Currently viewing the category: "Workplan Toolkit"

Workplan Development Process

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I believe that a workplan is a critical component of process improvement but is often under-resourced in the planning process.  For example, I was recently asked to facilitate a meeting for an interdepartmental team that was in the early stages of operationalzing a major quality improvement initiative.  The described goal of meeting was to develop a clear workplan to guide the group over the next year but the draft materials I reviewed: a) interchangeably used the concepts of goals and objectives, b) assigned multiple people as responsible for the same tasks and activities, c) included no milestones or accountability measures, and d) failed to incorporate any discussion of the approval chain for the deliverables.   It was clear to me that the task was much larger than the single meeting, which begs the question, what is a reasonable process for developing workplans?  Here is my suggested process:

Step 1 Assess the Value Proposition.  As I have shared in another post, assessing the value of a task is at the core of any facilitation process (and consulting relationship).  There needs to be a clear relationship between the value of any performance improvement process and the effort that goes into designing the process.  In the case I briefly outlined above, the operative concept was that the workplan was the basis of a major quality initiative that would ultimately impacting future budgeting processes, performance measures and work-practices.  With the expectation of “implementing a major quality improvement initiative,” developing a workplan in a single meeting would be a stretch for all but the most experienced teams.  So the first step is to assess the task and allocate the resources appropriate to the expected return on the up-front “investments” of time, money and staffing.

Step 2 Establish Clarity around Goals and Objectives. Elsewhere I conceptually discuss goals and objectives in more detail. It suffices to say that workplan development begins with being clear about the world-changing goal and the tactical objectives required to make the change a reality.  In the case described above, the goal was nothing short of a “seismic change in the organizational culture where quality improvement was to become the institutional norm.”  The objectives would be the activities and tactics that the team needed to achieve the goal and the workplan would be roadmap to get them to the goal.  Typically the clarification process to distinguish the goals from objectives is a two-step facilitation process. In the first step the team needs to come to a consensus around the goal statement.  In the second step the team needs to brainstorm and sort the list of tasks required to achieve the goal.  At this stage you write the goal that is clear and complete and identify conceptual objectives that you will further detail in step four.

Step 3 Establish Owners, Team Members. Resources and Approval Process.  The success of workplan implementation is dependent upon someone owning the plan and having the authority to ensure that the plan is implemented.  At this point in the process it is critical that for each conceptual objective is assigned an owner who is accountable for the objective and supporting workplan.  There are occasions where a task may require co-owners (for example, if there are separate implementation and fiscal functions) but co-ownership is only successful when the co-owner roles and authorities are clearly spelled out.  Once an owner is designated, the implementation team, resources and constraints of a task need to be assigned.  Finally, teams need to be clear about the decision-making or approval process associated with the objective.  The purpose of this entire step is to establish the implementation expectations for each conceptual objective.

Step 4 Develop SMART Objectives. At this point, the team takes each conceptual objective and creates a clear tactical objective statement.  One of the most common formatting acronyms for Objectives is “SMART,” where the letters stand for

Specific: Answering “who, what, and how much,”
Measurable: Defining what it looks like when you get there,
Achievable:  Ensuing the activity is within the capacity of your organization and the authority of the team,
Realistic: The cousin of achievable is ensuing that the resources available to support the objective, and,
Time-bound: defining the objective’s ending point.

Step 5 Create Action Steps.  Teams are now prepared for the hard work of developing actions steps that guide the progress towards the objective.  The essential framework is to identify the action steps, due date, team lead, and accountability measures or milestones.  Accountability measures and milestones often get left off of workplans but are critically important because these become the monitoring tools for the workplan owner.  In the process of creating action steps teams need to develop a common understanding on how detailed and deep does the team go in the action steps? Does the team list primary tasks only?  Subtasks? Sub-Subtasks? The balance point will differ from team to team and may take some experimenting by team members.  The balance you are looking for is to be able to monitor the forward motion of the process, ensure communication and accountability without creating unrealistic expectations of documentation and reporting.

Step 6 Create the Workplan.  The final step of the process is to create a formal workplan.  In another post I elaborated on the concept of workplan documentation and point you to that entry for ideas and workplan templates.

As the opening step suggests, implementing this six-step process to create a workplan will scale from a 1-2 hour exercise for low value projects to perhaps several hours for high value initiatives.  While the six steps outlined here may seem like a lot of work, much of the process can actually be summarized on a single worksheet (such as this template).  Whatever the scale of the workplan development process, those teams that invest the attention, focus and resources in working through these six steps will reap the benefits of improved performance.

 

Goals and Objectives Matter

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Recently, I was asking a team for their feedback on the goals and objectives for an approaching  meeting and one team member emailed me, “I always get confused by the differences between goals and objectives but here is what I want out of the meeting.”  As I read these words I had one of those fleeting thoughts of “If I only had a nickel for every time I have heard that comment, I’d be rich.” Many teams don’t get hung up on the distinction between goals and objectives and meetings seem to work for them.  Again, depending on the meeting, some folks can get away with blurring outcomes.  However, at other times failing to keep a team focused on goals and objectives as distinct outcomes can be disastrous.  I once was on a committee where paid facilitators failed to make the distinction between goals and objectives in a process where such distinguishing was important, strategic and vital to the outcomes   In this particular case, the  failure to recognize the difference between goals and objectives truncated the vision of the team, caused confusion, and resulted in delays as the team lurched towards the end point without clear guidance.  Let me underscore my belief.  One of the critical roles of a process facilitator is to help teams clarify the differences between goals and objectives and manage the process in a way that ensures that the team seamlessly navigates between the two.  Clarifying goals and objectives is a critical systems thinking competency.

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A quick Google search will yield dozens of websites detailing the difference between writing goals and objectives and many offer tools and frameworks (like logic models) to help define and operationalize the two concepts as they work in tandem. However, as a way to think informally about goals and objectives, I would like to offer the following working definitions that have served me well over the years.

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A Goal is the expression of the desire of your team, company, or nonprofit to change the world. Goals are about going far enough upstream to create performance improvement or change that matters.

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An Objective is the work that is in front of you to help you achieve your goal.  Connect the dots between objectives and you start making progress towards your goal.

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Let me give you an example of how these two ideas work in real life.  One of the principles of my consulting practice is to purchase locally and make purchasing decisions that have the lowest environmental impact.   As most new businesses, I needed to go through the process of developing the basic identity tools such as letterhead, business cards and other print products.  The obvious choice was to print on recycled paper (looking for a high post consumer waste content in the recycled material) and preferably print using non-petroleum based ink.  As I sought out a local printer I ended up talking to a couple of printing companies who said that they could accommodate the use of recycled papers and choice of inks.  Then I encountered a printer who stopped my in my tracks when he said, “when you ask about recycled paper you are asking the wrong question.” He then proceeded to walk me through the printing workflow from — prepress — to plating — to production and equipment maintenance — and ended up with recycling practices.   His bottom line was that choosing recycled paper is a great symbolic act on the part of the consumer but that in reality printing was an energy intensive process that involves many toxic chemicals, paper waste and often inefficient equipment, all of which are costs hidden to the consumer.  He then detailed the massive re-engineering that he has taken his company through in order to dramatically decrease their environmental impact not only in terms of saving trees but also in terms decreasing the toxic waste stream, decreasing energy consumption and increasing the health and safety of the work environment.  He then said, “your objective might be to purchase recycled business cards but our goal is to save the planet.”  In short, not all recycling symbols are created equal and if I get stuck on the objective, I may fail to recognize the goal.

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This story brings me back to questions I have asked my clients to clarify goals as distinct from objectives.  Do you really want to write a job description or do you really need to rethink your entire job classification system?  Do you need to write a grant or do you really need to rethink your resource development plan? Do you really need someone to facilitate a meeting or do you need to rethink the performance capacity of your team?  In other words, are you going far enough upstream to make a difference?

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Keeping goals and objectives clear, distinct and separate, helps us be clear that our present activities always keep the larger “world changing” goal in context. Without a systems view, I would be carrying business cards that my not represent any practical meaning in terms of environmental responsibility.  In the same way a community-nonprofit or government agency that is content counting social services provided to some client base fails if it is not also working on the larger goal of changing the social and geopolitical context that creates the need for their service in the first place. So goals and objectives matter?  Only if you want to change the world.

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A Workplan as a Facilitation and Performance Tool

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Elsewhere on this blog, I have written about the importance of a meeting agenda and the importance of having meaningful meeting minutes and meeting minutes. Agendas and minutes are the backbone of effective meetings and are the mechanisms for accountability, shared expectations and tracking progress. The backbone, however, needs strong connecting muscles to guide and direct the motion and movement. I believe that the muscle of performance improvement is found in the development and management of meaningful workplans.

At the most elemental level a workplan defines 1) what is the goal or end product; 2) what tasks are needed to accomplish the goal; 3) what person will do what tasks, 4) what are the deadlines for the tasks, and, 5) how will you measure progress along the way. If you are to look at the hierarchy the facilitation process it looks like this: the Workplan defines the structure of the entire process => Meeting Agenda creates the guidance for team-based action of the workplan => Meeting Minutes documents and informs the progress of the workplan. Repeat the cycle. When used in concert, these three tools create the seamless communication about workflow, which is the heart of the facilitation process.

So what does a workplan look like? Most often they are pretty standard columns or grids, sometimes color coded. Okay, that is generic and non-descriptive because, truth be told, there is no one way to create a workplan. In fact, over the years I have collected a number of workplan models and provide a link to an Excel Spreadsheet with four workplan templates. Personally I wonder about the effectiveness of workplans that are static on paper and I believe that teams should work more visually. Here are three possible visual workplan strategies:

  1. A dry erase maker board in a conference room or strategic hallway would provide an excellent visual space. Using a dry erase maker board offers the ability to color code easily and make rapid changes to the plan. Milestones met can be erased or highlighted. One suggestion if you do use a dry erase maker board is to create a schedule to create an archive of the workplan taking photos of the digital camera. Capturing digital photos will also create a back-up if the workplan is inadvertently erased.
  2. A similar strategy is to use a dry erase maker board but capture each element of the workplan on color-coded sticky notepads. This allows for steps to be rearranged as needed. Using sticky notes is a common strategy for the initial development of a workplan by a group because they can be used to combine brainstorming, narrowing and ordering of ideas. In a similar way, a digital camera can be used to capture a historical record of the workplan.
  3. A third visual strategy is to technology to create and manage workplans. For example your organization may already have project management or collaboration software. For those without such software you can readily use an online WIKI or other collaboration tools for creating and managing workplans. Free WIKI websites (such as wetpaint.com and wikidot.com) or other fee-based online collaboration tools (such as brainkeeper.com) can provide a way for teams to make a workplan a living document.

Whatever strategy you pursue, your team needs to start with making the culture shift that recognizes the importance and value of workplans to facilitate performance improvements. This understanding often comes from implementing small pilots, engaging in reflective dialogue and experimenting with new personal behaviors. While change may take time, the benefits of improving your facilitation and process by using workplans will be seen in greater efficiency, accountability and improved performance.

note: 8/28/09 – I have posted a companion blog on developing workplans linked here.

 

Characteristics of a Meaningful Agenda

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There are three critical documents to facilitating great meetings: a) the guiding workplan, b) the agenda and c) the meeting minutes. I once had a manager who used to say, “If you walk into a meeting and there is no written agenda, you have no obligation to stay in that meeting.”  My many years of experience attending and leading meetings led me to modify the statement and say, “If you walk into a meeting and there is no meaningful written agenda, you have no obligation to stay in that meeting.”

The reality is that every person who walks into a meeting comes with an unwritten agenda in his or her head.  Unfortunately, each person’s personal agenda may not be in sync with each other.  Theoretically a meeting agenda brings the meeting into focus. However the typical meeting agenda is simply a bullet point list with names of presenters and perhaps time estimates.  Think about your own experience in meetings.  How many times has an individual taken a meeting hostage to his/her own personal agenda? If your experience is anything like mine, then the answer is more than once.  Thinking about those same meetings, my guess is that there was a written agenda but if the meeting was high jacked, the agenda was likely not very meaningful.  So this begs the question what makes a meeting agenda meaningful and effective.  Here are some suggestions:

The Basics:  Google Search meeting agenda template and you will get back pages of samples that all include basic information: meeting name, date; time; attendees names; note-taker name; a generic meeting goal; and typically 3 columns respectively for the meeting agenda items; time allotted for the items; and who leads the agenda item discussion.

Advanced:  Once you have the basic framework in place it is important to add to each agenda item what outcome is expected and what decision-making structure will be used to close each agenda item.

Large Frame: For any organization, meetings are vehicles for moving agency performance forward. To maximize movement in meetings, agendas should also have a clear mechanism to capture agreements, actions and accountabilities for each agenda item.  Specifically you need to capture: 1) What agreements are made, 2) Who will take what action as a result, and 3) what accountability measures will ensure it gets done?

Creating a meaningful and effective meeting agenda takes time, thought and energy.  The payoff for that time and energy is that your agenda serves as the compass that orients the meeting and helps keeps meeting members focused around shared expectations and a clearly defined process.

So if there are are efficiencies to be gained by changing meeting agendas then why don’t we do it?  The simple answer is change is hard and adopting new behaviors and introducing a new culture is uncomfortable.  The commitment to changing meeting facilitation and process takes courage and discipline and shared buy-in. When you implement the change in meeting preparation, it is important to engage the team in the change and stay with the process until you get through the first few rounds.  It is also important not to underestimate the “power of familiarity” for teams accustomed to lurching from one personal agenda to another and calling that a meeting.  But with discipline, and a team commitment to change, the benefits of implementing meaningful agendas will be seen in greater productivity, efficiency and accountability for your meeting process, design and outcomes.

Click here for a meeting template