Start your day with 'homeroom'

Take 30 minutes to plan your day then execute accordingly
Start each day with 'homeroom' - a place where you can catch up on what is due for today, important events, and plan out your 'to do' list for the day.  Think of each day as its own project.

Initiate and Plan the Day

Take a 1/2 hour each morning, before checking email and voicemail, to prioritize the day.  Block your calendar to reduce overbooking for early meetings. 

What is important to do today? What must be done today?  What should be done but could possibly wait? What are today's stretch goals?

Keep a daily diary.  Indicate PRIORITY items with an A/B/C.  Indicate URGENT items with a 1/2/3.  You may need to save a few items for later in the week to keep your workload manageable.

Execute

 

Your 'to do' list should focus on the A1 items.  Are your meetings, conversations, work activities focused on your A1s?  What can get canceled, moved, or right-sized to make room for what is important.

 

 

Monitor and Close

Reflect at the end of the day.  Did you get all of your A1s complete within 8 hours?  Have you assessed your priority and urgent items in aligment with project priorities?  Have you created value?  Did you foster spirit and teamwork?

 

See how to use this "priority and urgent" method for stating project objectives and project decisions, staffing, and procurment.

 

Set a GOAL to plan the work and work the plan

What are Plan Goals?

What's more more difficult than developing the project plan?  Setting goals for planning the work and setting goals for executing the work defined by the plan.  Setting goals for planning and executing the work provides clarity and helps the project team members commit to executing work defined in the plan.

Setting a Goal to Plan the Work

How to define goals for creating and maintaining the plan

As a project initiates, or even prior to initiation, an agreement of how the plan will be created and maintained needs to be defined.  This is different than developing project goals.  It is also different than defining the project methodology.  Invest in setting, communicating, executing, and committing to goals for planning itself.

Some barriers for setting plan goals include:
-The people who contribute to the plan don't understand their role
-At the early stages of a project, there may not be a 'project' at all and therefore a lack of clarity that something needs to be planned
-A bridge between higher level strategy and the need for a plan may not be obvious

-Competing priorities prevent the right people from allocating time to plan
-Budgets do not account for the time and effort it takes to plan
-Urgency and eagerness to work quickly may cause proper planning to be skipped altogether

Most project methodologies provide guidelines for initiating and controlling the project.  Reinforce these methods with a Pledge to develop the plan.

Communicating Goals

How to build a team to define goals for a plan

Once plan goals are agreed, it is important to communicate the goals and ensure impacted people understand their roles.  This goes a long way to breaking through planning barriers.  As part of project initiation, you should have key stakeholders, contributors, and decision makers defined.  This is the team that needs to understand plan goals.  A face-to-face 'kick off' planning meeting is best.  Second best is a real-time video or web conference.  Plan goals should not be communicated in email exclusively.  Use email as a follow up reminder.

Setting a Goal to Work the Plan

How to define goals for executing work defined by the plan

Once goals are set for creating and maintaining the plan, set goals to define how to actually work the plan.  These goals should be agreed in advance of work commencing and may fall in line with the chosen project methodology.  Even if a methodology is available and agreed, goals for committing to exactly how the project will (or will not) follow the methodology is critical.

Committing Goals

How to agree to goals to work the plan

Finally, a commitment to how actual work against the plan will commence is needed.  This is the foundation of a project team's ability to determine progress against the plan and the Estimate to Complete (ETC).  This should fall in line with the project methodology, including a clear agreement on what part of the methodology is included / excluded.