Some interesting ideas follow from ‘Entrepreneur Europe’ on ways to assess the performance of a team – marketing or software development, say – and keeping a finger on their pulse
Four extra performance measures are proposed:
- Planned-to-done ratios:
- How well have plans been executed?
- What % were completed satisfactorily, or better?
- Cycle time:
- Work is usually completed in ‘iterative sprints’
- Break down a project into bite-sized small-cycles and optimise each
- The more quickly each one is done, the quicker the whole project
- Attendance:
- This can make a big difference to the success of the whole project
- Uncommitted or burnt-out team members – hence missed meetings, sick days, late arrivals – can have a serious effect on project progress and overburden others causing resentment and sometimes mental health issues
- Escaped defects over time:
- Re software teams, how many bugs have been missed in a new product i.e. number of defects that affect the customer?
- Re marketing teams, how many failed campaigns have there been, or customer complaints?
- Is quality being sacrificed to meet deadlines – does talent need to be re-allocated?
The team leader’s job is continually to monitor his team’s productivity and connect business goals to project outcomes – and the above would help him make data-driven decisions about future tasks