May 2010 Strategic Innovation Newsletter: 3 Phases of work

Welcome to the May 2010 edition of Strategic Innovation newsletter, a free monthly newsletter on leadership, strategy and innovation. Delivered on the first Tuesday of each month.

Back issues are archived for free downloading at www.DanielLockConsulting.com.


Tips for improving business processes 

  • Do it, delegate it, or defer it (add it to list to do later), but get it out of the inbox. Get it out of there.
  • Create a sense of urgency for yourself and you team, stop being a victim and tolerating bad processes. Instead set up time to tackle and solve themhead on.
  • Set up a work-flow coordinator for your team,this person will gather the work in one place and choke the release ofwork into the system, monitoring what is not done (Work in Progress - WIP). This step alone usually adds 20% capacity uplift.
           

3 Phases of work

Many if not most of us rarely if ever think about the ‘process’ of work. I don’t necessarily mean the processes of a business, something I deal in and consult on everyday, but the actual process of our own individual work.

The agreements that we each are responsible for, the ones we signed up for.

Thinkingabout and analysing the way actually work is foreign to us, and introspection is difficult at the best of times. When it comes to work, much of your time is spent in an overwhelming deluge of interruptions, phone calls, emails, and taps on the shoulders, in the course of aregular day.

It’s helpful to take some time to reflect on the process of work. There are essential 3 phases of doing 'work.’

1. Doing 'predefined' work

This is the meetings you have to go to, the emails you must send to aclient, the calls you must make. All of these should be pre-defined andready to be actioned from a list somewhere, or your calendar (a calendar is just another form of a list.)

2. Doing work as it shows up

These are the phone calls, the tap on the shoulder from a colleague or boss, the emergency meeting and so on. You are re-prioritising on the spot and deciding to this instead of pre defined work.

3. Defining work to be done.

This is the processing of in trays, emails inboxes, note books and so on. This is talking time to view your system as a whole and the commitments you have and deciding on next actions and when and how they should be done. Some actions maybe done there and then, others will be added to the inventory of actions to be done later.

This is also the role of the work-flow coordinator for the team, but sometimes we need to stand aside to and do some work-flow coordinatingfor ourselves as individuals.

The insight is this: It’s all work. Oneof the most commons things people will say when resisting setting up aPersonal Effectiveness system is. "I don’t have time to define work (orplan).”

Whether it's doing the work pre defined, as it shows up or defining the work,its all work, and to a degree your doing it anyway. Just not structured and consciously.

When and who must to do what work at any one time is the role of the manager (capacity planning), and is essentially the trade off - the 'art' ofwork if you like. Again you need to do the same for yourself, if yourabove capacity, you must renegotiate your commitments, drop some, or get some help.

You can't really do more than one of each of the phases or work at a time,you need to devote some time to the care and nurture of your systems, the planning, defining the work in your life (personal and professional.)

Whether it’s managing a team of yourself, there is an eternal challenge of managing scarce resources with alternative uses.
  

Technique of the month: 4 Reasons for meetings

Last week I spent most of the time with a team running through and settingup their personal systems. To set up your own following this step-by-step guide:

  1. Clear a space for 3 buckets, 1. You want and need, 2. You want to keep but don't use every day, 3. chuck in the bin
  2. Foreverything else that's in your head, write down each item as an action, one sentence per idea, on a post it note. Dump these in an in-tray.
  3. Process the first lot, chucking what is in bucket 3, filing bucket two, and keeping to had what's in bucket one.
  4. For all the things that were in you head, process each one and ask what should I do with this? What's the very next action?

Is it:

  • A project? Write it on a project list.
  • A call to be made? Write it on the calls list.
  • An email to send? Write it on the computer list.

Keep your lists somewhere easy and portable, and that you can tick off when done.

Work the lists.

You will now be well on the way to have a structured system setup for yourself.