Agile Notes (No. 51)

Proper Action Plans are your friend

Hello all! Welcome new subscribers! Thanks for reading. We continue with Collaboration Explained by Jean Tabaka. We are staying with Chapter 9: The Organizing Tools.

I honestly think this is my “secret sauce” when managing projects/programs. Tabaka calls out that cynicism festers with meeting participants required to attend a million meetings when there is always a lack of follow up. Again, I am loving the simplicity of Tabaka’s method/s. Yes, this week, let’s talk about Action Plans.

I struggle with the 3rd bullet: The owner must be present to accept the Action. Sometimes they just can’t be at the meeting. I feel like I cover this by doing what the author calls out on page 129: every meeting’s Action Plan must have at least one item on it, with my name or the Meeting Owner’s name (if I am just acting as the Scribe), a definite due date, and the Action of: Complete the documentation of the Meeting aka Send out the Meeting Notes.

Every Action needs an Owner and a Due Date. That is my secret sauce. It sounds ridiculous but tell us in the Comments how many meetings you go to in an average week that DO NOT have clearly defined, owned and timeboxed Action Items. I bet it is a lot.

I had an interview earlier this week. (I didn’t get the job). They asked me a series of behavioral questions. I kept returning to Communication as both the root of problems when communication was lacking and as the best way to overcome issues. Communicate clearly and often.

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