Start at the End

Have you ever been faced with the need to provide an early answer to work that you have not yet begun? Whenever anyone sees a possible benefit from seeing their name attached to a publication, journal, article they need to know what they will say. You express interest to the publisher, the conference or the exhibition organiser. And then you are asked to provide an abstract.

This is the same as when writing academic papers or material for professional journals. While it is normally the part that is refined last it is the part that comes first. You have to guess the results of the work you will need to do if the abstract is accepted, as you will then need to write the ten pages or so that will be needed for the actual paper. You have to start at the end.

In three sessions on project management focusing on what works best the same message came across from different speakers in different industries: work out what the end looks like and plan the project to reach it. For project management this is the usual and best way: for success, you need to know what success will look like at the finish. You start at the end.

At a regular consultants meeting, www.rgconsult.com, Gareth Bunn, one of the members, spoke about the power of oratory, as distinct from using slide presentations. His main message, for me, was that for a great presentation using oratory as the main method you need to plan the finish, and, as you’ve doubtless guessed, work out the ending and then plan how best to reach it.

These are three examples all of achieving your goal through knowing what you want to achieve when you begin. If you don’t know the ending, don’t start. You need to develop your document, presentation, paper or book by working out how it will end.

Essentially, if you want to reach a successful result, you need to start at the end. You can then plan to ensure that you reach it.