The SMART alternative

I've  recently changed roles, from overseeing a number of established children's homes in the West Midlands to establishing an entirely new service in the South and South West, comprising several children's homes and supported accommodation provisions. Even at this stage in my career, when many of my colleagues are focussing on settling into steady roles, never let it be said that I'm one to shy away from a challenge.
Eventually, once the homes are established, the role will be similar to my previous one. A heavy emphasis on line management and supervision of home managers, and quality assurance (as well as the usual problem-solving). Safeguarding underpins everything of course, but that's not the focus of this article.
Currently though, my time is taken up with business development and project management. I've always relied heavily on SMART targets to organise the longer and medium term goals in my workload, whether it's related to ongoing management or specific projects.
The framework is something I still rely on. Partly this is out of habit, partly because of familiarity (for myself and colleagues), and partly because, well, it works.
But it's not perfect. I've come into a situation in which some strands of work have been started, some haven't, some are ongoing, some have changed (or are changing, or are about to change), some are to be terminated, and different people have had different parts to play in all of this. Exactly the sort of thing I enjoy unpicking and organising.
The point is, SMART targets on their own weren't enough to start managing this situation. I not only needed to figure out and then define what needed to be done and by when; it was also important to establish by whom. This is where the RACI matrix was useful. A deceptively simple tool, the matrix establishes who is responsible for completing the task (who does the task), who is accountable (sometimes the same person, sometimes a team/project/line manager), who needs to be consulted (perhaps someone who needs to sign off a wider project, other teams who may be impacted by the task, or an external specialist - funnily enough, often referred to as 'consultants'), and who needs to be informed. This may mean updating the rest of the SMT on progress, giving finance the heads up that they can expect an invoice, or updating external agencies on progress.
The solution was to work the RACI framework into the SMART outcomes to give a complete overview of each element of the project.
Combining the two gives a more rounded view of the project and clarifies responsibilities. But thinking about allocating responsibilities in this way (really considering who will be responsible and accountable, and who just needs to be informed rather than relying on established line-management silos) gave me a whole new insight into role allocation. For someone relatively new to a smaller company in which everybody pitches in rather than hiding behind job descriptions, it forced me to ask who was the best person to hold or oversee a project element. This is a different question than asking which department, team or role should do so, since I had to learn what skills and interests existed within the team. For those acquainted with the work of Kahneman and Tversky, this is the ‘thinking slow’ approach. A second benefit is that approaching delegation and role discussion in this way allows us to conduct an informal skills and roles analysis. Powerful questions have included:

• Who has the skills to handle this?
  
• Who wants to handle this?
  
• What support do they need to achieve this?
  
• Do we need to break this down into component tasks? If so, how? How will these sub-tasks be allocated?
  
• Who is best to assist with the task? What learning will they gain, and how will these skills transfer to their other roles?
  
• Why doesn't “X” have the skills to do this? What have we missed previously?
  
• Are there any gaps in skills or knowledge we can't meet in-house? Why? Could we have anticipated this?
  

Note that not all of these  questions need to form part of the planning process; rather, the RACI element of the planning exercise served as a jumping-off point for this wider exploration.
With the SMART targets and RACI allocations established, the result is a workable, clear plan which all participants can utilise in whichever time/task management method they see fit.
I am an inveterate note-taker, a reliance which brings with it its own set of problems (one being as many variations on “Where did I write that?” as can be imagined). To this end, I have to sing the praises of my ReMarkable 2 device. I've been using it for several months at this point, having purchased their RemMarkable 2 via their refurbishment scheme. At first I thought it would be a novelty or an indulgence, but the ability to take notes, manipulate writing in the page, and convert it to text that can be used in a Word doc has been such a time saver in many cases. I know others who use iPads to similar effect (this is not a sponsored message in any way; use whatever suits you best).
All plans should be regarded as live documents. I dip in to it weekly as I check progress, but we have monthly formal updates on the plan's progress. Here is where I adapt another method. Kanban boards are a great visual tool for tracking progress at a glance. Rather than repeat work, go through the hassle of using another program/app or go to the effort (and waste) of printing the different elements, I use a simple colour-coding system to grade each element: white for those not started; red for those running late; amber for those in progress and on schedule; green for those where the work has been completed; and purple for those where the work has been validated and all RACI elements have been met. Using SharePoint or a similar service means the document can be truly collaborative, with contributors updating the document as they make progress.
I've used it outside of my day job, too. As many of you are aware I maintain a sideline as an author. I've recently begun collaborating with a fellow author to set up our own small press, currently focused exclusively on our own material. Working together to set up the website, decide on design features and update details relating to publishing routes and plan social media all whilst our distribution platform Smash words merged with Draft2Digital needed a lot of planning and coordination, all of which needed managing remotely.
Some people have said that in lieu of the kanban-esque stage a GANTT chart may be of more use as it also shows dependencies. Whilst I'm not adverse to using them I'm yet to find easy-to-use software for this process - if you know of any, please let me know.
So that's my process, for now at least. One thing that never ceases to astonish me is how frequently otherwise intelligent people find a process they like and refuse to acknowledge feedback that it might no longer be optimal. All processes and procedures give us feedback and it's up to us to acknowledge, listen, respond and iterate. So whilst this process meets all my current needs, a different project may introduce new bumps in the road to navigate. Rather than sticking doggedly to this process, it will evolve in light of changing needs.​

Is this process of use to you? What problems do you see for your use case? Please let me know.

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