"We identified Streamline as the most user friendly and adaptable tool to increase our online accessibility and improve the tracking and monitoring process of our solution. The focus was on developing an online application and a dynamic reporting process to give our client's real time access to progress, this included automatic emailing and online analysis." Kim Kemp, Pure Innovation

Get the Right People to DO the Right Thing at the Right Time. PDF Print E-mail
Thursday, 09 December 2010 00:26

That's a pretty good definition of management, don't you think? "Get the Right People to DO the Right Thing at the Right Time." - it sounds pretty simple and straightforward. The problem is that, as far as management thinking goes, that is about the most consensus we're going to get out of a room full of consultants and analysts.

At this point the room will break up into little cliques. One bunch (the bright eyes crowd) will tell us that we need to get people to buy into the mission and vision of the team. This is pretty tough as our mission is a bit vague. We also need to have exhaustive team building exercises and consultative sessions. THese are time consuming and expensive, and meanwhile the ball i dropping

Another bunch (the skeptics) will insist: "What the employees want doesn't matter - we pay them to do what we say. What we need is good controls and systems; we need meetings and clear role definitions". Some will argue that its training that will do the trick and get people doing the right thing.

The head boy types will want to schmooze people along. Just sell yourself well, they contend. They spend money and hours and time on image.

There must be as many management philosophies as there are managers, yet few people stop and really look at the problem at hand:

 "Get the Right People to DO the Right Thing at the Right Time."

 Lets just deconstruct this a bit.

 "GET" - This implies some kind of managerial function. It implies that someone cares enough about the outcome to want to influence other people to do this. Chances are - this is YOU we're talking about. The fact that you are reading this means that you want to make sure things get done. You are in charge. Or should be in charge in any case. So just accept your fate and lets move on.

 "RIGHT PEOPLE" - Lets, for the moment, assume that we HAVE the right people (if we don't, then there is a bit of work to do before rolling out a task management system like Streamline: Get the right people. Streamline can't really help you there - although it may be able to help you get rid of the WRONG people) Who the 'right people' are, is often a bit vague. Lack of clear role definition, lack of well documented and well defined processes, lack of accountability and simply not being available can all add to the problem of "WHO must do it?" With this Streamline can help.

 "RIGHT THING" - What must be done? Just agreeing on a course of action is often problematic. Every involved party will have an idea of what needs to be done. The challenge is to get the parties together and get them to agree on what the right thing is. This used to get done in meetings - very costly and inefficiently. Nowadays this negotiation happens via email and often looks like people just wanting to cover themselves and pass the buck. It takes longer - and breaks down as soon as anyone misses an email. With Streamline the task stays open - a real-time virtual meeting!

 "RIGHT TIME" - If we've agreed on WHO? and WHAT? then we just need to get the WHEN? figured out. Time management is a major challenge for most people and companies. It is a science in its own right, but surprisingly straight forward in a consolidated task management system: By being able to see all the activities expected from a person (his workload), time prioritization becomes possible. Being able to track and study and model activities is also the first step towards BPM.

"GET" (again!) - Streamline now keeps the issue open until all parties agree on the outcome. Transparency breeds accountability.

 If this sounds long winded - don't worry - the magic happens in the background - You just type in something like: "John please contact and quote Joe Bloggs next week" (notice the WHO? WHAT? WHEN?) and Streamline does the rest! Try us.