Tracking Action Completion

In some organisations, lack of progress on actions between meetings is endemic. In many organisation, it can be quite common, and can be a typical expectation of the attendees – toleration of slipped deadlines, even multiple times is the norm.

There are a number of factors involved in this, not least the level of commitment secured in the preceding meeting. Furthermore, in some organisations, the expectations of corporate, and the general pressures people find themselves under, create an empathy, even a sympathy, which lets things slide without attracting too much focus on the whys and the wherefores.

However, whatever the reason, this situation is extremely inefficient and unhealthy. Things take much longer than they should, progress goes out of synch, people either feel under unnecessary pressure, or insufficient responsibility, or they feel confusion about what is actually expected of them. It would be far better if actions were scheduled for when they can reasonably be completed, or that people were honest in forecasting what might be the obstacles to progress, and to have these addressed from the outset.

But perhaps a bigger factor is that, in most cases, the true performance on action completion, and its negative implications for cost and progress, is not properly recorded or understood. Very few teams or meetings track (graph) the proportion of actions completed from the previous meeting. If they did, it might lead to a better discussion of what really is required to increase the completion rate.

Some meeting software is very good at recording, communicating and tracking progress on actions, and can automatically provide statistics in this regard (see Lucid Meetings). Alternatively, it is a relatively easy thing to record the proportion of actions completed at the start of the meeting (and to plot it on a graph), and then at the end of the meeting ask what needs to be different to record a higher completion rate the next time around.

The benefits are not only faster delivery of the project goals (and thereby greater benefit in terms of revenue or impact) it is also a reduction in the number of meetings. Incomplete actions tends to mean either that the meeting cannot achieve fully what was intended, or that you need further meetings to chase the actions, or that the project takes longer and thereby requires more meetings anyway – all of which creates more pressure on overloaded diaries, and creates frustration over meeting effectiveness.