GTD in organizations

bcmyers2112

bcmyers2112

Who in hell do I think I am, anyway?
Whenever I see discussions about GTD for organizations it's generally about the software tools but in my role as board president for a non-profit I've approached the issue a bit differently. Recently a crisis brewed with respect to the role of the board vs. the executive director and without realizing it at the time what I essentially did was determine the AOFs for the board. Once those were clarified the "crisis" quickly became an opportunity and a board that was stuck for years has gone from zero to 60 in nothing flat!

I've realized that as board president to a large extent the board's AOFs are also my AOFs. I now understand that the extent that I can help everyone align their efforts around said AOFs is one of the key measures of my performance as a board president.

I've also found that even though I have never broached the topic of GTD I am beginning to instill it in the way we conduct business as a board. By expanding my GTD practice to encompass the things I need to keep track of that other people are responsible for, I am instilling a "GTD-ish" level of accountability. By insisting that outcomes are clarified and next actions identified and ownership of those things is properly assigned, and by keeping track of such things in a way that is appropriate for my own role in the organization I am advancing GTD principles without bringing up GTD or worrying about what tools everyone is using.

I may at some point introduce GTD explicitly when I feel the time is right.

I am curious as to whether anyone else has had similar experiences and would be willing to share the successes and/or challenges around using GTD to manage an organization.

Thanks in advance for your input and I look forward to learning from you.
 
I think you are doing the right thing. You are seeing things (parallels) that need to be seen, and you are acting constructively and wisely. If David Allen is the source of your inspiration then this fact yet again proves the enormous value of his teaching skills and his capability to simplify and package a number of intuitive concepts into a manageable system. It is also really encouraging to see that people manage to expand the scope of application of those GTD principles beyond the purely personal level, without having to read any additional books. Again, this is testimony to the value of David Allen's teachings.

But as you know I am guy who likes to argue ;-)

Let me draw a parallel. Christians often refer to "Christian values" such as not stealing or murdering. And yes, it is true that these values are Christian - they are in fact fully embraced by the Christian teachings. But it is also true that virtually every other major religion embraces those same values. A Muslim would be proud of his "Islamic values". A Jew would be proud of his "Jewish values" and so forth. And those values typically always entail abstaining from theft and murder. So it can be debated whether it is really appropriate to call these values by either of these terms. Perhaps "universally accepted values" would often be a better term than calling them Christian, Islamic or Jewish..

As for areas of responsibility it is certainly true that David Allen talks about these and explains them in a very good way. But can GTD claim ownership to this concept? Are they in any way unique to GTD? I will definitely say no to that. The recognition of responsibilities, and whole areas of such, and definitions of those areas, is an age-old wisdom that has been practiced long before 2001. The same goes for clarified outcomes and "next actions" (even though maybe the term "next action" as such might actually be a bit unique; others have often called them "next steps" or "action items" or just "actions" or something similar, but it boils down to the same thing - a concrete action that will help bring about some desired outcome).

Aligning the areas of responsibility within an organization is very important indeed, just as you point out. Your own "area" as president can be described as the top of the pyramid of all the component "areas" - or, in other words, to drive/ensure that satisfactory results are attained (by others) in each of the other areas. I assume all management schools emphasize this. Sometimes it is mainly a matter of making sure that there are no cracks or overlaps in the organization (nothing will slip though unattended; nor will there be too much conflict). At other times it is more a matter of making sure that the overall resulting image is beneficial to the whole organization (even if the sub-organizations are quite independent of each other, and quite self-contained). In your case with the non-profit board I assume it is the former case.

I was excited to read your post, and I really think you are doing the right thing.

As for introducing further concepts from the GTD teachings I think you may find that some things are easier to incorporate than others. For example, you could encourage people to keep Waiting For lists and act prompty if they do not get what they need from the others. Some people may have this already and might be calling it "Outstanding items" etc - it does not matter what you call them. You could even keep a consolidated W/F list for the whole board (what AreaPerson1 needs from AreaPerson2 etc) and use this as a part of your regular agenda, presumably grouped project by project.

A major difference between team use and solo use of GTD concepts is the applicability pf contexts and energy etc vs dates. Typically, you need to be more and more "scheduled" the larger the team is (you cannot allow things to depend on whether people happen to be in the right context and so on), but even so you will still probably manage to keep an "unscheduled" next actions list, possibly with deadlines and a named responsible person for each major action item (i.e. action from your point of view - maybe a whole project for the person responsible, but the rest of you need not necessarily be burdened by those details). I assume you already have such a list, in one form or another. It is common sense, and more or less everybody uses this.
 
Far be it from me to fail to deliver an argument when an argument is desired... but I can't argue with you. These concepts are not unique to GTD. I do think the value in GTD lies in how DA leverages the concepts, and since GTD is part of my life and vocabulary it's natural that I think at least partly in those terms. I also agree with you that it is a testament to the strength of DA's books that these concepts can be applied in so many ways, personally and professionally.

Something else that has helped me greatly is to think of problems as projects. If we're stuck about who makes a decision, the project is "Clarify process for deciding on X." Outcome visioning assumes there is an answer and that you can and will find it, and when you approach it that way your chances of finding said answer increase exponentially. If a board member is feeling stuck of frustrated that too can become a project: "Help [fellow board member] with [problem]." It's both incredibly simple and incredibly profound to clarify things in that way and then identify the relevant next action(s) to move you toward making that outcome a reality.

I found it interesting that you were "excited" to read my post because that's exactly how I feel: "excited."

Although I will say one thing: I'm also discovering how true it is that as DA wrote in GTD, "The better you get, the better you'd better get." Every challenge I overcome seems to invite a new one that's yet another foray into the unknown.

I need a nap.
 
Let's see if you also get excited by this, concerning AoRs:

If you work the other way around, and start with the experiences you have of defining AoRs at the organizational level and then apply some of that at the personal level, what do you find?

While at the personal level you might have previously been quite casual about all this - e.g. maybe you just grabbed some terms that sounded reasonable, such as Husband, Gardener, Father etc, or Bookkeeping, Sales, IT - you will probably have seen a need for being much more exact at the organizational level (between people), especially when some of the areas are manned by contracted external entities, such as a telemarketing company, a bookkeeping firm or a maintenance firm.

Now take that perspective - i.e. responsibility = "contracted obligation" - back to the personal level, what do you find? Here is a silly-simple example:

Let's say you either have two AoRs called Salesman and Cleaner, or you have almost the same two AoRs instead named (or interpreted as) Sales and Cleaning, what is the difference? Obviously, the majority of tasks will end up in the Sale... or Clean... bucket respectively, regardless of exactly what you had called them or exactly how you interpret them. But there are differences, and although subtle I think those differences open up a perspective that is of great practical value.

Say you are expecting a customer and you need your table to be shining clean. Whose responsibility is that, the Salesman's or the Cleaner's? It is definitely a Cleaning type task, but is it necessarily the Cleaner's responsibility? If you take the organizational (contracted) perspective, this would not at all necessarily be a task that is included (for free) in the Cleaner's undertakings. It would be up to the Salesman to identify the need and ensure that it gets done by somebody appropriate (quite possibly himself). And vice versa: if the Cleaner has bought to many floor mops and needs to sell off a few second hand, whose responsibility is that? This a Sales type task that the Cleaner would probably need to take responsibility for.

Now, why do I mention this? What does this mean at the personal level? For me personally it makes a lot of difference, because I find it immensely more enjoyable and intuitive to review my tasks "role by role" than "type by type". I can identify emotionally with a "real" human role, and feel responsible and enthusiastic about it, but I (personally) am unable to identify with a "type of task". So the subtle difference therefore leverages some considerable difference in enthusiasm, perceived clarity, and speed.

But maybe that is just my own twisted personality ;-)
 
Well it looks like yet again I'm going to fail to deliver the desired counter-argument. I'm 0-for-2. ;)

Seriously, I don't think I could do things your way but if aligning tasks with their respective AOFs and roles works for you more power to you.

For me I've found that my task management tools need to be as simple as possible. I don't care about linkages between NAs to projects, projects to AOFs, etc. etc. The weekly review binds it all together just fine for me and I find a quarterly review of my 20K - 40K horizons and perhaps an annual review of 50K is good enough. I know my roles well enough that I don't stress about whether something I have to do to make a sale falls under one role or another. I'm a salesperson and salespeople sell. There are some things around that I have to be mindful of: managing my pipeline, keeping records at the appropriate level of detail and accuracy, etc. But I feel I know my role well enough to make day-to-day, minute-to-minute decisions without having to attach NAs to the bigger picture. The bigger picture feels pretty clear to me to the point of guiding my choices more and more on an instinctive rather than conscious level.

Yet another reason why I like GTD is that the horizons model works just as well I'm finding for organizational roles, goals, and vision as it does for the personal arena. I am actually leading a strategic planning retreat for the board tomorrow and will also be utilizing the natural planning model.

Like I said, I'm not out to evangelize my way vs. yours. Yours is interesting and I like hearing about it but it just doesn't fit with my own personal style.
 
I totally respect that.

I think maybe one reason why I like to have more structure is the fact that my tasks tend to stay very long on my lists. I do not keep statistics, but I'd say that 75% of what I actually do on a typical day (75% of my non-calendar actions) comes out of impulse or interruption - not from my next actions list. If out of the blue I get an impulse to call a particular customer, I will, whether it is on my list or not. Or someone calls me. Or I get engrossed in something like a mad scientist, determined to get to the bottom of it. And so on. And the stuff that then happens, or that I talk with someone about, which if properly logged would have equated to actions such as "try this", "suggest that", "wait for this" etc, simply does not get documented. There is no trace of most of what I did on my lists (often just in my correspondence or other files). Much of the stuff on my lists has been sitting there for quite some time, and I like to remember what it is all about. Understaning what it is and where it belongs helps me feel enthusiastic about it - and if it is worded and tagged properly it can sometimes even spark an impulse to actually get it done ;-)

As for the higher levels, yes, absolutely. Lots of parallels with management models, vision-mission-values etc etc. I believe DA comes from the management consulting industry, doesn't he? But he has made it much more accessible, well packaged and contained.
 
Folke said:
I believe DA comes from the management consulting industry, doesn't he? But he has made it much more accessible, well packaged and contained.
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In fairness to DA I think GTD does more than merely repackage old concepts. To me what defines GTD and makes it unique is the premise that you must capture and manage everything that represents an open loop in your life no matter how large or small if you want to experience maximum clarity and minimum stress. I think that's a bold and rather revolutionary concept when it comes to personal productivity management.
 
bcmyers2112 said:
In fairness to DA I think GTD does more than merely repackage old concepts.
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I agree. I think he has done an outstanding job. Repackaging is often an ugly business - I have often seen other people just more or less "cut and paste" old stuff without managing to fuse it into a meaningful new whole. DA, on the other hand, really has created something. He has eclectically selected and tuned a large number classical insights into a simple and "complete" system that really works.

bcmyers2112 said:
To me what defines GTD and makes it unique is the premise that you must capture and manage everything that represents an open loop in your life no matter how large or small if you want to experience maximum clarity and minimum stress. I think that's a bold and rather revolutionary concept when it comes to personal productivity management.
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I am not in the mood to argue, but I think the take-home value of DA's teachings can vary a lot from one person to another. Yes, collecting all opens loops is one of all the basic and important wisdoms. Distinguishing between the desired outcome and what you then need to do is another basic wisdom, emphasized by some others as the "main" take-home value of GTD. And so on and so forth. There are lots of such wisdoms in GTD. I believe the value of the teachings depends partly on when in life a person reads DA's teachings. To some, who read it early in life, maybe almost every sentence is a major epiphany. To others, who read it late in life, maybe there aren't really any new fundamental wisdoms at all in it - but it may still have great value as the "best ever" comprehensive synthesis of the most relevant wisdoms known to man for personal productivity management.

Most of the teachings are quite uncontroversial. Moste people would agree with most things, but different people would emphasize different parts more. For me personally, I think what I appreciate most about GTD is the fact that DA takes a "controversial" stand on the usage of dates. DA dares to choose a restrictive view that, although it is "classical" and long accepted by some, goes against the grain of the vast majority (of people and apps) who seem grasp desperately to "overusing" dates as a primary personal planning tool.
 
Folke said:
He has eclectically selected and tuned a large number classical insights into a simple and "complete" system that really works.
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I absolutely agree. As DA says in the introduction to GTD, what he proposes involves no new skills. Pretty much everyone can write things down, make lists, and focus on outcomes. DA's value-add was to determine how those skills could be leveraged in a consistent fashion to cope with life as we know it today, and I think he did so brilliantly.
 
I did not think you were provoking an argument. Not at all. Sorry if I gave that impression. I meant almost the opposite. I was afraid that maybe my own answer that I was about to write might seem provocative or unnecessary, so I even hesitated before writing it - but apparently no offence was taken, and I am glad for that :-)
 
Folke said:
I was afraid that maybe my own answer that I was about to write might seem provocative or unnecessary, so I even hesitated before writing it - but apparently no offence was taken, and I am glad for that :-)
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No, I certainly didn't take any offense. One of the reasons I participate in this forum is to be exposed to points of view other than my own.
 
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