Optimising your ‘end of year’ review for maximum impact

Optimising your ‘end of year’ review for maximum impact

Late November is the time when many of us are reflecting on our progress for the year and updating our stakeholders.

This can be fraught, particularly in an increasingly cost-constrained environment. Many recent working session stories have had a cost theme, as have many of the stories I have been working on with my corporate clients.

In that light I wanted to share one critical idea to focus on when preparing your next progress report.

Prioritising impact over activity is ever more important in these increasingly cost-constrained times. Let me explain what I mean.

Saying ‘we have been busy' is rarely enough. Providing a list of things you and your team have completed over the past period is the easy way out and only marginally useful. Even when the list is well-grouped, it is rarely insightful. It can also be overwhelming and just says ‘we have been busy'.

I once worked with the head of projects at a global car company and she asked me why her CFO never responded to the weekly update email he requested.

When I reviewed it I could see why.

She had listed literally 100 project tasks that had been worked on, categorised by area, without offering any insight as to how these linked to the overall objectives.

Saying ‘we are on track' is better. Our Traffic Light pattern helps you tell a straightforward good news story. You can say ‘all is well' and then back that up using a classic time-ordered structure. It works from past to present and then future by beginning with what has been done, moving on to what is currently in train and then what is planned.

This at least offers stakeholders comfort to know that they have nothing to worry about. This can be sufficient, but is not always so, especially in times of heightened attention to costs.

Saying ‘we have delivered X value' is better still. You can tweak Traffic Light a few ways to achieve this.

  1. Order by project area. Instead of ordering the ideas by time, you could outline how much you have achieved in each project area. The difference here is that you would say, ‘we delivered xyz results' rather than ‘we completed abc activities'
  2. Order by impact. Another way to structure the supporting points is to explain where you have delivered the greatest impact first, then move to moderate then to the least.


Explaining how your team could deliver more impact is best. This requires you to take a step back and look for opportunities to optimise your ways of working within your area as well stepping outside that area to focus on your purpose.

If you reflect on the reason why your program of work exists and ask whether your priorities and activity are still the best way to achieve that goal, you may find some gems. Here are some questions you might ask:

  1. Are the boundaries or constraints that we believed to be in place at the start of this program still relevant?
  2. Has anything changed outside our area that would render some of our work either more or less useful, and so deserve to be reprioritised?
  3. Could we work in parallel rather than in sequence to deliver more quickly?
  4. Are we gold plating for the sake of technical perfection rather than value?
  5. Do we have capacity to support another critical area of the business? (Dangerous, I know … but potentially value adding all the same!)


I offer these as thought starters rather than a complete list of questions. If you have seen others in play that are not here, let me know and I can share them in next week's email.

I hope that helps. More next week.

Kind regards,
Davina

PS We have now uploaded two new podcasts into the portal that are not yet available anywhere else. Check them out … I think you’ll enjoy them. 

How to capture more value from an overview presentation

How to capture more value from an overview presentation

What to do when your manager asks you to ‘give a presentation’ to introduce your team?

Perhaps you have a new senior executive who needs a briefing or perhaps there is a slot to fill in a coming Town Hall?

Do you work through your org chart or can you turn this into a bigger opportunity?

I hope you know me well enough by now to assume the latter!

Today I would like to offer some further insights on this topic while also linking back to a previous post addressing a similar challenge.

So, here are some thought starters to help you ‘niche’ your purpose statement and will turn this potentially burdensome request into an opportunity. I offer three initial areas to explore and three follow-on questions:

3 initial areas to explore

Dig into three areas so you can ‘niche’ your purpose and turn this burdensome presentation into an opportunity.

  1. Think very carefully about the role your team plays within the organization strategy. How do you add value? Why are you ‘organised’ into the structure in the way you are? Why do you even exist as a team / unit / division?
  2. Ask yourself what the rest of the organization could do for you if they understood your role better. Could you equip them to help you better by supporting or perhaps not resisting some of your requests? Could they adjust their approach to enable you to deliver more value? Could they get more out of your services if they understood you better?
  3. Find out why you have been asked to present to this audience at this time. Are you ‘just’ on a roster of education presentations or is this ad-hoc? If so, what is behind the request? Does that inform the value you could deliver or obtain from this presentation?


3 follow-on questions

Once you are clear about the answers to these questions, go further and ask three more:

  1. As a result of this presentation, I want my stakeholders to know, think, do …. What?
  2. Who among those stakeholders are going to be most influential in achieving that outcome?
  3. How can I tailor my messaging to hit home with them (as well as everyone else, but particularly with them?)


>> Click here for an example that we worked on within the program

Have a great week.

Talk soon,
Davina

Why ‘updates’ are hardly ever JUST an update

Why ‘updates’ are hardly ever JUST an update

This week's working session drew out one of my pet peeves: Updates.

Leaders, of course, want you to update them on your progress whether your work is ‘business as usual' or project based. They want to know enough to trust that all is on track or to offer guidance where needed.

However, thinking of these communication opportunities as just an update is such a waste!

This week we helped Belinda convert her 10-minute MS Teams update into a powerful story that would engage future supporters. Here are the three biggest takeaways, which I hope help you also.

  1. Having 10 minutes to showcase her project to 450 colleagues was an opportunity to engage potential supporters in her program who would help her deliver on it over coming months. It was so much more than just an update.
  2. The context was an opportunity to not just remind everyone that she was working on two important data collection projects, but rather to remind them of the value those projects will bring.
  3. The trigger was an opportunity to explain to them not just why she was telling them about the project, but why they needed to hear about the project

Here were the highlights.

 

Watch the recording below and download the session notes for more details.