James Higgs:

“There are a number of trigger phrases that people use to try to prevent you focusing on the detail of a project and back to nice, sweeping, high-level thinking, and ‘that’s executional’ is one of them. I think it is supposed to mean that the particular detail you’re focusing on is not central to the service under discussion and is something that can be worked out at a later date.

This attitude frustrates me so much because I think you make great services by obsessing over details. I think one of the ways to make awful services is by developing some pure, abstract concept in isolation from how people will actually use it. To me, the concept is contained in the execution.

I don’t mean to suggest that every detail must be worked out at planning sessions, but I do think that digging into detail is a very good way of examining how sound the service is. The way users interact with services is often in very small transactions, and the detail of those transactions is vital to engaging the user.

I can never shake the feeling that people dislike getting into details because that’s when service design gets hard, as if it’s the concept that is always right and that the details can be massaged and shaped to fit. Coming up with a grandiose plan is relatively easy, but working out how much of the plan can actually work in detail is much harder. I think we could work much more efficiently if we got into detail sooner.”

I agree with the entire article and its sentiments.