What do you do, once you have defined what results you want in your business?
Standard meeting agendas
About the author:
Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses to grow and improve through better business processes and embracing Kaizen.
Giles is also the author of Effective Root Cause Analysis and 'What Does Good Look Like?'.
After you have told your team, how do you keep track of what you want?
Something I write about from time to time is 'abdication versus delegation'. So, once you have told your team what your expectations are, how do you check that you are getting what you want? Leaving them to it and never checking in falls under abdication, not delegation.
There are a few good ways to do this that jump to mind. Here are some of them.
KPIs
Developing simple, but meaningful, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) is a brilliant way to do this. Just like the dashboard in your car, you should be able to tell whether you are getting the results you want or not at a glance.
If the KPIs truly are useful, you'll be able to make decisions on the back of the information.
RAG tracking
The traffic light system of Red, Amber and Green (RAG) is another really useful way to track results produced.
Determine what each status means to you (happy, nearly happy and unhappy) and then use fast visual reporting so your team can tell a story as to whether you are getting what you asked for.
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Link the outputs of what you want to a standard meeting agenda.
Ask the team members to answer a question the recurs every meeting, the answer to which will tell you if you are getting what you want.
If you aren't keeping your finger on the pulse of where you are with what you have requested, try out the above and see if you feel that you are getting a better grip.
It is an age old challenge to juggle everything and the three ideas above are fast ways to help you keep track whilst you work on your next set of objectives.
If you want some more ideas on how to specify the results you want, check out my book What Does Good Look Like?
Giles
About the author:
Giles Johnston is a Chartered Engineer who specialises in helping businesses to grow and improve through better business processes and embracing Kaizen.
Giles is also the author of Effective Root Cause Analysis and 'What Does Good Look Like?'.