How to Evaluate Available Time for Executagility®

Hi, I'm Andrea Jones and today we're going to talk about the available time pillar within Execute Agility. So remember, Execute agility is your organization's ability to execute your most important project work consistently over time. And when I talk about available time here, I refer to the fact that most businesses, especially small, medium, but organizations in the enterprise level, as well as when they're trying to go from operating here to operating there, with all the projects required, they're asking a lot of the same team members to do that project work while they're still operating the business down here. So those people have day jobs, they're answering phones, they're talking with customers, they're shipping product, they're sending invoices, they're closing the month end doing all of those different things required to keep the business running. And you need them to help with these projects so that you can get to this new level that you're looking to get to. So how do you make sure that you've given them work they can accomplish in their normal work week? It's a really big challenge and probably the most tricky thing. There's so many books written on time management. This is not what that is. We're going to talk specifically about this within our framework. So we've already talked about alignment, we're going to talk about competence and, and structure. But right now, for available time, let's talk about the different roles we have in executagility projects. So we have a sponsor. This person is the one again who is making budget decisions, answering questions that are escalated. When a decision needs to be made, she or he is making that decision on the project. They're not typically participating on the day to day level. So really the time that this person needs is I would say zero to two hours per week. Sometimes there's nothing really needed. And when you see our structure, you'll see that they do participate in a 30 minute review of the work that's being done every other week. And certainly at the end of a quarter, the beginning of the next quarter, they'll participate with the entire leadership team to prioritize for the next period of time. But on a regular week basis, 0 to 2 hours is typically sufficient. So they can handle a couple of projects that they're sponsoring at any given time. Usually the project manager, this is the person who runs all the tactical meetings, they schedule them as well. They're following up on actions, making sure things get done. When there's a person, you know in accounting who needs to talk to a person in procurement, they make sure those people talk to each other and they'll put that meeting together if necessary. So they're facilitating, they're tracking metrics, they're raising escalation concerns, they're even troubleshooting here and there where they can. So really, this person needs to have, I would say, 8 to 10 hours per week available to do projects. The team themselves, it really depends. It depends on the project and sometimes it changes week by week. The team is going to set their own tasks. You'll see that in structure, and they'll commit to the things they believe they can accomplish. Project manager will hold them accountable and keep them on top of things and reminded. But typically it's 5 to 10 hours per week per project they're doing. So let's just take the team and the project manager here. If you're Talking about a 10 hour a week project for either a project manager or a team member and you assign them to, let's say three projects, right? So you want them to do three times 10 hours per week, that's 30 hours. Even on the low end. For a project manager, it's 24. For a team member, it's maybe 15. So you have to think to yourself, they have a day job and how much time does that take? There is research that would show people aren't necessarily filling their entire work day with value added work. So they probably do have some time, especially if they can be focused on what they're doing and somebody's driving them to stay focused. You'll see that more in structure. But it's typically unrealistic to ask someone with a day job to do an additional 30 hours a week sustainably over time. So we want to bring that up early so you can prioritize better and help this person. Your team wants to be successful, they don't want to let you down. But if you're asking them to do 30 hours a week on top of the normal 30 they have, and now they've got a 60 hour work week with no end in sight, that's a great recipe for burnout, which nobody wants because it's very expensive to hire and retrain. So now let's think about how can we maybe only prioritize two projects for them, right? And maybe this is actually more of a 16 to 20 hours worth of work and maybe they can handle that. You know, on top of their 30, they've got another 20, that's 50. And you tell them this is only for one quarter, whatever it might be. Also you could consider Are there some things in their normal work week that we can maybe delegate to other people? So some of their more mundane tasks or more repetitive tasks that could go to someone else that could pick up the slack there? So this person would have maybe a little bit more time. Right. So those are the kinds of things that we think about with respect to available time. And we want to set the team up for success because remember, these are your most important projects. This is the stuff that if you don't do it, you're not on your way to this higher level. So you have to really be intentional about preserving some space for your team to get that work done. The project manager here is key because if that person can dedicate some time here, it keeps the entire team focused and things really move forward. And we're going to talk about this more in structure, but if you look at this, a project manager at 8 to 10 hours per week per project can handle two at a time if she or he is only working even half time. Right. So you could even hire a part time person to do this and still move your most important projects forward on a very measurable and reasonable basis. Okay. Obviously I really love this one. I feel like this is the crux of things. And so I would be more than happy to talk to anybody as much as you want about available time. And I hope you kind of get a flavor for what we're expecting and what we mean in execute agility when we talk about available time. Thanks for watching.