Sep 2, 2007
A dozen small ways to get productivity improvements to stick in an organization
As I continue to work with organizations at the individual "key talent" level, I've had some opportunities to expand the impact of the work to the next level up - the team. As I've said earlier [1], I'm very committed to getting the work I teach to stick at - a real challenge - and I'm motivated to learn new ways to do this.
In that spirit, here are a dozen or so ideas I shared recently with an executive and her team to continue adopting, sustaining, and deepening their practice. I hope you find them helpful.
Company policy opportunities/possibilities
At the company level, consider these opportunities:
- Support members' scheduling daily blocks (1-2 hours) for processing & organizing.
- Do the same for weekly reviews (pick a time that's works for most people).
- Facilitate improved email habits by considering new policies (formal or informal) around urgency, and setting expectations about responsiveness (such as a 24 hour response time [2]).
- Start adopting email "etiquette" changes that reduce volume, such reducing unnecessary "thank you" responses, or clarifying when CC and FWD is necessary [3].
- Investigate email client/server configurations that reduce interruptions, including disabling visual and aural notifications of new mail, and increasing the time between when new messages are downloaded (or allowing it to be done manually).
- Schedule monthly lunches to review basics, discuss what's working or not working, and share any discoveries, ideas, and "aha"s [4] you've come up with.
- Dedicate five minutes at monthly staff meetings for a workflow discussion. Another possibility: During monthly staff meetings, one person talks for five minutes on one of the workflow phases, whichever she feels most accomplished in, or experienced the greatest improvement in. Or reverse it to have one person ask for help/support around one area.
- Get playful: Give out small awards [5] for people who empty their inboxes (paper, email, voice) most regularly, or for those with the least amount of "stuff" in their spaces.
- Create an information radiator [6] (e.g., a big wall chart) that shows things like: size of each person's email or paper backlog, # of days since last emptied inboxes, # of weeks since last weekly review, # of times checking email/day, etc. NB: Must be done positively, and without shame or guilt.
- Host mini "field trips" to each others' offices. Talk about what stuff is still around, look at backlogs, talk about where to (re)start, supplies, filing, etc. Note that this must be done in a supportive and constructive manner. Remember that major self-management changes like this can be quite personal, and usually take a while to master.
- Notice ways to help others adopt the new habits, perhaps when someone doesn't write down action and waiting for, is not emptying her inboxes every 24 hours, or not collecting paper in one place. Again, do this in a supportive manner.
- From the 43 Folders Getting Things Done forum: GTD for Teams - How do you get started?
Emory's response reminded me of an article done by Joel Spolsky: Getting Things Done When You're Only A Grunt. It's a great article, and basically says that instead of trying to convert the team to use GTD, or your bugs database, just tell them where their input goes. If you are a hardcore inbox person like myself, instruct others to put anything that they need taken care of in your inbox. Get them to conform to the part of the system that they need to accomplish to keep your system running smoother. Eventually someone else will start to use an inbox as well. The key is to get people to adopt slowly by leading with example.
- From Making GTD stick with teams:
- weekly or monthly 'user group' meetings
- group weekly reviews in a conference room with laptops and in-boxes
- share tips and tricks or challenges and wins - in person or via a newsletter (company or dedicated)
- a group purge day of reference filing; e.g., one hour on a quiet day
- (re)read David Allen's book
- From the davidco Getting Things Done forum:
- lead by example - set aside time to do the weekly review and be very vocal/clear that's what you're up to and you expect others to be doing the same during that time
- weekly mtg. over coffee - a support group type meeting where you discuss certain points of GTD that would really help the team.. even 15-30 minutes a week could inspire shared practices.
- get the newcomers on board ASAP - make it part of their initial training. give them the book as soon as they're hired
- create a private email list or google group for this type of discussion that only team members have access to
- [1] Reader question: Getting personal productivity changes to stick?
- [2] See Depressurize your email with a 24 hour response time
- [3] You'll find many terrific tips at Hacking Email: 99 Email Security and Productivity Tips
- [4] See The thrill of witnessing an "Aha!"
- [5] There's a fascinating little story in One Small Step Can Change Your Life on the impact of many small rewards vs. a few large ones. The context was the effectiveness of suggestion boxes. In Japan they work very well - 90% of employee ideas are adopted. But in the US only 38% are adopted. Why? Because Americans use large rewards ($400), whereas the Japanese use smaller ones ($3), which encourages coming up with small solutions. Neat!
- [6] Here are two descriptions from Agile Advice and the original wiki.
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