There are various ways of getting work done, either you create set of steps to be followed to reach a result and ask everyone in the team to stick to them or you can define the task and ask the team to come up with its own ideas to accomplish it. Though both the approaches will fulfill the requirement of finishing the task, you will get a better output when creativity is tapped by giving the freedom of approach to the members of the team.
There are two big disadvantages when you tell people exactly what to do. Firstly it communicates a message that they are working on your project and it is your solution they are implementing. This reduces the output as everyone wants to get the work done and get out of the project.
Secondly, as you are not getting any fresh insight, you have limited the number of approaches and ideas. Also, since you have not given any scope for analysis and critique, the chances of errors will increase in the project.
Finance team at my client place was looking for more flexible ways of reporting financial data as the current method required lot of manual work. When they approached me with the problem, I presented ideas of designs which can make it easier for the users at the company. Looking at ideas they constructed a design which would work and assigned me the task to finish it. Instead of presenting ideas, had I shown him a prototype report which worked, they would either be very hesitant to implement the same or would be cynical of the approach.
When you give people the freedom of approach, they form ideas and develop a sense of commitment towards the project. It is always a better to tell people what could be done rather than tell them how to do it.
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