Creating Calendars

Time is our most valuable asset. Effective use of calendars gives you new powers as a manager. Improve how your team spends their time, and they immediately become more valuable.

Introduction

“I am sorry this letter is so long. I didn’t have time to make it short.” ~ unknown

Scholars debate exactly which luminary may have coined this insightful phrase. And the list of potential originators doesn’t disappoint: Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, Dostoevsky.

Regardless of its origin, this insight speaks truth to a fundamental principle of the WSPro framework:

Simplicity is GOLD.

Simplicity drives results

Creating calendars provides yet another opportunity to guide your team through complex scenarios, using simplicity as your approach.

Great calendars are easy to use and simple to explain. They provide clarity and guidance through even the most complex engagements by automating your team’s workflow.

The most effective calendars you create in WSPro will be prioritized work queues. A work queue can be as simple as a first-in/first-out (FIFO) ticket queue.

Simplicity drives focus

An effective calendar provides key insights at a glance. An IC starting their day can start their work session by looking at their calendar, and immediately knowing the following:

• Which tasks are my priorities?

• Which tasks come after my first priorities?

• How long will each activity take?

Such clarity removes much of the decision-making burden from team members who can then focus on accomplishing deep work.

Human nature tends to choose easier tasks over hard ones. Clarity in calendaring ensures that your team doesn’t delay or stray from critical tasks.

Creating Calendars, step-by-step

Here are the steps you take to create the most effective calendars possible for your team.

1. List all of the unit types your team is working on

2. Prioritize the unit types

3. Add the TMS time for each activity / line

At this point, you’ll have a prioritized, flexible calendar, like what we have for XO product managers:

Calendar:

1. Spend 1hr interview for each candidate

2. Spend 30 min per candidate on candidate review

3. Spend 30 minutes per day on "exception processing" - High CCAT, BFQ override

4. Spend 1hr debug pipeline

5. Spend 1 hours per day on content pack

6. Spend 30min per day on cohorts

Note: your individual calendar might have only one task type, depending on your work unit. An example of a work unit with only one task type would be QA manual testing, who’s single task is to execute end-to-end scenarios.

What not to do

This calendering technique is great because it shows your ICs what to do. But it’s also very helpful for showing them what not to do. And what is it that ICs shouldn’t do?

Simple answer: anything that’s not on the calendar.

When you first introduce this concept to your team, they may be more than a little surprised. You might even hear how “unrealistic” your calendar concepts are.

This will be good feedback for you to receive as their manager. Such feedback should place you out of your comfort zone and help uncover issues that need your attention.

Have you asked your team to perform too many different activities? Is their work aligned with the WSPro team room design paradigm?

Answers to these answers - uncomfortable as they may be - help simplify and automate your team’s work.

Continue to refine your team’s activity until they are left performing only the tasks in their calendar. These activities add the most value to the customer and to the enterprise.

Conclusion

Time is our most valuable asset. Improve how your team spends it’s time, and they immediately become more valuable.

The effective use of calendars gives you new powers as a manager. Most remote managers have little real sense of how their team spends it’s time.

Master the skills of effective calendaring, and your team and individual success will expand accordingly.