doing less with less, but more of the right things

Globally, across all industries, company leaders are being challenged to prioritize objectives, justify capital spending,  look for opportunities to reduce operating costs, and generally do more with fewer human resources. The idea of doing “more with less” is not a new one; and in fact, in principle it has a tremendous amount of potential toward helping management identify team players, and giving team members an opportunity to challenge themselves individually to increase productivity while delivering results. I’m here to say today, that it’s not always doing more with less that will see a company through trying times; rather, it’s doing more of the right things that is the critical component to success.

How can a growing company do less with less – but do more of the right things? Here are three keys to finding success while facing a reduction in people or budget:

1. Focus. Can you recall or recite your organizations goals or mission statement? Generally these are designed to focus the company on a unified purpose, and this is a great place to start. Have you ever watched an experienced runner in an Olympic track event? What are they focused on? From the time the race starts, to the second they cross the finish line their head is held high, eyes wide open, looking at the finish line – giving full attention to where they are going and winning the race. So the application here is to take some time and set some goals for your team. Get everyone focused on the same objectives, expectations, and standards for delivering results. Everyone should know exactly what they can contribute individually in order for the team to succeed. Outstanding individual contributions, lead to strong team contributions, which ends in the delivery of powerful results.
2. Prioritization. Once you have set goals for your team, and appropriately focused all team members on the same criteria for success, the next challenge is to prioritize the abundance of work so that only key projects rise to the top. Here is where the idea of doing less, but more of the right things becomes important. There are some outstanding tools that can help you manage lists of projects and prioritize such as Microsoft SharePoint (more for enterprises), and Remember the Milk (for individuals). Regardless of the tool that you use, that’s the less important factor here, the key is that the work is prioritized to ensure that projects that support the company focus are completed on time and within budgetary scope. For more information on collaborative software products, click here.
3. Consistency. Last of the the three keys is consistency. Simple idea, but hard in practice. It can be incredibly challenging to keep the group focused as new projects and conflicting priorities arise. Having a standard process for assessing the amount of work involved in a particular request, evaluating the value that doing the work will bring to the business, and the real ROI will help to allow for all projects to be ranked based on the same criteria. Regular health checks will also reveal areas in where adjustments should be made or deviations have occurred.

Any business can apply these principles to help ensure that the right work is being performed on a consistent basis. With practice and proper implementation, even when challenged to reduce resources, asked to take on additional work, restricted spending, or other challenges like these your business can succeed. Focus, prioritization, and consistency will help to ensure that the right work is accomplished, and these projects will be the key initiatives that support business growth and are core to the company’s mission.

Future blog entries will discuss further practical application of these concepts, along with technologies that help to provide the framework for application of these management and business principles.

Filed Under: business process

Tags: productivity