This is a story about four people: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

This is a story about four people: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.

There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it.

Everybody was sure Somebody would do it.

Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.

Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job.

Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.

It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when actually Nobody asked Anybody.

A colleague was once part of an Action Learning Group, which was looking at making changes to an organisation. She complained to me that we’re all over the place. Different people doing different things and nobody is sure what is supposed to happen next. It’s a bit organic and very stressful.

The idea of Action Learning is that you learn by doing based on Confucious “I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” This can be a good way to empower people, get things done, and offer a development opportunity all at the same time.

This has strengths and weaknesses. The strengths include that with a good mentor, guide or support the Action Learning Group can achieve and learn a lot. However learning by doing isn’t something we’d want from an unsupervised surgeon! So we need to think carefully what you entrust to the Action Learning Group, so that failure can be part of learning and not destructive to the participants or the organisation.

The key ingredient for success is structure.

Having clear scope, controls, roles, responsibilities, time-lines and budgets provide both a mechanism for managing expectations, measuring performance and a safety net. These are the basics of project management and should be deployed in every task we expect of people.

Whether we use SMART Objectives (http://topachievement.com/smart.html) or employ a full project or programme structure to what you do the basics are that collectively the team need to be able to deliver

a)      On-Time – when do the tasks start and end, and is the ‘target’ end-date

b)      On-Budget  – what is needed, how much does it cost, how do we get funding etc.

c)       To-Specification – what does success look like? (size, shape, quality, format, approved,)

d)      Lo-Risk – what can be done to avoid, reduce, outsource or manage risks to the above.

e)      Hi-Communications – who needs to know what, and when, to be able to achieve all the above

Tim Rogers

Founder ciChange

timrogers@ciChange.org

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/CI-Change-4301853

ciChange seminar and networking events for 2013 sponsored by Total Solutions Group http://www.tsgi.co/