Hurry up and wait
When a new insight capability launches, the stakeholder who goes second often gets better answers, sooner, than if everyone had gone at once.
3rd December 2023
Every new insight team or tool attracts a queue. Each stakeholder wants their questions in the first survey, the first dashboard, the first phase. Serving them all at once feels fair. It's usually a mistake.
Launch for everyone at once and the capability is stretched thin before it works. Each stakeholder gets a sliver of the team's attention, and the bugs surface in front of all of them. The result is mediocre work, constant refinement, and nobody getting the attention their question needs.
The better route is to launch for one stakeholder first. Pick one with a real decision coming up. Meet their need properly, and fix what breaks while only one person is watching. Then roll the finished version out to everyone else. That second launch is faster, cheaper and lower risk than the first, because the hard part has been done.
There's a version of this in thinking about space travel: a ship that leaves later, with better engines, can arrive before one that left earlier. A stakeholder who waits for a capability that works is often served sooner than one who rushed in on a broken one.
So if your questions didn't make the first phase, you haven't missed out. You've probably been given the quicker route.
One caution. Going first isn't the same as going alone. At the TMRE Insights Executive Retreat in Denver in October 2026, the notes on adopting AI tools put it plainly: "Gains also leak at the joins between teams, so one team sprinting ahead doesn't make the organisation faster."
The same holds for insight. The point of the first launch is the second one. If the pilot's version never reaches anyone else, the organisation hasn't moved. Plan the rollout before the pilot starts, and judge the pilot by how easily it travels.
What to do on Monday
- If you're launching an insight capability, choose one stakeholder with a live decision and build for them alone first.
- Tell everyone else when their turn comes, and why waiting gets them a better version.
- Write the rollout plan before the pilot begins, naming who goes second and third.
- If you're the one asked to wait, ask what you'll get and when, then let the first launch absorb the mistakes.
Related service: Steer