If you’re happy with your team’s work, expertise and ability to solve problems yet stakeholders remain frustrated by how long it takes to get things done, there’s a smarter way to approach project management.
My team members were often given “urgent”, high-priority tasks that trumped what they had previously planned. Work was coming from all directions, and we were drowning in it!
Eight months later, the whole team were awarded full bonuses and pay rises, and feedback from previously unsatisfied stakeholders was that they were delighted with the work we were doing.
How did we do this?
The different groups who interacted with our team were given two sticky notes – a green one and a pink one. On the green, I asked them to write one thing they liked about our team, and on the pink, to write one thing that could be better. The problem was not the people; it was the way their work was being organised and prioritised. Over the next few months, we then focused on three things – value, effort and prioritisation.
Value – By asking people why they wanted the work they were requesting, we could clearly see that low-value tasks were flooding the system. Half of this work disappeared when people realised how little actual value it was bringing to the company’s bottom line.
Effort – Using a powerful technique called Planning Poker, we were able to quickly estimate the effort required for each project. This enabled the team to understand their work in a much more effective way.
Prioritisation – With value and effort figured out for each piece of work, we were then able to run a fortnightly prioritisation session. Our mantra became “High Value/Low Effort”, and over time we began to deliver the most important, easiest things for the whole business.
I’d promised to deliver €3 million worth of business value that year. By the end, we had delivered more than €23 million – as defined by the stakeholders who were requesting our work.
This was the same team, the same stakeholders and the same work requests. All we did was highlight the value and effort of each piece of work and help our stakeholders and leadership team to make much better decisions about where we spent our time. The team was able to make more effective use of time and deliver real value to the business while working more sensible hours and feeling in control of what was going on.
Much less “busy” – much more impactful!
If you’d like to learn more about these techniques and how they can be used by your team, read James’ book, Leading Impactful Teams – Achieving Low-Stress Success in Project Management.