Do you ever have those moments when you catch yourself going through the motions? Do you ever realise that sometimes you have done a days work and you don't quite know where the time has gone to? One of the hardest habits to form is the ability to stop what you are doing, before you are doing it, to work out the best use of your efforts. When we get a plan we have done the hard thinking work - haven't we? From observation and personal experience it is obvious how strong the pull to get on and do the work is compared to stopping and spending just a few minutes to ask questions like:  - what are the objectives that I need to achieve?  - what is the best approach to achieving the objectives? Just stopping and thinking about the work at hand can have a significant impact on the performance. It's worth a try. Doing it consistently however is another challenge! Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

Have you ever spent your time concerned about how many things that you have to do and not knowing where to start? This is a concern that many of my colleagues and clients have experienced either recently or in the past few years. It is not a new problem. I remember reading a quote that stated 'it is better to have a short pencil than a long memory'. This is such a useful thing to remember when your head is buzzing with ideas. Write them down and then deal with them - one at a time. Of course, please make sure that the item with the highest payback is done first (payback against your values of course). So, in short, get it out of your head so that you can do something with it. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

Projects sometimes need to be reviewed in terms of their purpose. It is sometimes needed that we take a step back and see if we're going in the right direction. This is one of those terms that is often used - 'from 50,000ft'. However often it is used, it is still a really good way to look at the bigger picture, to step away from the day to day activity on the project and ask 'are we really doing the right things?' Projects do change. There are many things that can change; people, goals, resources, motivation. Regularly stepping back to check that these variables have not knocked the project off course is highly recommended. Have you stepped back recently? Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

When working with organisations of all different sizes, working in different sectors to instigate change it is quite often noticeable that many of them only start making changes when they absolutely have to. This then runs the risk of not doing the best work possible as time becomes severely restricted. On the other hand there are organisations that take the view that improvement needs to be done in a more continuous fashion. Continuous improvement is a term that relates to the smaller activities that build upon the current working structures that are in place. Periodic improvement in this context refers to organisations that schedule in time to look at working on the step changes that need to take place in order for the business to keep ahead of its competition and remain strong in the marketplace. Quite often the periodic improvement is based on the insights gained from the continuous improvement activity and therefore begs the question - "when is your periodic impr

The concept of personal agendas is often described in terms of motivation - what are people really trying to do whilst at work? How will their actions benefit them? However - there is another way to look at the world of personal agendas. You can use them for the benefit of the organisation by getting really focussed on what you need to get achieved in a short period of time. I'm not suggesting that people don't know what they should be doing, but rather this is an opportunity to re-focus your efforts so that you can get the most work done with the least amount of time and effort. Just affirming the right things that need to be done can help increase the productivity of a meeting (or a half morning on a project). Those next steps, once recognised, might help shorten the amount of time required to complete a task. Try it over the next few days and see what happens. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk

Days pass so quickly and I'm sure that most of us have experienced the feeling when we realise that months have passed by and memories are a blur. But how valuable were those days to our business? From a lean perspective we can either spend our time on value adding activities, or on wasteful activities. Let me clarify - there are two types of waste: 1 - Things that just shouldn't be done (non-essential waste) and should be eliminated 2 - Things that must be done, but we don't get paid for doing them (essential waste) and should be minimised For example: Value adding activities - doing the fundamental work that our client pays us for Essential waste - strategic planning, HR, accounts, system development Non-essential waste - re-working documents, waiting, taking longer than necessary It is worth asking yourself from time to time - 'how valuable is this work that I am doing?' By understanding the payback that the work gives to the business we can craft

When working on an improvement project it's recognised that we should know where we are in terms of becoming better off. Many times however it is apparent that the measures that would tell us how things are going are not in place. Agreeing what these measures are and how to record the right information is a skill that can make a huge difference to the business. More interesting than this is the fact that most organisations only measure external factors - which aren't always in our control. When you look at the business processes in terms of the internal and external measures you can develop a far more complete approach to managing performance. Review your performance indicators and see if you have got a good mix of external and internal measures. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk

When a project is progressing along isn't it always nice to be able to see how it is going? How many times have you been on a project and you are not sure how it is really going? The use of milestones and agreed communication is a great way to get a project off to a great start. This can even be extended permanently into the processes of a business to understand the continual benefits being derived. Milestones are an interesting tool. When someone asks how a project is going it is often easy to say 'yeah - OK', when the real answer is 'we are behind schedule on part X, but three weeks ahead on part Y... we need help'. The benefit of using a milestone is having the 'go no-go' conversation. It either is, or isn't on track at that agreed point in time. The deviation from that point then can be assessed as to what needs to happen. Agreeing communication routes / methods for the project and the milestones can help to understand how tangible progress really is

Some days it feels like we are being bombarded with information and some days we just don't seem to have enough. The amount of updates that are being given within and to an organisation is a topic that I find really interesting. How do people keep on track of what is going on? Does it help? Does it make people more accountable? Somewhere in the midst of all the information that flies around a business is the right amount (and the right quality too!). If you ask around at your place of work you are likely to find reports that are produced too frequently and that aren't read. You might find meetings that take place that are no longer meaningful to the current business activities. You may find that data gathering is taking place, but is no longer referred to as information. What are the key sources of information your organisation needs to manage itself effectively? Do you have them at the right frequency, and is the information correct? Could be worth checking out.

There are certain themes that keep on turning up when you look into the performance of an organisation. One of the recurring themes is that of progress, or lack of it, on key projects. We've talked about the use of 'kaizen' principles before - trying to find the smallest amount of action that you can take to start moving you forward with an endeavour. Many recent projects have utilised this very principle to get some movement on a project before a natural level of acceleration takes place bringing the project back up to speed. It all goes back to the realisation that people can get freaked out by change and struggle to make the right changes to their working ways in order to implement the improvement. Little steps - it sounds like it will take forever, but trust me - it usually saves a lot of time and effort. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk

You can track the performance of projects in many cases to the amount of face to face contact that takes place during the life of the project. E-mail is an amazing tool that helps to deliver messages at a lightning pace, and often this gives people the impression that face to face contact can be minimised. Many times have I seen people sitting in the same office reciprocating with e-mails whilst both are seated - and it's an ongoing conversation! Looking into someone's eyes when you have a project update meeting can tell you so much more that by just reading an e-mail. I accept that there is a justification for efficiency, but is the balance right in your organisation? Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk

When you look back at the end of a working day - what do you see? Do you see a whole raft of accomplishments that will help to improve your business performance, or a load of inconveniences that only served to hinder? If you do spare a couple of minutes at the end of the day to review these annoyances you can often start to find patterns emerging. When you find a pattern you can then do something about it. One of the best ways to do this is to use the '5 Why' tool to delve down into the root causes of the problem and solve it once and for all. It never ceases to amaze me how many other problems just disappear at the same time - obviously they are symptomatic of the original problem. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' http://www.smartspeed.co.uk

When a discussion around improvement is taking place it is pretty easy to see who is interested in taking part and who is not. One of the most interesting discussions that takes place is when you turn around the discussion to the people who we need to convince. Asking them 'how would you be better off from doing this?' or 'what could you get out of this?' are two questions that usually throw up some interesting answers. When people see the improvement as just a necessity that is going to make life harder for them we have an opportunity to discuss with them the positive aspects of the project, and if we can get them onboard (as usually happens when doing this) we can find a better solution that really does leave them better off than when they started. Next time you find yourself getting stuck 'negotiating' an improvement feel free to try asking the above questions. Smartspeed Consulting Limited 'For When Results Matter' www.smartspeed.co.uk