AT D&D we meet on the first workday of the week at 8:15 until 8:30 to talk about the coming week. We call it Monday Morning Meeting (MMM). It is a stand up meeting. Our people who are on the road are able to call in using conference phone technology. I borrowed this idea from Brian Scuddamore of 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Awesome idea, thanks Brian.

Agenda of the Meeting

Our three item Agenda consists of Positives, Review of Uptime and Reviewing the Schedule. .

1- A Positive

Everyone has the choice on how they choose to start the day and week. We take a few minutes and celebrate life. Someone’s birthday or anniversary is a great one. A new customer or new project is awesome. Anything as long as it is positive.

One of my favorites is Leafs vs. Canadians. Two of our people have a running bet. If the Leafs win, Marlin wears Steve’s Habs jersey for the day. If the Habs win Steve wears Marlin’s Leafs jersey for the day. Check it out

2 - UpTime Review

We look at our current UpTime numbers, celebrate achievements and review targets.

3 - Schedule Review

We update everyone on management’s schedules and travel plans…where they’re going, where they’ve been.  Who are we meeting with…what industries and companies? What opportunities are we pursuing?

The project schedule is reviewed and discussed making sure everyone knows what’s expected for the coming week. We go around the room for contributions…this is key in conveying meaningful input from on site projects. In some cases people could use some  help and some people may have time to help… it’s critical to make these connections.

Additions to the Agenda for 2011

4 - Innovation

Innovation has been added to the basic agenda. We are doing some cool things like vision guided robotics and industrial building automation among others. When people are not on UpTime projects they make great use of their time by driving innovation. This addition to the agenda will help us to keep innovation rolling.

5 - NewsRoom

We have also added NewsRoom to the basic agenda. Newsroom is a simple tool to keep social media channels up to date. (Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn) I will detail the NewsRoom in a future blog once we have all of the kinks ironed out. Subscribe to my blog so you don’t miss it.

Why Just 15 Minutes?

Everyone knows that we are going to be there for only 15 minutes. A short meeting self filters the meeting. The most important things are covered and the rest gets taken care of during the normal course of the day. A variety of items are wrapped up in the MMM with “I will talk to you about that at 10:00” or “let’s meet about that later”. Jaclyn Wells has a good article on short meetings.

Why Stand Up?

Do you notice that the clock starts on most meetings when every one is sitting? Do you notice that may people settle into their chairs and lose a ton of their energy the second they sit? A stand up meeting is a different animal. It screams ‘quick meeting, be on your toes and don’t waste any time.” People come to a stand up meeting engaged and energized. Martin Fowler has some great insight on standup meetings. Try it, we love it!

We Need Better Conference Technology

Conference phones and conference calls are not designed for our type of meeting with lots of people calling in. The technology we have used has noise cancelling features that filter out too much of the great energy of the meeting. We are going to try standard microphones into a PC. The problem with this is how to call in using a mobile phone. We don’t seem to be able to mix the traditional phone call with web based technology.

Do you know anything about this kind of technology? Please let me know.

Setting a goal is business 101. Successful people have goals and so do successful companies. The same logic that applies to sharing your KPIs with your team applies to sharing corporate goals.

At D&D we use total number of hours billed in a week as our goal.

Our current goal is to hit the UpTime target 3 times in a 6-week period. This is simple and reinforces our objective of work life balance for our people.  A single one-week target does not support this.  The UpTime number achieved along with the current goal is announced weekly.  Everyone is in the know. 

Reward Goals Achieved

When we hit our UpTime goal we immediately pay out a $50 bill to every employee. I adapted this idea from Jack Daly. A $50 bill has special power & punch. I love to get a $50 and I can’t really explain it. What ever you decide to do, don’t issue checks for $50 minus the income tax. It doesn’t have the same effect on people. People won’t turn it down but believe me a check for $38.42 does not have the same positive impact as a nice crisp $50.

The bill is put in an envelope with the UpTime logo, the employees name with a thank you along with the target achieved and the date. We deliver the envelopes personally whenever possible.  It is critical to have the $50 in the employee’s hands ASAP to ensure relevance and appreciation.   I have every UpTime envelope I have ever received on my desk and so do many of our people. Even in slower times we are reminding ourselves of the good times.

We also put $500 into the FunTime pool when we make an Uptime target. Read my previous Blog post ‘You Work Hard. Do You Play Hard?’ to learn more about FunTime.

Super Goal

We recently added a Super Goal. Our Super Goal is a big one time UpTime hit.  We make it a stretch for the team. The message in Super Goal is that we plan to grow and while the target might seem BIG now, it won’t in the future.

What are we going to do to reward Super Goal? I’m not sure but it will be cool. Maybe a nice crisp Hundy!

Can’t Afford to Pay Out $50 to Every Employee?

If D&D made solid UpTime numbers every week I would gladly pay out the $50 every week. The best part is we could readily afford to pay for it as long as we make solid UpTime numbers every week.

Examples of Simple, Immediate KPIs

·         Courier Company - Boxes delivered per day

·         Coffee Shop - Customers per hour

·         Car Lot – Cars sold per day

·         Trucking – Miles per Week

·         Taxi – Fares per Day

What business are you in?  I would love to help you come up with your KPI.

What does your company do to reward achieved goals?  

Knowing the Score

Every successful business owner has the tools they need to keep score. They know if they are profitable.  It is just as important for your team to know this too. People want to be on a winning team. To know if they are winning they need a simple Key Performance Indicator (KPI) to tell them the score.

Your KPI Must be Simple

At D&D our KPI is called UpTime. We sell our time at D&D . When time is billable to a project it is called Uptime and is totaled weekly. If I were to run this company with only one measurable it would be UpTime.

It is important to think about what your one KPI is and make it as simple as possible. One number is simple and with employee feedback we added percent capacity to our weekly UpTime figure. Capacity is the number of hours we worked that was billable as a percentage of the total number of hours that we worked. As I write this I have just received our weekly UpTime email and I see that we are at 93% capacity. This is a strong indicator telling us to review staffing and consider hiring.

Your KPI Must be Immediate

As in sport you want to know what the score is right now. We do this weekly because of our time card schedule. Our accounting team is efficient so we know by Thursday at 10:00AM how many hours we billed for the previous week. An email goes out every Thursday before noon telling everyone in the company our current UpTime. As in sport people dig in a little more when they are behind a bit and get charged up when they are winning. This builds a great team atmosphere.

Share Your KPI with Your Customers

Wouldn’t it be cool if your customers got on board and helped you to achieve your goals? I believe that your best customers would want to.

Is this a scary thought?   

Does your company share it’s KPI’ with its customers?