How do you manage 'Waiting For' items that implies several people ?

[Disis]

I'd like to get your feedback on how you manage 'Waiting For' items that require an action / an answer from several person before you can move on.

For example, when I need to organize a meeting involving several people, before sending a calendar invitation I like to pinpoint what date appears to be the most prefered. In such case, I usually send an email to probe people's preference. Then, in order to keep track of the unanswered emails, I add a waiting for item for every people that I'm waiting for.

I wanted to know if you have a smarter way to manage such situations, where you are waiting for an action from several people before you can move your 'project' forward.
Do you add a single 'Waiting For' item to your list and keep track of who answered / didn't answer in another way (project plan for example)?

I could create an Excel file with the name of the people I asked and the status of their answer but I find it to be overkill when I'm just waiting for 5 - 10 people's return.


Thanks.

 

[Folke]

I would only have one single Waiting For task, but possibly with (checkable) subtasks for each person if the number of people are so many that I might forget who answered and who did not.

 

[greeno]

Sorry to recommend my own blog here, but I wrote something up on a very similar topic a while back : http://albatrossflavour.com/blog/deletgation-with-omnifocus

If I'm waiting for more than one person on a specific task, I'm guessing it'd be a team one, which would fall into a "team" level agenda item.

 

[Cpu_Modern]

Generally speaking, I would put the item on every @agenda list for each person. Then, when I see that person it comes up with all the other agenda items.

Regarding the specific example you gave, I would write the email in such a way as to give a reasonable due date up until I expect to hear back from them. How long this is depends on the corporate culture I guess.

That's it. They either say something or they have to live with whatever date I came up with. They had their chance. And it is provable "on paper".

 

[Christopher13]

I would create a simple checklist with each name on the project planning file and ensure it is reviewed at an appropriate frequency. After a pre-determined time I would add an agenda item just for the stragglers and follow up with them.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[Oogiem]

I'm with Cpu_Modern, put it on everyone's agenda list and then go forward.

 

[Longstreet]

All good suggestions! I do a mix of having it on each person's agenda and what Folke suggested in having a checklist with a "project team" waiting for. It depends on how many team members and how often I would have a 1:1 meeting with them.

 

[Thais Godhino]

You can use sub-tasks on your system. Something like this:

- WF - Team - RE: Invitation for meeting
-------- Name 1
-------- Name 2
-------- Name 3

 

[Jenn]

If it's just two or three people, I put all of their names in my @Waiting For action and then as each one replies I remove their name from the subject.
If it's quite a few people then I keep the list of people in the notes of the action item. Using the @agenda item for the individuals is a good idea as well but requires more editing for me. I can search my tasks for a name and use this feature to pull up all actions that involve an individual when I have a meeting with them.