Take Action to keep Change moving – PMO and Action Management

The Outlook reminder goes off, yet another meeting is starting. As the discussion progresses it becomes clear that the actions needed to solve the problem haven’t been done. The whole group is covering the same ground again, the same discussion, the same challenges.  Sound familiar? 

Time is precious. During change doubly so, different problems, challenges, and actions will all be competing for attention. This is especially important when delivering at pace. The change team can easily become blocked or slowed by key actions not being executed in a timely fashion. Having the team standing around, burning schedule and funding isn’t acceptable. 

Delivery meetings without clear actions or decisions are a waste of everyone’s time. Keeping the required Actions under control and executing on them, are simple yet powerful controls a great PMO will bring to your change programme, giving you the time to focus on delivery, not having the same meeting over and over again! 

Does your PMO keep Actions under control? 

During any change programme challenges will arise. These will often trigger a meeting. Gathering the right people together to address the challenge, to work out the steps needed and making sure there is clear ownership of those steps is critical to resolving the inevitable challenges and keeping your change on track. But meetings without clear, owned actions don’t support progress and resolution. 

With the right PMO all key meetings will raise clear Actions which will be owned, captured and managed to closure. 

Actions are specific tasks which someone commits to achieving. Though a discussion may flow and move from topic to topic, having clear agreed actions is key. This isn’t just administration. Experienced PMO are active participants in the discussion, helping the team to clarify the action they will take and ensure when captured, an action is set in context, so the team understand what they need to do, maximising the value of the teams’ time spent in the meeting. 

How will PMO capture the actions? 

Assuming all meeting participants will document their own actions is a poor assumption to make. In the heat of the discussion is everyone taking notes? Are they running into the next meeting? Will they remember what they agreed to? Unlikely. A great PMO will see that all key Actions are captured for your portfolio, programme or project. It’s a good idea to consider where actions will be documented. Actions noted down, and circulated as an email to attendees, are quickly lost in the mire of busy inboxes. Equally having many logs holding the Actions from different meetings will make keeping tabs on what’s been done, what’s still outstanding and who’s on the hook for it a challenge.  

By having a single Action Log for each major delivery, the PMO is able to easily see where Actions are being progressed, and where more support may be required. A good PMO should always see that Actions from a meeting are captured, documented and distributed within 24hours of the meeting taking place. That way participants memories are still fresh, any uncertainty can be quickly and easily clarified, and the team can quickly get to progressing the Actions – which will ultimately drive value for the delivery. 

What should PMO capture? 

Being clear about what each Action is, and what is required to resolve it will help the team progress them. Vague or woolly actions can result in uncertainty and inaction; ‘I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing so I didn’t do anything’.  

You can ensure actions are clear by capturing: 

• Unique Identifiers – There will be plenty of actions in a busy delivery. Making sure when actions are discussed that its unambiguous which action is being worked or discussed will prevent confusion. A simple, clear ID system will help you be specific when discussing or following up on an action. 

• Action Description – Each Action requires clear description of what is needed. Detail should be given in the Action Description which allows the Owner to understand the specific ask on them. Writing a clear, full Action Description with context is important to ensure the right Action is completed. Remember when documenting Actions that they will be read out of sequence of other actions, and possibly days or even longer after the meeting took place so they need to be understandable and clear on their own. Don’t assume the reader was in the meeting or remembers what was discussed. 

• Closure Measures – The closure measure describes the conditions which must be met for the action to be considered complete. The Closure Measure could be as simple as sending some information to a specific person or could involve multiple criteria which must be achieved. Closure Measure should be an unambiguous statement which can clearly be assessed as true or not. That way the completion of the Action is obvious, and you will avoid actions being closed prematurely. 

• Action Owner – The Action Owner is responsible to seeing the Action is completed and the log is kept up to date with the Action’s status. The Action Owner might not be the individual who completes the work but is responsible for the completion of the Action. The Action Owner should always be an individual, not a group, and should always be present when the action was raised. Noone likes getting Actions from meetings they weren’t in – they lack context and can’t be agreed to by the owner if they’re not there! 

• Project or Workstream – If your change is composed of several areas, workstreams and projects. The Workstream which the Action relates to should be captured. This allows a workstream based view of outstanding actions to be created for review with the relevant Delivery Manager. If an Action relates to multiple workstreams, the primary (most significantly impacted/involved) workstream should be noted. 

• Raised By – Note the meeting or discussion where the Action was first raised. By capturing the forum where the Action was raised outstanding Actions from a particular meeting can easily be reviewed in subsequent meetings to ensure effective progress and closure of actions. This also helps the Action Owner identify any minutes or notes from the meeting for a reminder of the discussion and context surrounding their Action. 

• Dates – Capture the date when the Action was 1st raised (not when the Action was entered in the log if not the same date) and crucially the date when the Action needs to be completed by. 

PMO will Manage Actions to Completion 

Once Actions have been captured and documented, they need to both get out to the team, reminding everyone what was committed to and confirming all Actions. If there are any difference in recollection or agreement, now is the time to get those resolved and the log updated. 

As time moves on it is important to maintain progress on the agreed Actions, and that their resolution is captured. Great PMO will be regularly following up with Action owners to help them keep their risks up to date and raising any blockers or stale actions without progress.  

When updating Actions, your PMO will want to capture: 

• Status – Where is the Action currently up to? 
• When captured/initially created Actions should be set to an ‘Open’ status. Actions with an ‘Open’ status should be regularly followed up on. 
• Actions may also need a ‘Open – Long Term’ status, used sparingly, can prevent Action Owners being regularly chased on Actions which won’t be completed for many weeks. 
• Depending on the authority you give the Action Owner, you may wish to consider the Status of ’Proposed to Close’. Using ‘Proposed to Close’ can allow the Action Owner to say they believe the action is complete, and the raising meeting to review and confirm they agree that the action is done, avoiding actions getting closed before completely resolved 
• ‘Closed/Complete’ allow you to capture that the Action is finished with. It’s a good idea to also capture the date the action was resolved so you can assess if Actions are being worked promptly or being left to languish.  
• Updates, Notes and Comments – Specific notes, progress details or other call-outs should be added on a regular basis by the Action Owner to annotate the Action. By doing this there will be a clear log of any issues affecting the successful completion of the Action and progress can be demonstrated. 

Although being rigorous and highly diligent in managing the completion of Actions can seem onerous or over the top, it needn’t be. Having a delivery where actions are clear, accountability taken and the team fulfilling their commitments on something simple like Actions is a powerful step in building the right behaviours for proactive delivery. With Actions driven to completion your time will be protected, and the team will be able to execute delivery at pace. 

Great PMO will help you build these behaviours in your change teams, avoid meetings repeatedly raising actions and releasing you to focus on getting the delivery done. 

A lack of clear, completed Actions isn’t the only cause of repeated, wasteful meetings pulling on your time and slowing your change.