Category: Uncategorized

The Secret sauce for effective work from home !

” You can’t do big things if you are distracted by small things “ – Anonymous!

As the tiny invisible organism Corona disrupting the world, I am sure most of us who are blessed with opportunity to work from home are struggling to manage work and home.

Wonder how do we manage these strange times of work from (& for) home situation ?

Well, To be really effective at work from home, what is the most important enabler ?

Is it Technology? Is it Network? Is it the costly electronic devices? That neat private desk space ?  which makes you get going at best?

Answer is NONE of the above. The most important secret sauce is “Schedule”!

Without a schedule, everything that you think will enable better work from home will fail and fall to dust.

S1

When you have a daily schedule and stick to it, for few days, it does something very amazing!

  • When you have a routine, wake up on time, get your morning body routines, breakfast done by time and start your work day at 9 am , in few days, your entire family , right from elders, spouse and kids knows your plan and support you.
  • With sticking to routine, it’s easy to set the rules of the same personally and professionally, everyone knows when you are available and when not, so you get your work life balance
  • It is easy to get your work diluted when you don’t have predefined schedule. An simple habit of writing a to-do in morning as first action on what to achieve on that day and ensuring the list is completed by end of day provides great satisfaction and an positive ego booster during these troubled days.
  • With a Schedule, your brain, heart and also stomach ( 🙂 ) knows what to expect when , that binge eater in you also stays away to keep your healthy as bonus !

Suggest you give it a try to make a simple schedule and stick to it for few days, it will be a great game changer and positive one both personally and professionally.

You may use an simple pen and paper /Postit  or free tools like Todoist or Microsoft ToDo 

Let us get scheduled and be happy!!

Leveraging Flow Boards for bringing Accountability and Urgency to get work done !

flow

One key tenants of Agile project management is to have an self sustained team where every member in team have an shared accountability of the common goal and works with sense of Urgency on same.

However, its easier said than done. Bringing the shared accountability and sense of urgency requires a big shift in behavior and culture of the team members.

Having an effective physical flow board makes a great impact to address this :

Scrum guide states “Significant aspects of the process must be visible to those responsible for the outcome. Transparency requires those aspects be defined by common standard so observers share a common understanding of what is being seen”

Having an Physical flow Board helps :

  • Bringing an sense of ownership with work of each member visible with status . when we have an daily stand up in front of the board, the member implicitly starts owning and acting on the task at hand with urgency
  • Brings an order to work progress and status becomes transparent and not hidden in some excel or tool
  • Team is in better position to take decisions for collective good , help the members who are not able to make progress and also challenge each other, improve collaboration
  • Help make team efficient with focus to get the work fully complete and reducing work in progress
  • Togetherness and Team Pride : Having the Physical board also have an very positive impact in bringing team together and celebrate success as team sees the progress in front of their eyes.

board

Few Tips to get this right :

  • Ensure every work item has a clear owner , status and expected completion date
  • Daily Stand up at the start of the day with mandatory attendance where each member updates progress , ask for help for any impediments and confirms he/she is on track to complete the work
  • Celebrate success even if its trivial.
  • Transparent and Open culture – The role of facilitator to ask probing questions to ensure team members are fear free to share updates and gets support when needed can make a big difference

Have you tried this in your teams? please share your insights on challenges and benefits in implementing an flow board within your teams.