Traffic meetings – name and shame!

Deadlines can be missed through a number of reasons – usually from poorly estimated timelines, scope creep, or when the supplier is holding things up at their end. But what do you do when your staff are the sole responsibility for holding things up.

For some reason or another your staff are just not getting through the work. It might be that the work is beyond their capabilities, it might be that they have too much work on and have not rasied a flag, or maybe they are  just plain slacking about. Schedule delays usually end up costing you – both moneyand reputation, and when it’s happening due to internal issues you need to stomp on it quickly. If one on one consultation is not getting the results, sometimes it is useful to turn to the old method – name and shame.

Weekly traffic meetings, which involve as many people as possible, (at the very least the project team, but if you can fit in the whole companby even better) are invaluable for giving staff a bit of a prod in front of their peers. If their part of the project keeps coming up on the work in progress sheet you don’t even have to make a big deal of it to provide the motivation for them to get their name and that task off that list. I’m not endorsing hard out peer pressure, but as a manager this is a useful method and one that moderates itself. It’s not personal, the fact is the job is on the to do list and will be until it’s done. I’ve been that person a few times and believe me, hearing your name read out time and again in front of your workmates is strong motivation to get that job off that sheet!