Tips and best practices for managing staff

K

Kloun

0
I'm a sales manager. I have 4 direct reports (3 sales managers and 1 marketing director). Under each of my direct reports there are 10-15 sales. All in all there are 30-40 people under my control.

My project list is very short because all my projects are delegated. The projects I have on my lists are actually one-time assistance to my direct or indirect reports helping them close their sales projects (to meet with a customer key decision maker or find a contact in the board of a customer etc).

On one hand it means I have not too much to do. On the other hand as a manager I want to control what projects my sales have so I'm sure the company is on the right track. I do not want to put all their projects on my list not to get overwhelmed. So I track them on a separate Excel sheet. I run one-on-one meetings monthly with direct reports to update that list.

Would be great to hear from other people who are involved in managing people. What is your system and how do you control your staff. What are your tips and best practices for managing people?
 
Here's my way...

I manage a team of 5 devolopers and system analysts. Here the way I discovered to work for myself:

1. I use outlook task for every project of mini-project ( some achievable outcome).
For example: "create revenues olap cube" or "prepare quarterly ARPU analysis presentation"
2. As a task category I put the responsible person's name (or several names)
3. At the first meeting with directs responsible I write inside the task what is the desired outcome that we would like to achieve at the end of the project and when this is going to happen.
I also write what are the intermediate tasks and results that the person responsible is to do and BY WHEN. I write the date of the meeting inside the task also. And I set the due date of the task as the date by which we agreed to meet again and review the intermediate results.
4. I schedule the follow-up meeting ahead at the due date RIGHT AWAY (while we are still at the current meeting with the person responsible). I discovered this (scheduling the next meeting at the conclusion of the current meeting) to be on of the greatest productivity boosts. ALWAYS SET THE NEXT MEETING NOW - even if its just a status update
5. I send to the person responsible the task at the end of the meeting so he/she knows exactly what to do and by when (and he/she was there with you while setting tasks amd deadlines so he/she feels more dedicated to accomplishing the task on time)
6. When the intermediate date arrives I open the task, add to task notes the current date while talking to the person responsible I update the results that have been achieved based on the previous meeting outline. I also write the tasks that have to be accomplished till the next meeting and so forth.
7. beside project meetings I also have 1 on 1 meetings with my directs. there it is so convenient to open this person's category and see all his/hers tasks so we can go over them and see if there are expected problems our delays.

It took me a couple of years to get to the current system and there's much to improve, but the system its working for me and whats more important - my directs just love it. It saves them time and frustration.

Hope this helps.
Good luck.
Michael Shparber
 
Thanks! Very useful information. Did I get you right that you didn't have a @Waiting For and used @Name for tracking projects delegated?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top