This is an idea I have developed after working with some smaller organizations with no budgets for either consulting interventions, or individual training. Here are the steps to follow.
Step 1 – Find a Pilot Unit or Department
Enroll a single group of employees who work together on a project, or department, in some tangible improvement goal they care about accomplishing. It should be related to time-based productivity in some way, and look to reduce symptoms such as:
- email overwhelm
- lateness
- information overload
- time-stress
- improving a bad reputation for timeliness or reliability
- an imbalance of work and personal life
- important commitments falling through the cracks
- physical clutter
- unproductive multi-tasking
- missed deadlines
Step 2 – Get a Quick Baseline
Have a meeting or do a survey in order to get a feel for the current reality. Test your conclusions with the group, and refine as necessary.
Step 3 – Deploy the Book
Get copies of Perfect Time-Based Productivity for each person. (If you need over 100, call me for a group discount.) Also give them easy access to all the forms. (For a different, more gentle learning experience suitable for novice learners in productivity, you can use “Bill’s Im-Perfect Time Management Adventure” as the first book in a two part series.)
Step 4 – Form Small Groups
Help them set up regular schedules to meet – I recommend weekly meetings for at least 8 weeks. Declare a closing date on which you will bring everyone together to wrap up the formal group process. Have them select a group leader. Describe the requirements of a heutagogical approach.
Step 5 – Attend Their First Meeting
Emphasize that the purpose of the exercise is to help them change their habits, practices and rituals and that putting together a plan based on their evaluation is the essential activity.
Step 6 – Monitor and Adjust
Through their group leader, keep tabs on the group’s progress and intervene as needed.
Step 7 – Close Out
Conduct a meeting out close out the formal part of the program. Encourage groups to keep meeting and conduct a comparison with the original baseline. Write up your results and set up another group. Six months or a year later, conduct another comparison.
Good luck with your intervention! If you want to conduct a more formal program, read my article on How to Program a Time-Based Productivity Intervention.
P.S. Would a pre-packaged set of self-study notes help? Let me know.