By now you will be becoming familiar with the way that conversations link what is important to the specific commitments and actions that will move the team forward. Today we are going to look at the navigation conversation.

Navigation

With our reliance on Google Maps and similar apps we are used to plugging in a destination and starting point and then letting the app do the work for us to find the best route and to keep track of our progress. If only working on a team were that simple!

Having agreed the goals and got everyone on the same page, a detailed plan needs to be created. Unfortunately, life doesn’t go in a straight line, and we continually need to compare what is actually happening with what we planned (or hoped) would happen.

This requires some way of reviewing progress, looking out to head off significant problems that might derail the plan (risks) and dealing with those problems that we didn’t get to in time.

The metaphor of a sailing boat is a useful one. Despite headwinds the boat can still make progress towards its destination by tacking against the wind and adjusting course as the wind changes speed or direction.

The best teams don’t avoid problems completely, but deal with them early and efficiently. They then learn from what happened to change the way that they are working in order to minimize the chances of it happening again. You really only need to be making mistakes once.

As you sail along, you are continually trimming the sails and adjusting course in order to be able to reach the destination in the most effective and earliest way.

Navigation is a set of conversations that produce a shared understanding of the strategies and actions that will enable the team to be successful. These are captured in the team’s plan. Teams will be successful to the extent that they review progress against the plan, anticipate problems, learn from both successes and failures and develop new ways of thinking. This requires that plans are constantly evolving as the team navigates complex projects.

Warning Signs

Planning takes place once the goals are clear (alignment), and it is often a pre-requisite for customer approval to proceed with a project. Navigation then takes place regularly through the life of the project. For active, difficult or complex projects there may be a review every 1-2 weeks.

Team progress meetings can often be soulless and long-winded and dreaded by all team members. We will look at a more efficient way of reviewing progress in a future blog.

Here are some of the signs that this conversation is missing or not working well:

• The team’s customer is unaware of progress or issues affecting delivery.
• Key project assumptions are hidden or not well understood.
• The team’s plan is out of date, or team members are unclear about the plan.
• Team review meetings are held infrequently, have vague agendas or often run over time.
• Team members focus on what they are doing, rather than what they have achieved (the subject of a future blog).
• Problems are identified late and take a while to be resolved.
• The team is unaware of problem-solving methods or creative design.
• Not all team members with relevant experience and expertise are involved in addressing problems and opportunities.
• The same problems keep recurring. The team doesn’t take time to learn from experience.

What might you do?

If you notice any of these signs on your team, it may not be too late! Here are some steps that you may find helpful:

• Discuss any unrealistic (eg overly optimistic) expectations with the customer.
• Check that the team has a realistic plan and address any concerns.
• Do a detailed review of any upcoming milestones to ensure that all actions are underway and on schedule.
• Regularly review progress against the plan and anticipate any potential opportunities or problems.
• Ensure that the plan is revised in response to changing assumptions and risks and that the implications for each team member are understood.
• Train team members in problem solving techniques, and involve only the people with relevant expertise.
• Create a “Safe Space” for members to surface potential issues or obstacles. For example, set aside time on an agenda for this purpose, avoid contradicting or arguing with issues raised, suggest a way of dealing with each issue. We will address the topic of ‘psychological safety’ in a future blog.
• Schedule ‘lessons-learned’ sessions – or ‘After Action Reviews’.
• Conduct periodic reviews of deviations from the plan to identify contributing factors and incorporate learnings into the future versions of the plan.
• Celebrate any significant achievements towards the goal.

This conversation is always present once a plan is agreed.

Murphy’s Law states that if anything can go wrong – it will! Teams need to be alert to problems, as well as new opportunities that could impact the original plan. We can think of the plan as a ‘shared story’ as to how the goals are going to be achieved, and a warning sign is when those stories change, or team members have differing views as to their feasibility.

Keeping track of the commitments that team members and other contractors have made is essential to ensure that the anticipated progress is made by the team. We will look at this in a future blog, but a key to success is to track progress with the commitments made, and their likelihood of their being delivered as agreed, rather than asking people what they are working on.

Learn more

Richard works with leaders and teams seeking a performance edge. He can be reached at: richard@pathwaysofgrowth.com.

To get started on improving your team’s conversations, view Pathways of Growth’s current offerings.