Productivity is All About Producing

I am all about being productive. But productive, if you look at the root word is about producing. So if you want to be productive, I want you to think about what you’re focused on getting produced. What are you getting done?

For those of you doing change management work and working as project managers and change agents or process improvement agents and those doing business analysis work, your focus on every engagement with your stakeholders, on every meeting, on even your day-to-day hours, should be focused on what you’re PRODUCING.

In our requirements work we always focus on a "definition of done". The same applies here. Make a definition of done for all your work. What’s the definition of done for your meeting? This is often a meeting outcome or what I like to put: a desired outcome. Instead of an agenda and focusing on following a checklist, I always have a desired outcome for every meeting I have as that is the point of getting together. We’re focused on producing that outcome. How do we know the meeting is done? We have produced that outcome! This is how you can end meetings early is because you know you’ve achieved the desired result! But if you don’t know the point of what you’re there for and what you expect to get out of the session, then you’re back to meeting just for the sake of meeting!

We do the same with our productivity as we use our Kanban boards. Your goal is to move your "To do" list to your "To Done" list, the Done column. The trick to making that kind of activity work means you’ve got to break your work down into small enough bites that actions can actually get done. You produce nothing of value when you are “working on“ something.

No one else gets any value until you deliver SOME THING.

Done means delivered or handed over.

This is where agilists succeed because definition of done can be more of a “good enough." They’re not working on perfectionism but 'enough' to move things forward, 'enough' to enable the next person. Do you want to be more productive with your inbox? Look at all the emails that are waiting on you for a response. How many things are in your inbox that someone else cannot move forward until you respond? Prioritize your inbox by responding to those emails that help someone else move along. But don’t worry about overdoing it, focus on producing what is needed to move to the next step. Productivity is that action, that forward progress towards a goal. Working on things might be moving forward, but you have no measurement of success because each element isn't done. It’s been added to your "doing" pile, but until it’s done, it doesn’t deliver any value and no one can say yes you’re moving towards that right direction because there’s no concrete evidence or production. That's why being busy feels completely UNproductive! You're so busy DOING things, you never get anything DONE!

And of course, with the hot topic of artificial intelligence or AI the same thing comes into play: that it's great if you have wonderful technology tools that can enable you to do things, but until you’ve actually DELIVERED something with that AI technology, it really has no value. It’s awesome that I can create the worst dad jokes with ChatGPT, but it adds no business value. When AI helps me DELIVER a completed document or status report or summarizes and assigns the action items for me – those are clear outputs of doing the work. Those are clear things that have been created and delivered and done that now I’m getting the value out of my AI investment. Until I turn something over all I’ve been doing is "working with" or even "playing with" the technology and not getting anything done. And that’s what separates the productive people and those getting the true value out of their investments, then those who are simply "playing around" with the technology.

So I challenge you to look at your entire day and consider or ask yourself what you are PRODUCING with each activity. Your time is precious, so let’s make sure we are valuing our own time and focused on what we can produce. Ask "What am I getting DONE?" If you have a task on your task list, be clear on what your definition of done is. If you’re attending or even hosting a meeting, make sure there’s a desired outcome to that group of people meeting in the first place. If you’re facilitating a workshop, be super clear on what work that workshop is expected to produce. And if you’re having fun with technology, be clear on the value that technology will provide. This is how you go from "being busy" and "working on" things to being wildly productive!