Managers: What to do now?

Introduction

I imagine you, now, as a manager who has 42 people, from which you have 5 teams. Each Team has 7 knowledge workers.

Things are dynamic. Maybe you just joined this group.

So, what do you do?

There are so many possibilities. But I will still suggest the following, as most likely to help.

It being March, we propose an approach to March Madness. Look at your five teams as if they were basketball teams, and your goal, as the "uber" coach, is to help these Team, for one shining moment, show themselves how good they can become.

First Needs

Again, there are lots of scenarios, but here's what I think your key needs are likely to be. Just three.

1. Given everything, do I know these Teams are motivated?

This is based on the theory that, for knowledge workers, motivation is very important.

Two suggestions on that:

• For the Teams, have them do a demo every 2 weeks, and see how the customers (or those representing the customer) react. And if the team members are happy when they are really hitting the need.
• Ask Team members to articulate what the Team goal is.

If they can do it well, and if there is a positive aspect to the body language, you probably can tell they are motivated.

2. You want others to help improve things around here. And you want a way to see better where you can help the most.

This suggestion is based on the theory that your manager is not expecting miracles, and knows that you started with an imperfect situation. So, the only real question is: how much can you improve things.

Note: We also assume things are not really good, nor really bad. Those extreme situation can lead to a different dynamic.

Again: some thoughts on meeting your need here.

• Ask each Team to develop an Impediment List of 20 impediments (or things to improve).
• Ask each Team to prioritize it. Based mainly on ROI (b/c) and other factors.

With a bit of discussion, that should change the whole tenor of discussion, but let's go further.

• Ask each Team to fix one impediment (of some reasonable size) each 2-week period. That they would be expected to devote X% of their Team's time to continuous improvement in each 2-week period. And that they should see that this investment yields real results (ie, the Team gets more productive, in some way, because of the investment).
• Tell the Teams to propose to you ways you can be involved and help improve a Team or a set of Teams. Perhaps a couple of people from the Teams could amalgamate the 5 lists into one overall Impediment List (for the group), and identify the Top 5 impediments (by ROI). From which you would help (in some way) on at least one impediment in the next 2 weeks.

If you can use this to instill a Kaizen Mindset, this could have a significant payoff over the longer term.

3. You want to be able to measure the productivity of each Team, and ideally, the increasing productivity of each Team.

This can be used many, but one is to show to your manager that the group is becoming better.

This can be used to show them that you mean it when you say "work smarter, not harder." That is, becoming more productive does not mean working more hours. (A key idea for knowledge workers.)

Again, a couple of specific suggestions.

• Measure velocity. Or measure it better.

This is a complicated topics. And for some, a difficult topic. Often, the Team just needs to start doing it. But there can be a variety of issues. I don't have space here to address all the possible issues.

• Measure other things (at the team level) if you are able.

I personally think Business Value delivered is more important than productivity of "widgets." But often your organization cannot do that yet. Still, start trying to.

• Set goals for each Team's work, outcomes that you expect that "product" to have some impact on.

Then measure later, did you get that outcome, and how much, and how close was that to what we set as a specific goal.

Be honest. It is common that multiple factors will affect the results. Nonetheless, be clear and try to get to the goal. "I will help you with your impediments."

This will be new and awkward.

But this will set the Team's minds on "how do we get the outcome to happen" rather than "let's just work harder." Again, I recommend this idea: work smarter, not harder. At least as a generality.

Closing

We think you have 3 key needs: (1) motivation, (2) improving or Kaizen, and (3) setting goals, and measuring for feedback. And mostly at the Team level.

We quickly gave you some ket action steps to act on these needs.

We hope we gave you enough to increase the success of your Teams.

There is another very common issue that we will discuss next: Interrupt Work. Coming soon.