Sometimes when you are in the middle of a project it becomes hard to keep your focus on what you are meant to be doing, I mean really meant to be doing. You've been through the initial stages of a project and you have converted the requirements of the project into a nice series of milestones and actions. Then you get into the project and often it can turn into a mechanical piece of work, and the focus on what you need to be achieving gets missed. I write this because I have seen this happen time and time again, re-focussing on the result that is required is essential so that we can choose the next steps effectively. If you are into the 'plan - do - check - act' method of improvement you will know what I am talking about, plans change. One of the most effective ways to keep this focus is to update your project plan in a rolling fashion. Choose a horizon that is suitable for your project(s) and a time frame when to update. Some people like weekly, some monthly - it la

When a business is struggling to deliver its products or services one of the first areas you can review is the way in which resources are allocated. The method that is used can reveal a lot about how effective the resource is used, and hence how efficient the delivery of a project can be. OK - I'll stop saying resources - people and machines is what I am talking about. Do you know how much available capacity you have at this moment in the business, what about next week or next month? Coming up with simple ways to track commitments versus available hours can make huge differences in the ability for an organisation to deliver. Often the act of putting a tool in place for doing this can yield interesting insights in their own right that can help improve the business directly. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

At any one point in time there is usually a clear priority that needs to be addressed. This makes sense when you think about it. One particular task or objective that will give a higher payback on our efforts than any of the other items that are on our to-do list. We mainly continue on however working through our list of actions without paying attention to the level of payback, or impact, that could be generated. By doing this very short evaluation we can change the output of our day and keep ourselves focussed on what needs to be done. When discussing this with others the comment of '...but I know what needs to be done' is pretty common. I agree, most people do know what needs to be done. However, there is often a better sequence of activity and I can tell on which days I have considered this, and which ones I have not. Spend a couple of minutes to re-evaluate your to-do list, and see what the impact of the actions are - you might find a better way to tackle your work.

When paperwork piles up in the office it is usually pretty easy to spot (the desk looks less tidy for a start). When this pile up occurs on the computer system it is less obvious and appears to be less of a problem. This is until you need to find a file on the system and you find yourself trudging around the folders and files struggling to find a logical way to find what you want. Many organisations don't communicate where files are to be stored and as a result people lose time that could be used for more profitable activities. Information should flow around a business and not get stuck in the hands of a few people, or in intrays that help people to lose track of time. Find where your information gets stuck, and then re-design the way information flows - if you want a smoother running operation that is! Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

It never ceases to amaze me when I visit different businesses how there is always a person or an area of a business that seems to get things done better and faster than other areas. Usually in these areas there is an attitude or approach that seems to differentiate it from the other parts of the business. Somehow this department has found a way to overcome their problems and is able to take in and spit out more work than the other areas. When you look into what has been changed or altered it is often something quite basic that most people just tend to live with. If we took this attitude to our other departments just think what it could do for the business. Find the catalysts in your business and get them to help you propogate improvement across the business. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

When faced with organising a schedule for a meeting or a project it is often quite amazing at how one of two things occurs: 1 - the agenda is tight and is never adhered to. 2 - the agenda is very loose and there offers little benefit. A third option is to have the start and finish determined (and hence tight) with the middle section of the activity 'loose'. Knowing clearly how the activity will begin and end is usually enough to run an effective session, if you add in some guidelines to the middle of the activity then you will more likely have the right balance of flexibility and structure to make the sesssion effective. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

One of my colleagues was talking to me about how time seemed to often slip away from them, and I can empathise with this situation. In fact, many of my clients complain about the lack of time that they have available to them. When we step back however and look at what time is being committed to we sometimes wonder what is really important to us. For each obligation we commit to we are choosing how effectively we use our time. Some of the obligations will have a great payback on the time that we invest. Some of the obligations will give us a poor return on the time that we invest. Before committing to an obligation, work out which category it falls into - high or low payback on the time invested. If you find yourself committing to too many low payback actvities then there may be some ideas and solutions waiting for you! Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

One of my clients had a project that was not moving at a pace that they wanted or needed. Every week my client would ask his team ‘what has happened so far in the project?’. The answer was always the same - “we’re too busy to get around to the tasks”. This happened week in week out. Instead of letting this situation pass I asked them a series of simple why questions about the lack of progress. In every case the person being questioned found the conclusions weren’t as they had originally expected and were now in a position to complete the work. This was in addition to all of the other tasks they had to do. The following week we found a little bit of progress was made. The following weeks and months progress continued and before we knew it a number of projects were being completed. Question the first answer – it may be a symptom and not the cause. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

The other day I was standing in a queue at my local post office watching the people in the queue complain about the slow pace in which it was moving. I had already noticed this. I then looked around to see what the staff in the post office were doing whilst this slow movement was taking place - they were not working on activities that would reduce the size of the queue! How funny I thought - most businesses would be using their resources to reduce the queues by flexibly deploying their resources to cope with the surge. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

I had the luxury of visiting a company the other day who had made some superb changes to their business. It was the end of a project I had been working on and I agreed to arrange a factory tour for local businesses, and this was the company that I had chosen. There were many questions around the table from the people who attended and the main theme was 'what are you doing differently here compared to us?' Explanations of working practices were put forward and it was interesting to see the looks on people's faces when the generic answer was 'good management practice that we don't pay lip service to'. I think that sums it up for a lot of businesses. When things aren't going as well as planned it might be worth considering how much lip service is taking place in the organisation. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

When we look at a business we can see that the building blocks present are pretty much the same as in our rivals. We all have people, computers, knowledge and equipment. How we put these resources together to form our business makes all of the difference. If you think of the building blocks that children play with you can see the issue quite plainly. Some of the configurations are more interesting, prettier and more fun than others. When you look at businesses that are doing well they fundamentally have the same kinds of resources, but what they do with them creates a different effect to the other options they have available. Are the resources in your business configured as the most effective option, or do they lack the punch that is needed to make the business really take off? Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

Agility is the ability to move between different forms of production or service delivery - allowing you to change your business outputs in a dynamic marketplace. Lean is the approach of removing wasteful actities from your business operations to allow your workforce (both office and production) to spend more time on work that the customer will pay for (aka value adding activity). As they are two separate approaches you can be both agile and lean at the same time. A lot of companies in industry are in positions that are more polar in this respect - i.e. very lean but with low levels of flexibility (and not agile) or highly agile with large amounts of spare resource (so not very lean). Developing agile systems and driving out the waste in the system is one way to become agile and lean. Consideration of supply chains that allow resources to be turned on and off may allow a company to create different products that vary greatly - allowing the output to be both lean and agile, and then

When clients complain of having too much work to do, and too many distractions getting in the way of them doing the work I ask the following question. "How much of your activity is spent on pro-active work?" Many times it is the distractions that turn into big chunks of time that cause the problems and a simple realisation can change this situation. Does the activity being undertaken help you to get where you are going to? If the answer is 'no' then let's move on. Find a way to bring the conversation to a close. Find a way to avoid getting dragged into other people's responsibilities. Find a way to get back onto proactive work. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk