It’s a terrible feeling to put a ton of effort into crafting a recommendation only to have it shot down in front of all your co-workers. If you want your idea approved, you should try doing things backward instead.

Think about how you craft a recommendation. Typically, it goes something like this:
• Identify problem
• Gather data
• Do analysis
• Get an idea
• Do more analysis
• Figure out how to implement idea
• Do more analysis
• Write a big presentation that includes all the data
• Share the idea
• Get shot down
• Drink
• Repeat

It doesn’t work, folks. It just doesn’t work. Notice that nowhere in there are true stakeholder needs identified. No confirmation of the issue itself. No understanding of what the narrative should be and what stakeholders or decision makers will find exciting. Notice also how much analysis is conducted—80% of which will never see the light of day. Does this sound familiar?

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