Big picture or finer aspects

Managers often confuse us by asking us to look at the bigger picture when we want to focus on the finer aspects of a task. At other times, when we try to look at the bigger picture, these managers focus on some trivial task. How to identify the situation and have the right perspective of your work?

Look at the bigger picture and work on the finer aspects. Learn to master the art of having a helicopter view of your work before you begin it and then break it into tasks and work upon each task seamlessly. The real trick lies in having the right perspective of your work at the right time. Too many tasks left unfinished might indicate that nothing is going as planned. However, a little bit of analysis will let you realize that all the tasks are going ahead in full swing and you need the right time to complete them effectively. In fact, you will also appreciate the importance of dependencies and other constraints and work toward handling them effectively. Here are some situations in which you need to carefully choose between the two approaches.

• Executing the project - Get an overall view of all the activities, regardless of your role. Find out about the sequence of activities and the different people assigned to the different tasks. Collect their contact information and keep it handy as it may help during the course of execution. While gathering all these details, focus on the nitty-gritty of all relevant information and not on the depth of the individual tasks.
• Executing the tasks - If you are assigned a single task, you should be able to know everything about your task and its relationship to the total project. Learn to identify similar tasks in your projects and keenly observe the progress even if it is beyond your responsibilities. This gives you a chance to collaborate with your team members and leverage on their experience when you encounter a new problem. As noted earlier, understand the interdependence between the various elements and realign your tasks accordingly.
• Dealing with issues - Identify if the issue is for an isolated event or related to other events and evaluate the impact of the issue on the various events. If there is considerable effect on a good number of events, you might seek the help of your manager to take a look at the bigger picture of the problem and take steps, as necessary.
• Tracking the status - You must know and track the status of the entire project if you are leading the project. However, you are required to know the status of other tasks and get regular updates even if you are responsible for a few tasks. As you do not work in isolation and realize the fact that your work is dependent on others' tasks, tracking plays a significant role. Here again, depending on your role, you need to be continuously updated about the progress.
• Assessing project efficiency - You can determine the efficiency of a project by considering the time and efforts you saved from being wasted. When you track the progress on a timeline, it is considered efficient if all the tasks are completed in time. More often than not, projects get delayed and deadlines get postponed. Break down the tasks into sub-tasks and track the progress. Thus, digging deeper for the finer aspects will help identify the root causes and mend them in the right time.