Improve Workforce Performance Through Better Task Management Part 2

 

My last post was about improving the basics of documenting action items. But is that all you want to do? Are you just a good project manager? Don't you want to excel in multiple areas? Sure you do and high productivity in task management is key to improving project team performance,

To get the maximum amount of productivity, especially in larger projects, you should maintain additional columns of information. This will require a spreadsheet or similar function on a web share. It will allow you to filter and sort a large number of action items for efficient management.

Here are a couple more columns to use.

Status . . . The purpose of this column is to display progress on the action. Immediately, you will see that two statuses are basic: In Progress and Closed. You want to be able to filter out all items that have been closed without losing a record that they were worked and completed.

But also consider using Entered. You want to distinguish items just entered at a meeting from those that have been formally delegated. Imagine the situation where someone is delegated as Responsible for an action item in a meeting where that person does not attend. You can't call that In Progress. Your job as project manager will be to ensure these items are properly delegated. It's much easier when you can filter a list to get all those with status Entered.

Maybe improvements can be made in how fast items delegated to those not in meeting.

Target or Solution Source . . . This is the place where you list the person, group or organization that will be where you go for resolution of the action. It may be a vendor, a group in Technology, the business sponsor, a SME, or some other group.

How does this add productivity? Imagine having a very long action item list created over many days from many meetings and individuals and also wanting to be as efficient as possible in knocking these action items out. You have a meeting with the vendor and know that you have many action items connected to that vendor. Not having the Target column, you would have to look through details of all the action items to derive what the target is. With this column, you can quickly filter to get a list of items just for the vendor. Neat. Sweet.

Another example:  If you are getting ready for a meeting with the business sponsor, as part of your preparation, you simply filter this list to find all items listed for sponsor. Now you have time to actually get the sponsor's attention!

To get the most benefit, use the same spreadsheet, shared datasheet or web share list for documenting actions and questions from all meetings. You just have to have the ability to sort and filter.

I'll provide more ideas in the future. In the meantime, let me know: What has worked for you?