What Do I Do Now

Last week I wrote about how ending leadership team meetings (really any meeting) with four questions will ensure the right people know about the decisions reached. 

However, not every agenda item discussed in a team meeting will lead to a decision. Sometimes, team members will be asked to do some follow-up work about an item. In my experience, by the next meeting, the team’s focus has moved to the urgent issue of the day. 

How can a team hold each other accountable to do assigned tasks and to revisit issues that have not been totally resolved? Each team ought to have a deliverable sheet that looks like this: 

Task	Person Responsible	Deadline	Progress	Comments

Most of the columns are self-evident but I will explain them anyway.  Under the task column, (hold your breath here) the task to be completed is entered. 

The person responsible column names one person who ensures the task is completed. The nuance here is to name only one person. If two people are responsible or (even worse) the team, no one truly owns the task and it is likely not to get completed. This does not mean the task’s owner needs to do all the work. She can delegate part of the task to others, but she is the general contractor and should ensure the task is completed by the deadline. 

The deadline column lists (hold your breath here) the deadline for the task. It is best that the person responsible agrees to the deadline in the meeting. 

The progress column allows team members to see progress. I like to color code the column. Green means everything is on schedule and going well, yellow indicates some issues while red indicates the task will not be completed on time.

The comment section includes comments about progress being made or why the task might not be completed on time. This is the place to briefly explain why a task may be yellow or red. On the other hand, it always feels good to be able to put “completed” in the comments column. 

Unsurprisingly, the deliverable sheet works best as a spreadsheet. Once an item has been completed and approved by the team, it can be moved to a completed tab. This tab serves two purposes: it allows the team to see what it has accomplished, and it acts as a running record of decisions made about these topics.

For the deliverable sheet to work optimally, it is best to remind team members of what they agreed to do at the meeting’s end. It is also best to review the sheet at each meeting’s start to ensure that the assigned tasks are proceeding apace. Finally, the deliverable sheet should be accessible to all team members between meetings, so they can update it appropriately. 

Teams that utilize the four questions and a deliverable sheet will find many fewer items falling through the cracks, and their efficiency will increase greatly.