The Weekly Operating Review: Improve Execution on Your Strategic Priorities

 



This blog I'd like to talk about the weekly operating review as a component of lean excellence.  When I work with organizations pursuing lean excellence, most all have a strategic plan.   Industry tends to run with 3 to 5 year plans, and public entities tend to work with one year plans to coincide nicely with their one year budget cycle.  Following the completion of the strategic plan comes the selection of measures and then the strategic initiatives to meet the outcome measures.

Leaders then cascade the goals and objectives to their subordinates followed by more detailed project plans.  What happens next is what I would call a dog's breakfast:  Some organizations have no success, some have moderate success, and a small minority of organizations are able to accomplish their strategic objectives and achieve measurable success.

Why is this the case?  A short list of possibilities include the following:



Having been a VP of Operations, I have been guilty of not even looking at my strategic plans until two days before it was time to update the board.  Candidly, I did not spend enough time on execution to move the needle.  I often see this in my consulting base of clients as well.  

One tool to unstick this phenomenon is to utilize a weekly operating review (WOR). People familiar with the IS approach known as Agile for lean software design and development are taught to break projects down into two week increments.  Focus on what you will accomplish in the next two weeks and then get that amount of work done.  Using the same thinking, the weekly operational review is used to keep the work advancing  toward delivering on strategic imperatives detailed to the next week. 

The WOR is a meeting where at a high level, the team reviews the progress, challenges, and goals of the previous and upcoming week.  In this meeting I coach to cover the following for each project inside the WOR framework:

1) The outcome measures for the project.
2) A bullet listing of the things accomplished in the previous week.
3) A bullet listing of the things planned for the next week.
4) Any project risk. 
5) Any escalations needs leadership support.

It is possible to get through a project every 6-10 minutes so this weekly meeting can cover  6 - 10 strategic projects in about an hour. Is that too much time for a leader to invest in strategic priorities?

The benefits of meeting weekly include the following:

1) You can achieve your objectives by setting manageable goals, measuring progress, and celebrating team wins.
2) Communication is improved by making all strategic work transparent.
3) Team development will occur with weekly feedback from leadership.
4) The timeline for success can be shorter by working weekly towards goals.
5) Month end and quarter end surprises are eliminated. This is actually a manager and leader de-stressor.

If you aren't getting traction on your key projects,  consider adding a weekly operating review to your approach.  

Lean blessings,

Ron

Ron Bercaw
Lean Sensei
Breakthrough Horizons
www.breakthroughhorizons.com  





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