The post ‘Did you do it?’ addressed individual accountability. What about teams? An organized group plan creates deadlines, agrees on commitments, and develops action plans with the identified elements of ‘Who, What, and When.’ Without all three, there will inevitably be differing interpretations. Even with a perfect plan, individuals interpret details, and deadlines slip.
How do we instill accountability and planning?
Project management tools aid in managing large complex initiatives involving numerous individuals and teams with many dependencies and milestones. Sometimes, it is a single person who drives the work, and using a planning tool to project for the next quarter is a valuable method that sets out the weekly deliverable and who needs to be involved. For example, I use a simple Scaling Up tool called the Quarterly Race. It is a race to get to the 13-week finish line, with a milestone for each week getting to the end, week 13. Then on a quarterly, monthly, and weekly basis, the key events and milestones are put into a calendar. While simple, it is effective.
The issue within teams is that one person is always accountable for a group effort. So they have to encourage, pursue, and sadly even threaten. But why? The issue you are dealing with is not unique to you and your team. So how do we keep everyone on track with the right people doing the right thing? Are we all aware of the expectations?
Use technology, again, to help manage the activities. Project planning tools that provide reminders and highlight progress benefit group projects. Accountability applications where you can record actions and assign weekly accountability and track can help keep everyone on the team on track, rather than relying on one member to get the work done or, worse off, having to remind others of their commitments constantly. Many tools available with varying simplicity and functionality will work for you and are guaranteed far better than what you have today. After all, why does someone need to feel like the nag following up and then blamed for ’picking on someone just because they haven’t done what they said they would do?
Use a version of ‘Who, what, When’ to record all actions, develop a project plan or the Quarterly Race, and schedule everything, literally all meetings, deadlines, and research time, and finally use a tracker – automated is best, but a spreadsheet is better than none. These few tools will help the team understand tasks and deliverables, who is doing it, and keep everyone accountable. If you want to do it well, use all the components.
Those who say they don’t need any planning are the ones who need it most, and those who suggest that any tool that tracks is a time waste are not planning and likely missing far more.
