However, many of us still need to gain basic knowledge of task management techniques or task management as a whole. The most common misconception is that task management is merely related to a simple to-do list. What you may not know is that successful task management involves diligent planning, reporting, analyzing, and assessing. 

In this article, we’ll shed light on what company task management actually entails and its significance for your company.

What Is Task Management 

Task management is establishing, prioritizing, assigning, and overseeing tasks to make sure they are finished by the deadlines set. At its core, task management dissects a specific project or method of operation into several smaller tasks. It involves making decisions to account for changes that may happen in real-time, directing the workflow, removing bottlenecks, and managing the task’s budget, scope, time, and resources. Company task management is a fantastic technique to improve both team and individual productivity and enhance task completion. 

Difference Between Task Management and Project Management  

Project management refers to the practice of overseeing a project through its stages of planning, application, tracking, and concluding stages. Project managers typically oversee several ongoing projects with varying priorities but always have the big picture in mind. Repeated tasks are less common in project management, and the process of strategic project planning is usually more thorough.

On the other hand, task management is breaking down a project into specific tasks. The tasks could be given deadlines, assigned to people, and organized by priority. Task management involves overseeing a task from inception to completion and calls for micro-focus. 

Successful project mаnagement depends on efficient task management as it helps get through with projects on time and in the right order.

Why Is Task Management Important for Companies  

Starting work on tasks as you go is inefficient and counterproductive. For instance, you could accidentally focus on tasks with low priority and postpone essential or time-bound tasks which likely have to rush last minute. Or, you’ll flip between projects too often, making little-to-no advancement on each one.

Therefore, task management is crucial for companies. It gives a clear picture of the work you and your team need to complete and organizes it so you can identify what tasks to tackle first. Using task management, you can see what you are working on now and what is coming up. It also helps you identify your priority tasks, determine how much time is needed for each one, and what’s the best approach to schedule your workload.

Photo by airfocus on Unsplash

Benefits of Task Management Software

Task management software is the easiest way to implement an effective task management system within your organization. This digital platform offers the best task management solution, assisting both individuals and teams in handling their duties. There’s a wide range of features these tools offer, the most common being task scheduling and task assignment, task customization and organization, time tracking, task tracking, task progress tracking, and accurate reports.

Let’s discuss some of the benefits related to implementing online task management software in your company:

Subdivision of Projects Into More Manageable Assignments and Task Dependencies

Larger projects can be intimidating. They demand extensive planning and flawless execution since even small delays or errors can have a big impact. To make it simpler to handle, taѕk management programs like Focus let you break down complex projects and establish dependent and subordinate tasks.

Automation of Repeatable Tasks

Some activities, such as a quarterly meeting or a monthly report, take place at set times each year. Utilizing automation and project templates, the best task mаnagement tool will create specific tasks at a specific time, according to the demands of the project manager, as opposed to setting up each of them manually.

Remote Teams Support

Тask management is crucial for enhancing team collaboration and providing better support. All team members will be able to see task boards where they can find all their tasks assigned, so they won’t need to nag their task managers or fellow team members looking for basic information. This is specifically important for hybrid or fully remote teams where members have diverse work schedules and time zones. 

More Effective Communication and Effective Collaboration Across Teams

You can instill a collaborative culture and dramatically improve communication between teams in your company by choosing the appropriate task management platform. In-task comments are one of the key elements that help teams work effectively together. Job conversations will take place where the work is being done, or in context when adding comments to tasks. Therefore, the necessity to hop between tabs and apps to access general information, updates, or modifications is eliminated. This would result in increased productivity and, more importantly, a happy team. 

Task Prioritization

Although it may seem obvious that some tasks are more important than others, it’s common to lose track of the task priority levels when so much is to be finished. For example, you begin your workday in the morning and occasionally get sidetracked by finishing minor, low-priority tasks, postponing the major ones for another day. Inadequate management may result in missed deadlines or tasks needing to be completed properly. With simple task management software, you can manage and prioritize your critical tasks in one centralized space so that everyone can focus on the most important ones first and meet them effectively.

Enhanced Performance Level  

Task management helps with the delegation of tasks and coordination of team members to work towards a common goal from one centralized dashboard. For instance, if the project manager observes that a certain action is delaying the schedule of the project or causing a disparity in the activities that follow, they will encourage the project participants to be more effective and productive, thus creating a stimulating environment.

Streamlined Workflow

You’ll rarely have the luxury of focusing on one task at a given time. Most of the time you’ll likely be juggling several tasks at once which could easily lead to chaos. Getting your duties organized to streamline the entire task managemеnt workflow will significantly increase the entire team’s efficiency and help you achieve your goals.

Better Time Management

Task management lessens time wasting, which is a crucial factor in most workplace mistakes. By reducing the time wasted on assignments and their completion, there will be more time for your team to focus on other key projects. Moreover, setting deadlines using task management makes it possible for you to complete assignments on schedule. Additionally, it frees up more time for you to spend on yourself rather than spending it on pointless duties.

Creative Problem-Solving

To manage many of our daily tasks and perform at our highest levels, we require creativity. Task management gives us the knowledge we need to handle problems promptly and creatively. People are able to break up difficult jobs into manageable pieces and solve them fast depending on the situation.

Photo by airfocus on Unsplash 

The Bottom Line 

Every project is built on individual tasks that help translate intentions into accomplishments. Task managemеnt helps you structure the responsibilities to produce the best results. You’ll be able to break down complex tasks, prioritize, delegate, and collaborate effectively.But while it may seem simple, task management is complex process that requires a skilled manager and the right tools, ideally a specialist task manager tool. Focus is a comprehensive task tool with intuitive features that gives you a dedicated space to set to-do task lists and actionable items, connect daily operations to strategic objectives, and measure your project progress in real-time, thus enhancing team alignment and focus.

The post What Is Task Management and Why Do Companies Need It appeared first on Focus.

Why Do You Need One on One Meetings

A one-on-one meeting is a particular type of meeting that typically occurs between supervisors and their direct reports. Instead of holding a large team meeting, both parties benefit from having the chance to communicate privately in a safe environment.

Having dedicated time for one-on-one meetings can help you get to know everyone who reports to you and connect on a more personal level. Effective one-on-one meetings can also ensure that you and your direct reports are on the same page and keep each other informed about priorities and impending tasks, define action items, get status updates, and identify potential issues that might impede your team’s ability to perform at its highest level.

When asking the right questions, you’ll have a productive one-on-one meeting which can be a goldmine of information about each employee’s strengths and flaws, their critical skills, and areas of improvement. Moreover, meetings also offer the opportunity to share and receive honest feedback and potentially start some difficult conversations that wouldn’t be suitable to convey in a group environment.

The Impact of One on One Meetings

The impact of one-on-one meetings on employees

By offering each employee a dedicated space and undivided attention to discuss important matters, you can give them the direction required to excel in their position and career development. The employee will receive constructive feedback from you about where they stand. Positive feedback will motivate the employees, whereas negative feedback will get them back on track.

The impact of one-on-one meetings on managers

One-on-one meetings help you direct the growth of your team members, address problems as they arise, and increase employee retention. You must connect and engage with each individual team member if you want to maximize their potential. Real connections cannot be made fast, so one-on-one interactions foster the trust necessary to guarantee that you are aware of the concerns of your team members and can respond in a way that will keep them content and productive. 

Moreover, one-on-one meetings are also great for receiving prompt upward feedback, which could advance your management skills. You can get vital information about what is expected of you and how you can better support your team.

The impact of one-on-one meetings on the business

The effort you as a manager make to connect with your team members determines how successful the company will be. So, having a positive one-on-one meeting culture benefits everyone involved and your company’s financial line.

Regular one-on-one meetings are also a fantastic way to boost engagement and link manager success with business success. Employees are considerably more invested in the company when they can speak with their manager about the company’s direction and how their position fits into the larger picture. 

Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels

Why Are One on One Meetings Important

Have a quick look at the one on the importance of one on one meetings and the benefits for employees:

Drive growth: Successful one-on-one meetings are ideal for discussing personal and professional progress. In fact, career growth and personal achievements are some of the common topics for one on one meetings. Managers often talk about their direct reports’ passion projects, professional development aspirations, and individual goals. This information can help you to guide your employee’s career trajectory and enhance your organization’s bottom line.

Improve team agility: The one-on-one environment gives employees a chance to discuss tactical issues, roadblocks, difficulties, and problems when they come up. They also allow teams to shift course if their current goals become obsolete, allowing them to remain flexible and adjust as business requirements evolve.

Establish accountability mechanism: Individual meetings are critical to effectively and productively holding people accountable for results. According to research, merely telling someone you’ll accomplish your goal raises your odds of achievement by 65%. But, if you consistently update someone on the task’s progress, the odds of success soar to 95%.

Improve productivity: Your staff members can work more quickly if they are productive, allowing them to complete more tasks. A successful meeting agenda includes discussing each employee’s daily activities and providing performance coaching to assist them in gaining a greater understanding of business procedures, carrying out their duties, and avoiding common pitfalls. You can also work on their weak areas to further enhance their performance.

Have ongoing performance discussions: The majority of managers are aware that they need to compliment and recognize their employees more, but the appropriate moment is rarely available. And the majority of organizations are realizing that performance reviews need to occur more frequently than a few times each year, but many are having trouble implementing it. Take advantage of your one-on-one time to improve the employee experience by frequently thanking staff members for their effort, advancement, and accomplishments, as well as providing timely corrective feedback when necessary.

Enhance teamwork quality: Productive conversations during one on one meetings can improve teamwork performance. Team members will be able to help one another with daily work and even instruct one another on how to carry out their responsibilities more effectively. Your employees’ attitudes may also improve due to the higher morale linked to one-on-one meetings, possibly leading to greater cooperation among them. As a result, you can avoid conflict and mellow potential problems in a safe space.

Highlight skill gaps before they become an issue: Regular one-on-one meetings with detailed agenda template and meeting notes allow you to see how your team member is doing and identify any areas where they might need more help. Furthermore, by identifying capability issues or skill gaps as soon as possible, you can develop a plan to resolve the issue before becoming a serious threat.

Better employee retention: According to a study, when workers feel trusted at work, they are more self-assured and less likely to look for a new job. Your staff members will not only be happier and more productive at work, but they are likely to stay with your business for a more extended period if you show interest and invest in their personal development.

How to Run Effective One-on-One Meetings?

A one-on-one meeting can be the most powerful tool managers have so to make the most out of one on one meetings, prepare well beforehand.

Set aside the uninterrupted time you can devote completely to your employee. Choose the one-on-one meeting agenda items carefully and be sure to include some awesome conversation starters. To make everything easier, you can use a one-on-one meeting template.

Send a meeting invite and share a collaborative meeting agenda with the employee at least one week prior to the meeting to give them ample time to prepare. Review the meeting structure and list of topics before the session to ensure all critical points. 

One of the best one-on-one conversation tips is to start the meeting with a personal question to break the ice and end it on a positive note even if you’ve just had a tough conversation. During the meeting, use a note-taking tool that will make it easier for you both to contribute to the agenda, keep track of your past meetings, and be prepared for your follow-up conversation during your future meetings.

Photo by Andres  Ayrton on Pexels

The Bottom Line

The purpose of one on one meetings is to motivate workers, keep them on pace to fulfill their performance targets, help them advance their careers, and assist in resolving minor concerns as they emerge. So, having consistent one-on-one meetings with each individual contributor is an essential step in the ongoing cycle that promotes engagement and overall improved performance. Don’t just rely on the annual review — schedule weekly or bi-weekly meetings to discuss current issues, tackle career conversations, help the employees hone their skill sets, do salary reviews, enhance the levels of productivity, and keep the direct report happy.

The post What is the Purpose of One on One Meetings And Why Are They Important For Your Team appeared first on Focus.

In this guide, you’ll learn about the strategies that will enable you to achieve your goals and how to track OKRs successfully.

Who Can Use OKRs

With businesses expanding exponentially, change is the only constant in today’s world. Unfortunately, many companies react slowly to these developments because they are unsure how to handle them. As a result, they can’t help but feel exposed, which has a negative impact on their profitability, sustainability, and staff engagement.

Excellent execution of good ideas is made possible by the OKR framework. Unlike KPIs, OKR goals are bolder and more ambitious. Setting OKR goals makes it possible for a business to be adaptable, flexible, current, and experience exponential growth. They can help you boost high-performing teams and tighten employee engagement. 

Although OKRs were widely employed by technology businesses initially, any company that appreciates the ideas of openness, responsibility, and accessibility can embark on an OKR journey. Companies like Allbirds, Google, and Netflix, are some of the top companies that use OKRs.

Photo by RODNAE Productions

How To Plan and Track Company OKRs

Since aligning and cascading OKRs can be quite complicated, OKRs should be viewed as company-wide initiatives where various functional teams work toward an objective and are accountable for the key results. OKRs are therefore viewed as team OKRs rather than individual OKRs. Cross-functional team OKRs are often considered to work best. 

That being said, if you want to improve the results of your work, keeping track of your OKRs is essential. This practice will help you identify what and how to assess, and provide a clearer understanding of your team’s overall progress. You can effectively design and track OKRs using these nine best practices.

Focus on Descriptive Objectives and Measurable Outcomes

Utilize concise, descriptive language to pinpoint the attributes you wish to improve when writing your objectives. You should then use the descriptions to write well-informed key results. Conversely, key results should be expressed in measurable, quantitative terms that support the company objectives.

Write Benchmarks for Every Key Result

Not every key result necessitates the same level of effort. For instance, if you’ve written an objective with four key results, it doesn’t mean you’re halfway done when two of the key results are achieved. Using weighted measurements for every key result will help you compute your progress more accurately and provide a more precise progress indicator.

Set Accountability and Responsibility for Every Key Results

There will probably be several teams or individuals allocated to the key results. To confirm that all participants can contribute to ensuring that all associated activities are performed, clearly outline the expectations and obligations for every key result.

Loop In the Whole Team  

Not all OKRs will require the entire team to be involved in every OKR, but communicating the objectives and key results transparently will keep everyone informed about the company priorities and the goals you’re trying to achieve.

Schedule Regular Performance Reviews

The best company strategy to monitor progress and analyze the current success rates is to examine your OKRs regularly. To review your OKRs, schedule monthly, weekly, or daily meetings, based on the set timelines.

Discuss What You’ve Learned 

It is crucial to revisit the key results achieved, along with the steps used to achieve them and what you can learn from them. For example, one of your key results for the quarter was to boost the number of newsletter subscribers by 20%, but you’ve only boosted it by 17%. If you want the team benefits from this outcome, talk about why this key result was unsuccessful.

Examples for Company OKRs

Each company’s OKR can focus on outcomes in different areas, such as revenue, brand, product, culture, service, and growth initiatives. Here are some of the top company OKR examples that can help you successfully implement yours. 

Growth Company OKR Examples

Objective: Expand into the Italian market and achieve a 20% market share in 12 months.

Key Result 1: Conduct a comprehensive market study by January 15.

Кey Result 2: Launch an Italian-language product version with the top 3 requested features by April 1.

Key Result 3: Train and employ 5 bilingual customer support reps by March 15. 

Brand OKR examples 

Objective: Maintain an awesome customer experience

Key Result 1: Accomplish a Net Promoter Score of at least 25  

Кey Result 2: Boost Net Customer Retention to at least 95%

Key Result 3: Accomplish 85% or higher WAU for product engagement

Objective: Win customer love and trust

Key Result 1: Identify customer requirements and add design features accordingly

Кey Result 2: Address customer needs and pain points

Key Result 3: Enhance the implementation process for managed customers 

Culture Company OKR examples 

Objective: Create an excellent company culture

Key Result 1: Launch an OKR platform to nourish company transparency

Кey Result 2: Accomplish an Employee Pulse Survey score of at least 8 within 5 business days

Key Result 3: Celebrate 5 or more “small wins” in our weekly meetings.

Objective: Build an OKR-centered company culture

Key Result 1: Achieve an average of 80% progress on company OKRs

Кey Result 2: Ensure 90% of key results are updated every two weeks

Key Result 3: Achieve an OKR design score of 75 on average

Customer Service Company OKR Examples

Objective: Enhance consumer retention to boost the profit margins

Key Result 1: Enhance product onboarding 

Кey Result 2: Create a long-term nurturing strategy 

Key Result 3: Improve client lifetime by focusing on corporate MQLs

Product OKR examples

Objective: Make our product a “must have” product

Key Results 1: Grow from 1,000 to 3,000 users

Кey Results 2: Attain 5,000 engaged users

Key Results 3: Enhance consumer experience by implementing competitor features

Photo by Kaleidico on Unsplash

The Bottom Line

Company OKRs serve as the foundation for organizational, departmental, and individual activities by outlining the company’s top priorities. However, a company OKR program isn’t meant to cover everything your business needs to get done because having too many of them might undermine organizational effectiveness through complexity and complication. When appropriately implemented, company OKRs assist individuals in producing practical and motivated work and assist leadership in connecting with the most crucial business objectives.

The post Company OKRs Guideline – How To Plan And Track Objectives and Key Results appeared first on Focus.

These meetings establish rapport with employee members and offer them practical assistance. From the outset, one-on-one sessions may sound daunting. However, they provide the biggest opportunity for both parties to freely express their thoughts, concerns, and aspirations. A Gallup survey has revealed that employees that participate in one-on-one meetings regularly are 3 times more likely to be engaged compared to those who don’t. Also, these meetings are beneficial for building trust over time.

Keep reading if you’re looking for ways to improve your meetings as we’ll go over the top tips on how to ask effective employee one on one questions. 

How to Make Your First One on One Employee Meeting Successful 

The first one-on-one meeting can be scary, regardless of whether there is a new manager, a new team member, or both. But this is also a fantastic chance to get to know and introduce yourself. It’s a perfect opportunity to develop open communication and set the tone for your future meetings. 

Tips for a Great First One-on-One Meeting

To kickstart the meeting, introduce yourself by sharing a personal fact. Then try to discover more about the employee by asking about their interests or hobbies. Next, make it a two-way exchange to build rapport. Share your career growth vision and ask them to describe their career goals and aspirations.

Keep the topics simple; you’ll have plenty of time and opportunities for in-depth conversations in future meetings. Finally, set a date for your next one on one employee meeting and decide whether you’re ready to schedule a weekly, biweekly, or monthly sessions in your calendars.

Tips for a Better Conversation Flow

Once you break the ice and schedule regular meetings, it’s essential to keep the conversation flow. To ensure the employee feels like they can share anything, always place them first and focus on listening. Allow the employee to speak and prompt them to discuss problems and seek assistance if needed.

You should also avoid wasting too much time on status reports since you can get the necessary information on the project’s progress during team meetings. In one-on-one conversations, emphasize the unique employee performance and always give constructive feedback. This is the moment to express your ideas and make suggestions. 

Finally, record the meeting even if you are only taking meeting notes for your personal records. A lot might arise in a one-on-one conversation, and you don’t want to forget some important points.

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

15 Employee One on One Questions to Ask

Starting and maintaining effective one-on-one meetings may seem difficult, but you can make them successful with a proper meeting agenda. However, the following list of questions and conversation starters can serve as a model for your sessions. With time, you may modify the questions and include a variety of topics to meet your needs and those of your business and employees.

Check-In Employee One on One Questions

1. How have you been?

Open the one on one employee meeting with something simple yet personal to determine how the worker feels about the meeting. For instance, giving a specific response would mean they are looking forward to the meeting, whereas a general reply shows they are anxious.

2. What have you accomplished since our last meeting?

Asking about their greatest successes both at the job and outside of it will highlight your genuine interest in the person. From there, express appreciation or try to make a connection on a more personal level with them.

3. Do you have any concerns about the upcoming week/month? Can I help you?

Encourage employees to talk openly about challenges. Assure them that you are there to assist them in improving their performance. Make sure you also find out what they have planned work-wise for the upcoming week or month. This will help ensure everyone works on the appropriate assignments at the proper times by aligning on key outcomes.

Career-Related Employee One on One Questions

4. What professional achievement are you anticipating this year?

Continuing the meeting with some more career talk can help you understand your employee’s career goals and aspirations and can assist you in giving them the tools they need to get there.

5. What aspect of your work inspires you most?

The employee response to this question can assist you to determine an employee’s future area of specialization. Using this insight, you can encourage their professional growth and assign them projects they’ll enjoy.

6. Do you believe your current role aligns with your long-term goals?

You can determine if that individual is suitable for the role based on the response to this question. It might also assist you in giving the employee adequate tasks or offering them a job that suits their objectives.

Employee One on One Questions Regarding Obstacles

7. What do you believe to be an obstacle to reaching your professional goals?

The next set of one on one questions should reveal both personal and professional obstacles. By revealing what prevents the employee from reaching their objectives, you have the chance to change that. 

8. Do you believe that anything or anyone at work impedes your ability to do your job?

You should uncover potential issues within the organization brought on by other staff members, tools, or even business processes as this gives the company a chance to improve its processes.

9. Do any non-work-related issues make it difficult for you to focus on your job?

The question gives a full picture of what the worker might be experiencing. Understanding personal and work-related difficulties will help you grasp what they are dealing with and provide you the chance to offer solutions.

Employee One on One Questions to Assess Satisfaction  

10. How satisfied are you with your present position, responsibilities, and job?

Happy employees contribute to higher productivity. Understanding how your employee feels about the duties and tasks assigned to them is critical. In addition to evaluating employee satisfaction, you may go deeper and let them elaborate on the topic. This may also indicate whether or not a promotion is warranted.

11. Do you believe your work is making a positive impact on the business, industry, or world?

You’ll modify the question based on your business’s size, objectives, and core beliefs. However, the employee’s answer should help you in determining the employee’s level of motivation for their job.

12. Do you consider your job and personal lives balanced? If you don’t, why is that so, and how can we make it better?

This inquiry reveals details about your regular organizational procedures and whether the workforce is adequately or excessively occupied. Additionally, it offers perceptions of a worker’s psychological profile, enabling you to apply that knowledge to improve the work-life balance.

Self-Improvement Employee One on One Questions

13. Do you think you get enough feedback? How often should feedback sessions occur, in your opinion?

The responses to this question gauge how the employees feel about providing feedback and whether they believe it is necessary. It indicates that these sessions are practical if the worker wishes to increase input frequency. If the situation is reversed, it’s a sign that some aspects of the one-on-one session weren’t up to par.

14. Do you have any criticisms and recommendations about the business and me?

You should ask your fellow employees for their thoughts and suggestions because the goal is to create a two-way feedback loop. You might learn something useful and insightful while also giving your staff members a sense of empowerment. In addition, they are sure to remember you favorably if you take one of their recommendations to heart.

15. After this meeting, what can I assist you with? Do you have any questions or concerns?

It’s crucial to leave the meeting with an open-ended question so that additional conversation can continue, even after the one on one employee meeting has concluded. It’s also a fantastic approach to decide what will be discussed at the next meeting. On the other side, it allows workers to voice their opinions freely.

Photo by Amy Hirschi on Unsplash

The Bottom Line

High-performing businesses are driven by maintaining constant contact between employees and their management. Team members must maintain alignment with the larger objectives and have a sense of purpose for their personal and professional development opportunities.

Use the strategies, one-on-one meeting best practices, and advice this comprehensive guide provides to ask effective questions and get the most out of your sessions. Whatever your position, there is always space for improvement, and one-on-one interactions provide valuable insight that’s crucial for making that a reality.

The post Employee One On One Questions: How to Ask Them Effectively appeared first on Focus.

Some experts tell that asynchronous communication is the future of the work. Other leaders say that we can’t refuse synchronous communication. Who’s right? 

In this article, you will find a complete guide on different ways of team communication and practical examples. 

Here are the main topics of the article:

• Communication challenges for remote teams
• Synchronous vs Asynchronous communication
  • What is synchronous communication?
  • What is asynchronous communication?
  • Pros and cons of synchronous communication
  • Pros and cons of asynchronous communication
• Best practices for synchronous communication
• Best practices for asynchronous communication
• Tools for synchronous and asynchronous communication
• How to use both types of communication

The main goal of this article is to give you best practices and examples of effective communication to increase productivity in your team.

The story about Mike

To understand better what should you use, let me tell you a short story. 

Meet Mike – a software developer in a tech company. He is a nice guy who loves to solve interesting projects.

He should deploy a new feature today – create a new onboarding process. He started to work on it in the morning. He is closed to complete the first piece of work – creating a database structure. 

At that moment, Mary is calling him.

She asks Mike to extend the plan to one of the clients who want to test their product before payment. It doesn’t take a lot of time and Mike helps. Mary is happy. 

Mike comes back to his main work. It takes some time to remember his last step and the main issue he tried to solve. 

He doesn’t manage to finish the first part of work because of the team meeting at noon. He jumps on a Zoom call to discuss current challenges with the engineering team.  

The meeting takes more time than he expected. He plans to continue his work after lunch. 

Fortunately, he finishes the database structure after lunch. It’s time to write backend logic for the new feature. 

Suddenly his manager Derrick is calling him. Their main clients requested to develop the new feature and it’s the main priority now. Erick explains to him how it should work and asks him when Mike will finish the current task to start working on this new feature.

Mike has a new deadline to finish the initial task. Anxiety is growing because he understands that he will not deploy the new onboarding in a time-bound manner. He is still working on the second part of this feature.

He tried to learn more about time management but it didn’t help him. He often doesn’t complete his work in a time-bound manner.

The end of the story. 

Communication challenges for remote teams

The real problem with Mike is not his time management skills. It’s about communication. 

Remote teams are facing main communication challenges:

• Loneliness and lack of human interaction. It’s not a direct communication challenge. However, it’s important to mention that if you don’t have a lot of friends or family members, it’s easy to feel isolated. 

How to solve it? 

If you feel lonely, try to work from cafes or cowering spaces. Also, participate in different evening events to meet new people. 

• Interruptions: coworkers, family, pets, etc. 
  It’s mostly the problem of synchronous communication. And we will talk about it later.

• Misunderstanding. 
  Remote work requires extra communication. It’s easy to misunderstand what your coworkers said in a messenger.

How to solve it?

Clarifying everything. Be proactive in speaking up. And make it a habit in your team.

• Wrong communication processes 

Marcelo Lebre wrote a great article on why companies should be working asynchronously 

Usually, companies work synchronously where you do everything step by step. The main bottleneck of the waterfall process defines by the weakest part. Total speed depends on the speed of the slowest process in the workflow. 

It’s the waterfall way of product development. To finish the work, a team should complete 3 projects step by step (A, B, C).

He showed that by separating tasks A, B, and C in (A1, A2, A3, B1, etc.) they achieved three times as many deploys as in the previous example. This methodology allows them to multiplex tasks, combining them to produce results faster.

And the communication was a crucial part of their improvement at work. Meetings are one of the expensive tools in the company and you should use them wisely. 

And here is the common way of communication in a remote team. Developers are distracted in the meeting and real-time communication. As the result, their productivity is low.

In this example, communication is based on good documentation and text answers. It increases efficiency.

Let’s talk about 2 types of communication.

Synchronous vs Asynchronous communication

In the world of remote work, there are 2 types of communication: 

• Synchronous communication
• Asynchronous communication

Let’s talk about each of the ways of communication.

What is synchronous communication?

Synchronous communication – real-time communication when you expect to get an answer at the same moment in time. It’s a usual way to communicate for many companies. Think about meetings and calls. 

Synchronous communication examples

• Live meetings
• Phone call
• Zoom, Skype, etc
• Messengers when you reply in real-time

What is asynchronous communication?

Asynchronous communication – when you send the message and don’t expect to get an immediate answer. Think about email. 

Asynchronous communication examples

• Email
• Ticket in help desk system
• Project management tools: Basecamp, Asana, Trello, etc
• Messengers: Slack, Facebook Messenger, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc (the worst example for async communication because people still is waiting for a fast answer in the messenger)
• Focus (for status updates, stands, 1:1 meetings, etc)

The main difference between synchronous and asynchronous communication is the response time. 

Pros and cons of synchronous communication

Pros

• Fast replies. Real-time communication allows us to get answers almost instantly.
• Deep communication. You can communicate deeply and understand better your partner.
• Build emotional rapport. Messages and emails can’t build strong connections like a real-time conversation.

Cons

• Continuous distraction. Any brainwork requires high concentration and focus. There were a lot of researches on this topic – how much time do we need to get back to work after distraction. Numbers are different, but the result is the same. It takes a lot of time and our energy to get back to work and repair the previous level of productivity. 
• As the result, it increases stress. The person achieves less when teammates distract him/her during the workday. We spend more energy to make up for a lost time. Usually, it increases the level of stress. And it leads us to burnout.
• It takes a lot of time. Meetings are an expensive tool for a company. Especially, team meetings with 4 and more participants. 
• Reducing the quality of conversations and answers. During a call or a meeting, sometimes you don’t have enough time to think deeply about the best answer. As there result, you make not the best solutions.

Synchronous communication works great for:

• Brainstorm or creative work. Synchronous communication is great for teamwork when you need to brainstorm new ideas.
• Strategy sessions or problem-solving sessions. Meetings with rapidly changing context where you need the full attention of all participants at the same time.
• One-on-one meetings. It’s crucial to build an emotional connection to understand all unclear moments on one on one meetings. And synchronous communication is the best way to do it.
• Sales calls. 
• Onboarding new employees.

Pros and cons of asynchronous communication

Pros

• No distraction. Nobody calls you and you can do more focused work. Nobody distracts you during eating another “Pomodoro”. Increase productivity. You better plan the work. Reduce stress.
• Better answers. You can better formulate thoughts in the written mode. Also, it helps to document processes. Mike would like it.
• Communication is saved. You can think more before answer. As the result, you get better answers. And it’s written answers that you can use in FAQ then.
• Better goals. Asynchronous communication requires thinking twice and better formulate goals or tasks. 
• You can work from different time zones and it’s not necessary to be in the same place.  

Cons

• Wait to respond
• Misunderstanding
• Not so emotional as real-time communication

Asynchronous communication works great for:

• Daily check-ins and weekly updates
• FYIs and process documentation
• Meeting about meeting
• Status updates
• Feedback requests
• Polls 

Best practices for synchronous communication

Prepare agenda

Good agenda is 50% of a successful meeting. Align everyone before the meeting by created a clear agenda. Everyone should be on the same page and understand why you meet and what you want to achieve at the end of the meeting.

Ask feedback

Ask for instant feedback after the meeting. What can you improve? It’s a good time to understand what you can improve by asking for feedback. 

Build personal connection

Focus on personal connection. Real-time communication allows building strong emotional rapport. Use it. Don’t waste your time and build strong relationships with your team.

Best practices for asynchronous communication

Plan and prepare

Urgent tasks and things that should have done yesterday are not compatible with asynchronous communication. It’s ok if you have a rush job. However, it’s not good, if you are always in rush. That’s why it’s crucial to be organized.

Bad example	Good Example
Hey, are you here? Help! Please send me analytics of the Product that you showed a month ago at the marketing meeting.	Hey Mary, I’m creating a presentation for partners about the Product for SMB.  I’m looking for Product analytics in 2019: – unique visitors – amount of orders, average check Could you please send me it until tomorrow evening?

Communicate clearly

Formulate each request clear. Your coworkers should have a minimum amount of questions. Add important details. Describe the goal.

Formulate meeting summary and be responsible for results

These tools we use to not distract each other in the team:

• Focus: for goal setting, daily check-ins, weekly updates, and 1-on-1s meeting
• Github: to maintain the software
• Dropbox: for documents and files
• Google Docs: for documents and spreadsheets
• Slack: for urgent communication 
• Zoom: for video calls

How to communicate?

How should you run communication now? You can’t do only synchronous or asynchronous communication. The right answer is the balance.

You should identify things that you want to keep running synchronously. We recommend you keep only these type of synchronous meetings:

• Sales calls.
• Brainstorm or creative work.
• Strategy sessions or problem-solving sessions.
• One-on-one meetings.
• Onboarding new employees.

Other things you can run asynchronously.

The ratio between synchronous and asynchronous communications should be 20/80.

How we do it in Focus

Here is our communication workflow in Focus. Quick note, we eat our own dog food and use Focus for several processes. You can use any other tools. The main goal of this example is to show you how you can organize communication in your company.

Quarterly meetings:

• Setting objectives: Zoom + Focus
  We run several real-time meeting on Zoom to create OKRs and use Focus to save them. You can read more about OKRs here.

• OKRs Retrospectives: Zoom + Focus
  The same process

• Quarterly team recaps: Slack
• Strategy session: Zoom

Monthly meetings:

• Monthly team recap and announcements: Slack (+Zoom, if it’s necessary)

Weekly meetings:

• Weekly updates: Focus
• 1-on-1 meetings: Zoom + Focus
• Sales call: Zoom

Daily meetings:

• Daily check-ins: Focus

Occasional meetings: 

• Brainstorm session: Zoom
• Urgent meetings: Zoom
• Onboarding new employee: Zoom

In this article, you can get more guidelines on how to run asynchronous meetings.

Conclusion

Building the right way of communication in the company is crucial. It allows you to achieve more and don’t feel anxiety because of unaccomplished things. Distraction and the lack of the right processes affect not only team productivity but also employee burnout. 

Using tips and examples from this guide, you will be able to improve processes in your company. Set the right habits for synchronous and asynchronous communications to work better. And join Focus to try async check-ins, updates, and other forms of asynchronous communication. 

P.S. All names and events are fictitious. Any coincidences with characters and facts from real life are pure coincidences.

The post Synchronous vs Asynchronous Communication: Complete Guide For Remote Teams appeared first on Focus.

Stop wasting your time on team meetings. Asynchronous communication is one of the core principles why remote work is effective. 

A growing number of remote companies last year proved dozens of reports about remote work. Employee productivity increases during work from home. For example, Stanford’s research and Cisco’s study told the same.

Why?

Asynchronous communication.

In this article, we will talk about the most important things that make teams’ communication productive:

• What is asynchronous and synchronous communications
• Benefits of asynchronous meetings
• Why you should focus on asynchronous meetings (and should you do it?)
• When you should use synchronous communication (and why you can’t eliminate it)
• 3 steps how to run effective meetings 
• Examples of meetings for asynchronous and synchronous communication
• How to balance both types of communication: status meeting example

Seems a lot? Yeah, true. However, it’s a short guide on how to build communication in your team to increase productivity.

Let’s start with the basics.

What’s asynchronous communication?

Asynchronous communication is a way of communication when you don’t expect to get an immediate answer to your message. For example, email is asynchronous communication.

As opposite, synchronous communication is communication when the recipient is waiting for an immediate answer. The real-time meeting is an example of pure synchronous communication.

However, digital forms of communication might be synchronous too. For example, real-time answering in a messenger becomes synchronous. 

If you want to learn more about both types of communication, you can read our article What is Asynchronous Communication?

Benefits of asynchronous communication?

Better control of the time. As the result, employees are more happier and productive. Employees have almost full control over how to plan their day and schedule. Some of them prefer to work at night, others like to work in the morning. Also, it helps to find a better work-life balance because employees might spend mornings with their children and do work later.

Better quality of communication. Asynchronous communication is slower. However, many companies admit that the quality of communication is higher. People learn to discuss the topic without empty conversations. They have time to think about a question and give a deep and thoughtful answer. 

Better planning = less stress. People learn how to plan like a pro because now they can’t do everything at the last minute. They can’t send ASAP messages to co-workers because response takes time. It leads us to more effective scheduling to complete everything according to the plans. It reduces pressure and the job is done in a better way.

Deep work by default. It’s not necessary to jump on Slack or another communication tool to check messages each hour. Co-workers can check messages 1-3 times per day and get more time for focused work which increases productivity.  

Why should you focus on asynchronous communication?

The benefits of asynchronous meetings speak for themselves. Add to it the cost of synchronous communication and you will get the combo.

According to an article on Inc.com, more than $37 billion is spent on unproductive meetings every year! 

The cost of update meeting

The monthly cost of a weekly status update meeting for a team of 8 people is near $1k.

Duration: 30 minutes
Team: 8 people
Salaries: from $50k to $120k (1 – $50k, 1 -$60k, 3 – $70k, 2 – $90k, 1 – $120k)
The total cost of weekly meeting: $217
Total monthly cost: $868

It means that the cost of weekly update meetings for a team of 8 people is $10k per year. But let’s be honest, this meeting can go more than 30 minutes. 

It’s the main reason why you should eliminate the amount of real-time communication. Peter Arvai, a CEO and Co-founder Prezi, also tells that the async meetings will be the future of work.

Downsides of asynchronous communication

However, asynchronous communication is not ideal, and here are several downsides:

• Wait to respond
• Misunderstanding
• Not so emotional as real-time communication

It shows that you can’t remove sync communication in your process. However, you can balance these two types of communication to be more effective and reduce the amount of stress. 

3 steps how to run meetings in a better way

Step 1: Identify when to start async first

The first step is an understanding type of meetings that really important to keep in real-time mode. And what’s better to use in an asynchronous way. Here are recommendations from GitLab, which we completely agree on. It’s best to avoid real-time meetings for the following items:

• Status updates
• FYIs and process documentation
• Meeting about a meeting

Step 2: Set the agenda and talking points

If you don’t have agenda – you spend the company’s resources to empty meetings. “Jump on a quick call” without agenda might sound good for the participant but it’s counterproductive. 

Always set agenda and talking points that every participant understands the reason for the meeting.

All meetings must have an agenda and a documentarian, enabling everyone to contribute asynchronous regardless of time zone or availability.

Darren Murph, Head of Remote in Gitlab

At Focus, we realized that it’s not necessary to do each morning video standup call. It’s more efficient to run daily check-ins in an asynchronous way. Here is how it looks.

It takes few minutes to answer the main questions. For daily check-ins, you can ask the next items:

• What did you do yesterday?
• What are you going to do today?
• Any blockers?

Step 3: To document takeaways 

If you run real-time meetings, don’t forget to document highlights after the meeting. If you do it in an asynchronous way, you have already documented it. Congrats!

The main point is to make takeaways after meeting to sync the team. It will help to be more accountable and productive in the next steps. Paul Axtell recommends doing these 2 things to recap meetings.

Examples of asynchronous and synchronous meetings.

Asynchronous meetings:

• Daily check-ins
• Weekly status updates
• Weekly announcements
• Monthly updates
• Quarterly team results recaps and celebrations
• Project sprints and milestones
• Backlog refinement
• New team member introduction
• Missed deliverable retrospective
• Alternate times for recurring scheduled meetings (for people who can’t attend synchronous meetings because of different timezones)

Synchronous meetings: 

• Sales calls
• Direct reports (1:1 meetings)
• Celebrations and retrospectives 
• First-time meetings with external parties
• First-time meetings with team members who have not previously worked together
• Difficult decisions for important topics (e.g. when stakes are high)

How to sync a team (daily check-ins case)

Let’s talk about specific use cases. 

How can the team use asynchronous daily standups to sync the team? There are 4 ways of running updates: 

Synchronous

1. Video calls. You can use Zoom, Google Meets, or another software. 

Pros:

• The main benefit of this way of updates is face-to-face communication. You get real-time statuses in the morning and then go back to work. 

Cons: 

• You don’t document your current statuses, which means that you don’t have a history of what you did last week. Don’t have history – you can’t analyze your productivity and find points for improvement. 
• You spend more time compare with async meetings. Everyone should wait until the end of the meeting. Compare it with async check-ins when everyone answers 3 questions (2-3 minutes) and reads the answers of coworkers. Usually, it takes few minutes because speed reading faster than speed talking.  
• Less quality of information compares with written updates.
• Not good for co-workers in different timezones

Asynchronous

2. Manually gather updates in Slack or any other messenger. 

Pros:

• Free
• You have written answers, which is much better than only conversations.
• High quality of answers

Cons:

• You should remind co-workers who haven’t sent an update
• Resources for managing it
• Don’t have analytics (only text answers)
• Still not good for different timezone because someone should manage this process

3. Special standup bot. It’s a bot that runs standups in Slack or MS Team.

Pros:

• Hight quality of answers 
• Written answers
• Integration with Slack and MS Teams
• Automate notification and reminders
• Have analytics
• Good for different timezones
• Reports

Cons:

• Using the whole tool only for this specific process

4. Team management pulse software Focus. 

Pros:

• Hight quality of answers 
• Written answers
• Integration with Slack
• Automate notification and reminders
• Have analytics
• Good for different timezones
• Connected with 1:1 meetings and goals
• Keep a history of goals’ progress and daily check-ins
• Connected with employee development plans
• Get feedback from employees
• Running all kind of async meetings
• Email reports

Cons:

• New tool (even if it’s simple)

Daily check-ins in Focus

How to balance both types of communication for daily check-ins?

Some teams don’t want to run async check-ins because they don’t want to lose personal communication. But status updates meeting is not designed for personal communication. 

How the hell should we run all meetings asynchronously now?

And you will be right – it’s not healthy to stop running synchronous meetings because of 3 main struggles of remote work: disconnecting, loneliness, and communication. You should keep using synchronous meetings but do it wisely.

Here is the better way of running asynchronous daily check-ins and team synchronous meetings:

1. You run daily check-ins asynchronously (choose one of three methods above you to prefer more)
2. And now you set group calls for solving key issues and questions if you want to keep the personal connection. Otherwise, you can use async communication even for solving problems. 

In this case, you don’t waste your valuable time gathering updates. You run asynchronous check-ins to gather this information. And now, you spend your time in synchronous meetings for making an important decision or solving problems. This is the most convenient and cost-effective way to run meetings in this case. 

Conclusion

Asynchronous communication still is not a common process for businesses. Many teams prefer to jump on a call to discuss their current statuses or sharing weekly announcements. It’s a legacy they have from the pre-COVID time when inefficiency was a frequent fact for many businesses.

I’m sure that more success will get companies that are ready to change and be more effective in processes. Teams that don’t require employees to be always in touch, allow asynchronous communication, increase the time of focused work. And create self-organized teams where employees are responsible for results. 

We are happy to invite you to this journey.

The post Asynchronous Communication: How To Run Meetings appeared first on Focus.

Asynchronous Communication is a key element for team productivity even if your team is not remote. Maybe you’ll be surprised – asynchronous communication is not only more effective but also helps people to complete the most important work and feel fulfillment. Let’s check how it works and how to build effective asynchronous communication.

Different studies show that productivity is not deterred by the shift to remote work. Why?

Let me tell you a short story. Meet John, who is a software developer in a tech company. He is a very nice guy who likes to help people. 

Right now, John tries to understand why Sylvia can’t export reports from their CRM. He is close to solving this issue…

At that moment, Ann is calling him.

John is a nice guy and loves to help other people. He postpones his job and answers the call: “Hey John, could you please help me change the button on the website…” Of course, he can. It doesn’t take a lot of time. A few minutes later, John solved this thing. Ann is happy. 

John is trying to remember what he worked on before the call. “Why we can’t export reports? Okay, let’s start from the beginning to find the reason for this problem.” 

Meanwhile, the team lead has created the new tasks for John recently. The to-do list is growing. John begins to feel nervous: “Why can’t I finish everything in a time-bound manner?” His anxiety becomes stronger. However, he is still a nice guy who likes to help other people. 

Suddenly Slack channel burst with dozens of messages. Users complain because they can’t log in to the system. Something wrong with their authentication. John is watching logs now to find out what happened and fix this problem. 

An hour later, everything is fixed. He is glad and wants to take a small break. But Monica is calling him at that moment. 

“Hi John, my client is tortured me. He wants to get more time for trying our product. Can you extend him a free plan for few days?” John is tired and without thinking accepted this request. He spends some time doing it. Also, he remembers that their tech side in pricing is not good and he should find the time to improve it. 

John gets back to the task manager and sees that he has 3 new tasks. And he still hasn’t solved the problem with reports export.

This is how it goes day after day. John often has to answer the same questions. And he still doesn’t have enough time to complete everything in a time-bound manner. 

He even read the book about time management to be more effective. However, the result is the same. He still doesn’t have enough time for effective time management. 

The end of the story. Sounds similar?

The real problem

This story is not about time management. It’s about effective communication. Communication might be 2 types:

• Asynchronous communication – when you send the message and don’t expect to get an immediate answer. Think about email. 
• Synchronous communication – real-time communication when you expect to get an answer at the same exact moment in time. 

Asynchronous communication examples

• Email
• Ticket in help desk system
• Project management tools: Basecamp, Asana, Trello, etc
• Messengers: Slack, Facebook Messenger, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, WhatsApp, etc (the worst example for async communication because people still is waiting for a fast answer in the messenger)
• Focus (for status updates, stands, 1:1 meetings, etc)

Synchronous communication examples

• Live meetings
• Phone call
• Zoom, Skype, etc
• Messengers when you reply in real-time

Synchronous communications have several big downsides:

• Continuous distraction. Any brainwork requires high concentration and focus. There were a lot of researches on this topic – how much time do we need to get back to work after distraction. Numbers are different, but the result is the same. It takes a lot of time and our energy to get back to work and repair the previous level of productivity. 
• As the result, it increases stress. The person achieves less when teammates distract him/her during the workday. We spend more energy to make up for a lost time. Usually, it increases the level of stress. And it leads us to burnout.
• It takes a lot of time. Meetings are an expensive tool for a company. Especially, team meetings with 4 and more participants. 
• Priority on communication instead of focus on what matters the most. I often heard from people: “How can I turn off my phone, so people will not able to reach me?” However, if someone turns off a phone, people who REALLY want to reach the person will find the way how to do it. 
• Reducing the quality of conversations and answers. During a call or a meeting, sometimes you don’t have enough time to think deeply about the best answer. As there result, you make not the best solutions.

The benefits of asynchronous communication

Another way is asynchronous communication. And you get opposite results: 

• No distraction. Nobody calls you and you can do more focused work. Nobody distracts you during eating another “Pomodoro”. Increase productivity. You better plan the work. Reduce stress.
• Better answers. You can better formulate thoughts in the written mode. Also, it helps to document processes. John would like it.
• Communication is saved. You can think more before answer. As the result, you get better answers. And it’s written answers that you can use in FAQ then.
• Better goals. Asynchronous communication requires thinking twice and better formulate goals or tasks. 
• You can work from different time zones and it’s not necessary to be in the same place.  

Downsides of asynchronous communication

However, asynchronous communication is not ideal, and here are several downsides:

• Wait to respond
• Misunderstanding
• Not so emotional as real-time communication

It shows that you can’t remove sync communication in your process. However, you can balance these two types of communication to be more effective and reduce the amount of stress. 

How to balance both types of communication?

It’s hard to imagine how you can achieve your goals when everyone can distract you every time.  

On the other hand, asynchronous communication is respect for your time, plans, and focus. 

The right answer is balancing both types of communication. Avoid meetings and discussions that require much time. It’s important to identify topics that might wait and really urgent questions. For example, Hailley Griffis wrote how they communicate asynchronously at Buffer. And I agree with her:

Most things aren’t urgent. Knowing the difference between urgent and important communication is crucial.

Hailley Griffis

Anne-Laure Le Cunff recommends to document everything. If it’s not documented, it doesn’t exist. 

GitLab wrote Async 3.0, which is a great article about communication in their company. They share examples of asynchronous communication on GitLab teams. 

When to start asynchronous first

Our experience and GitLab shows that it’s crucial to avoid meetings and calls for the following events:

1. Status updates
2. FYIs and process documentation
3. Meeting about meeting
   

It’s better to use asynchronous communication. For example, you can gather daily check-ins instead of daily calls to align your team. In Focus, it takes only a few minutes to complete the form and see what’s going in your team.  

When to keep synchronous communication

At the same time, it’s clear that you can’t avoid sync communication. It allows building rapport faster and quickly delivers context to a group. Here are the main activities that it’s better to keep in a real-time way.

1. Sales calls
2. First-time meetings with external parties
3. First-time meetings with new team members
4. Important decisions (when stakes are high)
5. Supporting your direct reports (e.g. regular 1-on-1 meetings with documenting highlights of the meetings)

Tools for asynchronous communication

These tools we use to not distract each other in the team:

• Focus: for goal setting, daily check-ins, weekly updates, and 1-on-1s
• Github: to maintain the software
• Dropbox: for documents and files
• Google Docs: for documents and spreadsheets
• Slack: for urgent communication 
• Zoom: for video calls

It makes sense to say that we turn off notifications in most cases. Especially, in a messenger. You know, it’s hard to focus when you see the bunch of new messages in Slack.

Conclusion

We believe in the future of work in smart balance in asynchronous and synchronous communications. Use tools that increase transparency and avoid distraction. Set an emergency mechanism for how to connect in the case if you reduce the amount of real-time communication. And join Focus to try async check-ins, updates, and other forms of asynchronous communication. 

P.S. All names and events are fictitious. Any coincidences with characters and facts from real life are pure coincidences.

The post What is Asynchronous Communication? appeared first on Focus.

So you’re managing a team and you need some help with synchronicity. Need to know what’s going on with everyone in your team? Daily Stand-ups sound like just the thing you need! Learn about daily stand-ups or daily scrum. These meetings are not just a status update, it’s an essential tool.

Read for our tips and suggestions with team development.

There are three main parts that we will cover:

1. Defining Daily Stand-up
2. Why you need it as a leader
3. Implementation
4. Why you need Focus

Defining the Daily Stand-up

Daily stand-ups, daily scrum, daily meetings or whatever name you know them as are all the same thing. They are daily check-in meetings you have with your team.

Daily Stand-ups are timely, informal, and get to the point. No need to prepare presentations or rehearse, just go down a list of critical information you need to share. Your team should provide information on their obstacles and possibly what they’re doing to mitigate these problems.

The advantage to daily scrum is that you can give your input right away. Give some criticism or share some helpful tips.

You can even shut down ideas and help narrow down what your team should be doing.

These meetings originated as a tool for development teams-Agile development teams that it. Agile teams are defined by the Harvard Business Review here: Agile at Scale. They’ve grown since then and should be utilized by all teams, non-technical or otherwise.

Why you need it (as a leader)

These daily scrum are vital for team coordination. They are an effective form of communication that help you stay on task.

When your team is in sync, you can achieve more. Get better results, faster results more efficiently.

For example, you want to have your team post on the company’s social media everyday. Creating a calendar and delegating the tasks is the first step. If someone misses a post or creates something not to your liking, a face to face meeting, even over video call is the best way to communicate your message. A quick call can aid in overcoming misunderstandings.

Daily stand-ups prevent critical issues from growing.

These frequent stand-ups don’t allow for issues to fall through the crack. Because problems can be address easily as they appear or even before they’re noticeable, they can be tackled on the spot.

Daily Stand-ups are not just individual reports.

The benefit of doing daily stand-ups is its notable difference from a normal meeting or report. If you treat these daily stand-ups like a a report meeting then you lose it’s value.

Here are some examples of how you can stay in sync:

1. Write a mini agenda/list so that the team can view
2. Don’t go off topic in daily stand-ups
3. Stay active in group chats
4. Use Focus (more details below)

At Focus, our main goal is to help teams achieve the most! We want to share our technology and OKR guides so that no matter how big or small your organization is, it can reach it’s full potential. We believe in daily stand-ups and that every leader should give it a try!

Implementation

So now that you’re ready to start having these daily scrum with your team, here’s what you need to know.

Rule #1 is to know your team’s schedule. Find a time that works for everyone and that means everyone. Having expected attendance and participation gathers respect. You show respect for your team and take time to check up on them, so they should share their honest thoughts and comments in return.

Rule #2 is to keep it short. This is not the time to have long, deep in-depth conversations. These daily stand-ups can delve into personal topics, but should ultimately stay light and focused. You want to understand what’s going on and any obstacles. Any “blockers” that need more than 15 minutes to explain should be saved for a later meeting, which you can plan during this daily check-in.

The length of daily stand-ups are a great advantage. Each party has to equally participate and the limited time helps everyone stay focused to not only talk about their plans but also actively listen.

On a side note, these meetings are short, so remember to be on time!

There’s no space for uncomfortably in daily stand-ups.

Rule #3 is to always address impediments. If your team never has any issues then it’s because they don’t feel comfortable diverging information. As there are always ways to improve, there will always be obstacles to your goal. Leaders should aid in teamwork, meaning your team should not be too intimidated to let you know what issues they face. Be wary of this secrecy. Even if your team is at their peak performance, have them share their impediments and how they can address them.

There’s no time for passivity.

The last major rule is to stay committed! Don’t give up on these meetings. Daily means daily. As casual as they may be, your team should treat is an a important part of their day. The more you value these stand-ups the more your team will as well. Lead by example and you’ll soon enjoy the benefits of daily stand-ups!

My personal tip is to thank people for their time! As quick as these meetings are, it’s always polite to give a “thank you” to the person for their time. It’s better not to assume what your team’s schedule might be. Last minute changes can happen to these meetings, and you might not know what plans they had to move to make it on time. Take advantage of this time to recognize your employee’s hard work and build your professional relationship! It never hurts to be polite and friendly. This relationship can translate into work and in turn improve your team’s commitment.

Daily Stand-ups go a long way.

Read our tips on one on one meetings:

9 One on One Meeting Tips

What are One on One Meetings

Why you need Focus

At Focus, we pride ourselves on being communication-oriented and solution driven. Our use of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) helps our team to stay on task and figure out creative solutions.

Read more about these OKRs on our blog:

What are OKRs

We use many forms of communication to let our team know our status. Focus had daily check ins where you share your actions and tasks as well as meaningful insight. Every member of the team can see what everyone else is doing. To make this process even more convenient, we have a Slackbot for these daily check ins as well. Weekly team meetings and one on one meetings are a must for our team. Our blog serves as evidence of this synchronicity!

We post about the changes Focus has gone through on our blog:

Focus Update

Daily stand-ups, check-ins, and OKR are growing in popularity so you and your team should give us a try! Don’t lag behind all the teams and start-ups. With Focus, you’ll find ease in fostering clarity and teamwork across all types of departments and projects!

Schedule a meeting with our CEO and team at Focus.

Let me know what you think about my article and share your experience with daily stand-ups below! Follow our Facebook and LinkedIn!

The post Daily Stand-ups are a Must! Here’s Why. appeared first on Focus.

We always hear that we should shoot for the stars, but what does that really mean? It’s great to set big goals but how big should you aim for? What are these Moonshots and Roofshot OKRs and in which context should you apply them? Which one is right for my company or team? These are all good questions and you’ve come to the right place.

Now that you know about OKRs and the basics of making OKRs, let’s go even more in-depth. This article introduces and describes the differences of Moonshot and Roofshot OKRs. These are the two types of OKRs that you can make. Read about the fundamentals you need to know about Moonshot and Roofshot OKRs and the guide to utilizing them correctly. At the end of the article, there are extra tips for your team to have successful OKRs.

A quick refresher on the fundamentals of OKRs:

OKRs are Objectives and Key Results.

First, the objective is where the team wants to be or what the teams wants to achieve.

Secondly, key results are the metrics or milestones that track how the objective is going to be fulfilled. These are meaningful performance measurement tools. For each objective, there should be at least 3 key results. There can be up to 5 Key results, but 3 is recommend.

OKR is a goal setting framework that adapts to work for your team. It values the bigger picture and measures what matters. Transparency is key and this structure gives everyone a clear goal to focus on. OKRs also provide a clear explanation or impact of what the team’s achievement of the key results will bring.

You can read more on Focus and why our company revolves around OKRs: Founder’s Story.

This article covers 5 main sections:

1. Moonshot OKRS
2. Roofshot OKRs
3. Table Comparison
4. How to use Moonshot and Roofshot OKRs
5. Extra Tips

Moonshot OKRs

Moonshot OKRs are those that seem overly ambitious. These stretched and aspirational goals challenge your team. It’s a new project that no one has touched upon yet. It pushes everyone’s limits and set a new definition for what’s possible. Since it requires the team to “shoot for the moon” and as a result, the goal will seem almost out of reach.

The pathway to this goal is undefined, unstable, risky and require experience.

Often time all the resources are not listed out and the research you have is limited. Your team has to pave the path and should start off having no real knowledge of the step by step of how to attain the end goal. This type of OKR is fluid and has room for variance. The team’s understanding of the status quo is broadened. Most companies, such as Google, use Moonshots. As a result of this formidable objective, success with a Moonshot OKR means achieving 60 to 70% of the key results.

The drawback to this type of OKR is that your team would be highly unlikely to fulfill 100% of the goal. The consequence of this drawback could deter investors or funding, so planning ahead for the unknown is a necessity.

Teams that know how to set Moonshot OKRs and afford the damages should stay cautious whilst realizing that even though they fail to “reach the moon”, where they land is still a remarkable accomplishment.

These types of goals help the team to curate revisions, assess their action plan, and find areas for improvement. The results are used as data to create the next Moonshot OKR.

In short, Moonshots are high risk and high reward.

Example:

Objective: Create a marking campaign and increase brand presence

Key Results:

-Increase daily blog readers from 10 to 100

-Increase social media following by 200%

-Sponsor 10 Influencer product reviews on Youtube

-Curate 2 Business Partnerships with Local Community targeting product demographic

Roofshot OKRs

Roofshot OKRs (also known as committed OKRs) include achievable goals. This second type of objectives are still described as difficult but still exist within the team’s known trajectory. Success for a Roofshot OKR means reaching 100% of the key results.

These OKRs are akin to contracts; Roofshots are a guaranteed commitment and results need to be met. You can expect this OKR to be successfully completed by the end of its timeline.

Once finalized, the common understanding is that the OKR will be completely fulfilled. Hence the reason it’s also referred to as “committed” OKR. An unfinished Roofshot goal should be met with serious discussion. While OKRs in their nature are inherently hard, Roofshots are a defined commitment that includes the tasks easily lined up. Missing the target with this OKR highlights that there is a critical blind spot in the team’s operation.

These OKRs provide the much needed results for teams that are looking for steady goals and stability. It can connect different interdependent teams by having them each know what to expect from the other.

Example:

Objective: Improve brand presence

Key Results:

-Create 5 articles

-Get 15 reader surveys and reviews

-Open Accounts on 6 Popular Social Media Networks

-Start a company hashtag that

Some more general OKR examples can be found here on the Focus blog: HR examples, Product Management examples, and Marketing examples.

Table Comparison

Moonshot and Roofshot OKRs have different purposes, meaning they should be used for different contexts. There are various advantages of each that should be considered. This table reiterates the lengthy description of Moonshots and Roofshot OKRs from above and compares them.

*Just a reminder that all OKRs are supposed to be inherently hard. They are not a list of tasks, but rather goals. No OKR, whether Moonshot or Roofshot, should be taken lightly.

How to use Moonshot and Roofshot OKRs

Start with Roofshots

Due to the overtly ambitious nature of Moonshot OKRs, experts like Felipe Castro recommend that beginners start off with Roofshot OKRs. You want to start off big, but still within reason. New teams need motivation and small successes are necessary. Roofshots provide the stable foundation that set your team off on the right foot. Using Moonshoot OKRs in the beginning can demotivate the team. It might let the team harbor an uncommitted mindset and culture of not reaching the full potential. Additionally, you take a gamble with the Moonshots compared to the guaranteed success of a Roofshot. Moonshots provide an opportunity for growth in the right context, so it’s best to wait till the team is ready to manage and take on bigger risks.

Transition to Moonshots

However, all OKRs should be designed with the intention of pushing the team out of their comfort zone. Some might even prove to be somewhat uncomfortable. Once the team matures, transitioning to Moonshot OKRs keeps everyone on their toes. It would force the team to develop creative solutions and ask more questions. Without changing to Moonshots, the team’s progress could stagnant. In short, the team should start with Roofshot OKRs to build and develop a results-based mindset then transition to adding Moonshots. The team could go further to expand their limits after orienting themselves to this way of thinking.

The Perfect Mixed Approach

The transition to using Moonshots means to combine them; creating a mixed approach. Your objective would include one Moonshot key result and the rest would be Roofshots. A combination of these OKRs when used wisely could prove a powerful strategy. It means having an attainable goal while setting aside 10 to 30% of the key results as a Moonshot. A combined Moonshot and Roofshot OKR allows for the advantages of both types.

The Moonshot and Roofshot OKR combined should be the endgoal because Moonshots on its own require quite a bit of caution and risk-taking. It’s my recommendation that non-OKR experts reach and stay using this combined method. A Moonshot OKR’s profit is not always promised and the pathway is unstable. Your team would enjoy the multitude of benefits listed above and avoid undesired business outcomes with the implementation of a Moonshot AND Roofshot OKR. This way the team finds space for development whilst maintaining most of their current success rate.

Extra Tips

Whether making a Moonshot or Roofshot OKR, labeling is one of the most important steps. The OKR should be transparent and understandable. It’s a signal of the team’s expectations; this is what everyone deems as achievable. Being clear is important because everyone on the team knows where to direct their focus and motivation. Who wouldn’t want to stay on track with the rest of the team?

A team that works with the same objective in mind is a team that conquers Moonshot and Roofshot OKRs.

While Roofshots have easily defined resources, Moonshots instead require the over usage of resources. An example of the usage of resources is involving everyone in the team and all the teams in the company.

A defined objective that everyone can focus on means everyone realizing their role in the big picture.

Another tip I have is to start off with a good team. Read our CEO’s article on building a great team as well as Forbes’ article on workplace team bonding.

Lastly, after learning about Moonshot and Roofshot OKRs, it’s time to make some! Be prepared for the unexpected and proceed with caution, but don’t let that get in the way of your excitement for the future.

The post Moonshot and Roofshot OKRs: Learn about the two types of OKRs appeared first on Focus.

No matter how long you’ve been in business, you’re bound to be overwhelmed by all the acronyms tossed around. In this article, we’ll discuss OKRs vs. KPIs, two popular acronyms that help you set your goals, and measure performances and results.

We’ve covered OKRs a bunch in previous posts, so we’ll start with KPIs. We’ll discuss OKRs down the line. But first….

What does KPI stand for?

KPI stands for 

Key
Performance 
Indicators

They are performance metrics aimed at evaluating success, output, quantity, and/or quality of ongoing activities (i.e. projects, programs, products, and etc), and individuals. KPIs are unique for each team, company, and industry so don’t go implementing someone else’s KPIs into your workflow because it worked for them.

How do I define my KPIs

You define your KPIs according to your core business objectives. They should be linked to strategic objectives and not just anything that can be measured, otherwise, you are wasting time and resources. It can be a challenge, but you can ask yourself 6 simple questions:

KPI OUTCOME

What is the desired outcome
Why is the outcome desired
How will you influence your desired outcome
Who will be in charge of the outcome
When will you track the outcome

Here’s an example of how to answer these questions:

KPI OUTCOME: Website traffic growth
What: Increase website traffic by 10% this quarter
Why: Achieving this target will build brand presence which in turn can make the brand more profitable
How: Adding more SEO-friendly content, improving funnels to the site, adopting new marketing strategies and tools, creating more engaging content on social media.
Who: VP of Marketing will be in charge for this metric
When: The KPI will be reviewed on a weekly basis

Tips for super effective KPIs

• Make the information succinct, clear and relevant to be absorbed and acted upon more quickly
• Focus on outcomes, not business activities
• KPIs metrics should be very carefully thought through. No random numbers for the sake of having a number.
• KPIs need to express metrics that are integral for a business’s success
• Ensure that your KPIs are attainable

When you encounter a KPI that needs improvements, it becomes a starting point in creating OKRs.

What does OKR stand for?

OKR stands for

Objective
Key
Results

Like KPIs, half of OKRs are metrics while the other half is the objective aka your goals. With OKRs, you set your objectives and see your success with your key results. They’re more inspirational and help everyone share the company vision.

Aspects of OKRs:

• Measurable – there should be a significant percentage/number of improvement you need to achieve.
• Ambitious – the goal must seem impossible but can be reached with enough effort. They should be inspirational.
• Flexible & Agile – Your timeline to meet these goals must be to respond to changing conditions.
• Clear – everyone needs to know and understand what your OKR is and how they are contributing.
• Bidirectional – this means that teams define their tactical OKRs (bottom-up) and see how they align with the C-levels strategic OKRs (top-down).

Companies such Google, Microsoft, and Netflix use OKRs. C-level executives set these objectives for everyone to follow, with contributions made by the team. OKRs are both strategic (annual goal) and tactical (monthly/quarterly). Their purpose is to align teams with transparent goals and metrics in which the teams set their own goals in a bottom-up approach. When employees are able to have a voice in company goals, employee engagement increases.

In the battle of OKRs vs. KPIs, the ambitious nature of OKRs means your goals will be hard to achieve 100% of the time. It’s best to achieve 60-70% of your objectives, while anything more means it was too simple and anything less means you didn’t plan well enough to execute it. KPIs measure the metrics to help you achieve your goals by helping you see what areas you can improve or adjust on.

It’s important to note that because you are setting ambitious goals that will be very hard to achieve, failure of achieving an OKR should not be calculated into an employees’ bonuses. If you connect bonuses with OKRs, then employees will not set ambitious goals for themselves that could have benefited the company.

Objectives themselves are not countable, but with key results they are. Key results are the metrics that tell you what you have done and what else needs to be done to get to your goal. Teams can choose one or several key results, but it’s recommended to have three to five. The less you have the more you can focus.

How do you set OKRs?

John Doerr, who brought OKRs to Google, used the following formula:

I will (objective) as measured by (this set of key results)
Here’s an example of how that would be filled in:

I will get people to visit my website as measured by (1) Increasing traffic from 5,000 to 10,000 by the end of the quarter and (2) creating 20 new pieces of SEO-friendly content on the website.

OKRs are commonly written this way:

Objective: Get more traffic to my website

Key Result #1 Increase traffic from 5,000 to 10,000 by the end of the quarter

Key Result #2 Create 20 new pieces of SEO-friendly content on the website

If you remember only one thing about OKRs, then remember they MUST be measurable. As Felipe Castro says, “Measurement is what makes a goal a goal. Without it…all you have is a desire.”

Pros and Cons: OKRs Vs. KPIs

The pros of OKRs

John Doer outlines the 4 superpowers of OKRs

Superpower #1 – Focus and Commit to Priorities

You hone in what’s important and everyone is clear on what is not. OKRs dictate the hard choices leaders need to make and make communication between departments, teams, and individual contributors more precise.

Superpower #2 – Align and connect for Teamwork

Making goals transparent and shared everyone links to the overall company goal, identify cross-dependencies, and coordinate with other teams effectively and share ownership. When individuals connect with the organization’s success it makes top-down work more meaningful.

Superpower #3 – Track for Accountability

As OKRs are periodicly checked, graded, and reassesed thanks to data, if a key result is endanger, you are notified and are able to track it or revise/replace it.

Superpower #4 – Stretch for Amazing

With OKRs’ ambitious nature it motivates workers to excel by pushing themselves more than they thought possible. It tests their limits due to no fear of failure to worry about.

The cons of OKRs

While there are good aspects of OKRs, there are some drawbacks

OKRs, in general, are just straightforward lists that can easily make it hard to find relationships between different objectives and how each objective can feed into another. This creates transparency and alignment issues. Transparency issues can also arise if OKRs are only designed bottom-up creating a lack of clarity on what the business is trying to achieve as a whole.

Because of the difficulty in making different OKRs relate and align, it also comes with a hefty investment. It can a long time to fully integrate a company, or even a single team, to OKRs, and some departments like experimental and research-based, can’t even make OKRs work at all, no matter the effort. People can be hesitant about trying a new approach and end up throwing in the towel because it’s easier to just go back to how things was like before because it was familiar.

The pros of KPIs

KPIs track progress and make performance across teams visible with access given to accurate results and metrics daily, weekly, and/or periodically. This helps to track the progress of a team’s goal and make decisions easier, especially for managers looking to redesign or modify future strategies. It also shows who is underperforming and how to improve upon that as well

The cons of KPIs

Result-oriented and short-term oriented KPIs runs the risk of a decrease in quality of standard and output as workers feel discouraged from implementing innovative approaches and lose the overall strategic vision. If attaining short-term goals begins to take more priority, it gets in the way of long-term goals.

What is the difference in KPIs vs. OKRs?

First, OKRs sit on top of KPIs, but not because it’s better.

OKR is a strategic framework while KPIs are measurements within that framework.

The overall difference between OKRs vs. KPIs is the intention behind setting goals. OKRs are aggressive, ambitious goals concerned with the whole process and improving performance drastically while KPIs are treated as health metrics to check and measure the output of ongoing projects and specific activities.  They are substantially different but will make you more productive and help achieve your goals faster.

Look over this chart for a quick go-to reference:

Conclusion

So, in OKRs vs. KPIs, which one is better?

Well, it’s not that simple. They have different purposes. and so can be used alone for certain things.

Let’s say you want to scale or improve current plans or projects, KPIs are the way to go.

On the other hand, if you have a more broad vision or want to change the full direction of your company or project, OKRs are better.

Instead of seeing it as OKRs VS. KPIs, think of it as OKRs AND KPIs because ideally they should be used together. KPIs can coincide with the Key Results of OKRs. By implementing both OKRs and KPIs, you drive your team to grow and accomplish greater goals.

We built a focus management platform to help companies be more effective and stay focused on top priorities in daily operations. You can try Focus for free to automate check-ins, one on one meetings, and OKRs. Start working smarter with Focus today.

The post What’s the difference between OKRs vs. KPIs? appeared first on Focus.