This video provides a look at smart technology as defined by touch screens that allow users to manipulate documents with either a “pen” or finger, and save changes. There is also the ability to email participants.

Technology allowing new levels of interaction with collegues while adding value to the outcome is what businesses strive to find and implement. Management software that fosters collaboration and gives users immediate access to vital information is smart technology.

For more on smart technology, see http://www.performancesolutionstech.com/category/work-smarter/

I wanted to follow-up my earlier blog on working smart and provide some tips on how to work smart.

Let’s start with a definition of just exactly what it is to work smart.  Here’s my working definition:
Working smart is a style of working based on the decisions you make and how you manage information in the process.

Sounds simple enough, right? Yet, most of us, with a some help could perform much better.

This blog is going to be short and to the point, but conceptual – and I’m aiming it at those of you who would would like to get more done with less. This is not for those who reframe working smart as making money without working… there’s plenty written about that already.

Sometimes you just need some practical tips. There are some great blogs and web pages out there that cover practical tips that I don’t want to duplicate. See the following as some examples:

Working Smart with teams,  General life choices, Saving an hour a day, Working Smart at the office

So let’s get to it.  From my point of view, working smart and managing information converge on three basic practices I use.  Strengthen any one and you work smarter.

The first basic practice is to Use information (and time) with intentionality.   Do it at the start of the day and do it all day long.  Think about your outcome and manage the information that will help you get there and let go of the rest.  This is essentially a take-off on the idea of think before you act, but it has huge implications when it comes to managing information, since most of us are overly consumed in it.

Here’s what this doesn’t look like – going through the motions on auto-pilot, whether that is working as usual, putting your time in, dutifully reading through your email.  Instead, be intentional with how you manage life and information. And yes, that requires that you think, ”What’s most important to accomplish today in terms of outcomes?” and not just work, which leads to the next key… See the next blog for my second tip on working smart.

Bottom Line:

You can affect how much you and others work smart, especially as it interfaces with managing information, by focusing on the following keys:

Link:

Working Smart and the Comfort of Habit

Working Strategically – the Missing 4th Step

If you asked most people, “Do you work smart?” they would
probably say, “Yes,” or something similar, perhaps in a
watered down format.  We all would like to apply a positive

attribute to ourselves, and working smart is definitely a positive

attribute.

Asking the same people for a definition might produce an interesting comment.
Let’s say for the sake of this blog that we use Ben (who I know)
at Scratch Media’s working definition:

“Working smart means choosing the most efficient use of your time
and energy before you act. (… “Think-then-do”.)”

If you continued to ask, “How do you know you’re working smart?” I bet
you would hear a very interesting flip. Beyond noticing that people
dance a bit on that question, if you are like me, you would hear
them flip or switch from talking about working smart, to talking
about working hard.

Why?  Are we confusing the two?

Actually, if you ask people to “work smarter,”  you will find the
mental translation from working smart to working hard to be even
clearer.

In fact if you ask people to work smarter, and/or purchase
software to help them work smart, what you will likely hear
back is not only a flip between working smart and working hard,
but also a bit of a push back that will sound like either:

1. I don’t have time… “I’m already working as fast as I can… I don’t
have time to add one more thing…” (you know like working smarter).

2. I don’t have capacity… “I’m already working as hard and long as I
can, I can’t stay longer or add one more task/requirement to my work load.”

In both situations, working smarter, when it comes to managing information,
looks like an additional task to an over burdened schedule – not a
way to reduce the work load.

This is important.  Working smarter looks like an intrusion upon
our current work habits, and like it or not, we are creatures of habit…
we are comfortable with our habits.  We may even buy software to help us work smarter,
but it doesn’t mean we use it (read change our habits)… because that
would feel like more work.  Changing habits is very tough work.

I don’t know if this is just true in the US, but in the US when it comes
to effectively managing information, we struggle at working smart and it feels like
low value drudgery to many… but we are good at working hard.

Interestingly, what comes back to the prompt to work smarter is usually a
push back, not a “Sure, help me, or teach me how.” Think about that for a
moment. How did we get to the point where working smart is not
something we have time or capacity for?

Most of us struggle with, if not resist the challenge, the prod, the invitation,
to work smarter… although we wouldn’t admit it to others and certainly not
to ourselves.  We don’t work smarter for all sorts of reasons, even though we
live and work in the information age.

Why?  I think in part because it involves changing habits which provide
some level of comfort.  We get comfortable with our habits, our way of
working, and then we defend against changing them.

If you think about it, sticking with old information management habits,
as fast as things change, is probably the opposite of working smart.

Bottom Line:
Most of us manage information in a variety of ways that are personally
comfortable, but a long way from working smart.   And in working comfortably,

we actually make work harder for ourselves.

But before I finish, let me leave you with perhaps the biggest secret to
beginning to work smarter.  No, it doesn’t have to do with buying our
ManagePro software.  Here’s a hint, it involves no work, just changing
what’s between the ears.   Well actually that is work, but not on the timecard.

The biggest secret to working smarter, is to stop assuming (defending)
that you already do work smart, and embrace the need, the opportunity to
continually improve at working smarter.   That’s it.  That’s the shift.

Today; give yourself a break.  Stop defending that you’re already doing
everything possible, and instead, start looking for opportunities to learn to work
smarter, and I’ll share some tips for managing information that will help
you get a step up in the next blog.

ManagePro and Management – Creating High Performance in your Work group (1of4)

High Performance Management - Basic Performance Drivers

1. Drivers:

· One input – multiple use; workgroup task planning and management

· Automation of the routine; from voice to digital, from report preparation to immediate information retrieval

· Organizing work around the GAP+ model; from task lists to projects to a system of Goals – Action Plans + plus feedback and course correction

· Elevating People’s use of Tools; practicing solution based leadership in the management of transition

a. Review each driver dynamic and the relevant costs

b. Understand ManagePro related features

c. Evaluate current work practices

d. Establish preliminary go-forward design

2. Working in a ManagePro-centric manner

· Challenges and benefits

· Launching a solution

· Managing Resistance

· Roll-out primer

ManagePro and Management – Creating High Performance in your Work group – (2of4)

 Goal Setting:  Using the “DORIP+” model (Defined Outcome, Requirements, Issues/obstacles, People, plus dates, resources, priority, customers…)   -  How’s that for a name?

1.     Over-view of the differing use/function of “goals” in ManagePro

·         Goals as a focusing of organized effort, versus traditional business focusing drivers (lists, deadlines, meetings…)

·         Smart project goals

·         Smart strategic goals

·         Headings and business function categories

·         Thought/Knowledge containers

 2.     Goal mechanical structure in ManagePro

·         Cascading dependencies

·         Assignment to individuals versus teams

·         Status function

·         Customizing the Goal details view

·         Designing custom goal screens (Balanced Score Card, Head’s up view,)

·         Date functions, Original Due Date, and Date Completed

·         Understand how goals are assigned to the Person/Team level

·         When should goals be Top Level and when should they be local to a P/T entity

·         Use of the Priority and Schedule date functions

·         Use of the Goal Wizard

  3.     Successful Goal development and management as a solution process

·         Who to involve

·         What to expect

·         How to prepare

·         How to facilitate

·         Tips and traps

 4.     Applied development of attendee’s goal planner

Complete design layout of attendee’s strategic and operational goals

ManagePro and Management – Creating High Performance in your Work group – (3of4)

Action Plans – Identifying the How To of goal management.

1.     Action Plan Basics

·       Sequential layout

·       A list of explicit assumptions; the good and the bad

·       Needs for monitoring and course correction/rewriting

·         Action plans versus checklists and when to use which

·         Action plans versus the use of to-dos (action items/follow-ups) and the note field

·         The litmus test and common mistakes to avoid

2.     ManagePro display features to enhance Action Plan management

·         The Timeline view,

·         Original Due Date display and Critical Path

·         The Tree view (Goal Status Board); your command central

·         Filtering to address business questions

3.     ManagePro support features to enhance Action Plan management

·         Progress notes

·         To-dos

·         Email

·         Group Calendaring

·         Document Managing

·         Notes

·         Writing a Action Plan methodology

4.     Setting up Goals in the Individual Goal Planner

·         Visibility and security

·         Developmental Goals

·         Tie in to performance reviews

5.     Applied development of action plans in support of attendee’s goals

Complete design layout of attendee’s plans for strategic and operational goals

ManagePro and Management – Creating High Performance in your Work group – (4of4)

Feedback – the sustaining power and accountability behind high performance

1.     Feedback Models for supporting your goals and plans 

·         The limitations of your dedication and ability to work hard

·         Plan focused Feedback

·         The life cycle value of feedback; ratings versus documentation

·         Performance focused Feedback

·         The value of clarity, history and recognition

·         The life cycle value of performance feedback

·         The form of feedback; meetings, reports, one-on-ones, reviews

2.     Monitoring Goals and Plans within ManagePro

·         Setting up input guidelines

a.     Progress Note policy

b.    Goal Status policy

c.     To-do and Note field policy

d.    Document Attachment policy

e.     Report policy

f.     Meeting policy

3.     Setting up response guidelines

·         Using to-dos

·         Using email

·         Using customer satisfaction response

4.     Milestones as checkpoints and/or as sub-goals (the visibility factor)

·         Checkpoint concept

·         Checkpoints vs. Work Sessions vs. Meetings

5.     Meetings as a central feedback mechanism

·         Announcing using the event feature

·         Creating versus selecting an Agenda

·         Using the People planner to track meeting activity

·         Using ManagePro to review existing goals, new goals and facilitate brain-storming

·         Using “last progress note” and “to-dos” as action items.

·         Printing and storing meeting minutes

·         Leveraging meeting results going forward

 6.     Reports as a feedback mechanism

·         Identifying the key question

·         Leveraging the information and increasing the value of report information

·         Use and configuring of ManagePro reports

·         Formalizing HR Feedback & Review systems with ManagePro

7.     Applied development of feedback mechanism in support of attendee’s goals and plans