Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Project
management
Matrix key:
B = Brainstorming
F = Fishbone/Ishikawa Diagrams *** - main tool
C = Critical Path Analysis Flow ** - optional/secondary tool
Diagrams * - sometimes useful
G = Gantt Charts
B F C G
brainstorming
Brainstorming is usually the first crucial creative stage of the project
management and project planning process. See the brainstorming method
in detail and explained separately, because it many other useful
applications outside of project management.
Unlike most project management skills and methods, the first stages of
the brainstorming process is ideally a free-thinking and random technique.
Consequently it can be overlooked or under-utilized because it not a
natural approach for many people whose mains strengths are in systems
and processes. Consequently this stage of the project planning process
can benefit from being facilitated by a team member able to manage such
a session, specifically to help very organised people to think randomly and
creatively.
fishbone diagrams
Fishbone diagrams are chiefly used in quality management fault-
detection, and in business process improvement, especially in
manufacturing and production, but the model is also very useful in project
management planning and task management generally.
Within project management fishbone diagrams are useful for early
planning, notably when gathering and organising factors, for example
during brainstorming.
Fishbone diagrams are very good for identifying hidden factors which can
be significant in enabling larger activities, resources areas, or parts of a
process.
Fishbone diagrams are not good for scheduling or showing interdependent
time-critical factors.
Fishbone diagrams are also called 'cause and effect diagrams' and
Ishikawa diagrams, after Kaoru Ishikawa (1915-89), a Japanese professor
specialising in industrial quality management and engineering who
devised the technique in the 1960s.
Ishikawa's diagram became known as a fishbone diagram, obviously,
because it looks like a fishbone:
A fishbone
diagram has a
central spine
running left to
right, around
which is built a
map of factors
which contribute
to the final result
(or problem).
For each project
the main
categories of
factors are
identified and
shown as the
main 'bones'
leading to the
spine.
Into each
category can be
drawn 'primary'
elements or
factors (shown as
P in the
diagram), and
into these can be
drawn secondary
elements or
factors (shown as
S). This is done
for every
category, and
can be extended
to third or fourth
level factors if
necessary.
The diagram above is a very simple one. Typically fishbone diagrams have
six or more main bones feeding into the spine. Other main category
factors can include Environment, Management, Systems, Training, Legal,
etc.
The categories used in a fishbone diagram should be whatever makes
sense for the project. Various standard category sets exist for different
industrial applications, however it is important that your chosen structure
is right for your own situation, rather than taking a standard set of
category headings and hoping that it fits.
At a simple level the fishbone diagram is a very effective planning model
and tool - especially for 'mapping' an entire operation.
Where a fishbone diagram is used for project planning of course the
'Effect' is shown as an aim or outcome or result, not a problem.
The 'Problem' term is used in fault diagnosis and in quality management
problem-solving. Some fishbone diagrams can become very complex
indeed, which is common in specialised quality management areas,
especially where systems are computerised.
This model, and the critical path analysis diagram are similar to the even
more complex diagrams used on business process modelling within areas
of business planning and and business process improvement.
Analysis flow diagrams also enable costings and budgeting, although not
quite as easily as Gantt charts (below), and they also help planners to
identify causal elements, although not quite so easily as fishbone
diagrams (below).
This is how to create a Critical Path Analysis. As an example, the project is
a simple one - making a fried breakfast.
First note down all the issues (resources and activities in a rough order),
again for example:
Assemble crockery and utensils, assemble ingredients, prepare
equipment, make toast, fry sausages and eggs, grill bacon and tomatoes,
lay table, warm plates, serve.
Note that some of these activities must happen in parallel - and crucially
they are interdependent. That is to say, if you tried to make a fried
breakfast by doing one task at a time, and one after the other, things
would go wrong. Certain tasks must be started before others, and certain
tasks must be completed in order for others to begin. The plates need to
be warming while other activities are going on. The toast needs to be
toasting while the sausages are frying, and at the same time the bacon
and sausages are under the grill. The eggs need to be fried last. A Critical
Path Analysis is a diagrammatical representation of what needs done and
when. Timescales and costs can be applied to each activity and resource.
Here's the Critical Path Analysis for making a fried breakfast:
This Critical Path Analysis example below shows just a few activities over
a few minutes. Normal business projects would see the analysis extending
several times wider than this example, and the time line would be based
on weeks or months. It is possible to use MS Excel or a similar
spreadsheet to create a Critical Path Analysis, which allows financial totals
and time totals to be planned and tracked. Various specialised project
management software enable the same thing. Beware however of
spending weeks on the intricacies of computer modelling, when in the
early stages especially, a carefully hand drawn diagram - which requires
no computer training at all - can put 90% of the thinking and structure in
place. (See the details about the most incredible planning and
communications tool ever invented, and available for just a tiny fraction of
the price of all the alternatives.)
gantt charts
Gantt Charts (commonly wrongly called gant charts) are extremely useful
project management tools. The Gantt Chart is named after US engineer
and consultant Henry Gantt (1861-1919) who devised the technique in the
1910s.
Gantt charts are excellent models for scheduling and for budgeting, and
for reporting and presenting and communicating project plans and
progress easily and quickly, but as a rule Gantt Charts are not as good as
a Critical Path Analysis Flow Diagram for identifying and showing
interdependent factors, or for 'mapping' a plan from and/or into all of its
detailed causal or contributing elements.
You can construct a Gantt Chart using MSExcel or a similar spreadsheet.
Every activity has a separate line. Create a time-line for the duration of
the project (the breakfast example shows minutes, but normally you
would use weeks, or for very big long-term projects, months). You can
colour code the time blocks to denote type of activity (for example,
intense, watching brief, directly managed, delegated and left-to-run, etc.)
You can schedule review and insert break points. At the end of each line
you can show as many cost columns for the activities as you need. The
breakfast example shows just the capital cost of the consumable items
and a revenue cost for labour and fuel. A Gantt chart like this can be used
to keep track of progress for each activity and how the costs are running.
You can move the time blocks around to report on actuals versus planned,
and to re-schedule, and to create new plan updates. Costs columns can
show plan and actuals and variances, and calculate whatever totals,
averages, ratios, etc., that you need. Gantt Charts are probably the most
flexible and useful of all project management tools, but remember they do
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management, and if you can't manage the financial processes your self
you need to be able to rely completely on whoever does it for you. The
spreadsheet must enable you to plan, administer and report the detailed
finances of your project. Create a cost line for main expenditure activity,
and break this down into individual elements. Create a system for
allocating incoming invoices to the correct activities (your bought-ledger
people won't know unless you tell them), and showing when the costs hit
the project account. Establish clear payment terms with all suppliers and
stick to them. Projects develop problems when team members get
dissatisfied; rest assured, non- or late-payment is a primary cause of
dissatisfaction.
Remember to set some budget aside for 'contingencies' - you will almost
certainly need it.
conflict handling techniques, and look out for signs of stress and manage
it accordingly. A happy positive team with a basic plan will outperform a
miserable team with a brilliant plan, every time.
Someone once said "Don't you love it when a plan comes together?"
It's true.
As project manager, to be at the end of a project and to report that the
project plan has been fully met, on time and on budget, is a significant
achievement, whatever the project size and complexity. The mix of skills
required are such that good project managers can manage anything.
you kiss me I shall turn me back into a beautiful princess, and I'll stay with
you for a week as your mistress." The project manager took the frog out of
his pocket, smiled at it, and put it back into his pocket. The frog called out
once more, "If you kiss me and turn me back into a princess, I'll stay with
you for as long as you wish and do absolutely anything that you want.
Again the Project manager took the frog out of his pocket, smiled at it and
put it back. Finally, the frog demanded, "What's the matter? You can turn
me back into a beautiful princess, and I'll stay with you for ever and do
anything you want. Why won't you kiss me?" to which the project
manager replied, "Understand, I'm a project manager. I simply don't have
time for a girlfriend, but a talking frog .... that's cool."
which are used to analyse, test, implement and improve the process.
The aim of modelling is to illustrate a complete process, enabling
managers, consultants and staff to improve the flow and streamline the
process.
The outcomes of a business process modelling project are essentially:
• value for the customer, and
• reduced costs for the company,
leading to increased profits.
Other secondary consequences arising from successful Business Process
Modelling can be increased competitive advantage, market growth, and
better staff morale and retention.
There are no absolute rules for the scope or extent of a Business Process
Model in terms of departments and activities covered.
Before committing lots of resources to Business Process Modelling proper
consideration should be given to the usefulness and focus of the exercise -
ask the questions:
• Does the modelling have the potential to produce gains that will
justify the time and effort?
• Will the modelling be structured so that people will understand the
outputs (not too big and complex as to be self-defeating)?
• Do people understand why we are doing it, and "what's in it for
them"?
for staff too, and then the BPM methodology will work on a much more
effective level.
merging his 'time study' with the 'motion study' work of Frank and Lillian
Gilbreth (early US theorists on productivity and workplace science),
resulting in new scientific management methods (1911) and the infamous
'time and motion' studies. These studies documented and analysed work
processes with the aim of reducing the time taken and the number of
actions involved in each process, improving both productivity and
workers' efficiency. This was enthusiastically embraced by employers and
viewed with scepticism and animosity by workers. The term 'Taylorism'
still generally refers to a highly scientific and dehumanised approach to
efficient operation in business, organisations, economies, etc.
time to focus on the 'value added' tasks that are empowering and
rewarding: talking and listening to customers, making decisions or doing
what they are good at rather than dealing with dull and meaningless
duties.
BPM is effective like any other tool can be. In the hands of an idiot BPM
can suffocate and hinder an organisation and its people.
The tool doesn't produce the results - what matters is how you use it.
first draft
The first draft of the model will involve a lot of positioning and
repositioning of events and activities, so make sure you use a method that
is flexible and easily changed. Use a flipchart, pens and some sticky notes
or a whiteboard and a rubber. If you're working with a group of users,
everyone needs to be able to see it.
second draft
Once you have established an agreed sequence of events, you can create
it as a flowchart on generic software or on specialised proprietary
software.
At this stage, you will need to check your model with the users by carrying
out 'live' observations of the sequence in practice. People in focus groups
or meetings invariably either forget their exact actions or say what should
be happening rather than what does happen!
In the example model diagram below the customer service desk, accounts
and shipping departments are shown as icons and text.
There are many other symbols used in BPM notation.
Below is just a simple example to illustrate the technique.
driving efficiency. Six Sigma is currently one of the most popular of many
BPI approaches in use today.
BPM - Business Process Management - Used in two different ways by
two different groups within the business processing community:
• Firstly, it is used by the people and process management group to
describe the overall management of business process improvement,
aligning processes with an organisation's strategic goals: designing,
implementing and measuring them and educating managers to use
them effectively.
• Secondly, it is used by IT people to describe the systems, software
and applications that provide the process framework.
BPM - Business Process Mapping - Often used interchangeably with
Business Process Modelling, Business Process Mapping is also used to
mean documenting all the processes in the business, showing the
relationships between them. This provides a comprehensive visual
overview of the processes in an organisation.
BPM - Business Process Model/Business Process Modelling - See
Business Process Model/Modelling above.
BPMN - Business Process Modeling Notation - A 'branded' Business
Process Modelling notation system of the OMG Consortium, representing
several hundred primarily US computer-related corporations. (UK-English
'Modelling'.)
BPR - Business Process Redesign - Rethinking, redesigning and
implementing one complete process using Business Process Modelling
tools.
Enterprise Architecture - Basically the same as Business Architecture.
Enterprise is a relatively modern term for a business organisation or
company than 'business', probably because business has quite specific
associations with profit and shareholders, whereas the word enterprise
can more loosely encompass all sorts of business-like activities which
might be constituted according to mutual or cooperative rather than
traditional capitalistic aims. Enterprise is also a popular way to refer to
business development and entrepreneurial creativity. The relevance of all
this to BPM is merely the use of the word enterprise in BPM terminology,
where previously the word 'business' would have been used.
Gateway - A stage in a Business Process Model diagram or notation at
which decision or choice is made because more than one main option or
outcome exists.
Notation - The technical term for a Business Process Model diagram or
computer-generated map or flowchart.
OBASHI - A methodology, and related aspect of BPM, for mapping and
developing how IT systems relate to organisational operations (OBASHI
stands for Ownership, Business Processes, Applications, Systems,
Hardware, and Infrastructure).
goal planner
goal planning template for personal and
organizational aims
Goal planning can be especially helpful in advancing your career and job
hunting, or staring your own business, or becoming self-employed or
freelance.
A good plan identifies causes and effects in achievable stages. These
need not necessarily be very detailed or time-bound unless the aim
requires it.
Having a clear aim begins to define the plan.
For example: a large-scale short-term aim requires a plan with detail and
strict timescales, whereas a goal to achieve a personal life change within
five-to-ten years requires much less detail and scheduling, provided the
crucial causes and effects stages are identified.
Plans can also be structured in different ways according to individual
preference and the various planning tools and methods which exist.
Detailed people prefer detailed plans. Intuitive people prefer broader
more flexible plans. The section on project management explains some of
the common more complex planning methods. Also see for example the
SMART planning model, which provides an excellent simple basis for
outline planning. The delegation tips also refer to SMART, and these
pointers are helpful for setting objectives for yourself, aside from other
people. Personal goal planning for yourself is rather like delegating a
responsibility to yourself, hence the relevance of the principles of
delegation.
Choose a planning format that you are comfortable using - and
adapt and develop it as you need.
There is no point in adopting a complex spreadsheet if you'll not enjoy
using it. Conversely, if you want to analyse lots of details, then choose a
format which will accommodate this.
Whatever planing format you prefer, all plans begin as a simple outline,
like the planning template provided here.
Beyond this you can add more detail and structure to suit your aims and
preferences, but you must begin with a clear goal, and an outline of
what will make your goal happen.
Whatever the aim, all good plans tend to include:
Note that the overall aim or vision does not have to be limited or
constrained.
Where aims and visions are concerned virtually anything is possible - for
an individual person or an organization - provided the above goal planning
criteria are used.
Here is a simple outline goal planning template and process, which can be
used as the full planning method for certain personal aims, or as an initial
outline planning tool for the most complex organizational vision.
It is structured in stages. You can add more stages and elements (in other
words the factors which cause things to happen) as necessary.
If any element is too big to imagine realistically achieving in one go, then
break it down into further elements.
Even the most ambitious goals and plans are achievable when broken
down and given time.
A plan to achieve a goal or vision is normally best developed by working
backwards from the aim.
Ask yourself at each stage of the plan: "What must happen before this?"
And then plan to achieve each element, working back in realistic bite-
sized elements, to where you are today.
4. Then ask
yourself and
identify: What
factors would
directly cause
the aim to be
achieved?
Insert these
below.
6. Attach timings.
7. Then ask
yourself and
identify: What
enabling
factors must
exist or be
achieved for
these level two
causal factors
to happen?
Insert them
below.
standards as
4.1
necessary
(scale, values,
4.2 comparative
references,
4.3 etc).
7. Attach timings.
8. Then ask
5.1
yourself and
identify any
5.2 earlier
enabling
5.3 factors which
need to
happen before
level three. If
so, add a
fourth level
and complete
the enabling
factors
accordingly.
9. When you
have
completed
your plan, you
can then start
to work
through the
levels - from
the bottom to
the top.
10. Adapt
your plan as
required -
especially add
new factors as
you discover
them, and plan
how each can
be achieved by
incorporating
them into this
model.
tools, such as
Critical Path
Analysis, or a
Gantt Chart, or
the various
computerised
project tools
now available.
See the project
management
section.
This is a sample template not a fixed structure - adapt and develop the
model to suit your own situation. Add more or remove factors and levels
as you need.
You should add a fourth level if any third level enabling factors are not
already possessed and cannot easily be achieved.
Create your plan from top to bottom.
Implement your plan from bottom to top.
• reputation
• contacts
• style
• skills
• decisions and commitments
• re-direction, re-allocation and prioritization
• attitude and outlook
• encouragement and support
• time and space
• maturity and wisdom
• energy and enthusiasm
• determination and persistence
• money and other assets
• mistakes and disasters - yes, mistakes and disasters can be very
useful enablers, so it helps to see them in this way
When most people talk about wanting to be more assertive, what they
usually really mean is:
• 'How can I become more able to resist the pressure and dominance
of excessively dominant people?'
• 'How can I stand up to bullies (or one bully in particular)?'
• And also, 'How can I exert a little more control in situations that are
important to me?'
And don't be fobbed off. Stick to your guns. If the question is avoided or
ignored return to it, or re-phrase it (which you can prepare as well).
all bullies are still children, and as far as your situation permits, seeing
them as children can help you find greater strength and resistance.
Transactional Analysis theory, and especially the modern TA concepts, are
helpful for some people in understanding how this sort of childhood
emotional damage affects people, and how specific communications can
be planned and used in response to excessive dominance, bullying,
temper tantrums, and other threatening behaviours.
N.B. The point above about feeling sympathy for bullies should not be
seen as approval or justification for bullying. Neither is sympathy
proposed here to be a sole or significant tactic in countering bullying.
Rather, sympathy is advocated as a more constructive, stronger,
alternative feeling to being fearful or intimidated. People responsible for
bullying are the bullies, not the victims. So if you are a bully: get some
feedback, get some help, and grow up.
Several tactics are explained above to tackle bullying head-on, as is often
very necessary. Additionally in most western world countries, and many
others besides, there are now serious laws and processes to protect
people from bullying, and these protections should be invoked whenever
bullying becomes a problem.
brainstorming process
brainstorming technique for problem-
solving, team-building and creative
process
Brainstorming with a group of people is a powerful technique.
Brainstorming creates new ideas, solves problems, motivates and
develops teams. Brainstorming motivates because it involves members of
a team in bigger management issues, and it gets a team working
together. However, brainstorming is not simply a random activity.
Brainstorming needs to be structured and it follows brainstorming rules.
The brainstorming process is described below, for which you will need a
flip-chart or alternative. This is crucial as Brainstorming needs to involve
the team, which means that everyone must be able to see what's
happening. Brainstorming places a significant burden on the facilitator to
manage the process, people's involvement and sensitivities, and then to
manage the follow up actions. Use Brainstorming well and you will see
excellent results in improving the organization, performance, and
developing the team.
N.B. There has been some discussion in recent years - much of it plainly
daft - that the term 'brainstorming' might be 'political incorrect' by virtue
of possible perceived reference to brain-related health issues. It was
suggested by some that the alternative, but less than catchy 'thought-
showers' should be used instead, which presumably was not considered to
be offensive to raindrops (this is serious…). Happily recent research
among relevant groups has dispelled this non-pc notion, and we can
continue to use the brainstorming expression without fear of ending up in
the law courts…
brainstorming process
1. Define and agree the objective.
2. Brainstorm ideas and suggestions having agreed a time
limit.
3. Categorise/condense/combine/refine.
4. Assess/analyse effects or results.
5. Prioritise options/rank list as appropriate.
6. Agree action and timescale.
7. Control and monitor follow-up.
In other words:
personal brainstorming
for creativity, planning, presentations,
decision-making, and organizing your
ideas
Personal brainstorming - just by yourself - is very useful for the start of
any new project, especially if you can be prone to put things off until
tomorrow.
Planning a new venture, a presentation, or any new initiative, is generally
much easier if you begin simply by thinking of ideas - in no particular
order or structure - and jotting them down on a sheet of paper or in a
notebook. Basically this is personal brainstorming, and it can follow the
same process as described above for groups, except that it's just you
doing it.
Sometimes it's very difficult to begin planning something new - because
you don't know where and how to start. Brainstoming is a great way to
begin. The method also generates lots of possibilities which you might
otherwise miss by getting into detailed structured planning too early.
A really useful tool for personal brainstorming - and
note-taking generally - is the wonderful Bic 4-colour
ballpen.
The colours and categories are not a fixed industry standard. It's an
entirely flexible technique. You can use any colours you want, and devise
your own coding structures to suit the situation.
see also
The following tools and models can be used within the brainstorming
process to build and create a context for brainstorming, and a framework
for brainstorming actions. When using any of these tools or models within
the brainstorming process, select models appropriate to the group, and
the desired development and outcomes for the brainstorming session:
• SWOT analysis - for assessing the strength of a company,
department, proposition or idea.
• PEST analysis - for measuring the attractiveness and potential of a
market.
• The McKinsey Seven-S's - criteria for a successful company
• Adizes corporate life-cycle model - phases of company development
To explore personal direction and change (for example for early planning
of self-employment or new business start-up) see the passion-to-profit
exercise and template on the teambuilding exercises page.
Here are tips, examples, techniques, tools and a process for writing a
marketing strategy, business and sales plans, to produce effective results.
This free online guide explains how to put together a marketing strategy,
basic business plan, and a sales plan, including free templates and
examples, such as the Ansoff and Boston matrix tools. New pages are
being added soon on advertising, sales promotion, PR (public relations)
and press releases, sales enquiry lead generation, advertising copy-
writing, internet and website marketing, in the meanwhile see the
marketing tips page for free marketing and advertising techniques and
advice.
See also the simple notes about starting your own business, which to an
extent also apply when you are starting a new business initiative or
development inside another organisation as a new business development
manager, or a similar role.
Here's a free profit and loss account spreadsheet template tool (xls) for
incorporating these factors and financials into a more formal phased
business trading plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and
reporting tool too.
Adapt it to suit your purposes. This plan example is also available as a
PDF, see the Profit and Loss Account (P&L) Small Enterprise Business Plan
Example (PDF). The numbers could be anything: ten times less, ten times
more, a hundred times more - the principle is the same.
Towards the end of this article there is also a simple template/framework
for a feasibility study or justification report, such as might be required to
win funding, authorisation or approval for starting a project, or the
continuation of a project or group, in a commercial or voluntary situation.
If you are starting a new business you might also find the tips and
information about buying a franchise business to be helpful, since they
cover many basic points about choice of business activity and early
planning.
Primary research is recommended for local and niche services. Keep the
subjects simple and the range narrow. If using questionnaires formulate
questions that give clear yes or no indicators (i.e. avoid three and five
options in multi-choices which produce lots of uncertain answers) always
understand how you will analyse and measure the data produced. Try to
convert data to numerical format and manipulate on a spreadsheet. Use
focus groups for more detailed work. For large research projects consider
using a market research organization because they'll probably do it better
than you, even though this is likely to be more costly. If you use any sort
of marketing agency ensure you issue a clear brief, and that your aims are
clearly understood. Useful frameworks for research are PEST analysis and
SWOT analysis.
First establish or confirm the aims of the business, and if you are
concerned with a part of a business, establish and validate the aims of
your part of the business. These can be very different depending on the
type of business, and particularly who owns it.
Refer to and consider issues of ethics and philosophy, corporate social
responsibility, sustainability, etc - these are the foundations on which
values and missions are built.
Look at the reasons ethics and corporate responsibility are so important.
And see also the fundamental organisational planning stages.
Consider the Psychological Contract and the benefits of establishing a
natural balance and fairness between all interests (notably staff,
customers, the organization).
Traditional business models are not necessarily the best ones. The world
is constantly changing, and establishing a new business is a good time to
challenge preconceptions of fundamental business structure and purpose.
A business based on a narrow aim of enriching a few investors while
relegating the needs and involvement of everyone else may contain
conflicts and tensions at a deep level. There are other innovative business
structures which can inherently provide a more natural, cooperative and
self-fuelling relationship - especially between employees and the
organization, and potentially between customers and the organization too.
When you have established or confirmed your philosophical and ethical
position, state the objectives of the business unit you are planning to
develop - your short, medium and long term aims - (typically 'short,
medium and long' equate to 1 year, 2-3 years and 3 years plus). In other
words, what is the business aiming to do over the next one, three and five
years?
Bear in mind that you must reliably ensure the success and viability of the
business in the short term or the long term is merely an academic issue.
Grand visions need solid foundations. All objectives and aims must be
prioritised and as far as possible quantified. If you can't measure it, you
can't manage it.
are you projecting? How many new customers do you need, by size and
type, by product and service? What sales volumes, revenues and
contributions values do you need for each business or revenue stream
from each sector? What is your product mix, in terms of customer type,
size, sector, volumes, values, contribution, and distribution channel or
route to market? What are your projected selling costs and net
contributions per service, product, sector? What trends and percentage
increase in revenues and contributions, and volumes compared to last
year are you projecting? How is your market share per business stream
and sector changing, and how does this compare with your overall
business aims? What are your fast-growth high-margin opportunities, and
what are your mature and low-margin services; how are you treating
these different opportunities, and anything else in between? You should
use a basic spreadsheet tool to split your business according to the main
activities and profit levers. See the simple sales/business planning tool
example below.
this is, by its nature, unknown territory, and carries the highest risk of
failure.
Here are the Ansoff strategies in summary:
market penetration - Developing your sales of existing products to your
existing market(s). This is fine if there is plenty of market share to be had
at the expense of your competitors, or if the market is growing fast and
large enough for the growth you need. If you already have large market
share you need to consider whether investing for further growth in this
area would produce diminishing returns from your development activity. It
could be that you will increase the profit from this activity more by
reducing costs than by actively seeking more market share. Strong
market share suggests there are likely to be better returns from extending
the range of products/services that you can offer to the market, as in the
next option.
product development - Developing or finding new products to take to
your existing market(s). This is an attractive strategy if you have strong
market share in a particular market. Such a strategy can be a suitable
reason for acquiring another company or product/service capability
provided it is relevant to your market and your distribution route.
Developing new products does not mean that you have to do this yourself
(which is normally very expensive and frequently results in simply re-
inventing someone else's wheel) - often there are potential manufacturing
partners out there who are looking for their own distribution partner with
the sort of market presence that you already have. However if you already
have good market share across a wide range of products for your market,
this option may be one that produces diminishing returns on your growth
investment and activities, and instead you may do better to seek to
develop new markets, as in the next strategic option.
market development - Developing new markets for your existing
products. New markets can also mean new sub-sectors within your market
- it helps to stay reasonably close to the markets you know and which
know you. Moving into completely different markets, even if the
product/service fit looks good, holds risks because this will be unknown
territory for you, and almost certainly will involve working through new
distribution channels, routes or partners. If you have good market share
and good product/service range then moving into associated markets or
segments is likely to be an attractive strategy.
diversification - taking new products into new markets. This is high risk -
not only do you not know the products, but neither do you know the new
market(s), and again this strategic option is likely to entail working
through new distribution channels and routes to market. This sort of
activity should generally be regarded as additional and supplementary to
the core business activity, and should be rolled out carefully through
rigorous testing and piloting.
Consider also your existing products and services themselves in terms of
their market development opportunity and profit potential. Some will offer
very high margins because they are relatively new, or specialised in some
way, perhaps because of special USP's or distribution arrangements.
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growing
market problem child (rising) star
mature
market dog cash cow
cash cow - The rather crude metaphor is based on the idea of 'milking'
the returns from previous investments which established good distribution
and market share for the product. Products in this quadrant need
maintenance and protection activity, together with good cost
management, not growth effort, because there is little or no additional
growth available.
dog - This is any product or service of yours which has low market
presence in a mature or stagnant market. There is no point in developing
products or services in this quadrant. Many organizations discontinue
products/services that they consider fall into this category, in which case
consider potential impact on overhead cost recovery. Businesses that
have been starved or denied development find themselves with a high or
entire proportion of their products or services in this quadrant, which is
obviously not very funny at all, except to the competitors.
problem child - These are products which have a big and growing
market potential, but existing low market share, normally because they
are new products, or the application has not been spotted and acted upon
yet. New business development and project management principles are
required here to ensure that these products' potential can be realised and
disasters avoided. This is likely to be an area of business that is quite
competitive, where the pioneers take the risks in the hope of securing
good early distribution arrangements, image, reputation and market
share. Gross profit margins are likely to be high, but overheads, in the
form of costs of research, development, advertising, market education,
and low economies of scale, are normally high, and can cause initial
business development in this area to be loss-making until the product
moves into the rising star category, which is by no means assured - many
problem children products remain as such.
rising star - Or 'star' products, are those which have good market share
in a strong and growing market. As a product moves into this category it
is commonly known as a 'rising star'. When a market is strong and still
growing, competition is not yet fully established. Demand is strong;
saturation or over-supply do not exists, and so pricing is relatively
unhindered. This all means that these products produce very good returns
and profitability. The market is receptive and educated, which optimises
selling efficiencies and margins. Production and manufacturing overheads
are established and costs minimised due to high volumes and good
economies of scale. These are great products and worthy of continuing
investment provided good growth potential continues to exist. When it
does not these products are likely to move down to cash cow status, and
the company needs to have the next rising stars developing from its
problem children.
After considering your business in terms of the Ansoff matrix and Boston
matrix (which are thinking aids as much as anything else, not a magic
solution in themselves), on a more detailed level, and for many
businesses just as significant as the Ansoff-type-options, what is the
significance of your major accounts - do they offer better opportunity for
growth and development than your ordinary business? Do you have a high
quality, specialised offering that delivers better business benefit on a
large scale as opposed to small scale? Are your selling costs and
investment similar for large and small contracts? If so you might do better
concentrating on developing large major accounts business, rather than
taking a sophisticated product or service solution to smaller companies
which do not appreciate or require it, and cost you just as much to sell to
as a large organization.
customer matrix
This customer matrix model is used by many companies to understand
and determine strategies according to customer types.
customers' - use your own criteria. A good way to do this is to devise your
own grading system using criteria that mean something to your own
situation. Typical criteria are: size, location, relationship, credit-rating and
payment terms, is the customer growing (or not), the security of the
supply contract, the service and support overhead required, etc. This kind
of customer profiling tool and exercise is often overlooked, but it is a
critical aspect of marketing and sales development, and of optimising
sales effectiveness and business development performance and
profitability. Each quadrant requires a different sales approach. The type
of customer also implies the type of sales person who should be
responsible for managing the relationship. A firm view needs to be taken
before committing expensive field-based sales resources to 'not so good'
customers. Focus prospect development (identifying and contacting new
prospective customers) on the profile which appears in the top left
quadrant. Identify prospective new customers who fit this profile, and
allocate your business development resources (people and advertising) to
this audience.
Consider also What are your competitor weaknesses in terms of sectors,
geographical territory and products or services, and how might these
factors affect your options? Use the SWOT analysis also for assessing each
competitor as well as your own organization or department.
Many organizations issue a marketing budget from the top down (a
budget issued by the Centre/HQ/Finance Director), so to speak, in which
case, what is your marketing budget and how can you use it to produce
the best return on investment, and to help the company best to meet its
overall business aims? Use the models described here to assess your best
likely returns on marketing investment.
The best way to begin to model and plan your marketing is to
have a record of your historical (say last year's) sales results
(including selling and advertising costs if appropriate and
available) on a spreadsheet. The level of detail is up to you; modern
spreadsheets can organize massive amounts of data and make very
complex analysis quick easy. Data is vital and will enable you to do most
of the analysis you need for marketing planning. In simple terms you can
use last year's results as a basis for planning and modelling the next
year's sales, and the marketing expenditure and activities required to
achieve them.
product
1
product
2
product
3
product
4
totals
Do the same for each important aspect of your business, for example,
split by market sector (or segment):
sector
1
sector
2
sector
3
sector
4
totals
distributo
r1
distributo
r2
distributo
r3
distributo
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r4
totals
These simple split analysis tools are an extremely effective way to plan
your sales and business. Construct a working spreadsheet so that the
bottom-right cell shows the total sales or gross margin, or profit, whatever
you need to measure, and by changing the figures within the split
(altering the mix, average prices, quantities, etc) you can carry out 'what
if?' analysis to develop the best plans.
If you are a competent working with spreadsheets it is normally
possible to assemble all of this data onto a single spreadsheet
and then show different analyses by sorting and graphing
according to different fields.
When you are happy with the overall totals for the year, convert this into a
phased monthly plan, with as many lines and columns as you need and
are appropriate for the business. Develop this spreadsheet by showing
inputs as well as sales outputs - the quantifiable activity (for example, the
numbers of enquiries necessary to produce the planned sales levels)
required to produce the planned performance. Large businesses need
extensive and multiple page spreadsheets. A business plan needs costs as
well as sales, and will show profit as well as revenue and gross margin,
but the principle is the same: plan the detailed numbers and values of
what the business performance will be, and what inputs are required to
achieve it.
Here's a free MSExcel profit and loss account template tool for
incorporating these factors and financials into a more formal phased
business trading plan, which also serves as a business forecasting and
reporting tool too. Adapt it to suit your purposes. This plan example is also
available as a PDF, see the Profit and Loss Account (P&L) Small Enterprise
Business Plan Example (PDF). The numbers could be anything: ten times
less, ten times more, a hundred times more - the principle is the same.
Consider also indirect activities that affect sales and business levels, such
as customer service. Identify key performance indicators here too, such as
customer complaints response and resolution levels and timescales.
Internal lead referral schemes, strategic partnership activity; the
performance of other direct sales activities such as sales agencies,
distributorships, export activities, licensing, etc. These performance
factors won't normally appear on a business plan spreadsheet, but a
separate plan should be made for them, otherwise they won't happen.
actions, methods and measures - not to tell the story of the past 20 years
of your particular industry.
"What you are going to sell to whom, when and how you are going to sell
it, how much contribution (gross profit) the sales produce, what the
marketing cost will be, and what will be the return on investment."
As stated above it is easiest and best to assemble all of this data onto a
spreadsheet, which then allows data to be manipulated through the
planning process, and then changed and re-projected when the trading
year is under way. The spreadsheet then becomes the basis of your sales
and marketing forecasting and results reporting tool.
As well as sales and marketing data, in most types of businesses it is also
useful to include measurable aims concerning customer service and
satisfaction.
The marketing plan will have costs that relate to a marketing budget in
the overall business plan. The marketing plan will also have revenue and
gross margin/profitability targets that relate to the turnover and
profitability in the overall business plan. This data is essentially numerical,
and so needs also some supporting narrative as to how the numbers will
be achieved - the actions - but keep the narrative concise; if it extends to
more than a half-dozen sheets make sure you put a succinct executive
summary on the front.
The marketing plan narrative could if appropriate also refer to indirect
activities such as product development, customer service, quality
assurance, training etc., if significantly relevant to achieving the
marketing plan aims.
Be pragmatic - marketing plans vary enormously depending on the type,
size and maturity of business. Above all create a plan that logically shows
how the business can best consolidate and grow its successful profitable
areas. The marketing plan should be a working and truly useful tool - if it
is, then it's probably a good one.
clearly laid out in an easy to read format (avoid lots of upper-case or fancy
fonts or italics as these are all difficult to read). Your business plan
contents and structure should be as follows:
Tip: If the business plan concerns an existing activity, use the previous
year's sales/business analysis as the basis for the next year's
sales/business plan. Adapt as necessary according to your new strategic
plans.
Your people are unlikely to have all the skills they need to help you
implement a marketing plan. You may not have all the people that you
need so you have to consider justifying and obtaining extra. Customer
service is acutely sensitive to staffing and training. Are all of your people
aware of the aims of the business, its mission statement and your sales
propositions? Do they know what their responsibilities are? How will you
measure their performance? Many of these issues feed back into the
business plan under human resources and training, where budgets need
to be available to support the investment in these areas.
This charter sets customer expectations, so be sure you can meet them.
Customers get disappointed particularly when their expectations are not
met, and when so many standards can be set at arbitrary levels, think of
each one as a promise that you should keep. Business-to-business
customers would expect to agree these standards with their suppliers and
have them recorded as part of their contracts, or as SLA's (service level
agreements). Increasingly, large customers demand SLA's to be tailored
to their own specific needs, and the process of developing these
understandings and agreements is absolutely crucial to the maintenance
and development of large contracts.
Remember an important rule about customer service: It's not so much the
failure to meet standards that causes major dissatisfaction among
customers - everyone can make a mistake - the biggest cause of upset is
the failure of suppliers to inform customers and keep them updated when
problems arise. Not being told in advance, not receiving any apology, not
getting any explanation why, and not hearing what's going to be done to
put things right, are key areas of customer dissatisfaction, and therefore
easy areas for suppliers to focus their efforts to achieve and communicate
improvements.
A special point of note for businesses that require a strong technical
profile among their service staff: these people are often reactive by
nature and so not good at taking initiative to identify and anticipate
problem areas in customer service. It's therefore helpful to establish
suitable mechanisms and responsibility to pick up problems and deal with
them - a kind of trouble-shooting capability - which can be separately
managed and monitored at a strategic level. Do not assume that
technically-oriented staff will be capable of proactively developing
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How do you use email - is it helping or hindering your business and the
quality of service you give to your customers? What internet presence and
processes do you need? How should your voice and data systems work
together? What systems need to be available to mobile staff? What
customer relationship management (CRM) systems should you have? How
should you consider all these issues to see the needs and opportunities?
IT and communications systems increasingly offer marketing and
competitive advantage to businesses in all sectors - make sure you know
hat IT can do for you and for your customers.
Premises - Review your premises and sites in light of your customer
service, distribution, and customer relationship requirements. Pay
particular attention anywhere in your organization that your customers
visit - the impression and service you give here is critical.
Reporting systems - If you can't measure it you can't manage it, and
where finance and business performance is concerned this is certainly
true. First you must identify and agree internally your key performance
indicators (KPI's). Identify every aspect of your service or performance
that is important - then you need to be able to measure it and report on it,
and where people are involved in performing to certain standards then the
standards and the reporting needs to be transparent to them also.
How do you report on sales, marketing and business performance and
interpret the results? Who needs to know? Who needs to capture the
data?
Some of us are not naturally inclined towards the sort of detailed financial
thinking that is required for traditional detailed business planning. If this is
you, you'll possess other valuable capabilities that will be useful in your
own enterprise, and you'll maybe find it helpful to use this alternative
approach to planning a new enterprise or self-employment. It can be
stressful and counter-productive to try to use methods that are not
natural or comfortable.
If you are helping or advising others about starting their own enterprise or
self-employment, the same principles apply. Not everyone is naturally
good at business planning, but everyone who dreams of being self-
employed or who wants to start and run their own independent enterprise
is capable of doing so, provided they work to their strengths, capabilities
and passions.
People running successful enterprises come in all shapes and sizes, from
all backgrounds, all ages, with skills, passions, and capabilities in any field
you can imagine. Anyone can run their own business or be successful in
self-employment given the simple determination to do so. Business and
enterprise is not just for stereotypical 'business-types'; the benefits and
advantages of being your own boss are available to us all.
Here are some pointers for people considering starting their own new
enterprise, or for helping others to do the same.
First, and especially if you are not clear of your own real strengths, or
what direction to pursue, focus on using tools to understanding your own
personality style and strengths. Then use this knowledge to imagine and
realise how your natural capabilities can be used to best effect in defining
and providing your own services or running your own enterprise.
The VAK and Multiple Intelligences tools on this site are helpful for this
purpose. They assess people's strengths completely differently to
traditional IQ or academic evaluations, which are extremely narrow and
generally not relevant at all for people who want to be their own boss.
Understanding personality is also useful since personality-type greatly
influences the way that a person approaches self-employment or running
an enterprise, and what sort of service or business to offer. The
Personality Styles page provides a lot of explanation about this.
Many people are conditioned by schools and over-cautious parents to
under-estimate their own potential and capabilities, which is a big reason
to take a fresh look at what you are good at, and to re-think and
understand better the ways that your personality type tends to be
successful in life and business.
There are many ways to be successful and independent in life aside from
building and running a conventional business and adhering to
conventional financial planning methods.
The basic economics of becoming successfully independent in any sort of
venture are actually extremely simple, and focusing on the following
simple fundamentals (a process really) can help many folk turn your
dream or an idea into a successful enterprise or self-employment reality.
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It's usually easiest to think first of these factors in terms of daily, weekly
or monthly numbers and values, and then to extend the figures to give
totals for a whole year:
1. What's your product or service? (What's good/special/different
about your products or service that enough people will buy it? And
importantly is this something that you have a real passion for? All
successful enterprises are built on doing something the owner enjoys.)
2. What does it cost to make/buy in/provide the product or
service? (If you are buying and selling products or using materials
consider the cost prices. If the main resource is your own time then attach
a cost to your labour that reflects your available time for the work and the
wage you need to draw. Divide your required annual wage by the number
of work hours available to you, and this is your notional hourly labour
cost.)
3. What price will the product/service sell for? (Ideally small
businesses need a healthy profit margin or mark-up - doubling the cost is
good if the market will accept it. A mark-up of less than 50% is cause for
concern unless you are selling products in relatively high volumes or
values. Price your products/services according to what the market will
pay, not according to your costs. Take into account your competitors and
what they charge and their relative quality. Service businesses that use
only the person's time are often very attractive and profitable because
there is no added complication of buying and holding stock - hence why
window-cleaning, sign-writing, repairs, gardening, decorating, tutoring,
writing, therapy, training, coaching and consultancy, etc., are such good
businesses for people who prefer a simple approach to self-employment
and enterprise. Consider the effect of VAT especially for 'consumer'
businesses - ie., selling to the general public - assuming your business is
or must be VAT registered. Private consumers of course are more
sensitive to VAT than business customers who can generally reclaim VAT
should you have to add it to your prices.)
4. Who will buy the product/service? (Identify your customers and
market. Do you know this for sure? Test your assumptions: this is a critical
part of the proposition and generally benefits from more thought and
research to confirm that a big enough market exists for your idea.
Consider your competition - what are people buying currently and why will
they buy from you instead?)
5. How much/many do you need to sell in a year? And how many
customers do you need? (This is a vital part of the proposition to
confirm that the gross profit (the difference between costs of bought in
products/labour and sales revenues) covers your/their financial needs
(including a living wage and other fixed costs of running the enterprise.
Again remember the affect of VAT on your selling prices if applicable.)
6. How will people know about the service/product? (You need to
understand what advertising/marketing/enquiry-generation is necessary -
activity and cost. There is usually a cost for generating new customers,
especially in the early stages of a new enterprise. Once the business is
established, say after six months to a year, 'word-of-mouth' referrals are
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• risks of getting onto cashflow difficulties if you fail to set funds aside
to pay your VAT bills (see the tax tips below)
Information about VAT (and all other tax issues) is at the UK Government
HM Revenue and Customs website: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk
VAT is not the only tax. Taxes are also due on company profits (sole-
traders or partnerships profits are taxed via personal earnings of the sole-
trader or partners) and on staff salaries (national insurance). A sole-trader
or partnership can employ staff, in which case national insurance tax is
due on salaries paid to employees, which is different to the tax that
employees pay themselves.
Failing to retain funds in a company to pay taxes is a serious problem
that's easily avoided with good early planning. Contact your tax office.
Inform them of your plans and seek their help. Tax offices are generally
extremely helpful, so ask. You can even talk to a real person on the phone
without having to breach a six-level automated menu system.
Ideally find a decent accountant too. Preferably one who comes
recommended to you. With all the greatest respect to accountants
everywhere, accountants are quite commonly very intense people, like
solicitors and scientists, very much focused on process, accuracy, rules,
etc., which in terms of personality fit can be a little at odds with the style
of many entrepreneurs. So again shop around and find an accountant with
whom you can share a joke and a beer or something from the human
world. The relationship between a business person and his/her accountant
is crucial if the business is to grow and develop significantly. Accountants
might seem at times to be from another planet, but I can assure you the
good ones are bloody magicians when it comes to business development,
especially when the figures get really interesting. The statement that one
stroke of an accountant's pen is mightier than the world's most successful
sales team, is actually true.
For many entrepreneurs, the ideal scenario is to grow your business large
enough to support the cost of a really excellent finance director, who can
take care of all the detailed legal and financial matters for you, and leave
you completely free to concentrate on growing the business -
concentrating your efforts and ideas and strategy externally towards
markets and customers, and internally towards optimizing innovation and
your staff.
See the quick tax tips below, especially for small businesses which might
not easily be able to achieve immediate and accurate control of their tax
liabilities, which is one of the major early risks for a new successful small
business.
Start-ups are especially prone to tax surprises because the first set of tax
bills can commonly be delayed, and if you fail to account properly for all
taxes due then obviously you increase the chances of spending more than
you should do, resulting in not having adequate funds to cover the
payments when they are due.
Risks are increased further if you are new to self-employment, previously
having been employed and accustomed to receiving a regular salary on
which all taxes have already been deducted, in other words 'net' of tax. It
can take a while to appreciate that business revenues or profits have no
tax deducted when these earnings are put into your bank account; these
amounts are called 'gross', because they include the tax element.
Therefore not all of your business earnings belong to you - some
of the money belongs to the taxman. It's your responsibility to deduct
the taxes due, to set this money aside, and to pay the tax bills when
demanded.
Additionally, if you are a person who is in the habit of spending everything
that you earn, you must be even more careful, since this tendency will
increase the risks of your being unable to pay your taxes.
Failing to get on top of the reality of taxes from the very beginning can
lead to serious debt and cashflow problems, which is a miserable way to
run a business.
So you must anticipate and set aside funds necessary to meet your tax
liabilities from the very start of your business, even if you do not initially
have a very accurate idea of what taxes will be due, or you lack effective
systems to calculate them - many small start-ups are in this position.
Nevertheless it is too late to start thinking about tax when the first
demands fall due.
If when starting your business you do not have information and systems
to identify and account accurately for your tax liabilities, here are two
simple quick tax tips to avoid problems with the taxman:
1. You must estimate your tax liabilities and ensure that you set aside
funds to cover these liabilities while you are banking your payments
received into the business. The easiest way to do this is to identify
the taxes applicable to your business, for example VAT and your
own personal income tax and national insurance. Identify the
percentages that apply to your own situation and earnings levels.
You can do this approximately. It does not need to be very precise.
Add these percentages together, and then set aside this percentage
of all your earnings that you receive into your business. Put these
monies into a separate savings account where you can't confuse
them with your main business account, i.e., your 'working capital'
typically held in a current account.
2. Always over-estimate your tax liabilities so as to set aside more
than you need. Having a surplus is not a problem. Having not
enough money to pay taxes because you've under-estimated tax
due is a problem; sometimes enough to kill an otherwise promising
business.
Here's an example to show how quickly and easily you can plan and set
aside a contingency to pay your tax bills, even if you've no experience or
systems to calculate them precisely. This example is based on a self-
employed consultancy-type business, like a training or coaching business,
in which there are no significant costs of sales (products or services
bought in) or overheads, i.e., revenues are effectively the profits too,
since there are minimal costs to offset against profits:
From this example you can see that setting aside 45.5% of earnings (yes
it's a lot isn't it - which is why you need to anticipate it and set the money
aside) would comfortably cover VAT and income tax liabilities. To be extra
safe and simpler in this example you could round it up to 50%. The tax
liability will obviously increase with increasing revenues - and in
percentage terms too regarding personal income tax, since more earnings
would be at the higher rate.
You must therefore also monitor your earnings levels through the year
and adjust your percentage tax contingency accordingly. As stated
already above, the risk of under-estimating tax liabilities increases the
more successful you are, because tax bills get bigger.
In truth you will have some costs to offset against the earnings figures
above, but again for the purposes of establishing a very quick principle of
saving a fixed percentage as a tax reserve until you know and can control
these liabilities more accurately, the above is a very useful simple easy
method of initially staying solvent and on top of your tax affairs, which are
for many people the most serious source of nasty financial surprises in
successful start-up businesses.
The above example is very simple, and is provided mainly for small start-
up businesses which might otherwise neglect to provide for tax liabilities.
The figures and percentages are not appropriate (but the broad principle
of forecasting and providing funds for tax liabilities is) to apply to retail
businesses for example, or businesses in which staff are employed, since
these businesses carry significant costs of sales and overheads, which
should be deducted from revenues before calculating profits and taxes
liabilities. Neither does the example take account of the various ways to
reduce tax liabilities by reinvesting profits in the business, writing off
stock, putting money into pensions, charitable donations, etc.
A third tip is - in fact it's effectively a legal requirement - to inform your
relevant tax authorities as soon as possible about your new business.
Preferably do this a few weeks before you actually begin trading. That way
you can be fully informed of the tax situation - and your best methods of
dealing with tax, because there are usually different ways, and sometimes
the differences can be worth quite a lot of money.
I do not go into more detail about tax here because it's a very complex
subject with wide variations depending on your own situation, for which
you should seek relevant information and advice from a qualified
accountant and/or the relevant tax authorities.
Keep it simple. Keep to the facts and figures. Provide evidence. Be clear
and concise. Refer to the tips about effective writing. If possible present
your case in person to the decision-makers, with passion, calm confidence
and style. Look at the tips on presentations, and assertiveness.
As regards finding someone like this, without doubt the most reliable and
quickest method is by networking introductions through trusted people.
The person you seek might be three or more links away, but if it's a friend
or associate of someone trusted, by someone who's trusted, by someone
you trust, then probably they'll be right for you. Start by talking to people
you know and asking if they know anyone, or if they know anyone who
might know anyone - and take it from there.
The chances of finding the right person in the local business listings or
directory, out of the blue and from cold, are pretty remote.
Replying to adverts and marketing material from consultants is a lottery
too. You'll find someone eventually but you'll need to kiss a lot of frogs
first, which takes ages and is not the cleverest way to spend your valuable
time.
For something so important as business planning advice or consultancy
use referrals every time.
Referrals work not only because you get to find someone trusted, but the
person you find has a reasonable assurance that you can be trusted too,
you see: good suppliers are just as choosy as good clients. It works both
ways.
Be prepared to reward the person in whatever way is appropriate and fair
(I'm thinking percentage share of incremental success beyond
expectations - perhaps even equity share if the person is really good and
you'd value their on-going contribution and help).
Often the best people won't ask for much money up front at all, but from
your point of view you will attract a lot more commitment and work
beyond the call of normal duty from them if you reward higher than they
ask or need.
Good suppliers are immensely motivated by good clients and lots of
appreciation, even if they don't want the financial reward.
Good suppliers have usually seen too many ungrateful greedy people
taking them for granted and penny pinching, and will tend to sack clients
like these without even telling them why, and move on to more deserving
enjoyable work with people who are fair and appreciative, which is how
you'll be I'm sure.
Finally, when you've found the right person, always continually agree
expectations and invite feedback about how the relationship is working,
not just how the work is going.
These are the simple rules for planning and starting your own business.
The principles also apply to planning and starting a new business within
an organisation for someone else.
In amongst the distractions and details of new business planning, it is
important to keep sight of the basic rules of new business success:
Your successful new business must offer something unique that people
want.
Uniqueness is vital because otherwise there is no reason for customers to
buy from you.
Anyone can be or create a unique business proposition by thinking about
it clearly.
Uniqueness comes in all shapes and sizes - it's chiefly being especially
good and different in a particular area, or field or sector.
Uniqueness can be in a product or service, or in a trading method, or in
you yourself, or any other aspect of your business which makes what you
are offering special and appealing to people.
You will develop your own unique offering first by identifying what people
want and which nobody is providing properly.
Second you must ensure that your chosen unique offering is also an
extension of your own passion or particular expertise or strength -
something you will love and enjoy being the best at - whatever it is.
Every successful business is built on someone's passion.
If you are an older person considering starting a new business, think about
the things you can do better than most other people - think about your
strengths and use them.
swot analysis
SWOT analysis method and examples, with
free SWOT template
The SWOT analysis is an extremely useful tool for
understanding and decision-making for all sorts of situations in business
and organizations. SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities, Threats. Information about the origins and inventors of
SWOT analysis is below. The SWOT analysis headings provide a good
framework for reviewing strategy, position and direction of a company or
business proposition, or any other idea. Completing a SWOT analysis is
very simple, and is a good subject for workshop sessions. SWOT analysis
also works well in brainstorming meetings. Use SWOT analysis for
business planning, strategic planning, competitor evaluation, marketing,
business and product development and research reports. You can also use
SWOT analysis exercises for team building games. See also PEST analysis,
which measures a business's market and potential according to external
factors; Political, Economic, Social and Technological. It is often helpful to
complete a PEST analysis prior to a SWOT analysis. See also Porter's Five
Forces model, which is used to analyse competitive position.
Here is a free SWOT analysis template worksheet (in MSWord). And the
same free SWOT analysis tool in pdf format.
If you have difficulty opening the above doc file here are two other
formats:
• SWOT Analysis Template doc file using table format instead of text-
boxes (portrait layout)
• SWOT Analysis Template doc for Apple Mac (thanks U Weissbach)
Be sure to describe the subject for the SWOT analysis clearly so that
people contributing to the analysis, and those seeing the finished SWOT
analysis, properly understand the purpose of the SWOT assessment and
implications.
strengths weaknesses
• Disadvantages of proposition?
• Advantages of proposition?
• Gaps in capabilities?
• Capabilities?
• Lack of competitive strength?
• Competitive advantages?
• Reputation, presence and
• USP's (unique selling points)?
reach?
• Resources, Assets, People?
• Financials?
• Experience, knowledge, data?
• Own known vulnerabilities?
• Financial reserves, likely
• Timescales, deadlines and
returns?
pressures?
•Marketing - reach, distribution,
• Cashflow, start-up cash-drain?
awareness?
• Continuity, supply chain
• Innovative aspects?
robustness?
• Location and geographical?
• Effects on core activities,
• Price, value, quality? distraction?
• Accreditations, qualifications, • Reliability of data, plan
certifications? predictability?
• Processes, systems, IT, • Morale, commitment,
communications? leadership?
• Cultural, attitudinal, • Accreditations, etc?
behavioural?
• Processes and systems, etc?
• Management cover,
• Management cover,
succession?
succession?
opportunities threats
• Market developments? • Political effects?
• Competitors' vulnerabilities? • Legislative effects?
• Industry or lifestyle trends? • Environmental effects?
• Technology development and • IT developments?
innovation? • Competitor intentions -
• Global influences? various?
• New markets, vertical, • Market demand?
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horizontal?
• Niche target markets?
• New technologies, services,
• Geographical, export, import? ideas?
• New USP's? • Vital contracts and partners?
• Tactics - surprise, major • Sustaining internal
contracts, etc? capabilities?
• Business and product • Obstacles faced?
development?
• Insurmountable weaknesses?
• Information and research?
• Loss of key staff?
• Partnerships, agencies,
distribution? • Sustainable financial backing?
• Volumes, production, • Economy - home, abroad?
economies?
• Seasonality, weather effects?
• Seasonal, weather, fashion
influences?
opportunities
threats
• Could develop new products.
• Legislation could impact.
• Local competitors have poor
products. • Environmental effects would
favour larger competitors.
• Profit margins will be good.
• Existing core business
• End-users respond to new distribution risk.
ideas.
• Market demand very seasonal.
• Could extend to overseas.
• Retention of key staff critical.
• New specialist applications.
•Could distract from core
• Can surprise competitors. business.
• Support core business • Possible negative publicity.
economies.
• Vulnerable to reactive attack
• Could seek better supplier by major competitors.
deals.
See also the free PEST analysis template and method, which measures a
business according to external factors; Political, Economic, Social and
Technological. It is often helpful to complete a PEST analysis prior to
competing a SWOT analysis.
failure. The Research Team were Marion Dosher, Dr Otis Benepe, Albert
Humphrey, Robert Stewart, Birger Lie.
It all began with the corporate planning trend, which seemed to appear
first at Du Pont in 1949. By 1960 every Fortune 500 company had a
'corporate planning manager' (or equivalent) and 'associations of long
range corporate planners' had sprung up in both the USA and the UK.
However a unanimous opinion developed in all of these companies that
corporate planning in the shape of long range planning was not working,
did not pay off, and was an expensive investment in futility.
It was widely held that managing change and setting realistic objectives
which carry the conviction of those responsible was difficult and often
resulted in questionable compromises.
The fact remained, despite the corporate and long range planners, that
the one and only missing link was how to get the management team
agreed and committed to a comprehensive set of action programmes.
To create this link, starting in 1960, Robert F Stewart at SRI in Menlo Park
California lead a research team to discover what was going wrong with
corporate planning, and then to find some sort of solution, or to create a
system for enabling management teams agreed and committed to
development work, which today we call 'managing change'.
The research carried on from 1960 through 1969. 1100 companies and
organizations were interviewed and a 250-item questionnaire was
designed and completed by over 5,000 executives. Seven key findings
lead to the conclusion that in corporations chief executive should be the
chief planner and that his immediate functional directors should be the
planning team. Dr Otis Benepe defined the 'Chain of Logic' which became
the core of system designed to fix the link for obtaining agreement and
commitment.
1. Values
2. Appraise
3. Motivation
4. Search
5. Select
6. Programme
7. Act
8. Monitor and repeat steps 1 2 and 3
We discovered that we could not change the values of the team nor set
the objectives for the team so we started as the first step by asking the
appraisal question ie what's good and bad about the operation. We began
the system by asking what is good and bad about the present and the
future. What is good in the present is Satisfactory, good in the future is an
Opportunity; bad in the present is a Fault and bad in the future is a
Threat. This was called the SOFT analysis.
When this was presented to Urick and Orr in 1964 at the Seminar in Long
Range Planning at the Dolder Grand in Zurich Switzerland they changed
the F to a W and called it SWOT Analysis.
SWOT was then promoted in Britain by Urick and Orr as an exercise in and
of itself. As such it has no benefit. What was necessary was the sorting of
the issues into the programme planning categories of:
The second step then becomes 'what shall the team do' about the issues
in each of these categories. The planning process was then designed
through trial and error and resulted finally in a 17 step process beginning
with SOFT/SWOT with each issue recorded separately on a single page
called a planning issue.
The first prototype was tested and published in 1966 based on the work
done at 'Erie Technological Corp' in Erie Pa. In 1970 the prototype was
brought to the UK, under the sponsorship of W H Smith & Sons plc, and
completed by 1973. The operational programme was used to merge the
CWS milling and baking operations with those of J W French Ltd.
The process has been used successfully ever since. By 2004, now, this
system has been fully developed, and proven to cope with today's
problems of setting and agreeing realistic annual objectives without
depending on outside consultants or expensive staff resources.
in conclusion
By sorting the SWOT issues into the 6 planning categories one can obtain
a system which presents a practical way of assimilating the internal and
external information about the business unit, delineating short and long
term priorities, and allowing an easy way to build the management team
which can achieve the objectives of profit growth.
This approach captures the collective agreement and commitment of
those who will ultimately have to do the work of meeting or exceeding the
objectives finally set. It permits the team leader to define and develop co-
ordinated, goal-directed actions, which underpin the overall agreed
objectives between levels of the business hierarchy.
Albert S Humphrey
August 2004
• true acronyms (which either seem like a word or make a real word,
using the first letter from each word in the full expression)
• a meaningful 'bacronym' (in which the word spelled by the acronym
relates cleverly to the expression)
Note: As facilitator it will take you a while to measure and note scores for
lots of guesses, so think how best to do this. If using the exercise as a
quick icebreaker, or if time is tight, especially if group is large, think
carefully about how many measuring exercises to include. Just one is fine
for an icebreaker. With big groups and treams issue people with tape
measures and have them score each other. Or see the examples for
simplifying the activities below.
Review the activities as appropriate for your purposes, points for example:
• What surprises did we find?
• What clues are there to people's different abilities?
• What differences are there in guessing different types of scale?
• What creative methods were used in 'measuring'.
• How does the brain guess something?
• In work/life how do we decide when to guess and when to measure,
and are these the best criteria?
• How can we make our guessing more reliable?
• (If exercises are performed in teams) are team guesses more
reliable than individual guesses?
• What merit is there in the 'Wisdom of Crowds' in guessing and
making intuitive judgments?
Depending on time and how you want to use the activities, other
materials and measuring devices can be used for different exercises, for
example:
• an angle of 30 degrees (ask people to draw two straight lines on a
sheet of paper, like two sides of a triangle - facilitator needs a protractor
for measuring)
• a square sheet of paper equal to one square metre (newspaper and
sticky tape - a square metre is for some people a surprisingly large area
- each side must measure one metre)
• or, for more adventure, which might appeal to children, explore
volume and weight with water and sand, etc, for which basically you
only need the water, sand, some plastic foodbags or balloons, and a
measuring jug (and some cleaning-up cloths...)
Nominate one team to be 'early bird' and the other team to be 'second
mouse' (or allow the group to decide this themselves, which can be an
interesting mini-exercise in its own right).
Give the teams 5-10 minutes, each to develop a 60-second presentation
(or longer for bigger groups and more learning depth) as to why their
strategy ('early bird' or 'second mouse') is best for business (or work or
life, depending on your situation).
Encourage the teams to make use of the knowledge and abilities and
views of all team members in creating their presentations.
After the two presentations chair a 5-10 minute debate between the
teams of the question:
"Early bird or second mouse: Which is the most effective strategy for
business (or work or life)?"
(Optionally, ask the teams if in light of the presentations they would prefer
to frame the question in a different way. People might now see a more
constructive approach to the question. Again this can be a useful mini-
exercise in its own right.)
After the debate hold a 'free' vote to see what the combined group now
believes about the question. Allow but do not encourage abstentions
('don't knows'). Encourage group members to vote as individuals, putting
their team loyalty to one side.
There are many possible learning areas to review after this exercise,
depending on your situation and development purposes, for example:
• different strategies for different situations - adaptability versus
consistency
• different strategies for different types of people and personalities or
organizational cultures
• assembling an argument/case/presentation in a team against a tight
deadline
• presenting a concise and convincing argument/presentation
• constructive debate and discussion - using evidence, examples,
structure, passion, etc
• (with regard to the optional re-framing of the debate question) the
significance of question wording when a group is asked a question, and
the potential to distort unhelpfully or focus helpfully on the main issue
• how groups consider and decide
• responsibility of those in authority to assist and enable clear
understanding, debate and decision-making
• dilemma of personal views versus 'team' views ('real life' examples:
parliamentary voting - keeping to the party-line, or personal
convictions/local constituency; also management dilemma in
implementing corporate policy with which a manager may personally
Many and various other studies have reported the positive powers of
human touch. For example see Leo Buscaglia on hugging and love. As
with physical exercise, human touch triggers the release of chemicals in
the brain. These are basic primitive human responses, not easily
understood, and even now only beginning to be researched and analysed
in reliable scientific terms. In time we will know what it all means and how
it all works. Meanwhile a little practical experimentation can be helpful
and enlightening. Here are some ideas:
• Based on the Hertenstien research referenced above, ask people to
work in pairs or threes and with eyes closed, to experiment in giving
their reactions to different types of touches - to the hand, by another
person's hand or fingers. Be careful and seek the entire group's
agreement before encouraging/allowing any more adventurous
touching than this. Hand touching (including handshakes) alone should
be ample to demonstrate emotions such as confidence, aggression,
timidity, reassurance, curiosity, etc., and any other reactions generated.
A third person can act as a toucher and also to observe facial
expressions and give external reaction.
• Hugging: Subject to the group's agreement, get people hugging
each other and noting their reactions and feelings. As Buscaglia
discovered, and many since then, hugging is potentially powerful
medicine. Explore implications and issues.
• Group-hug: Try it and see how it makes people feel. As a variation
split the group into two teams. Ask one team to group-hug. Then give
both teams an identical task, competing against each other (for
example sorting a pack of cards, or making ten big newspaper balls and
throwing them into a bin at the other end of the room). Ask the second
team if they want a group-hug before starting. Maybe ask the first team
if they want another group-hug. Maybe allow group-hugging at will (if
the group likes it go with it..) After the task, discuss relevance of
hugging and physical contact to teamworking and bonding, enthusiasm,
etc. Were the biggest huggers the most motivated? Is a hugging team
generally a winning team?
• Discuss with the group: what are people's own views and feelings
about what sorts of touching are acceptable, unacceptable, positive,
reassuring, supportive, etc., according to different situations. Is a gentle
pat on the back always okay? What cultural differences exist? What are
the real practical no-go areas? Shoulders? Arms? Hands? What's the
difference between a light touch and a caress? Different rules for
different genders? How do observers (other team members, customers,
etc) view touching when they see it? How do we improve our use of this
sort of body-language at work, mindful of the risks? Etc., etc.
• See also the Silent Touch exercise on Teambuilding Games page 1.
The analogy can be used in many subjects which benefit from interpreting
differences and implications within relative positions, for example:
• Self-awareness and mutual awareness - see Johari Window
• Group dynamics - see Tuckman's group theory
• Different learning and thinking styles - see VAK and Kolb
• Levels of competence and personal development - see Conscious
Competence and Kirkpatrick
• Age and generational issues - see Erikson's Life-Stage Theory
• Systems of people and organizations - see Cybernetics
• Personality - see personality styles models
• Therapy and counselling - see Emergent Knowledge and Clean
Language
• Management and motivation - see Maslow and Adams Equity Theory
and Action Centred Leadership
• McGregor's XY Theory
• Erikson's Life Stage Theory
• Mehrabian's communications theory
• Johari Window model of mutual awareness
• Conscious Competence learning model
• Herzberg's Motivators and Hygiene Factors
• Ethics and Social Responsibility
• Cybernetics
• Some people will relate readily to the idea of using symbolic words;
others will prefer to use only words which conventionally describe a
personality.
• Emphasise that people should try to use words which genuinely and
honestly represent themselves.
• The facilitator reserves the right to deduct points from any team
where a word is considered to be too obscure and not strongly
representative of the person, and to award bonus points where a
particularly difficult describing word is correctly allocated.
• Where several teams play the game, the initial review of
correct/incorrect answers - as teams move from one table to another -
needs to be planned and controlled appropriately. Ensure teams are
instructed not to move the describers arranged by the guessing
team, instead to show the correct answers on a separate sheet of
paper, which can be used to manage the awarding of points.
• Where it is not possible to form equal team sizes (for example with
groups of 7, 11, 13, 17, etc) the facilitator is advised to to rule
beforehand (that either): team totals will be adjusted pro-rate to take
account of the imbalance; or that since there is both advantage and
disadvantage in having a larger/smaller team, no points adjustment is
warranted. The important thing is to decide beforehand rather than be
caught out mid-exercise without a firm rule.
• It is perfectly possible to play this game using ordinary pens/pencils
and paper (rather than thicker marker pens), although visibility is
reduced and so is less effective, especially for larger groups.
to reveal or discuss their aims with the group unless they want to, since
for some people this enables more relaxed and creative thinking.
twice. Etc, etc. The winners are the last with their egg intact. (If you are
disturbed by the wastefulness of this game don't play it.)
Upside-down Drinking Game - not recommended after a heavy meal or
drinking session. Can be played in teams of three - one upside-down
(standing on head) being supported by a team-mate, being fed a half-pint
of a suitable drink from a suitable receptacle. Drinking straws are optional
at the discretion of the party games organiser. The winning team is the
first to consume the drink. For additional challenge make the drink a pint
and require each team member to take a turn in each of the three
positions - holding, feeding and drinking.
Be careful when planning games to ensure that they are appropriate for
your situation. I accept no liability for any untoward issues arising.
To extend the activity you can add the requirement that teams must
indicate where training or preparation needs are most likely required for
any of the process elements. Similar instruction can be given to indicate
or comment on obvious needs for knowledge, experience, skills, which can
be related to VAK learning styles and/or Bloom's Taxonomy perspectives.
Additionally you can introduce a financial element, so that plans must
show a breakdown of costs, and a structure to monitor the budget for the
project by each separate item. Note that this financial aspect can be a big
extra challenge for some learners and is best excluded if the main
development need is to learn the basic structure and process of building a
project plan.
Examples of other tasks you can use for this activity:
• Cook a roast dinner.
• Change the wheel on a car.
• Host a children's birthday party.
• Teach someone to swim.
• Grow tomatoes.
• Set up a fish aquarium.
• Create a personal page on a social networking website.
You can use any task that group members basically understand and relate
to, and importantly which breaks down into a sequence of inter-dependent
activities and/or parts whose timing and coordination are necessary to
produce a successful result.
Project plans can be presented, discussed and reviewed according to your
own situation and timings.
See project management for lots of supporting materials.
Brainstorming is a useful way to begin any planning task.
Delegation is a useful reference area because in many real work-based
projects involve delegating responsibilities to others, for which clarity and
effectiveness of plans are vital.
Other potentially useful reference materials, depending on the expertise
and interests of the group are:
Business process modelling/improvement
Quality management
Six Sigma
Balanced Scorecard
Activity notes:
As facilitator it is recommended you practice the suggested cutting
solution so that if necessary you can demonstrate it (before or afterwards,
depending on your adaptation) to the group.
Beware of using this activity in any situation that could cause
embarrassment to overweight people or where delegates would be
uncomfortable with the inter-personal proximity required.
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the cutting/tearing by instructing that all group members must take a turn
at cutting/tearing. Team members can also plan the step-through strategy
and other logistical aspects of the exercise.
You will be surprised how large a ring can be created. An A4 sheet easily
makes a ring circumference of 3m. A big newspaper sheet easily produces
a ring circumference of 7m.
so as to make it difficult for the group to determine which is the true fact
and which is the lie.
You have 30 seconds to think of your statements, after which (according
to the order decided by the facilitator) each person makes their
statements, pausing after each truth and lie for the group to decide which
is which.
While producing some amusement, the exercise can reveal surprising and
impressive information about people (hidden talents and claims to fame,
etc). The activity can therefore be useful for team-building from a Johari
awareness viewpoint, and it also stimulates creative thinking and group
interaction. The exercise also requires group analysis and decision-making
in deciding which are the true statements and which are the lies.
Gardner's Multiple Intelligences model is a useful reference if using the
exercise to illustrate the nature of individual natural or hidden capabilities.
(This exercise is adapted from the Armstrong and Miller comedy sketch.
Adapt it further to suit your own purposes.)
Review:
Simply by asking people to explain their answers briefly to the
group/team.
The exercise can be varied and expanded for groups in which people know
each other:
• Ask people to write their answers on a slip of paper (in handwriting
that cannot easily be identified), and to fold the slips and put them in
the middle of the table.
• In turn group members must each pick a slip of paper from the pile
and read the answer aloud.
• On hearing all the answers, group members must then try to match
the answers to the people present.
And so on.
Time spent by each person in turn on the drawing is limited to 5 seconds.
(The facilitator can shout 'change' when appropriate.)
No discussion is permitted during the drawing, nor any agreement before
the drawing of what the team will draw.
The drawing must be completed in one minute.
Optional review (short version of exercise), for example:
• Did the team draw anything recognizable?
• How easy was the understanding between team members?
• How did team members work differently on this task?
• What was the effect of time pressure?
• Was there a natural tendency to draw supportively and
harmoniously, or were there more conflicting ideas?
Continue without the above review for a longer activity, involving scoring
and a winning team:
After one minute of drawing each team must agree privately a description
(maximum three words) of what they have drawn, and pass this to the
facilitator, to be referred to later. Teams must identify their drawing with a
team name.
The drawings are then passed around the group for each team to guess
and write on the reverse of other team's drawings what they believe the
drawing is or represents.
Teams are not permitted to look at the reverse of the drawings (at other
descriptions guessed) until they have decided on a description.
Drawings are awarded two points for each exact correct description
achieved, or a point for a partly correct description.
Teams are awarded two points for each correct description guessed, or a
point for a partly correct description guessed.
(Drawings/teams can be scored by the teams themselves, which is much
quicker than the facilitator doing the scoring.)
If you score the exercise, ensure teams are instructed to put their team
name on their drawing, and alongside their guessed descriptions on the
reverse of all other drawings.
Final review, examples:
• What factors enabled teams to produce recognizable drawings?
• What factors led to drawings being unrecognizable?
• Are 'drawing' skills especially helpful in this exercise, or are other
capabilities more significant?
Variations:
Teams can be told to agree what they are to draw at the beginning of the
exercise.
Deduct ten points for teams drawing any of the following 'obvious'
subjects: cat, house, car, man, woman, spacecraft, etc.
Award bonus points for teams drawing anything highly obscure and yet
recognizable, especially if resulting from no prior discussion.
When the facilitator calls out 'team change', one person and the drawing
must move to a different team, (which can be likened to certain changes
that happen in real organizational work teams). It produces complete
chaos of course.
You will think of many other review points depending on the situation.
Larger teams need more time to ensure everyone learns something new
and ideally establishes an interesting connection with each other team
member.
Examples of questions people can ask each other, if they need prompting:
• What is your passion in life?
• Where would you most like to visit/travel?
• What would you change if you could?
• What music/food/weather do you most enjoy?
• What do you like best: words, numbers, pictures or sounds?
• What is your most under-used strength?
Younger people might be happier with questions about less deep subjects,
which is fine. Guide the group as you consider appropriate.
Some related reference materials:
Johari Window
Multiple Intelligences
Personality types and models
Scoring is one point for each ball closest to the 'jack' ball. If a team gets
say three or four of its balls closer than the balls of any other team then
three or four points would be scored accordingly. The potential to score
high - notably for big groups split into big teams - means a winning team
can emerge surprisingly late, which sustains full involvement of all
players.
Equipment:
• A floor or corridor giving at least 5'x15' playing area.
• A sheet of newspaper for each player.
• A different coloured roll of electricians insulating tape for each team
(to differentiate their balls from other teams).
• Tape measure for the facilitator.
The larger the floor area then the more energetic the game will tend to
be. The game can also be played outside provided there is no strong wind.
(For a more messy game outside for kids, supply a bucket of water and
instruct that the balls should be wet..)
Instruction: The winner is the player/team who rolls or throws their ball(s)
to stop nearest the 'jack' (a smaller ball, suitably different, rolled by the
facilitator or a contestant to the far end of the playing area).
Decide order of play, which should be a player from each team in turn.
Variations/rules:
• Play a specified number of 'ends' (rounds), totalling the points to
produce the eventual overall winning team.
• Or play 'ends' until a team reaches say five points. Or more points
for a longer game. (Decide a points target mindful of total maximum
score per round per team - for example teams of five can potentially
score five points in one round.)
• A player may roll or throw his/her ball at another player's/team's ball
to dislodge it or achieve a position nearer the jack.
• You'll need a clearly understood rule in the event of the jack being
hit out of the playing area, if this can happen. (For example replace the
jack to its starting position, which should therefore be marked by the
facilitator; or mark the position at which the jack left the playing area as
the target.)
• If you are running this as a reasonably big activity, offer a trial game
first for players to practise, develop tactics, and to clarify rules.
• In any event, you can offer players the chance to practise rolling
their balls a few times before the start of the game (they'll probably do
this anyway..).
The game is very adaptable. Consider and decide your own rules and
scoring for your own situation.
If playing the game with individuals (for example in a small group of five),
allow players two balls each. This makes the game more interesting for
individuals, in which the order of throwing can be reversed for the second
ball, making it fairer for all, assuming playing only one 'end'.
Or play big 'marbles' instead - best on a square playing area - in which
players eliminate other players by rolling their ball to hit another player's
balls. Players take turns to roll their balls. The winner is the last player
remaining whose ball has not been hit by another ball. Players have to
decide how close to risk leaving their balls to other balls, so it becomes
quite a tactical exercise. Simplest rule here is to eliminate only the first
ball hit with each roll, not rebounds.
See also the bin toss game, and newspaper towers, for other newspaper
games ideas.
Review points, optional, chiefly for team play, for example:
• Would you use different tactics, knowing now how the game is
played?
• Was the teamwork good or could it have been better, if so how?
• Did the construction (of the balls) affect the quality of
play/performance?
• How competitive did the exercise feel? Why?
• What advantages arise from playing in a team?
• How would you change/develop the game to improve it?
• Ask people to keep their thoughts private - and then consider the
review points below.
• Or ask people to explain to the group briefly their chosen thirty
seconds and why.
• Or - if review time is limited or if it suits your purposes better - ask
people to review/discuss in pairs
• Or if working with a large group arrange the group into small self-
leading/facilitating teams.
Variations:
Exclude sex from highlights if there is a risk that it will unhelpfully distract,
embarrass or be too dominant.
Shorten and concentrate the exercise by reducing the highlights time
period from thirty to ten seconds, or lengthen and deepen the exercise by
increasing the time period to ten minutes or an hour.
Note: To make the exercise more dynamic and forward-looking
you can encourage people to consider especially life highlights
which can be repeated or extended in some way. (Childbirth is for
many people a highlight which is not likely to be repeatable,
although this can of course prompt thoughts and discussions
about the importance of family compared to other life issues.)
Useful reference models:
Johari Window (self/mutual awareness)
Maslow (motivation and Hierarchy of Needs)
Herzberg, Adams, and Personality Theory
Passion to Profit (career/new business start-up process/template)
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This website accepts no liability for any marital or romantic strife arising if
you play this game socially in couples, especially under the influence of
drink or other inhibition-reducing substance.
(Thanks H)
Review points:
• Isn't it amazing how many signals can be conveyed without spoken
or written words?..
• The section on body language provides useful background theory
about non-verbal communications.
• It's one thing to devise a communications system or set of
communications rules - it's quite another challenge to ensure everyone
understands it and uses it properly.
• Vital parts of communications systems/rules work best when people
can remember them, without having to refer to complicated
instructions.
• Complex communications systems/rules are often very good in
theory, but difficult to apply in practice because they entail an
additional dimension - represented in this game by the code key -
equating to a reference or instruction manual, which in real work
situations people often fail to use, understand, keep updated, etc.
• Written instructions and reference guides are obviously important
for quality management and training, etc., and for the operation of all
complex/vital functions, but the fundamental rules of communications
(and other critical organisational activities) are best kept as simple,
intuitive and memorable as possible, so that core performance is not
hindered or made unnecessarily complicated.
• In terms of this exercise, conveying the communication is only half
the communications process - the other half is checking the
communication has been received and correctly understood.
• In terms of wider organisational communications other subsequent
steps are required, notably ensuring that the communication is agreed
and acted upon, which involves management areas such as: motivation
(within which models such as Adams' Equity Theory, and Maslow's
Hierarchy of Needs are helpful); delegation, especially follow up; and
project management, within which reporting and monitoring are vital.
their position once a ball has been Three team members are
placed into the transporter tube and positioned at, say, 12, 4 and 8
the transporting commenced. o'clock, each of whom has a string
connected to the top of the
• (Strings need to be tied to the transporter tube, and a fourth
transporter tube not only to move the team member, say, at 6 o'clock,
has a string connected to the
tube, but also to tip it, in order to
bottom of the transporter tube to
deposit the ball into the receptor. The enable the tipping. The ball is
facilitator does not need to tell the placed in the transporter tube, say
team(s) this unless failing to realise by the team member at 12
this becomes counter-productive.) o'clock. At this time no one can
move from their position. The
people at 4 and 8 take up the
Variations and preparation ideas: slack while 12 string is kept tight
enabling the tube to be lifted.
• Large groups can be split into While 4 and 8 pull the tube
competing teams - each with their own towards the clockface centre, 12
equipment and floor-space/table. plays out, keeping a tight string.
When the tube is in the correct
• Optionally give groups position for tipping, 6 can pull,
planning/preparation time. while the other three strings stay
tight to keep the tube's position,
• Introduce penalties for dropped balls, or adjust as necessary.
dislodging/upsetting the receptor tube,
team members moving illegally, etc. As you can perhaps now imagine,
putting six people into a team,
• Introduce more awkward items for compared to four, tends to
transporting, e.g., coins, pens, increase the difficulty because of
chocolate snack bars, etc. the risks of top/bottom strings
crossing, the complexity of
• At its simplest the game is to gauging who needs to pull and
transport just one ball. Increase balls who needs to play out or slacken
off, and the general confusion
and complexity as you wish. resulting from a bigger team
making more inputs.
Given the variation and interesting
dynamics within this exercise you are You will see various creative
solutions, often by bigger teams,
especially recommended to test it involving for example:
first with a group so you can understand
how it works and the sort of controls and • the construction of a sort of
guidance or freedoms that you would like cable-car solution, in which
the tube can be pulled,
to apply for your own situation. It's a very suspended from strings
flexible concept; adapt it to suit your acting as 'cables' threaded
needs. through the top of the tube
You can devise your own situations besides these to suit your purposes.
There are countless other possible situations.
Issue one situation for the whole group, or allocate a different situation to
each team member or pair/team to work on. (Increasing the variety of
situations allocated will tend to increase the time of the activity and
especially its review).
Ask people to work individually or in small teams to devise their questions.
Ask people to work in pairs or threes to test and reflect and refine (and
maybe role-play) the questions.
Give a time limit for questions preparation, and a separate time limit for
testing/role-playing.
There are no absolute 'right' or best questions - there are many effective
questions, depending on the situation and people's needs, but there are
certainly questions which do not work well and which should be avoided.
Review informally via discussion:
• Are there advantages in preparing important questions, rather than
relying on instinct or invention at the time?
• What else happens while we ask questions, aside from the words
between us? (Explore body language and non-verbal communications.)
• What sort of questions are least effective and should be avoided?
(Try to identify characteristics of ineffective questions.)
N.B. This exercise does not suggest that we can or should use
merely one question to identify solutions for anything, especially
crucial partnerships. The purpose of the exercise is to focus
attention on quality, relevance, style and preparation of
questioning, according to the situation and people involved.
Questioning is powerful and helpful when prepared well, but wastes
everyone's time and creates problems when it is not.
The activity can of course be expanded by allowing/instructing people to
devise more than one question, or potentially to devise an entire
questioning strategy for a given situation.
Whatever you do in the review, ensure people understand the nature and
purposes of open and closed questions, which is explained in the
Questioning section of the sales training page.
The activity is quickest when teams are smallest. Minimum team size is
four.
Instruction to group/teams:
We all tend to classify and stereotype each other - 'pigeon-holing' is a
common expression for this.
Usually this sort of classification is subjective, unhelpfully judgemental,
and sometimes of course it's unfair to the point of being illegal
discrimination.
Discuss/introduce yourselves in your team(s).
Discover a way to divide or classify yourselves evenly into two/three/four
subgroups within your team(s) by using criteria (ways of
classifiying/describing people) which contain no negative or prejudicial or
good/bad discriminatory judgements.
Optional briefing:
Examples of criteria to evenly divide/classify the team according to -
• late-night people and early-morning people, or
• what sort of weather we like, or
• what sort of food we like, or
• what we like to do for fun, or
• our fears, or
• what we would change in the world..
If as a facilitator you use these examples feel free to instruct the group to
think of their own ideas, and not merely to use one of the examples.
More complexity and/or specific focus on a subject can be suggested, for
example:
• what we know/imagine our personality profiles to be, or
• our own body language, or
• our strongest capability or learning style
Here are some suggestions of well-known pictures to use for this exercise:
Sunflowers (Van Gogh)
Venus and Mars (Botticelli)
The Hay Wain (Constable)
Bathers at Asnières (Seurat)
London Underground Tube Map
The Bayeux Tapestry (lots of work there..)
These are just examples - choose a picture (or diagram or map, etc) that
appeals to your group, and which when cut into pieces gives sufficient
detail to work on.
Other ideas for pictures: geographical maps and weather maps, biological
diagrams, well-known posters and cartoons.
You can adapt the exercise by altering the 'ten-times widthand length
dimensions' enlargement factor, for instance five-times would make the
task easier and quicker; twenty or a hundred-times would make it more
difficult and longer, (and also more impactful, if you have time and space,
and enough paper drawing materials...)
The task can be made more complex for large groups by:
• splitting the group into teams, so that teams work on individual
pieces (of suitably large size),
• either clearly instructing, or enabling the opportunity for, each team
to cut its piece of the picture into smaller pieces, giving one smaller
piece to each team member
The resulting assembled whole picture will indicate how well each team
communicated and managed its own divisionalization of the task.
The basic game (for two teams, or people in pairs, playing each
other):
Put fifteen coins (or cards, or keys, or anything) between the contestants.
Explain the rules:
Activities and exercises for group selection days and assessment centres
can be designed to stretch the participants more if the task is issued
several days before the day of the assessment. This allows more
preparation and team-working among the candidates, which in turn
enables a fuller deeper test and demonstration of people's capabilities.
The exercise can be used if issued on the day of the assessment, but
obviously due allowance must be made for the resulting time pressure in
meeting such a big challenge. Accordingly the exercise is suited to
training courses lasting two days or more when delegates can work
evenings in their team on the activities.
Here broadly is the exercise, adapt it to suit your situation:
Teamwork Project
You will need for each team about five balls of various sizes, compositions,
weights, shapes, etc., depending on team size and the team's ball-
handling skills. Five balls is probably adequate for most teams of eight
people.
Using very different balls makes the exercise work better (for example a
tennis ball, a beach ball, a rugby ball, a ping-pong ball, etc - use your
imagination).
Form each team into a circle.
The aim is to throw and catch the ball (each ball represents a work
task/objective) between team members - any order or direction.
The ball must be kept moving (the facilitator can equate this to the
processing of a task within the work situation).
Allow the team to develop their own methods/pattern for throwing the ball
between members if they find this helpful.
A dropped ball equates to a failed task (which the facilitator can equate to
a specific relevant objective). A held ball equates to a delayed task.
When the team can satisfactorily manage the first ball, the facilitator
should then introduce a second ball to be thrown and caught while the
first ball remains in circulation.
Equate the second ball to an additional task, or a typical work
complication, like a holiday, or an extra customer requirement.
Continue to introduce more balls one by one - not too fast - each time
equating them to work situations and complications.
Obviously before not too long the team is unable to manage all the balls,
and chaos ensues.
Avoid creating chaos too early by introducing too many balls too soon.
Allow the sense of increasing stress and confusion to build, according to
the ball-handling capability of the team. Introducing balls too quickly will
not allow the stress to build.
Points for review:
• Relate the experiences of the game to the work situation, especially
effective team working and communications.
• What does too much pressure and failure feel like?
• Are these feelings the same for everyone?
• Do we know how others are feeling and can best deal with stress
and confusion, unless we ask?
• How can we anticipate, manage and avoid these effects at work?
(Not easy, especially if the pressure is from above, which often it will be
- nevertheless understanding the causes and effects of stressful
confusion is the first step to resolving them).
You will perhaps think of other questions on similar lines. Use one or a
number of questions to prompt discussion and thereafter a review of the
issues.
The purpose of the game is to encourage people to think about how they
use their brains and their thinking/working/learning style preferences and
strengths.
Most people (unsurprisingly) tend to favour their sense of sight. You will
find plenty of variation aside from this however, and generally the activity
and discussion provides a quick and interesting way to explore personal
strengths and preferences without the aid of a testing instrument.
The 'five senses' are typically regarded as:
• sight
• hearing
• touch
• taste
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• smell
"Imagine you are leader of the western world. Everyone would prefer
Christmas and New Year celebrations to more suitably address the needs
and issues of the modern age. What changes would you make?"
You can add a context if you wish, for example, changes for business,
changes for society, changes for kids, changes for the planet, changes for
global cooperation, etc.
Email me suggestions and I'll publish the best ones on this page.
Ask the group to think of an example - any example, from their own
personal life (not too personal) or from work or the world of media,
politics, economy, anything.
Discuss the examples.
Discuss how and why things can seem crucial one day, yet often can soon
become completely insignificant, given a little time.
Discuss the influences of emotions, peer pressure, zietgeist, the media,
daft unquestioning management, personal mood, etc., on relationships,
strategy, decisions, work, life, etc.
Would life/work/society be better if we could all be more objective and
critical, and less led by our emotions and by others?
It's a simple formula. The numbers are linked to the full template sections
on the Career/New Business Planner page.
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1 2 3 4 5 6
The exercise does not aim to produce brilliant artwork - instead it aims to
produce fresh thinking and simple visual ideas about the issues which
cause outcomes to differ from expectations.
Successful work, business and organizations largely depend on matching
needs and delivery in one way or another.
The tree swing provides a simple way to consider the differences between
what's asked for, and what's provided, and then to explore which qualities
in each are actually fair and valid, with a view to bridging the
understanding and expectations gaps.
The activity is adaptable for young people in schools, as well as for grown-
ups in any sort of work situation.
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For everyone of course, there is also the opportunity to work with different
media - even if it's just a few boxes of cheap coloured pencils from the
pound shop.
As with so many of these self/mutual awareness activities, Johari Window
is an excellent reference model.
Individual ideas -
• Put a poem on your notice board or intranet, and see what happens.
• Send me a poem you've written about any aspect of work or
personal development, etc., and I'll publish it on this website.
• Send me a poem about charisma - and enter the charisma definition
competition.
• Next time you meet someone for the first time, ask them what they
think about poetry, and see where the discussion takes you.
You will think of many more ideas for using poetry to add fresh
perspective to work and play. Send your own ideas, and I'll add them
here.
Incidentally the word poem is derived ultimately from the Greek word
'poema' (precisely 'póēma'), meaning 'thing made or created'. The word
poet comes from Greek - poētēs - meaning 'maker'.
Review angles:
• If you can't think of anything you learned yesterday, how far back
do you need to go to find something?
• Was it learning for work, or life, or both - and what's the difference
anyway?
• How did you learn it?
• How could you measure/quantify/apply it?
• How might you transfer it/teach it to someone else?
• What will change now you've learned it?
• What further learning does it prompt or enable?
• Can you analyse the learning in terms of the Kirkpatrick model?
• Can you analyse the learning in terms of Johari Window model?
• Can you analyse the learning in terms of Multiple Intelligences
and/or VAK learning/thinking styles?
• What level of Maslow's theory does it impact?
• What aspect of Erikson's theory does it impact?
• What value would you put on it?
• What would you have paid to have learned it some while ago?
• What could you do to maximise the learning that naturally comes to
you every day, for free?
You will think of lots more angles, and plenty more suggestions will arise
in discussions.
Variations:
• What is the most useful thing you learned in the last
week/month/year/previous life?
• What did you learn at the watercooler/pub after work/party at the
weekend/on holiday?
• What did you learn on your social networking website when you
should have been 'working'?
• What's the most valuable learning you've obtained in the past
month/year and how did you get it?
• What's the most you've learned for the least cost/effort and the
least you've learned from the most cost/effort?
• List an example of your own recent learning for each of the
categories: skill, attitude, knowledge, experience. (See Bloom's
Taxonomy of Learning Domains for useful reference relating to this
aspect, and the exercise as a whole.)
Larger groups can be split into smaller work teams to explore what teams
have learned and the extent to which learning is shared and assimilated
and applied.
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Rules:
1. The winning team is the team to achieve the most (of their own)
coins grouped into a specified area, which can be designated and
measured by the facilitator before play commences by cutting or
tearing a hole in the middle of a sheet of paper, to use as a
template. The smaller the area, the more difficult the game is made.
Around 12 inches diameter is a reasonable target area. (Do not put
the paper on the table; use the paper to measure how many coins
are in the groupings at the end of the game. Groupings can be
anywhere on the table provided no coin is closer than 12 inches
from the table edge.)
2. Coin groupings must be at least 12 inches (30 cms) from the edge of
the table (i.e., any coin closer to the edge of the table than 12
inches does not count towards the grouping).
3. Each coin can be shoved once only.
4. Coins may be shoved so as to move coins of own team, or teams
may shove their coins to disrupt the groupings of other teams
(which makes the game very tactical, and is reason for each team
having similar coins since big heavy coins are generally
advantageous and easier to use than small coins).
5. Teams take turns to shove and only one team may shove a coin at a
time (although for icebreakers and big quick games a time limit can
be given instead within which teams can shove their coins freely,
which creates different tactical implications).
6. Toss a coin or draw lots to decide the order of play (which can be
offered as a tactical option in its own right).
7. State a time limit for tactical discussions between shoves.
Review points:
• Choice between disrupting competitor and building own position.
• Strategy at beginning, and how it changed during the game.
• Different approach next time in light of experience?
• Strategic advantage in order of play?
• Were the types of coins used at the best times? (Larger coins can be
more disruptive, which is useful at the end of the game, but they also
help in the early stages to crate stopping points and positions of
strength at the early parts of the game.)
• Effectiveness of team in considering strategic options and making
decisions.
• Extent to which other teams' strategy was observed or anticipated.
• Fairness of result - element of luck versus skill.
• Name the 3-5 key capabilities that a winning team would need to
perform consistently well at this game.
• Relative importance of strategy, tactical adjustment, decision-
making, and skill - any other major factors?
• If you were the national coach for this game how would you coach a
winning team?
N.B. Before the game the facilitator should consider especially the timing
of this game. It can take a long time if you have lots of teams and lots of
coins. To speed up the game and/or create a quick icebreaker exercise,
split the group into pairs, issue three coins per person, and change the
rules so that all coins must be shoved in no order (a free-for-all basically)
and the game completed within 30 seconds. This format has different
tactical implications.
Bigger groups, more teams, and more coins, all require a bigger table.
Bigger scale indoor or outdoor versions of this game are possible using
coloured tennis balls on a playground or a suitably marked floor or grass
area, in which case a hula-hoop serves as an ideal measuring template.
The facilitator can adapt this basic idea for group size, timings, and the
precise training aspects of job profiling and candidate selection,
development, qualification, etc., as will fit the group's needs and interests.
(Incidentally if anyone comes up with constructive and enlightened
answers to the last two questions I'd love to see them..)
'moneygram' activity/icebreaker
(expressing and sharing perceptions
about organizations, structures,
systems, etc - and creativity sessions
and teamworking)
This flexible activity is based on using coins to create a 'picture' or
diagram of an organizational system or structure which is relevant to the
group's work or learning.
The subject(s) chosen for the 'moneygrams' (coin pictures) are at the
facilitator's discretion, and/or can be suggested by groups, depending on
the situation.
For example, a subject could be a team, department, division, or an entire
corporation, or a market including suppliers, customers, competitors, etc.
Or a school, college, a community or an industry sector, or even a region
or country, or view of the world.
If the main aim is to express/share perceptions of a work or business
structure, then the choice of structure is obviously is significant, and the
facilitator should ensure a suitable choice. If the main aim is instead to get
people working creatively together (for instance young people in school,
or a creative workshop session) then the choice of structure is not
significant, aside from something that the group will find interesting, and
the facilitator can allow the group to choose a structure for their
'moneygram'.
The room layout must enable people to make a display on a table or floor
and for others to see the display clearly, or for the whole group to work
around on a single large display on a table.
Coins are of course various values, sizes, colours, years and designs - both
sides - and can be stacked, and some stood on their edges. As such coins
are potentially a really interesting medium for creating
pictures/patterns/diagrams which express ideas and themes of all sorts.
The exercise provides a completely different way (unlike normal words,
discussion, diagrams, etc) for people to interpret and present their own
view of a particular situation. This enables a tactile, fresh, liberating and
more objective way for people to express and share their perceptions.
The facilitator obviously needs to consider and decide the best way to
equip the group with sufficient 'materials' (coins) for the activities. For
example a mature adult group could be asked to use the coins from their
own pockets and purses. A less mature group should ideally have the
coins provided by the facilitator.
Complex themes and big require lots of coins. Happily 1p and 2p copper
coins very inexpensive materials - in fact probably cheaper than plastic
counters and play-money nowadays - and it's useful to have a plentiful
supply of coppers, or whatever is your currency equivalent. Foreign coins
add international interest and diversity if you have some. If the situation
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allows, you can ask group members to bring in their piggy banks. The
creative use of banknotes, cheques and credit cards is not recommended
for obvious reasons. Messing around with loose change carries few risks;
bigger values are not appropriate for play materials.
If you have any doubts about using real money in the exercise then
playing cards can be used instead, which offers another perspective and
different interpretations.
Be mindful of the time available for the activity and limit the complexity of
the subjects accordingly. You cannot expect anyone to map out the global
commodities market or the future of the world wide web in a five minute
icebreaker with a pocketful of change.
See also the organizational modelling activity (teambuilding games page
1), and the baking foil modelling games (this page below) which take
slightly different approaches to the same idea.
The Johari Window is a useful reference model by which to explain and
review the benefits and issues surrounding mutual awareness and
perceptions.
The money slang and history page offers some entertaining facts and
trivia on the subject.
As with any exercise much of the value comes from reviewing and
discussing the issues arising from the learning experience, and where
relevant encouraging people to determine their own preferred reactions.
See the notes on experiential learning for additional guidance in this
regard. An activity of this nature will tend to highlight various
opportunities for future clarification and follow-up actions, especially for
work-team leaders.
To shorten the exercise into a quick icebreaker simply state the scenario
and ask delegates to take 1-2 minutes to think of 3-6 leadership roles.
Then quickly gather and count the suggestions on a flip chart or
wipeboard, and close with a quick review of the most popularly suggested
team roles. Relate to Multiple Intelligence theory or Belbin's team roles
theory or another suitably relevant team roles/skills reference model.
The tendency is for the stick to rise, hence the name of the exercise,
because the collective force used to keep fingers in contact with the stick
is greater than the gravitational force (weight) of the stick. For this reason
use a stick for the exercise that is light enough for this effect to occur,
given the number of people in the team. For example a broomstick is too
heavy for a team of three people, but would be fine for a team of ten. See
the suggestions for stick types per team size below.
Other rules and guidelines:
• The stick (or any alternative item being lifted) must be rigid and not
too heavy to outweigh the initial 'lift' tendency of the team size. If it's
not rigid it makes it easy for team members to maintain finger-contact.
• Start with the stick at about chest height.
• Team members can be positioned either on one or both sides of the
stick - depending on stick length and team numbers.
• The team must return the stick to the starting position if any finger
loses contact with the stick.
• The stick must rest on fingers - the stick cannot be grasped or
pinched or held in any way.
• Typically teams are instructed to rest the stick on the outside (nail-
side or 'backs') of fingers, however specifying a side of the finger is not
critical to the activity.
• Optionally you can instruct that a finger from each hand is used,
which increases the lifting effect and the difficulty of the task. The
length of the stick and the number of team members are also factors in
this, i.e., two fingers per person requires a longer stick.
• Clarify the point at which the stick is considered 'lowered to the
ground' - underside of fingers or hands touching the ground is easier to
monitor than actually depositing the stick onto the ground, which
depending on the ground surface can be very tricky.
• There are many ways of improvising sticks. Some people use inter-
connecting tent-poles, but these are too heavy for very small teams
(the gravitational force is greater than the collective lift, which makes
the task too easy). Use your imagination - any rigid lightweight stick or
tube will do, and if you can't improvise a stick then other materials and
shapes can be used instead, as described below.
• Team size of just three people is not ideal - the activity works best
with six to a dozen per team, or even more subject to having a stick
long enough. Teams of three would be used mainly for splitting a group
of six or nine when a competitive element is required.
• The bigger the team, the longer the activity will take to complete
successfully. This is an important point - for example given a limited
time you'd be better splitting a group of twenty into two or three teams
rather than run the risk of failing to complete the task, which is not
great for teambuilding or for creating a successful mood.
• Two fingers per person (one finger each hand) creates more lifting
effect and challenge but requires a longer stick than one finger per
team member.
• Positioning team members on both sides of the stick enables bigger
teams, but can make it more difficult for the facilitator to monitor
finger-contact.
Games variations:
• Split large groups into teams, each team with their own stick, and
have a race between the teams for the first to lower the stick to the
ground. Watch for cheating. If appropriate appoint and rotate observers
for say three rounds or a knockout contest.
• Use a suitably sized square or other shape of cardboard instead of a
stick. This achieves a closer team grouping for large teams and adds a
different element to the activity if team members already know the
stick activity. Cut a big hole in the shape ideally so you can monitor
finger-contact.
• Use a hoopla hoop instead of a stick - a hoop also offers better
visibility than a sheet of cardboard.
• Start with the stick (or whatever else is used) at ground height, raise
it to shoulder height and lower it back to the ground. The challenge is
stopping it rising beyond shoulder height when it gets there.
• Issue two sticks per team - one finger for each stick - very
challenging.
• Mix up the teams for different rounds to explore the dynamics of
working in a new team even after all members understand the
challenge and the solution.
• Just before starting the exercise ask team members to press down
hard with their outstretched fingers onto the edge of a table for 30 or
60 seconds. This confuses the brain still further and increases the
tendency for the stick to rise.
of the top three factors identified within their team. Display and
compare the top three results across all teams.
• Ask half of the group to think of a successful man, and the other half
to think of a successful woman. Compare the identified characteristics
for men and women. Link the findings to style and personal strengths
and effectiveness, and potentially to discussion about gender and
equality.
• Take similar approach to illustrate and compare characteristics of
successful people in different age brackets. This can be linked to
discussions and issues concerning ageism and age discrimination.
• Take a similar approach for illustrating characteristics of successful
people according to any other relevant way of categorising people (to
your situation or session aims).
• Apply the exercise to identify success characteristics of teams or
companies.
Not all tasks can be matched with all methods, for example making a cup
of tea blindfolded is not very safe. Using a keyboard outside in the rain is
neither safe nor practicable. Use your imagination and common sense to
devise interesting and memorable combinations.
Different methods (types of change) create different pressures - on
different parts of the brain - and these effects vary according to the
individual.
It does not matter that the methods are mostly ridiculous - the point is to
demonstrate and experience the different pressures of different types of
change.
Observe and review how different people react in different ways to
different methods. We do not react to change in the same ways. Empathy
for other people's feelings is therefore crucial in managing change
affecting other people. Motivational and attitudinal models such as those
developed by Maslow and Erikson help explain why people react
differently to change. One person might feel terribly threatened by a
certain change which another person can take in their stride. Personality
has a big affect too, for example, steady dependable people can find
change more challenging than spontaneous intuitive people.
Change of any sort is difficult ultimately when:
• change requires the brain to overcome fear (of failure and self-
doubt, etc) and uncertainty of the change itself (which can be extreme
for certain people/personalities), and
• change requires the brain (and often the body too) to learn
something new, or to re-learn or accept something in a different way.
The tasks and different methods above a just a few examples. You will
think of many others more suitable to your own situation.
There are many more activities on this website which address change
from more of a mental perspective instead of the physical examples
above. Johari Window activities address a particularly useful aspect of
change, i.e., self-awareness and exposure to other people's impressions of
self.
The task also demonstrates the value of using simple clear themes and
communications - especially non-verbal signals - that an audience (staff,
customers, or any other target audience) can readily relate to and
recognize, without the need for lots of explanation and description.
If necessary brainstorm and agree the rules for charades, or prepare a
rules sheet and issue it, so that everyone has an equal chance for the
charades stage of the activity. Here is wikipedia's charades rules. You can
use a much shorter set of rules to speed up the exercise, since the point
of the activity is to think about themes and messages rather than become
experts at charades.
You can also award points to group members and to performers for
correct guesses of book/play/song/film, and for close and correct guesses
of the principles represented.
The activity can be run as a much quicker icebreaker by removing the
charades element, and simply asking group members for their suggested
themes and vehicles rather than acting them out.
You will uncover more examples related to your own situation which will
arise from this powerful yet simple little exercise.
Chiefly the exercise is for sales people, but can be used for anyone with
responsibility to plan how to use their time, and especially how best to
direct their efforts in order to maximise results and rewards.
Anyone with average skills can easily out-perform the most skilful
operator if they target their effort more strongly and effectively.
Success does not only depend on what you do. Success depends mostly
on where and how determinedly you do it.
Note: Technically 'die' is the singular for dice, and dice is the plural, as in
the famous expression 'The die is cast', which is an interesting item of
trivia, not least because it is also connected to the expression 'crossing
the Rubicon', if people are likely to be interested.
Thanks to R Chapman (no relation), for the contribution of this excellent
exercise. Incidentally die is singular for dice not plural, as I ridiculously
stated when I first posted this item, (thanks M Burgess).
Discuss with other people your and their reactions to these questions.
The facilitator can organize the groups, feedback, discussion, etc., to suit
the situation. The Johari Window model is helpful in explaining the value of
self- and mutual-awareness.
Discussion can be developed in various ways. 'Nature versus Nurture'
(genes v upbringing) is often an interesting perspective when considering
what makes us the way that we are. Also, the subject of our feet has
several strong emotional and cultural connections, which can raise
interesting questions about human behaviour and feelings from various
angles.
Other ways to develop ideas about mind-body connections, for self-
awareness and awareness of other people; types, personalities, styles,
attitudes, needs, etc:
• graphology (handwriting analysis) - including self-assessment
instrument
• multiple intelligence theory and learning styles - also including self-
assessment instruments
• personality theories - within which the four temperaments is a great
introduction which everyone can relate to
• self-hypnosis/visualisation exercise - adapt the format to suit your
purposes
• stress management - many mind-body aspects
• and for young people especially - fantasticat
N.B. Given the nature of this subject, the facilitator should consider any
potential discrimination implications.
The activity offers lots of flexibility for adaptation to suit your particular
circumstances and development aims. It challenges people to discover
new positive things about other parts of the world, to work in teams, and
then to share their discoveries with the group.
A neat addition to the exercise, if the situation allows, is to appoint some
team members as roving 'cultural advisors' to other teams if among the
group you have people with background or knowledge in the allocated
regions, and if you are very clever you could actually select and allocate
the regions with this in mind. To achieve a competitive balance each team
should be able both to offer an adviser and to benefit from the help of an
advisor from another team.
This exercise can also be adapted to provide a more modern and
meaningful interpretation of the desert island or plane crash stranded
survival exercise, which essentially encourages group members to identify
resources and to formulate a plan of action.
To do this, adapt the presentation instructions thus:
Purpose of the presentation: to identify a plan for surviving and thriving
on a personal or business level (in your allocated region/country).
This obviously does not carry the aspect of desperation present in the
traditional 'stranded' exercise - instead it gets people focusing on real
issues of diversity and personal challenge in a more useful sense.
Group members do not need to reveal their chosen order, but may do so if
happy to in the subsequent discussion.
When group members have decided and written their list of the four
animals in order of preference, you can then reveal the key for
interpreting the results.
You must emphasise that this is mostly for fun and to stimulate reflection
and discussion. People may keep their preferences and interpretations
private if they wish.
christmas quizzes
Free Christmas quizzes - Quizballs 48 (30 questions and answers) - and
last year's Quizballs 29 (20 questions and answers)
The activity format can be varied too, for example breaking the
questioning and answering into two different sections, so that teams have
a chance to work on their answers, which adds the extra difficulty of
noting or remembering the questions properly too.
Introduce more fun or additional technical aspects by issuing amusing or
obscure or very specific reading material.
Arguably no harm
comes from failing to
appreciate the detail,
variety and subtlety
and purpose of all the
designs of our coins or
banknotes, but could
we pay (pun intended)
more attention to the
detail, variety and
subtlety that exists in
other aspects of our
world - people
especially?
The world opens to us
when we become
more open ourselves
to what and who are in
it - then we see more
clearly the
opportunities and
bigger priorities we
might have been
ignoring.
Ask the person next to
you: "Tell me
something important
about you that I don't
know." Again you will
be surprised.
With a little effort we
can see and enable
more to happen, or we
merely continue (quite
understandably) to
focus on our own very
narrow priorities and
view of the world,
which when we take a
wider view often don't
seem to be so
important after all.
The picture shows nine
of the pound coin
designs. How many
others can you find?
What do they denote?
There are fourteen in
circulation (as at
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different for organizations and people), and particularly to cast aside all
assumptions and historical beliefs and practices.
The factors can be adapted according to the circumstances, and for more
complex situations (notably commercial competitor and market analysis)
can entail quite detailed research (separate from the session, or part of
the session, depending on the time available and local situation).
Essentially the exercise weighs the pros and cons of each factor from the
perspective of competitor and partner.
Emphasise to participants when making the assessment to look
continually for a fit between the other organization and their own situation
and capabilities and needs.
You will often be surprised that there are far more reasons to collaborate
than to persist with habitual aggressive or defensive competition
strategies and responses.
This is the age of collaboration. We can all benefit by checking old
assumptions.
offering
(products,
services, added
values, people,
strategic,
philosophy,
ethics, culture,
range, USP's,
price, quality,
approvals,
licences,
reputation,
gaps and
needs,
innovation,
brands -
others..)
territory
(markets,
countries,
cultures,
demographics,
penetration,
share,
coverage,
franchise,
geography,
area,
dominance,
trends -
others..)
connections
(distribution,
routes to
market,
communication
s, comms
technology, ITC,
inbound and
outbound,
advertising and
promotions, PR,
lobbying, export
import,
partners,
suppliers,
regulatory,
international,
totals/summar
y or overview
- various ways
to
score/summaris
e - for example
a point for each
significant issue
noted, or simply
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assess the
weight and
amount of
comments in
each column
Tips:
1. Using colour can make the exercise more intuitive and the results
easier to see, for example use green for pros and red for cons.
2. If developing strategy in relation to a single major 'competitor' you
can have the whole group work on one big grid, using post-it notes
or similarly ingenious display method - in which case allocate parts
of the grid to teams or pairs to work on. Or have two teams - one
work on the pros and the other the cons; or four teams or pairs,
each working on one of the four factors.
you me
style
skills
knowledge
experience
philosophy
territory
connections
other
totals/summar
y
Add other lines as appropriate. Allow and encourage people to adapt and
develop the format to suit their situations. The aim is to find points of
mutual support and compensation. Everyone is good at some things and
not so good at other things. We do best in life when we help people where
they are not strong, and this enables them where possible to help us
where we are not strong.
The activity is for diverse groups (mixed age, race, gender, religion,
and/or other types of people), but the exercise will be useful for groups of
apparently less diverse nature too. Diversity is not just about race and
religion - diversity entails all aspects of what makes people different,
which can be found in any group of people, even if initially the group
seems not very diverse at all.
The exercise is basically for the group members to create a diversity quiz
by contributing questions individually (or working in pairs or threes
depending on overall group size), and then for the group as a whole to
take the quiz (or in the same teams).
This process enables discovery of real practical local diversity issues,
instead of assuming and announcing what they might be.
If appropriate first brainstorm and/or discuss and agree/explain what
diversity means.
Here is a suggested description. Adapt it or use your own explanation to
suit the situation.
"In a social or work context diversity means difference and variation
among people. This difference and variation can be characterised by
race, gender, age, religion, physical shape and ability, social class and
background, personality and ability: any, some, or all of these.
Organizations which make the most of the natural diversity in their staff,
customers, suppliers and other partners, have a huge advantage over
organizations which fail to do so. Making the most of diversity in staff and
other people - often called inclusiveness - increases the depth and range
of behaviours and capabilities (also skills, knowledge and styles) that the
organization can call upon in meeting the needs of the increasingly
diverse market place. Recognising diversity in the market place effectively
increases the size of the market. Failing to acknowledge diversity within
and outside the organization reduces capabilities, causing the
organization to be less appealing, and to fewer people, and in some cases
creates organizational liabilities for litigation under discrimination laws.
Failure to recognise and respond to diversity often equates to
discrimination and is regarded by fair-minded people as unethical."
Here is the instruction to group members to create the quiz:
1. You have five (or 10 or 15) minutes to formulate one (or two or three)
quiz question(s) and answer(s) for a diversity quiz. You must do this
individually/in pairs/in threes.
N.B. Timings, numbers of questions and team size depends on the size of
the group, for example: work as individuals for group sizes up to 9 people;
in pairs for groups of 8-24 people; or in threes for groups of 15 and above.
Very large groups should be spilt into sub-groups with appointed
facilitators. Consider time available and number of questions needed
when deciding your parameters for the activity.
2. Tell the group: when formulating your questions and answers think
about subjects that are significant in reflecting or influencing how you,
and people like you act, think, behave, decide, etc. Questions can be
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• tourism
• monuments/buildings/bridges/rivers/lakes
• wild animals/birds/trees/plants
• national flag design/national anthem/national history/independence.
Developing quiz questions need not be the most important aspect - it's
the discussion and exploration on the way that also holds great potential
for mutual understanding, especially in a diverse group.
The outcome or ostensible 'aim' of the activity can therefore be altered
accordingly - maybe not a quiz - maybe 'ten amazing things I never knew
about my group', or 'ten amazing things my team partner(s) and I never
knew about each other'..
The concept can also be adapted into/started with a survey - when the
group goes out into a busy public area to ask people: "Could you tell me a
simple fact about your culture/country that could make a good question
and answer for a diversity quiz? (Explain if required: Diversity is
understanding and appreciating the differences between people)..."
If you run the exercise and produce some questions do let me have them
to share on the website.
Please send me quizzes created using the above exercise to share with
others, or post them onto the Businessballs free publishing Space.
Discussion and presentation format and timings are flexible and at the
discretion of the facilitator.
Save time if needs be by highlighting suggested articles in the
newspapers.
Refer delegates to relevant management or behavioural theories and
models, and/or ask that delegates do this when they present/discuss their
views/analysis.
Using this concept, ask the group, split into whatever teams or individuals
that makes sense for your situation, to visualise and then map out - in
very simple terms - one of their own main aims for the coming
year/period, quarter/lifetime, whatever.
Keep it simple. Resist getting into a lot of detail. Merely seek to
explain/reinforce the need for basic structure and sequence and the
relationship between cause and effect. This is the extent of the exercise.
The framework is:
& &
In fact the ampersand appears in a wide variety of wonderful designs; it
has provided designers through the centuries with more scope for artistic
interpretation than any other character.
The activity is simply to ask people to draw the ampersand symbol - serif
or sans serif - or a more stylised version - at the discretion of the
facilitator. (Interesting background about sans serif and serif fonts is on
the presentations page.)
It's actually not at all easy to draw a good-looking ampersand, especially if
team members are not able to see the symbol to copy it.
Knowing and recognising the ampersand equates to 'knowledge'. Being
able to draw it - to reliably produce one - equates to 'skill'. Different
things. Knowledge we can learn by observation and other sensory input.
Skill is generally only acquired from experience, practice, trial and error.
This is the heart of the activity.
Where people should draw and present their artwork attempts - and how
large and how long is permitted for the effort - is all flexible and at the
discretion of the facilitator. People can use a blank sheet of paper where
they sit, or alternatively can practise (or not), and then take turns to draw
the symbol on a flip chart. Or ask people to work in pairs or threes or even
teams, to design their definitive ampersand. Or encourage branding and
styling of people's artwork according to a particular theme, which extends
the activity beyond the basic purpose described here.
At its simplest the exercise is a two-minute icebreaker. With a bit of
imagination it can be adapted into a much bigger activity, if the idea
appeals and fits the situation.
The exercise emphasises that we can know something very simply
intimately but be incapable of reproducing it properly and expertly -
whether a printed symbol, or something more significant. The principle
extends to behaviour, style, techniques, etc.
The activity also demonstrates the significance of practice in becoming
good at something. The brain must learn how to do it, which is very
different from the brain simply recognising and being able to describe it.
Incidentally while the symbol is about 2,000 years old, the word
ampersand first appeared in the English language in around 1835. It is a
corrupted (confused) derivation of the term 'And per se', which was the
original formal name of the & symbol in glossaries and official reference
works. More about the origins of the ampersand. Explaining the history
can help position the exercise - it took 2,000 years to arrive at today's
ampersand designs - hence why it takes a bit of practice to reproduce a
good one by hand.
of humanity that will please everyone, and that we might be able to fit
into the foyer.
6. Monetary Exchange project - You are special advisor to Soros, god
of money, who has been tasked to devise an improved design of coinage
and banknotes, which better reflects people's preferences and practical
needs. Your responsibility is to suggest design, size, shape, material,
monetary values, and any other innovative ideas for a new system of
coins and banknotes.
christmas quiz
See Quizballs 29 - twenty questions and answers for parties and team
games.
Certain characters are useful for different sorts of skills development role-
plays. Where helpful or necessary also stipulate a situation that relates to
the character. Situations related to characters are especially useful in
roles-plays for disciplinary or counselling meetings, and for performance
reviews, etc. Here are some character examples. You'll be able to think of
many more:
• Superman, Lex Luthor, Batman, Catwoman, other comic book
heroes and anti-heroes (for mediation roles-plays too..)
• George Bush, Tony Blair, Nelson Mandela, Hillary and Bill Clinton,
other politicians
• Characters from Thunderbirds, Wacky Races, X-Men, Star Trek, etc
• Characters from TV Soaps; Eastenders, Coronation Street, Friends,
Sex in the City, etc
• Characters from Sci-Fi and fantasy adventure: Dr Who, James Bond,
Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins, etc
• Rupert Murdoch, Clive Thompson, Richard Branson, and other
notable corporate leaders in the news
• Cruella Deville, Snow White, Homer Simpson, other cartoon
characters
• Tom and Jerry, Roadrunner and Wile E Coyote, (for arbitration role-
plays..)
• Madonna, Naomi Campbell, Paul Gascoigne, OJ Simpson, and other
controversial celebrity figures
"The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."
(William James, 1842-1910, US psychologist and philosopher)
style and feel of products from the same organisation? Which brands are
more likely to succeed globally and which will need re-branding?
quickie 7 - groups
Essentially this is an activity for the group to organise itself into sub-
groups according to the categories you state. People should have space to
move around, and materials to create simple signs (for sub-group names).
It's up to the group to establish the sub-group sections, which many
people will find very challenging - they have to create the structure from
nothing and then fit themselves into it. The facilitator can stipulate
minimum and maximum sub-group sizes, which obviously increases or
reduces challenge of deciding the sub-group structures. Here are some
examples of subject categories. These are daft, but daft is thought-
provoking, fun, and a great leveller, which makes the topics helpful for
relating to each other in ways that are completely removed from usual
work or social groupings:
• preferred washing-up or vacuuming or decorating or gardening
methods
• favourite type of TV or show or entertainment
• leader role model
• random words, eg., 'pets/money/sport/wow', or 'table/tree/nut/leave'
(obviously the random words are effectively the sub-group structure)
• holiday destinations
• favourite music
• dream car
• preferred retirement age
A simple exercise with deep meaning, for any group size subject to
appointing discussion leaders if appropriate. Review is optional. Thoughts
can be shared and discussed or kept private; the type of review and
follow-up depends on the situation.
The purpose of the exercise is to encourage and enable people to think
creatively and imaginatively about their direction and potential. As such it
is particularly appropriate for people who are in a routine that is not of
their choosing, or who lack confidence, or who need help visualising who
they can be and what they can do.
Ask people to imagine they are 18 years old and have just received a
great set of exam results that gives them a free choice to study for a
degree or qualification at any university or college, anywhere in the world.
They also have a grant which will pay for all their fees. No loans, no debts,
no pre-conditions.
So the question is, given such a free choice, what would you study?
Put another way, what would you love to spend a year or two or
three years becoming brilliant at?
For older people emphasise that they can keep all the benefit of all their
accumulated knowledge and experience.
They can even create their own degree course to fit exactly what they
want to do.
The important thing is for people to visualise and consider what they
would do if they have a free choice.
And then either during the review discussion and sharing of ideas, or in
closing the exercise, make the following point:
You have just visualised something that is hugely important to you.
You are (depending on your religious standpoint) only here on this earth
once. You will not come back again and have another go.
So what's actually stopping you from pursuing your dreams?
In almost all cases the obstacles will be self-imposed.
Of course it's not always easy to do the things we want to do. But most
things are possible - and you don't need to go to university for three years
to start to become who you want to be and to follow a new direction. It
starts with a realisation that our future is in our own hands.
We ourselves - not anyone or anything else - determine whether we follow
and achieve our passions and potential, or instead regret never trying.
(Additional stimulus and ideas can be provided for the group in the form
of university and college course listings or examples, although people
should be encouraged to imagine their own subjects. Anything is possible.
See also the Fantasticat concept.)
members stare and sneer at the unfortunate isolated 'victim'. For very
grown-up people you can allow mild criticism directed at the 'victim'
(nothing too upsetting or personal please). In any event be careful, and do
you best to ensure that the first 'victim' is not the most vulnerable
member of the team. Preferably it should be the most confident or senior
member, and better still the team's boss. Ensure every team member that
wishes to is able to experience being the victim. The review should focus
on how 'victims' felt while isolated and being subjected to the staring or
worse by the rest of the team. The exercise demonstrates the power of
group animosity towards isolated individuals. If appropriate and helpful
you can of course end the activity with a big group hug to show that
everyone is actually still friends. (Hugging incidentally demonstrates well
the power of relationships at the positive end of the scale of human
interaction and behaviour. See the Love and Spirituality at Work section
for more supporting background to this subject.)
exercise 2 - intuition
Aside from the lessons from exercise 1 relating to victimisation, the above
activity also highlights the significance of intuitive feelings, which
although difficult to measure and articulate, are extremely significant in
relationships, teams and organisations. This next exercise augments the
first one to further illustrate the power of intuition and feelings that
resides in each of us.
Using the same or similar team(s) in terms of size, then split the team(s)
into two halves. One half of the team (called 'the watched') should stand
facing a wall unable to see the other half of the team (called 'the
watchers') which should stand together, several or many yards away from
'the watched'.
The watchers then decide among themselves which person to stare at in
'the watched' half of the team (for say 30 seconds per 'target' person).
The watchers can change whom they stare at and if so should make rough
notes about timings for the review. After an initial review you can change
the sides to ensure everyone experiences watching and being watched.
Of course 'the watched' half of the team won't know which one is being
stared at... or will they?
In the reviews you will find out if any of 'the watched' people were able to
tell intuitively who was being stared at, even though 'the watchers' were
out of sight. Also discuss generally how 'the watched' and 'the watchers'
felt, such as sensations of discomfort or disadvantage among 'the
watched', and perhaps opposite feelings among the watchers, all of which
can support learning about relationships and human interaction. For
review also is the possibility that some people in the teams are more
receptive and interested in the activity than others, which invites debate
about whether some people are more naturally intuitive than others,
which is generally believed to be so, and the implications of preferences
either way.
Experiments (and many people's own experience) indicate that many
people have an instinctive or intuitive sense of being watched, and
although there is no guarantee that your own activities will produce clear
and remarkable scientific results, the exercise will prompt interesting
feelings, discussion and an unusual diversion into the subject of intuitive
powers.
We all, irrespective of age, race, religion, gender, disability, etc., have our
own special capabilities and strengths, and it is these capabilities and
strengths that good organisations must seek to identify, assess,
encourage and utilise, regardless of age or other potentially
discriminatory factors.
When looking at the issues people will also see meanings and relevance in
their own terms, and as such discussion can help personal and mutual
discovery and awareness. There are also many parallels with modern
issues of organisational ethics and social responsibility, because at the
heart of the issue lie the forces of humanity and efficiency, which to a
lesser or greater extent we all constantly strive to reconcile.
N.B. People will not necessarily all agree a similar interpretation
of the First World War pardons. This makes it a particularly
interesting subject for debate, especially in transferring the
issues and principles and lessons to modern challenges in
organisations, and the world beyond.
Please ensure that when you use this you credit Lizzie West and mention
her website as the source: www.lizziewestlife.com.
Here are some ideas for exercises to use with this for developing good
awareness and outcomes related to globalisation, and particularly
corporate globlisation issues:
• Define 'globalisation' (or 'globalization' - either is correct) - there is
no single answer, eg: www.globalisationguide.org
• What is corporate globalisation? Is it a feature of globalisation or a
driver of it?
• What are the other drivers of globalisation and/or corporate
globalisation?
• Is globalisation and/or corporate globalisation a good thing or a bad
thing? Give examples of each.
• Is our company or organisation an example of good globalisation or
not so good globalisation?
• Name some examples of good organisations on the context of
globalisation, and some not so good ones, and say why.
• What can individual employees and teams do to ensure that the
organisation is regarded as a positive effect on globalisation and not a
negative one?
• How does globalisation relate to ethical business, the 'Triple Bottom
Line', Fairtrade, etc?
• How do customers perceive globalisation - what's good about it and
what's not good about it?
• How does globalisation relate to customer service and retention?
• What are the environmental impacts and potential advantages in
globalisation?
• Which are the subjective (matter of opinion) aspects of
globalisation, and which are the clear indisputable good and bad points?
• What would be a good three or five-point plan for an organisation to
use globalisation for good, rather than risk damage and harm?
The theme overlaps with the Tuckman model of team and group
development, which is a further useful reference point, especially for
management development and training, and particularly if extending the
discussion to the maturity of departments and teams.
For example, many people will probably be fed up with the World Cup by
now, but for delegates at meetings and training sessions who still want to
pick over the bones of what happened in Germany, and/or the wider
effects of football on life in general, here are some suggested activities
which might reap a few positive learning outcomes. There are many
parallels between football and business, management, strategy, life, etc.,
after all football is arguably more of a business than a sport (which might
be the subject of a team debate, aside from these other ideas):
Activity 1 - Split the group into pairs and give each pair five minutes to
prepare a list of five strategic changes for the improvement of football as
a sport and business, as if it were a product development or business
development project. For example how about changing the rules, because
they've essentially not been altered since the game was invented. What
about increasing the size of the goal, or reducing the number of players
on the pitch? You'll get no agreement of course, but it will get people
talking.
Activity 2 - Split the group into teams of three and ask each team to
prepare and present a critique of the management style and methods of
the FA and head coach (Sven) in the last four years, with suggestions as
to how things might have been done differently and better by the FA and
the head coach. What lessons of management and strategy might we
draw from this?
Activity 3 - For an open debate or as a team presentation exercise, ask
the question: What cultural/social/economic factors influence the success
of a nation's football team, and what do these things tell us about
fundamental trends of national economic and business performance on a
global level?
Activity 4 - Split the group into two teams. One side must prepare and
argue the motion for and the other the motion against. The facilitator
must chair proceedings or appoint a responsible person. Each side has
five minutes to prepare, and five minutes to present its case. Then allow
five minutes for debate, and then have a vote. The motion is: "Football
would be a better game and globally would be more sustainable and
appealing if FIFA were run by women rather than men." (Alternative
motion: "England would have done better at the World Cup if the FA was
run by women rather than men.")
See also the football quiz questions and answers.
The concepts above are not restricted to football - they are transferable to
any popular events that enthuse and interest people - it just takes a little
imagination to translate the themes and names for the event concerned
and relate them to 'learning parallels' found in work and organisations.
A 10-metre roll of the stuff only costs less than 50p (say 30 cents), a lot
less than a big newspaper, and it provides a lot of material for table-top
modelling and construction exercises.
People of all ages have fantastic fun making models - it's a chance for
people to discover talents they never knew they had, and for lots of
laughter from one's own efforts and seeing other people's efforts too.
Today people in organisations need to be more aware and expressive
about concepts that are intangible and not easy to write down or talk
about. Culture, diversity, attitude, belief, integrity, relationships, etc -
these are all quite tricky things to articulate and discuss using
conventional media and communications tools. Making models helps the
process of expression and realisation, because these less tangible
concepts are more related to 'feel' and 'intuition' than logic and typical
left-side-brain business and organisational processes.
Here are some simple ideas for baking foil exercises. Structure the group
to suit the situation and the timings and the outcomes you'd like to
prompt and discuss. Obviously not all individuals or teams need to be
given the same task. You can determine who does what by any method
that suits your aims and the preferences of the group. Some of these
ideas are mainly for fun; others are more potent in terms of addressing
and visualising people's own selves, and organisational challenges and
solutions:
• make a baking foil horse (you can use the same method for making
any four-legged animal)
• make an animal that represents yourself
• make a tree
• make a tree with fruit and things hanging from the branches that
represent you as a person
• make a garden with plants and tools that represent your family or
work-group
• build a set of farmyard animals
• build a farmyard
• build a farmyard that represents your family or your work-group, or
the department or the organisation
• create a set of African safari animals
• build a famous bridge or building
• build a village
• build a village that represents the organisation, in whatever way the
organisation is defined
• build models of vehicles, tools, company products, new product
ideas
• build anything that represents you
• build the highest tower or strongest bridge (see the various
newspaper construction exercises and tips on the other teambuilding
page for more ideas)
• make a baking foil plane - one that flies for a few feet when you
launch it from standing on a chair
• design a range of cars that represent the company car policy as it is
and as it should be
• create a model to represent the organisation's communications
system - how it is and how it should be
• design a new workplace layout model
• design a new reception area model
• design a new production layout
• create a model to represent the organisation - whatever parts of it
that are relevant to the session
• a model to represent the CRM process
• a representation of a particular management concept, eg.,
Tuckman, Maslow, 'conscious-competence', etc
• an inter-departmental communications model
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Using a clean flexible new material like baking foil to express ideas is
extremely liberating in today's world when people are so restricted and
confined by PC's and computer screens. God help us all when flip-charts
disappear, or when we have to work on tiny little hand-held devices to
create and express new ideas and solutions.
The world is becoming more complex and more challenging. The concepts
that people need to grasp and address are multi-faceted and multi-
dimensional. It helps therefore to work sometimes with an exciting
medium, daft as it sounds, like baking foil, to free-up people's thinking
and imagination.
See also the organisational modelling exercise on the other team-building
page for more ideas about using models to express ideas about
organisational shape and structure and culture, etc.
Ideally you need to have a space somewhere that the puzzle can be kept
and worked on during tea-breaks, should the activity over-run the initial
time-slot. This is not a problem - people will continue to work on it during
the day/session, and the ongoing activity and assembled puzzle serve as a
constant reminder to team members of the theme of cooperation and
teamwork, so don't worry (and explain this to the group once they've
started cooperating) if the puzzle is not completed in the time initially
allotted.
Here is a jigsaw puzzle pattern (in MSWord) and separately as a pdf. This
puzzle is for groups of, for example, twenty people split into five teams of
four. The puzzle needs to be significantly enlarged - at least five
to ten times bigger - for best effect, so that it's visible and usable for
lots of people, and makes a big impact. The more teams and players, the
bigger the enlargement is required (and the more pieces - achieved by
drawing and cutting more lines). The jigsaw pattern artwork needs to be
taken to a decent print/copy bureau, enlarged, printed, laminated onto
card or foam and cut by hand. If you possess basic craft skills and the
necessary equipment you can do it yourself - it's quite straightforward
really. The dashed lines are thick so as to be cut through the centre (along
the lines), which helps the puzzle assembly. You can adapt the puzzle for
more players by drawing more drawing more lines to increase the number
of pieces. The design of the puzzle is currently the businessballs logo
although you can substitute it with your own (if using the MSWord version,
via box 'fill' pattern). Someone who knows MSWord well will know how to
adapt/develop it. Use and adapt the puzzle artwork, or source your own
jigsaw puzzle, to suit your own situation.
fantasticat
See the Fantasticat page - ideas for motivating, teaching and developing
young people - grown-ups too..
Given a group of just four or six people it is generally better to split this
into two competing teams rather than run the exercise as a single group
activity, unless you have a particular reason for running a single group
exercise.
Room set-up is quickest achieved by simply asking the delegates to place
their chairs somewhere in the 'playing area', which immediately creates
the obstacle course. The facilitator can make any necessary adjustments
in case any straight-line routes exist.
Teams then have five to ten minutes (at the facilitator's discretion,
depending on time available, team size and complexity of the obstacle
course) to plan and agree a start point and a finish point through the
obstacles - in any direction - and to plan a strategy for guiding blind-
folded members through the route planned, (or for the backwards-walking
version of the exercise, to write instructions sheets for walkers to use).
So that everyone experiences being a guide and a walker you can
stipulate that every team member must negotiate the course, which
means that team members must swap roles (the guided become the
guides having completed the course). This would also require adjudicators
to swap roles with guides or walkers of their own teams.
This is a flexible exercise that allows the facilitator to decide how difficult
to make the obstacle course, how specific to be regarding start and finish
points (all teams starting at one side of the room, or leave it up to the
teams to plan their routes in any direction from one side to the other), and
the strategic complexity of the challenge (determined by team size and
number of obstacles - large teams of more than four or five people will
also require a strategy for who performs what role and when roles are
exchanged).
Additionally the facilitator can decide to stipulate whether all instructions
are spoken, (blind-folds), written (walking backwards), or a mixture of the
two methods (for example stipulate how many team members must use
either method).
Review points afterwards:
• Why did the winning team win?
• What were good strategies?
• What were good instructions and what were unhelpful ones?
• What were the unforeseen problems? (One unforeseen problem,
especially where competing teams are permitted to decide their own
start and finish points and therefore are likely to cross the routes of
other teams, is the fact that walkers of other teams will become
obstacles during the exercise)
• What adjustments to strategies and instructions were made along
the way?
• Discuss the merits of practical trials before having to decide
strategies and instructions.
• And lots more points arising from the activities.
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obstacles signed
walker's
contacte (by
name
d walker)
have chosen the same utensil to represent themselves, and to form into
sub-groupings of the same types. Fun and noise can be injected -
especially for young people or lively conferences - by asking people to
identify themselves by shouting the name of their utensil, and/or by trying
physically to look or act like the utensil.
Be prepared and on the look-out to instruct potentially large sub-groups of
'knives' into different types of knives, so that no category sub-grouping
amounts to more than 20% of the whole group.
Extend the activity by asking each group to develop a proposition as to
why their particular utensil is the best in the drawer - or 'top drawer' -
which they can present in turn to the whole group.
Further extend the activity by asking teams or players to vote (secret
ballot on slips of paper given to the facilitator) as to the utensil with most
and least value to the kitchen, thereby being able to decide the 'winners',
should the activity warrant it.
Alternatively, so as to emphasise the value of all team members and
roles, ask each team to identify a particular typical 'project' (Sunday Roast
dinner for instance) for the kitchen which demands the involvement (and
in what way) of all of the selected utensils.
Add greater depth and interest to the activities by referring to the Johari
Window and discussing mutual and self-awareness issues resulting; also
refer to personality types and styles to discuss and explore comparisons
between 'utensils' and people associating with them, and various
personality types from whatever personality models are of interest and
relevance to the group. For example, are knives most like Jung's and
Myers Briggs 'thinking' types and why? Does the meat-thermometer or the
egg-timer most equate to Belbin's 'monitor-evaluator'? What personality
types might be represented by the whisk and why? Is it possible to
identify a Belbin role with every utensil, and on what basis? Whish are the
extravert utensils and which are the introvert ones and why, and what are
their relative strengths? Etc, etc.
The exercises can of course be adapted for other types of tools instead of
those found in the top drawer of the kitchen, for example the garden
shed, or the tools associated with a particular industry, perhaps the
industry in which the delegates operate. If you stay with the kitchen
drawer theme it's probably best to avoid any reference to the 'sharpest
knife in the drawer' expression so as not to sway attitudes in this direction
- rest assured you will see plenty of people aspiring to be 'knives' as it is
without encouraging any more..
You can run the exercise for individuals or in pairs. If in pairs encourage
both people to have a go at speaking. More variety is created if you offer
different scenarios - for instance by having people pick blind which one
they must handle. Alternatively for complex scenarios you might prefer to
see how people take different approaches to the same situation.
You can additionally/alternatively ask delegates to describe their own
particular scenarios for use in the role-playing activities.
You can extend and increase the challenge within the activities by asking
the team to role-play some 'questions from the audience' at the end of
each spoken exercise, which the speaker(s) must then handle
appropriately.
Review use of language, tone, clarity, effective transfer of key points and
reasons, technical and legal correctness, and the actual reaction of other
participants to the verbal delivery/written notice.
Show a picture to the group and ask them to consider and comment on
how they interpret what's happening in the picture - what's being said,
how people feel, what the moods are, what the personalities and
motivations are, what might have caused the situation and what the
outcomes might be - as much as people can read into and interpret from
each photograph. Additionally ask the group or teams what questions they
would want to ask anyone in the picture to understand and interpret the
situation.
You can organise the group's response to each picture in different ways -
in open discussion, or split the group into pairs or threes and give them a
couple of minutes to prepare their interpretation for presentation and
discussion in turn, or split the group into two teams and see which team
can develop the best interpretation, and optionally, questions.
It's helpful, but not essential, for you to know the true situation and
outcomes in each picture (perhaps you've read the news story or the
photo is from your own collection), which will enable you to give the
actual interpretation after each picture is discussed. However one of the
main points of these exercises is appreciating the variety of
interpretations that can be derived from observing people's behaviour,
facial expressions and body language, which means that many situations
can quite reasonably be interpreted in several different ways. So knowing
and being able to give a definitive 'correct answer' is not crucial - the
main purpose of the activities is the quality of the ideas and discussion.
To prepare for the exercise, find and enlarge, or create slides of several
pictures of people in various situations. These photographs and pictures
are everywhere - on the internet, newspapers and magazines, in your own
snapshot collections and photo albums. Select photographs of people
showing facial expressions, body language, especially interacting with
other people. In addition to communications, motivation, relationships,
etc., you can link the exercise to Johari Window (the exercise will develop
people's awareness about themselves and each other from listening to the
different interpretations of the pictures) and personality (different
personalities see the same things in different ways).
The opposing team prepares and presents the case against the motion,
which is logically: "Christmas is a Pain in the Arse" (or Holidays are a Pain
in the Arse").
Begin the exercise by asking the group to organise itself into two separate
teams according to their individual views: ie., "Christmas is Brilliant" or
"Christmas is a Pain in the Arse" (or "Holidays") . Alternatively split the
group into two teams and allot the motions by flipping a coin or similar
random method.
Teams of five or six are fine provided full participation is stipulated. Teams
of more than six will be fine provided team leaders are appointed and
instructed to organise their teams into smaller work-groups to focus on
different aspects of the presentation, which can be brought together at
the end of the preparation time. For groups of more than about twenty
you can introduce a third motion, "Christmas is both Brilliant and a Pain in
the Arse, depending on your standpoint", and structure the activity for
three teams.
Timings are flexible to suit the situation, as are use of materials,
presentation devices, and number of speakers required from each team,
etc.
For preparation, as a guide, allow 5 minutes minimum, or up to 15
minutes maximum if more sophisticated presentations are appropriate.
Allow 5 minutes minimum for each presentation although you can extend
this if warranted and worthwhile.
Optionally you can allow each team to ask a stipulated number of
questions of the other team(s) at the end of the presentations.
The winning team can be decided at the end by a secret ballot, which will
tend to produce a more satisfying conclusion (even if there's no outright
winner) than a decision by the facilitator, who can vote or not, or have
casting vote in the event of a tie - it's up to you.
The facilitator should advise the teams before commencing their
preparation that the winning team will most likely be the one which
prepares and presents the clearest and fullest and most appealing case,
and if applicable asks the best questions and gives the best answers.
Obviously deciding the winner will not be a perfect science and if using
the exercise as a development activity it's important to review structure,
logical presentation, and other relevant aspects of learning as might be
appropriate. In reviewing the presentations the facilitator can award a
point for each logically presented item within the presentation, with a
bonus point for any item that is supported by credible evidence or facts or
statistics. Award bonus points for good questions and answers if
applicable, and award bonus points for particularly innovative and striking
aspects or ideas within the presentation. If using the activity as a learning
and development exercise it's helpful to explain the review criteria to the
teams at the start.
Encourage participants, particularly young people in large teams, to use
their imagination to create interesting and memorable methods of making
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exercise quicker. Split the (or each) team into two standing lines of people
facing each other, two or three feet apart. For example:
1 1
2 2
3 3
4 4
5 5
6 6
You can design other questions to suit the theme or purpose of the event.
You can provide strict instructions relating to questions and answers or
(for a simple icebreaker) just ask the people to engage in general
introductory conversation as they see fit.
You can stipulate that the facing pairs each have a turn at questioning
and answering, or that one is the questioner and the other the answerer.
Whatever, ensure that everyone has a chance to ask questions and to
give answers. If appropriate nominate one line as the questioners and the
other line as the answerers.
After a minute ask the lines to rotate as follows (one person from each
line joins the other line and both lines shuffle to face the next person:
2 1
3 1
4 2
5 3
6 4
6 5
If using the exercise as a simple icebreaker continue the process using the
same questions or general introductions. If you are using the activity
develop communication skills you can increase the sophistication of the
exercise by introducing new questions after the initial introductions, for
example:
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Continue rotating the line every minute until everyone has conversed
(questioning or answering) with every other person. Logically this takes as
many minutes as there are people in the team. Twelve people will take
twelve minutes to complete the exercise.
If using the exercise to develop or demonstrate communications skills it's
worth thinking more carefully before the exercise and explaining more
about the questions and points to review. For example, points to review
can include:
• Aside from the words spoken what else was significant in these
communications?
• What aspects were most memorable and why?
• What aspects or information were most impressive and why?
• What happens to communications when time is limited?
Obviously where team members already know each other there is no need
to needlessly go through name and position introductions, although check
beforehand as to how well people know each other rather than make
assumptions.
Where a team has an odd number of members, then you (the facilitator)
can become one of the team members in the line.
Where the purpose includes developing mutual awareness it can be useful
to refer to the Johari Window model.
(Ack C Mack)
1. Three things they'd like to be able to do better for their jobs, (and if
the organisation supports and enables 'non-work' and 'life learning'):
2. Three things they'd love to learn or do better for their life in general
- anything goes.
Then ask the team members to call out in turn their top-listed work or job
learning personal development item. Write these on the flip-chart.
This immediately identifies collective training priorities. Ask for reaction
and comment.
Then ask for people to call out in turn their second-listed work/job learning
item and write the answers on the flip-chart.
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they want to. People are vastly more committed to pursuing their own life
learning and experiences than anything else. So, the more that
organisations can help and enable this to happen for their people the
better. People develop quicker and more fully, and they obviously become
more aligned with the organisation because it is helping them to grow in
their own personal direction - far beyond the conventional provision of
work-only skills training and development.
Ask people to think about and discuss the skills, knowledge, behaviour,
maturity, experience, etc., from personal 'non-work' activities and learning
that are transferable to their work. Many people will be able to give
specific examples of where they are performing outside work in some
activity or other that is way, way, way above their status and
responsibility at work. This is the principle that we are seeking to
recognise and extend.
For example (these examples of experiences and learning and benefits
are certainly not exhaustive - they are simply a few examples):
• Sports and physical pursuits - develop fitness and determination,
leadership, discipline, commitment, teamwork, stress-management,
goal-setting, excellence, perfection, etc.
• Travel - develops cultural awareness, maturity, languages, etc.
• The Arts (art, music, writing, etc) - develops creativity,
communications, empathy, interpretation.
• History - develops cultural and political and philosophical
awareness, analytical and interpretation abilities.
• Voluntary and Care work - develops humanity, team-working,
management, leadership, decision-making, etc.
• Environmental, Animals, Natural World - develop humanity, social
responsibility and awareness, team-working, organisational and political
understanding.
• Clubs and Societies - management, planning, organisation,
communications, knowledge and information management, etc.
• Own 'sideline' business - entrepreneurialism, decision-making,
management, marketing, customer service.
one card at a time, in other words, if a player has two 4's they must wait
for two fours to be 'called'.
Interesting variations can be made to the game to add team-building and
cooperation to the activity, for example:
Have people play in pairs or threes. Deal cards to each person as normal,
but then teams can sort and swap cards between themselves so as to give
the team of two or three the best chance of one (or two - it's up to the
facilitator) of the sorted sets winning. (This is pure guesswork obviously,
but it will test people's approach to the challenge of statistical
anticipation.)
Have the group play in two or three teams (each team size ideally no
bigger six people). Deal each team twenty cards and ask them to pick the
fifteen that they wish to play with as a team. Again this is pure guesswork,
but it will challenge the teams to think about statistics, and to agree the
best tactical approach.
Other variations include prohibiting or enabling competing teams to see
the other team's cards while they are deciding which to select.
To make the games last longer and to alter the statistical perspective you
can require that suits are matched as well as numbers/picture cards.
Practise your ideas first if possible.
properly subtract 1,200 weeks (if you are very lucky). How quickly does a
week pass by? Almost the blink of an eye...
Then ask the group to close their eyes, take a few slow deep breaths, and
visualise.... (it's a bit morbid but it does concentrate the mind somewhat):
You are very close to the end your life - perhaps 'on your deathbed'. You
have a few minutes of consciousness remaining, to peacefully look back
over what you achieved, and what difference you made in the world. And
especially how you will be remembered.
So how do you want to be remembered? What did you do that
mattered? What spice did you add to people's lives? What was the
spice in your life? What will you have done that will give you a
truly good feeling at the end of your life? And so, how can you
best fulfil your own unique potential?
We rarely think about our lives this way: that we are only here for a short
time, and that what really matters is beyond money, possessions,
holidays, cars, and the bloody lottery.
Thinking deeply about our own real life purpose and fulfilment helps us to
align what we do in our work with what we want to do with the rest of our
life.
This in turn creates a platform for raising expectations and possibilities
about direction and development - pursuing personal potential rather than
simply 'working' - and finding ways to do so within our work and our life
outside it.
(As facilitator do not ask people to reveal or talk about their dreams
unless they want to. The exercise is still a powerful one when people keep
their dreams and personal aims to themselves.)
This type of visualisation exercise is also important in helping people to
take more control of their lives and decisions - becoming more self-reliant
and more pro-active towards pursuing personal dreams and potential,
instead of habitually reacting to work demands and assumptions.
strong that we cannot rise above them? What personal resolutions and
changes might we want to make?
The exercise relates also to Johari Window development, to personal life
philosophy and values, personal and self-development, and (if ideas are
expressed or presented) also provides helpful insight for team leaders,
facilitators, trainers, or recruitment selection observers in understanding
more about the people performing the exercise.
Transactional Analysis and the blame model within the TA section can be
a helpful reference to assist people in understanding more about the
forces that cause us to behave differently to what we know to be right.
See also the articles section about love and spirituality in organisations
which helps explain about bringing compassion and humanity to teams
and work.
This is page 2 of the free team building activities and games ideas on this
website.
If you'd like to share your own team building or personal development
games and ideas please send them.
see also
• team building activities page 1 - including full listing of all games
• abstract images for feelings, challenge and change
• quizballs quizzes
• amusing and fascinating origins of words, expressions and cliches
• word-play puzzles and games for quizzes and exercises
• stories and analogies for training, public-speaking and writing
• difficult puzzles for teams
delegation
delegating authority skills, tasks and the
process of effective delegation
Delegation is one of the most important management skills. These logical
rules and techniques will help you to delegate well (and will help you to
help your manager when you are being delegated a task or new
responsibility - delegation is a two-way process!). Good delegation saves
you time, develops you people, grooms a successor, and motivates. Poor
delegation will cause you frustration, demotivates and confuses the other
person, and fails to achieve the task or purpose itself. So it's a
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management skill that's worth improving. Here are the simple steps to
follow if you want to get delegation right, with different levels of
delegation freedom that you can offer.
This delegation skills guide deals with general delegation principles and
process, which is applicable to individuals and teams, or to specially
formed groups of people for individual projects (including 'virtual
teams').
Delegation is a very helpful aid for succession planning, personal
development - and seeking and encouraging promotion. It's how we grow
in the job - delegation enables us to gain experience to take on higher
responsibilities.
Effective delegation is actually crucial for effective succession. For the
successor, and for the manager too: the main task of a manager in a
growing thriving organization is ultimately to develop a successor. When
this happens everyone can move on to higher things. When it fails to
happen the succession and progression becomes dependent on bringing
in new people from outside.
Delegation can be used to develop your people people and yourself -
delegation is not just a management technique for freeing up the boss's
time. Of course there is a right way to do it. These delegation tips and
techniques are useful for bosses - and for anyone seeking or being given
delegated responsibilities.
As a giver of delegated tasks you must ensure delegation happens
properly. Just as significantly, as the recipient of delegated tasks you
have the opportunity to 'manage upwards' and suggest improvements to
the delegation process and understanding - especially if your boss could
use the help.
Managing the way you receive and agree to do delegated tasks is one of
the central skills of 'managing upwards'. Therefore while this page is
essentially written from the manager's standpoint, the principles are just
as useful for people being managed.
You must explain why the job or responsibility is being delegated. And
why to that person or people? What is its importance and relevance?
Where does it fit in the overall scheme of things?
7 Agree deadlines
When must the job be finished? Or if an ongoing duty, when are the
review dates? When are the reports due? And if the task is complex and
has parts or stages, what are the priorities?
At this point you may need to confirm understanding with the other
person of the previous points, getting ideas and interpretation. As well as
showing you that the job can be done, this helps to reinforce commitment.
Methods of checking and controlling must be agreed with the other
person. Failing to agree this in advance will cause this monitoring to seem
like interference or lack of trust.
9 Feedback on results
It is essential to let the person know how they are doing, and whether
they have achieved their aims. If not, you must review with them why
things did not go to plan, and deal with the problems. You must absorb
the consequences of failure, and pass on the credit for success.
levels of delegation
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Delegation isn't just a matter of telling someone else what to do. There is
a wide range of varying freedom that you can confer on the other person.
The more experienced and reliable the other person is, then the more
freedom you can give. The more critical the task then the more cautious
you need to be about extending a lot of freedom, especially if your job or
reputation depends on getting a good result. Take care to choose the
most appropriate style for each situation. For each example the
statements are simplified for clarity; in reality you would choose a less
abrupt style of language, depending on the person and the relationship. At
the very least, a "Please" and "Thank-you" would be included in the
requests.
It's important also to ask the other person what level of authority they feel
comfortable being given. Why guess? When you ask, you can find out for
sure and agree this with the other person. Some people are confident;
others less so. It's your responsibility to agree with them what level is
most appropriate, so that the job is done effectively and with minimal
unnecessary involvement from you. Involving the other person in agreeing
the level of delegated freedom for any particular responsibility is an
essential part of the 'contract' that you make with them.
These levels of delegation are not an exhaustive list. There are many
more shades of grey between these black-and-white examples. Take time
to discuss and adapt the agreements and 'contracts' that you make with
people regarding delegated tasks, responsibility and freedom according to
the situation.
Be creative in choosing levels of delegated responsibility, and always
check with the other person that they are comfortable with your chosen
level. People are generally capable of doing far more than you imagine.
The rate and extent of responsibility and freedom delegated to people is a
fundamental driver of organisational growth and effectiveness, the growth
and well-being of your people, and of your own development and
advancement.
The other person is trusted to assess the situation and options and is
probably competent enough to decide and implement too, but for reasons
of task importance, or competence, or perhaps externally changing
factors, the boss prefers to keep control of timing. This level of delegation
can be frustrating for people if used too often or for too long, and in any
event the reason for keeping people waiting, after they've inevitably
invested time and effort, needs to be explained.
see also
Go to businessballs homepage for more tips and materials relating to
effective management, working, career and self-development. Many,
including those below, are very relevant to delegation.
For example processes and tools:
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• Goal planning
• Project Management
And help with managing people in the theories, meaning and application
of:
• Erikson's life stages - very powerful for self-awareness - and helps
explain why have different responses to delegation
• Tuckman's 'forming storming' team model - brilliant for
understanding teams and group development
• Kolb's learning cycle and learning styles - helps explain why we
respond differently to different tasks and communications
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs - just as relevant today as ever
• Kirkpatrick's learning and training evaluation model - simple, quick
great for designing and measuring development effectiveness
balanced scorecard
kaplan and norton's organizational
performance management tool
In the beginning was darkness. We went to work, did our job (well or
otherwise) and went home - day in and day out. We did not have to worry
about targets, annual assessments, metric-driven incentives, etc. Aahh…
life was simple back then.
Then there came light. Bosses everywhere cast envious eyes towards our
transatlantic cousins whose ambition was to increase production and
efficiency year-by-year. Like eager younger siblings we trailed behind
them on the (sometimes) thorny path to enlightenment.
Early Metric-Driven Incentives - MDIs - were (generally) focused on the
financial aspects of an organization by either claiming to increase profit
margins or reduce costs. They were not always successful, for instance
driving down costs could sometimes be at the expense of quality, staff
(lost expertise) or even losing some of your customer base.
Two eminent doctors (Robert S Kaplan and David P Norton) evolved their
Balanced Scorecard system from early MDIs and jointly produced their
(apparently) ground-breaking book in 1996. Many other 'gurus' have
jumped on the Balanced Scorecard wagon and produced a plethora of
books all purporting to be the ‘Definitive' book on Balanced Scorecards.
Amazon.com shows over 4,000 books listed under Balanced Scorecards,
so take your pick - and your chances!
Then
• The financial status of the organization
• How the organization is currently structured and operating
• The level of expertise of their employees
• Customer satisfaction level
Training/Learning opportunities
1. Financial
2. Internal business processes
3. Learning & Growth (human focus, or learning and development)
4. Customer
There are many software packages on the market that claim to support
the usage of Balanced Scorecard system.
For any software to work effectively it should be:
• Compliant with your current technology platform
• Always accessible to everyone - everywhere
• Easy to understand/update/communicate
see also
• Quality Management
• Adair's Action Centred Leadership model
• McGregor's X-Y Theory
• Adams' Equity Theory
• McLelland's Motivational Theory
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
• Personality Models and Types
• NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
• Transactional Analysis
• Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences theory
• Kolb's Learning Styles
• Kirkpatrick's Learning Evaluation Model
• Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Domains (Educational Objectives)
• 360 degree appraisals tips
• Employment termination, dismissal, redundancy, letters templates
and style
• Exit interviews, questions examples, tips
• Grievance procedures letters samples for employees
• Group selection recruitment method
• Induction training checklist, template and tips
• Job interviews - tips, techniques, questions, answers
• Job descriptions, writing templates and examples
• Performance appraisals - process and appraisals form template
• Team briefing process
• Training evaluation processes
Project Agency Tel: 020 8446 7766 271
www.projectagency.com
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Even at the most simple level of working with a creative provider - for
example a hair stylist or an interior decorator - if there is an unhappy
result, it's rarely the fault of the creative person - the problem and the
ultimate responsibility belongs to the customer or specifier. Problems are
generally due to the fact the customer or specifier has not explained and
agreed 'the brief' properly, or not managed the process adequately while
it's happening.
Managing design and creative projects requires a clear methodology. For
complex tasks the project manager must be vigilant and detailed. This is
not to say you need to be 'hands-on' and constantly interfering -
absolutely not - creative people need to be given freedom to use their
abilities or you might as well ask an accountant to do the job (no offence
to accountants), however, you as project manager - or the customer -
need to allow for and anticipate everything that can arise. The key to this
is establishing clear positive open communications at the outset, and then
maintaining full mutual understanding at all times, irrespective of how
much freedom is delegated.
This is both a process and a checklist of management stages. Adapt and
use it to suit your purposes. Again, bear in mind that the full extent of the
process here is for complex design projects, but the essential
principles are transferable to any situation where a creative
person or provider is required to design something. Adapt the level
of detail and use the aspects described here to suit the purposes of your
particular design project.
• Ethical (if you build ethics in from the start you provide a valuable
reference point to maintain integrity)
• Recorded (write everything down; it's essential for clarification,
agreement, management and control)
Manage your emails and phone calls - don't let them manage you. Ideally
check at planned times, and avoid continuous notification of incoming
emails.
The more senior you are the more selective you need to be about when to
be available to receive phone calls.
Try to minimise the time that you are available to take unplanned phone
calls, unless you are in a customer-facing, reactive role (customers can be
internal too), and even if you are customer-facing, you must plan some
time-slots when you are not available, or you'll never get anything
important and pro-active done.
Challenge your own tendency to say 'yes' without scrutinising the request
- start asking and probing what's involved - find out what the real
expectations and needs are.
Really think about how you currently spend your time. If you don't know,
keep a time log for a few days to find out there's a free time management
time-log template tool here. Knowing exactly what's wrong is the first step
to improving it.
Challenge anything that could be wasting time and effort, particularly
habitual tasks, meetings and reports where responsibility is inherited or
handed down from above. Don't be a slave to a daft process or system.
Download and use the free time management assessment tool at the free
online resources section, which will help you or another person to
objectively judge your time management, and underlying issues.
Review your activities in terms of your own personal short-term and long-
term life and career goals, and prioritise your activities accordingly.
Plan preparation and creative thinking time in your diary for the long-term
jobs, because they need it. The short-term urgent tasks will always use up
all your time unless you plan to spend it otherwise.
Use a diary, and an activity planner to schedule when to do things, and
time-slots for things you know will need doing or responding to. There's a
sample time management activity schedule template with examples on
the new time management section.
Re-condition the expectations of others as to your availability and their
claim on your time - use an activity planner to help you justify why you
and not others should be prioritising your activities and time.
Manage your environment as a whole - especially at the proposed or
actual introduction of new systems, tools, technology, people, or
processes, which might threaten to generate new demands on your time.
If you accept changes without question - particularly new technology that
helps others but not you - then you will open the way for new increasing
demands on your time, or new interruptions, or new tasks and obligations.
Instead consider new technology and other changes from the point of
view of your time and efficiency. Ask yourself - is this going to save my
time or add to my burden? Managing your environment - which includes
Break big tasks down into stages and plan time-slots for them. Use project
management methods.
Now read the time management systems, techniques and training section.
Choose some of the above time management tips and commit to putting
them into effect.
Project Management
Project Agency
book to help support them. The writing of this Tips Booklet fits nicely with the company motto
“Helping organisations deliver projects effectively.” The word project can be misleading. Many
people think of large scale building works or changes in information technology. Your project may
not be as big as those quoted; preparing and writing a report, developing an internet product alongside
marketing and sales plan, relocating an office. They all need careful planning.
This tips booklet is based on the unique Project Agency Project Management System - PMS. It has
been used in many organisations and is a tried and tested and very flexible model.
You, the reader may be a one person business or working in a global company with many thousands
of workers. This book is written for all of you!! We mention senior managers. If you work alone, you
are the senior manager! Please adapt the content to fit your situation.
Ron has worked in the project and change management field for many years. He is passionate about
project management and formed Project Agency in 1995. Since then, he has written articles and
spoken at conferences and run many many project management events for a vast array of
organisations.
Project Agency run a wide variety of training events around the world, so do go to
www.projectagency.com for further information or contact us on events@projectagency.com
Good luck with all your projects and we would be delighted to receive feedback about the content of
this booklet as well as how you have managed to apply it.
Happy Reading
© Ron Rosenhead, Project Agency Ver: 3. February 2006
This Tips Booklet has been produced for open distribution to anyone. Please feel free to pass it onto friends or
colleagues. We would be delighted to hear how you used this book and how useful it has been in supporting the
delivery of your project.
If you want something more in-depth try our e-book; Deliver That Project, a Step- by- Step Training Guide. Go to
www.deliverthatproject.com or send an email to events@projectagency.com Finally, good luck with all of your
projects. We would be delighted to talk with you about any project management issues you may have. Do call
+44 (0)20 846 7766 or email events@projectagency.com
1. Develop a solid business case for your projects. Where appropriate, ensure you
obtain senior managers’ agreement before you start the project. Research points out
that too many projects are started without a firm reason or rationale. Developing a
business case will identify whether it is worth working on.
2. Ensure your project fits with the key organisational or departmental agenda or your
personal strategy. If not, why do it? Stick to priority projects.
3. Carry out risk analysis at a high level at the initiation stage. Avoid going into great
detail here – more an overview focussing on the key risks.
4. Identify at this early stage key stakeholders. Consider how much you need to consult
or involve them at the business case stage. Seek advice if necessary from senior
managers
5. Where appropriate, involve finance people in putting the business case together. They
can be great allies in helping crunch the numbers which should give credibility to
your business case.
6. Produce a written project definition statement (sometimes called PID) and use it to
inform stakeholders – see point 13. This document is ‘your contract’ to carry out the
project and should be circulated to key stakeholders.
7. Use the project definition statement to prevent creep. Use it to prevent you going
beyond the scope of the project through its use in the review process.
8. Identify in detail what will and will not be included in the project scope. Avoid
wasting time by working on those areas which should not be included – identify these
in the PID.
9. Identify who fulfils which roles in your project. Document them on the PID. Include a
paragraph to show what each person does.
10. Identify who has responsibility for what in the project e.g. project communications is
the responsibility of AD. This helps reduce doubt early in the life of the project.
11. Think ‘Team Selection’ – give some thought to who should be in your team. Analyse
whether they have the skills required to enable them to carry out their role? If not,
ensure they receive the right training. Check they are available for the period of the
project. NOTE: this includes any contactors you may need to use
12. Form a group of Project Managers. The Project Manager role can sometimes be very
lonely! Give support to each other by forming a group of Project Managers.
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Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
13. Identify who the stakeholders are for your project – those affected and ‘impacted’ by
the project. This should be an in- depth analysis which needs updating regularly.
14. Recognise early in the life of the project what is driving the project. Is it a drive to
improve quality, reduce costs or hit a particular deadline? You can only have 1.
Discuss with the sponsor what is driving the project and ensure you stick to this
throughout the project. Keep “the driver” in mind especially when you monitor and
review.
15. Hold a kick off meeting (Start up Workshop) with key stakeholders, sponsor, project
manager project team. Use the meeting to help develop the PID (see Tip 6). Identify
risks and generally plan the project. If appropriate hold new meetings at the start of a
new stage.
16. Ensure you review the project during the Defining Your Project Stage – involve your
sponsor or senior manager in this process. Remember to check progress against the
business case.
Delivery Planning
17. Create a work breakdown structure (WBS) for the project. A WBS is a key element
you will need to develop your plan. It lists out all of the activities you will need to
undertake to deliver the project. Post it notes can be a great help in developing your
WBS.
18. Group tasks under different headings once you have a list. This will enable you to
identify the chunks of work that need to be delivered, as well as put together the Gantt
chart and milestone chart.
19. Identify dependencies (or predecessors) of all activities. This will let you put together
the Gantt and milestone charts. Ensure you write them down otherwise you are trying
to carry potentially hundreds of options in your head.
20. Estimate how long each activity will take. Be aware that research points out we are
notoriously bad at estimating. You estimate a task will take 3 days. Identify how
confident you are that you can deliver in 3 days by using %
e.g. I’m only 40% certain I can deliver in 3 days. You should aim for 80%. If you
do not believe you can achieve 80% then re-calculate
21. Identify the critical path for the project. The critical path identifies those activities
which have to be completed by the due date in order to complete the project on time.
23. Are you involved in a major change project? If you are, think through the implications
of this on key stakeholders and how you may need to influence and communicate with
them.
24. Conduct Risk Assessment – carry out a full risk analysis and document it in a risk
register. Regularly review each risk to ensure you are managing them, rather than
them managing you. Appoint a person to manage each risk.
25. Develop a Gantt chart and use it to monitor progress against the plan and to involve
key stakeholders in the communications process.
26. Draw up a milestone plan. These are stages in the project. You can use the milestone
dates to check the project is where it should be. Review whether activities have been
delivered against the milestone dates and take a look forward at what needs to be
achieved to deliver the next milestone.
27. Have a clear project management monitoring and reviewing process – agreed by
senior managers - the project sponsor and the project Board, if you have one.
28. Ensure your organisation’s corporate governance structure and your project
management monitoring and control structure are compatible. If you do not know
whether this is the case then seek senior management involvement.
29. Be aware early in the project what will be monitored, how they will be monitored and
the frequency.
30. Keep accurate records of your project not only for audit purposes but to ensure you
have documents which enable you to monitor changes.
31. Use a Planned v. Actual form. It is easy to create – it allows you to monitor how you
are progressing with specific tasks – time and money. Link these forms into milestone
reviews.
32. Identify with your sponsor the type of control that is needed – loose or tight or a
variation of these, e.g. tight at the start, loose in the middle, tight at the end. Ensure
the system you develop reflects the type of control intended.
33. Agree a system for project changes – have an agreed system for monitoring and
approving changes. Use change control forms and obtain formal sign off (agreement)
by the sponsor, before action a change. Look for the impact of the change on the
project scope as well as the “key driver” - quality, and cost and time.
34. Appoint someone to be responsible for project quality especially in larger projects.
Review quality formally with the client at agreed milestone dates.
35. Make certain you have agreed who can sanction changes in the absence of your
sponsor. If you haven’t agreed this, what will you do in their absence?
36. Set a time limit for project meetings to review progress. Have an agenda with times
against each item and summarise after each item at the end of the meeting.
Project Agency Tel: 020 8446 7766 288
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Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
37. Produce action points against each item on the agenda and circulate within 24 hours
of the meeting. Use these action points to help in the creation of your next agenda.
38. Review the items on the critical path checking they are on schedule. Review risks,
review yours stakeholders and your communication plans and whether you are still on
track to deliver on time, to budget and to the required quality standard.
39. Set a tolerance figure and monitor e.g. a tolerance figure of ±5% means as long as you
are within the 5% limit you do not have to formally report. If exceed the 5% limit
(cost or time) then you need to report this to the agreed person – probably your
sponsor
40. Report progress against an end of a stage – are you on schedule? Time, cost or
quality? Ensure that if something is off schedule the person responsible for delivering
it suggests ways to bring it back on time, within budget or to hit the right quality
standard.
41. Develop an issues log to record items that may be causing concern. Review at your
project meetings.
42. See whether you are still delivering the original project benefits when reviewing your
project. If not, consider re-scoping or if appropriate abandoning the project. Do not
be afraid of abandoning a project. Better to abandon now rather than waste valuable
time, money, and resources working on something no longer required. If you close a
project early – hold a project review meeting to identify learning.
43. Produce one-page reports highlighting key issues. Agree the areas to include with the
Sponsor before writing a report.
44. Use a series of templates to support the monitoring process, e.g. milestone reporting,
change control, log, planned v. actual. Contact info@progectagency.com for more
information.
45. Apply traffic lights to illustrate how you are progressing – red, amber and green. Use
these in conjunction with milestone reports.
46. Engender honest reporting against specific deliverables, milestones, or a critical path
activity. If you do not have honest reporting imagine the consequences.
47. Agree well in advance a date to hold a post project review meeting. Put this onto the
Gantt chart.
48. Invite key stakeholders, sponsor, and project team to the post project review. If the
date is in their diary well in advance it should make it easier for them to attend
49. Focus your meeting on learning – identifying what you can use on the next project.
Share the learning with others in the organisation.
50. Check whether you have delivered the original project objectives and benefits and not
gone out of scope.
51. Make sure that you have delivered against budget, quality requirements and the end
deadline.
52. Understand how well you managed risks and your key stakeholders. Use
questionnaires to obtain feedback.
53. Prepare a list of unfinished items. Identify who will complete these after the project
and circulate to any stakeholders.
54. Hand over the project formally to another group (it is now their day job) - if
appropriate. You may need to build this into the project plan and involve them early
in the plan and at different stages throughout the project.
55. Write an end of project report and circulate. Identify in the report key learning points.
56. Close the project formally. Inform others you have done this and who is now
responsible for dealing with day to day issues.
57. Celebrate success with your team! Recognise achievement, there is nothing more
motivating.
General Tips
58. But what is a project? Why worry whether something is a project? Why not use
some of the project management processes, e.g. stakeholder analysis or use of traffic
lights to manage your work? They key principle is to deliver the piece of work using
the appropriate tools. We use the term project based working to describe this
approach.
59. Get trained! Research points out that only 61% of people have received any project
management training. Contact Project Agency on Telephone No: +44 (0) 208 446
7766 or email info@projectagency.com for more information.
60. Ensure you have the buy-in of senior managers for your project. You will need to
work hard to influence upwards and get their support.
61. What about the day job? Projects get in the way and the day job gets in the way of
projects! Many people have found that by applying project based working to day to
day activities and by being more rigorous on project work, more is achieved.
62. Identify early on in the life of the project the priority of your projects. Inevitably
there will be a clash with another project or another task. Use your project
management skills to deliver and your senior management contacts to check out the
real priority of the project.
63. Discover how project management software can help. But, you will need to develop
the business case, produce a project definition alongside planning what will go into
the software. Many project managers use simple Excel spreadsheets or charts in word
to help deliver their project.
Project Agency was formed to help people and organisations deliver projects effectively. Its
philosophy was developed early in our history and is still with us today. We work in
organisations:
developing core skills – of project managers, their teams and project sponsors
helping those involved in the project management process to recognise the need
to further develop their people skills as well as their project management skills.
We have a range of staff who support us in delivering the above philosophy. They are all
well trained and work flexibly with clients.
We list below a range of services to our clients. Please note that we customise much of
what we do to meet organisational and individual needs. Our services include:
designed to ensure project managers and project team members understand the
processes and skills to deliver effectively
customised to meet specific needs – really targeting organisational needs
working with project teams focusing on delivering a specific project – alongside
developing their team skills
running PRINCE2 qualification programmes or PRINCE2 training workshops
Running training sessions for project sponsors and project board members – to
help develop their role effectively
Organising and running start up workshops for groups pre project – ensuring
projects get off to a really effective start
Working with senior managers identifying the key projects for the organisation
and their priority
www.projectagency.co.uk
Saving Time!
Saving Money!
Saving Stress!
Listed below are some forms you will find on the next pages.
Please complete the forms as appropriate. Please note, completing the forms
is an aid to help you deliver your projects, not an end in itself.
Page No.
♦ Defining
Project Responsibilities 3
♦ Stakeholder
Analysis 4
♦ Milestone Chart 5
♦ Milestone
Report 6
♦ Variation Form
♦ Risk Log 8
♦ Business Case
Form 9
♦ Project
♦ Project
Reporting Form 12
♦ Highlight
Report 13
♦ Change
Control Form 14
♦ Change
Control Log 15
♦ Actual V
Planned 16
♦ Project
We would be delighted to hear how you used these forms and how useful
they were in supporting the delivery of your project. Please email
events@projectagency.com. Do look at www.projectagency.com where you can find a
range of information, products and services.
Finally, good luck with all of your projects and we would be delighted to talk
with you about any project management issues you may have. Call on +44
(0)20 846 7766 or email
PERSONNEL
TASKS/ACTIVITIES
297
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Stakeholder Analysis
The purpose of stakeholder analysis is to inform the project manager and sponsor who should contribute to the
project, where barriers might be, and the actions that need to be taken prior to detailed project planning.
298
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Milestone Chart
Main milestones/phases shown on higher chart, and sub-milestones for each phase on charts below
Project:
Deliverables due Due R/A/G* Action to take to bring deliverable or task back on schedule
date
300
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Variation Form
Project Manager
Date
301
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Risk Analysis
Nature of Likelihood
High/
Impact
High/
Likelihood
x Impact
Actions required and who
Risk or Medium/ Medium/ [Score] will take responsibility to
Uncertaint Low Low manage the risk
y
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Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
303
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
General aims(s)
Initial Risks
Expected Outcomes
£:
Time:
Decision from (x x)
Date
304
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Project Title: Put here a very Sponsor: Insert actual sponsor name
brief title
State below the link with the corporate agenda – the actual wording
please.
Put here the actual words in the corporate agenda – showing the link with this project
Project Objectives: The specific objectives for the project. NOTE: the objectives
can be one line or more detailed text.
Project What you will be delivering at the end of the project. NOTE:
Deliverables: these are the what you will have at the end of the project,
e.g. a report, a building, improved service levels etc.
This project will include: This project will not include:
This section defines the boundaries Planning details should not be included at this
of the project. stage.
Success Criteria: How you will measure the success of the project. NOTE: the
success criteria must be measurable.
Key Assumptions: The assumptions you are making in putting this document
together.
305
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Project Manager: Who fulfils this role and what they do.
Project Sponsor: Who fulfils this role and what they do.
Budget
Resource Costs: Other Costs:
For your organisation, you will need to liaise with your Finance people in order to
develop financial information that will inform project delivery. The data on this form in
relation to finance needs to be fine tuned to your organisational and project
management needs
306
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Headlines
Major Risks and Issues Include an assessment of the impact and any actions taken
* RED "Major concern - escalate to the next level" Slippage greater than 10% of remaining time or budget, or
quality severely compromised. Corrective Action not in place, or not effective. Unlikely to deliver on time
to budget or quality requirements
AMBER "Minor concern – being actively managed” Slippage less than 10% of remaining time or budget, or quality
impact is minor. Remedial plan in place.
GREEN "Normal level of attention" No material slippage. No additional attention needed
307
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Highlight/Progress Report
Key Deliverables Completed this period Key Deliverables Outstanding this period Key Deliverables for next reporting period
Delivery Delivery
Date Date
Financial Statement
Capital Revenue External
Source Budget Actual Remaining Forecast Source Budget Actual Remaining Forecast Source Budget Actual Remaining Forecast
0 0 0
CHANGE REQUEST
Originator Date of request Change request no.
Phone: allocated by Change Controller
CHANGE EVALUATION
What is affected Work required (resources, costs, dates)
CHANGE IMPLEMENTATION
Asset Implementer Date Signature
completed
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Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
310
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Actual V Planned
311
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your needs
Project Management - Check Sheet Amend this Check Sheet to suit your project
A: SET UP - INITIATION Y N COMMENTS 5 Have you identified the critical path Y N COMMENTS
for the project?
6 Have you developed a
1 Developed the business case?
communications plan and included
2 Is a full options appraisal
its component parts into the Gantt
necessary?
charts?
3 Is the project in line with the
7 Are you continuing to carry out risk
strategic plan?
analysis throughout the project?
4 Has the project received sign off by
8 Are quality standards high? How do
sponsor or project board?
you know?
313
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your
needs
Working with senior managers identifying the key projects for the
organisation and their priority
314
Project management templates from Project Agency – please alter to suit your
needs
the end
315