Notes from a business trip, part 13. Friday!
25.09.2020
Friday!
An incredible stream of tasks and events should end today. This is the last day of the week on which masks are reset. Literally now all over the world there are checks of tasks, projects, promises, events and requests. Everyone understands that before sunset we must have time to do something and exhale for the weekend. And the Customers expect that everything will really be finished today and they will have a pleasant testing on the weekend. Naive.
Alas, the world is not arranged correctly, because we are people. Due to the stress of deadlines, people can get sick, equipment can break due to oversights, but always at the wrong time, and promises can fail.
Today is the day when you just need to talk to everyone and draw conclusions. There is nothing wrong with that, better sooner than later, but to understand the projects and tasks that you have accumulated so that it becomes as clear as possible how we came to this and how we can get out of this to the project goal.
My agency has rules. And on Fridays, managers send Friday reports to clients about the time spent on the project for a week.
This allows the Customer to keep control of what is happening and not wait for the end of the month with the expectation of what we have on the project.
This rule also allows the manager to control the situation on the project, because he needs to submit a report and next week he will not be able to add hours to the past week.
This rule reminds project participants that time is money. There is no money in the reports, there is nothing to pay salaries with.
I came up with this rule together with the guys a few years ago, and it helps us a lot. And customers receive messages, and we are preparing for them, and on Monday we analyze the issues that could have accumulated according to the report. This is part of a dialogue that many are afraid to start with their Customers / Contractors.
And preparing such a report is a matter of minutes. The customer himself can remove such a project report at any time and see the situation. Because the control of tasks is carried out on a daily basis, and not by periodic raids, this is part of our DNA.
Talk to Contractors and Customers, do not swear, but talk to the point. If you are interested in each other, the dialogue will work out, and everyone will draw the right conclusions.
Good luck!