable a team to achieve the goals.

While a lag measure tells you if you’ve achieved the goal, a lead measure tells you if you are likely to achieve the goal. While a lag measure is hard to do anything about, a lead measure is virtually within your control

– Mcchesney, Covey and Huling

There are two aspects of good lead measures: they must be a good predictor of achieving the wildly important goal, and the delivery team must be able to influence them.

The authors suggest that an ideal lead measure is a behavior change that becomes habitual, and brings continuous improvements to the lag measure. Although the original context is changing the behaviour of people doing the work, within the context of the Value Exchange Loop, this suggests that good leading measures are behaviour changes of users and customers. In the terminology of Impact Mapping, the impacts are good leading measures that a product is making progress towards the goal. In the terminology of the GIST model, steps taken towards validating and delivering ideas provide good leading measures.

Keep a Compelling Scoreboard

In the 4 Disciplines book, the authors claim that one of the biggest differences between top performers and bottom performers in their surveys is whether the success measures are “visible, accessible and continually updated”. They suggest creating a “player scoreboard”, which helps a team tell if they are winning or losing, and motivates people to win.

If you’re not keeping score, you’re just practising

– Mcchesney, Covey and Huling

In the context of the GIST model, the GIST board should contain the key metrics and show progress towards the goals. In the context of Impact Mapping, the scoreboard should contain information about the key user behaviours that the product team is trying to impact, and show how they are progressing.

Create a Cadence of Accountability

To refocus work regularly, and prevent daily distractions and ongoing work from distracting the team from the WIGs, the last discipline suggests organising a regular “WIG Session”, with a fixed agenda:

  1. account (report on last week’s commitments)
  2. review the scoreboard (learn from successes and failures)
  3. plan (clear the path and make new commitments)

This practice fits in perfectly with iterative delivery methods. In the context of GIST, such a session provides an opportunity to review and update confidence scores for ideas in progress, and revisit the plan. In the context of Impact Mapping, such a session provides an opportunity to close one part of the impact map (have we achieved the impact?), or replan and move to an alternative option if the team is not making good progress due to external factors.

Related and complementary tools to the 4 Disciplines of Execution

Next article: Air Sandwich