Eating the elephant one bite at a time is an expression we like to use at The Greenhouse because it helps illustrate how we, as well as clients, sometimes feel when faced with a big, hairy task that feels so large, any progress seems insurmountable.
When this is the case, instead of taking on the entire elephant at once, we suggest to teams that they go bite by bite. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
As a result, the efficiency of your organization will improve dramatically. When you start a big project or initiate a new business goal, it will almost always feel exciting—and overwhelming. Soon, your head and the heads of your colleagues are swimming in questions about what needs to happen next.
Where is the best place to start? What resources do we already have in place? Who is invited to the table?
These are great questions, but remember that the most efficient companies break large projects into smaller tasks. They eat the elephant. Here’s how to do the same at your company!
4 steps for tackling your next big, audacious project—one bite at a time.
Step #1: Get It All Out
The first bite you should take when tackling your next big challenge at work is to brainstorm out anything and everything you can think of until you and your team are satisfied with what you’ve uncovered. Don’t worry about the order or any minor details, just braindump every possible item you can think of that will need to be done.
Step #2: Prioritize In Order Of Urgency
Once you have a solid list of items laid out from the brainstorming session, now list these out in the order that they’d have to be executed in. Think in a linear fashion of cause-and-effect and what has to happen before other items.
Start with your main, high-level steps, then don’t hesitate to drop sub-bullets under each of those items.
Step #3: Set A Timeline
Next, timeline out how long items in your prioritized list will take and build out a Gantt chart to get a realistic timeline (be sure to build in a bit of a buffer—we like to recommend 20% because things ALWAYS seem to come up).
Step #4: Taking The Last Bite—Executing The Plan
Now that you have brainstorming and prioritization done and have a timeline set, you can start the execution phase of the project. But before you do, remember that you can eat the elephant one bite at a time during implementation, too! Attack these steps in an orderly fashion, day-by-day and week-by-week. Be sure you have a strong meeting pulse so everyone involved is on board with expectations and clear on deliverables and deadlines.
Now that you’ve refreshed your memory on the importance of taking big projects bite by bite, go get those elephants!
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