Plan the week and stay on top of the work

The most productive lever a manager can pull to boost productivity is to encourage a weekly planning culture.

Productivity specialist Dermot Crowley, author of Smart Work.

Last year consulting organisation Accenture announced it was scrapping its performance management system. It simply was not providing a return on its investment of time and effort, which is probably true of many performance management systems in many organisations.

But does that make performance management a flawed approach? Not entirely. The real problem is performance plans are put in place for employees on a yearly basis, with a quarterly review, and that is where the planning stops. The employees are left to their own devices to create the connection between what they need to achieve and what they are actually spending time on. They are often so busy trying to stay on top of their overflowing inbox, they don’t make time to plan.

Unless each member of each team is focusing time and attention on the work that will achieve their objectives, fulfilling those performance plans will be hit and miss. So what can we do to increase productivity in a sustainable way?

At the organisational level, developing more dynamic performance planning approaches will help. Accenture did not scrap performance planning altogether; it replaced a cumbersome system with a more agile approach.

It introduced a more fluid approach that had employees and managers build routine conversations and checkpoints into their schedules that kept everyone on track or helped them adjust when things changed.

At the individual level, it requires encouraging workers to see planning as a part of their role and allowing them space to take time to plan. Many workers feel they do not have time to plan, or that planning is a poor use of their time, because planning is not doing, and doing gets rewarded. What they fail to realise is by taking time out to plan, they not only get more done but get more of the right work done. You need to slow down to speed up in this case.

The most productive lever a senior manager can pull to boost productivity within their team or division is to encourage a weekly planning culture. This requires creating the space that encour­ages team members to take time each week to plan — creating the conversations that allow each team member to discuss their priorities and plans with their manager, and make sure they are on the right track; creating an environment that allows employees to take an hour out of their schedule to plan the copious hours they will work that week.

Weekly planning is best done in a four-dimensional way. To plan the most effective way to spend time next week, you need to look back, look forward and look up at the big picture to evaluate all options and priorities. Looking back at last week helps to tie up all of the loose ends such as meeting actions and unfinished priorities.

Looking at next week and the following weeks will help you get organised and to anticipate upcoming deadlines.

Looking up at the big picture will help to realign your activities to your objectives.

US president Dwight D. Eisen­hower once said, when going into battle, plans were a complete waste of time but the time spent planning was invaluable. Planning helped him to make the right decisions in the heat of battle, and planning will help you make better decisions in the heat of the week. At the organisational level, if everyone took time to plan, there would be an increase in productivity and alignment to organisational objectives.

Dermot Crowley is the author of Smart Work.