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This Habit Results in More Greens and Lightning-Fast Execution

By Tiffany Chepul

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dateThu, Apr 20, 2017 @ 09:00 AM

I love sharing patterns. This one comes from our clients who have the fastest execution and the highest level of achieved Greens. When I tell you how simple it is, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been doing it.

What I’m going to share will, mechanically, be a piece of cake for Rhythm software users – it simply requires developing a new habit. Those of you who are implementing Rhythm methodology on your own can do it too – you’ll just have to figure out how to make it part of everyone’s weekly preparation process.

Okay, enough suspense… Here is the tip:

Review and comment on your teammates' dashboards each week prior to your weekly meeting

Simple, right? Some of you might even be thinking, “Well, I do that,” but consider the steps below to see if you’re really doing it well.

Step 1: Complete your Weekly Meeting Preparation process. Status your Priorities, add Comments on Red and Yellows, update your Actions List, fill out your Week-In-Sync note and record any relevant Client/Employee Feedback.

Step 2: Change your view to look at how your Team is doing. In Rhythm, simply click on Team in the top of your screen. Use the Team Work Dashboard to get a snapshot of which Priorities and KPIs are struggling, and how many Action Items are overdue. You can also see a chart on the bottom of the page that summarizes by person how each of your teammates are doing. Can you help anyone?

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Step 3: Collaborate with your team prior to your Weekly Adjustment Meeting. Under Collaborate, you can use the Comments & Notifications view to see a summary of your team's current comments. If everyone is completing Step 1, all of the Yellows and Reds will already have Comments on them. Comments should tell why a Priority or KPI is off track and offer some ideas to get that item back on track to Green. Can you help? Offer a word of encouragement? Suggest another solution? Comment back to the owner!

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Step 4: Include other relevant parties in your Comment. If you are commenting on one of Jane’s original Comments with an idea that Jim can help with, add Jim to your Comment notification so he can join the conversation.

Step 5: Follow items that you’d like to know about on an ongoing basis. Priorities, KPIs, Action Items and many other items in Rhythm can be "followed."  Anytime you see the word Following with a box next to it, simply check it off and you will be notified via email of any future comments on that item.

Step 6: Look at how all teams are doing company-wide. You may choose to look at the Team screens for any team in Rhythm that you have permission to access. Simply change your Team selection in the top of the screen. If your company has cascaded Rhythm to departments, you could click to see how the Sales team or the Product team is doing this week, for example. You can read their team's comments and see what's Yellow or Red.  If you can help someone in another Team, don’t hesitate to Comment and offer solutions across departments!

Teams who are using Rhythm in this way have an extremely healthy culture. They are solution-oriented and very collaborative. They also have a higher likelihood of finishing Green on Priorities and KPIs. Their execution is moving at lightening speed because they are helping each other all the time, instead of waiting for their Weekly Adjustment Meeting. Many times they will open a Yellow priority to discuss at their Weekly Adjustment Meeting, only to find it was already solved by Comments and collaboration.

Patrick calls this a minor major – minor adjustment with major impact.

I’ve seen it. It works. Challenge yourself and your team to establish this habit now!

Rhythm Systems Weekly Meeting With Myself Tool

Tiffany Chepul

 

Photo Credit: iStock by Getty Images