Done, Doing

So the other day I was party to a discussion on monthly management meetings.

What structure they should follow was a keen topic of debate.

People often expect there to be some magic form you can download and use. Fill in the blanks and all will be winning.

But in the same way as following a business plan template can be disastrous, this approach to agenda creation is fraught with potholes.

Many firms have their own established itineraries here.

I’ve come across plenty.

When it comes to sales meetings specifically, a common thread after the opening salvo of the latest numbers, is to have an activity review discussion. Like on the picture above, a big plus-sign adorns one column, a minus the other, and each person must contribute one of each. Ticks and crosses also do the trick.

I was never a particular fan of this (I felt it was a cop-out and skirted around things) but many of the troops at the coal face liked it.

Then there’s the ‘Five Things’ type approach.

The audience contribute the one key factor going on right now that shapes their results more than anything else. Work out the top five and either make sure they are done more, or are remedied.

Again, this has its moments, but the negative tend to mistakenly outweigh the positive.

My favourite for the round-the-room confessional though, is the ‘Done & Doing’.

As in the pic above.

It can apply to other forums too, like board meeting reporting.

Dones can be problems fixed, success attained, milestones reached. And Doings can be progress made, solutions chased, new alerts.

It pays not to have too many, but keeping a track of these over time can show priorities and where underlying things might need changing too.