How to Agree on Deliverables Quickly and Clearly
You can prevent misunderstandings and get your whole team on the same page by using the simple tool of an IS-IS NOT list.
Clarity. We need it. Desperately. All too often, we make agreements with other humans, only to find out later that we thought we’d agreed on one thing, and they thought we’d agreed on another. Surprise! And not a happy one. But there’s a quick and easy way to get 90% of the agreement with 10% of the work.
After much rumination, Bernice decided to add a new plant species to the inventory at her Green Growing Things plant stores.
Like any good boss, Bernice values her employees’ opinions. So she asked for recommendations. “Bring me plants we should add to our lineup!” Her employees Melvin, Europa, Xris, and Thomas leapt to the challenge, bringing back pretty awesome suggestions.
“Dandelions!” proclaimed Melvin. “Lots and lots of dandelions!” “Audrey IIIs. They’re the bomb!” suggested Thomas. And of course “Baobab trees!” were Europa’s recommendation.
Bernice took one look at the list and instantly realized that none of these would do. Her team was smart, so what was the problem? How could they be so wrong?
Of course, they aren’t wrong. And neither is Bernice. The problem is communication. “Bring me plants we should add to our lineup” is so general that the team could bring any kind of plant, including a coal-burning power plant, and it would fit that bill.
One tiny tool can help Bernice bring clarity and understanding when setting up agreements: an IS, IS-NOT sheet.
Use an IS/IS-NOT sheet to bring clarity
To create an IS/IS-NOT sheet, grab a fresh piece of paper. At the top of the paper, write your vague phrase. Draw a single vertical line down the middle. Label one side “IS,” and the other side “IS NOT.” Then, with the help of the people you need clarity with, fill in each side with what the vague phrase IS or IS NOT.
Bernice would label her page, “Plants we should add to our lineup.” Off the bat, the team can agree on a few characteristics IS’es: the plant IS cost-effective and greenhouse compatible (they’re a plant store, after all).
Bernice’s shmoopie, Melvin, adds “pretty to look at” to the IS side. There’s some debate, but the team agrees. Thomas, normally lost in his headphones as any teenage boy would be, surprised everyone by tossing in, “it should be highly functional, since we disapprove of monotasking plants.” The team also agrees to add “is alive” to the IS section, just in case some team member brings up coal-fired power plants as a type of plant. I can’t imagine who they’re thinking of.
Xris notices that many of the store’s plants are either poisonous or carnivorous. They suggest that new additions to the lineup should be safe to eat, so the store can become more popular with suburban stay-at-home parental units. The team agrees.
IS-NOT draws boundaries.
The IS-NOT side of the page is used to rein in the options. Undesirable characteristics go there straightaway. A new plant should NOT be microscopic (so much for Bernice’s pet project, seasonal plankton).
As the group creates their IS NOT list, they can instantly see why the earlier suggestions didn’t work. A new addition to the store IS NOT to be found everywhere in the wild (goodbye, dandelions). It IS NOT to be actively deadly to customers (there go Audrey IIIs). And it IS NOT a tree that could take over an entire planet (so much for Baobab trees).
IS/IS-NOT sheets provide a quick and easy way for a team to establish a common understanding of a goal.
Deepen IS/IS-NOT sheets with all parts of speech
The neat thing about IS/IS-NOT sheets is that anything can come after the word IS or IS-NOT.
Based on their IS/IS-NOT criteria, the team has chosen the Aloe Vera plant as their next big product at the Green Growing Things shop. Now it’s time to create a marketing plan to sell the aloe. You guessed it: it’s time for another IS/IS-NOT sheet.
Bernice has a very specific idea for what a marketing plan looks like. So she starts off the IS/IS-NOT with the nouns.
“A good marketing plan,” Bernice explains, “IS a binder with sections. It is a timeline. It is a list of action assignments.” Thomas says it IS full of key success indicators that can be used to measure success or failure. The team catches on, and they move on to the IS-NOT side of the page. Xris points out that a marketing plan IS NOT a video. Melvin says it IS NOT a secret book of wizardry locked in Bernice’s desk in her office. Europa says it IS NOT revolutionary extremist propaganda.
These are all fine IS-NOT statements. They’re a little…out there, but they do draw boundaries. You and I both know that if you were in the room, you’d add nouns that bring the boundaries in a little tighter: that a marketing plan IS-NOT a sales script, IS-NOT the implementation of that plan, and IS-NOT a rote duplicate of a previous plan.
That covers the nouns. Nouns in your IS/IS-NOT generally illustrate what something is.
Use adjectives, too
Now deliberately add adjectives to the IS/IS-NOT sheet. Again, this is intended to be super-flexible.
Nouns in your IS/IS-NOT generally illustrate what something is.
A marketing plan IS: organized, actionable, reviseable, shareable on the internet, optimistic, and under 30 pages.
A marketing plan IS-NOT: written in passive voice, hard to understand, written in less than a 10 point font, or burdensome.
Adjectives in your IS/IS-NOT generally imply goals, benchmarks, and qualities of how the deliverable works.
Add in qualities of the deliverable process
Finally, you can also add in qualities of how your deliverable is produced. The team is getting used to this, and they’re now adding:
A marketing plan IS: written by Melvin and Xris, done by the end of Q1, implementable within two weeks of being finished, written with everyone’s input in mind, and shared with the entire team.
A marketing plan IS-NOT: created without looking at existing sales data, rigid in the face of contradictory data, implemented without being approved by Bernice.
Two weeks have passed since Bernice and her team introduced Aloe into the inventory at Green Growing Things. Melvin and Xris’s marketing plan was designed and implemented beautifully, and profits are way up. To celebrate, the team decides it’s time for a free movie night! YAY!
And they start by asking everyone on the team what an entertaining movie IS and IS-NOT. Lesson learned.
IS/IS-NOT sheets are a great way to help define a common goal or deliverable. They’re quick for a group to create, and the discussion that goes into them helps make sure everyone’s on the same page and the only surprises are happy ones.
I’m Stever Robbins. Follow GetItDoneGuy on Twitter and Facebook. Want great keynote speeches on productivity, Living an Extraordinary Life, or entrepreneurship? Hire me! Find me at SteverRobbins.
Work Less, Do More, and have a Great Life!
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
