Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

This is one of the fundamental questions that persons working projects need to answer. We know what we are attempting, but we don’t know the actual progress and how that compares to the expected progress.

There are several fundamental questions that should be asked and answered by people working on projects. Among those are:

• Whatcha’ doin’?
• When’ll ya’be’done?

The question for this blog post is how’sit goin’? That is short for, “How is it going? How is the task proceeding? How does the actual work compare to the expected work?”

We ask this question of persons who have an assigned task in a project. We have some expectation of the work involved. We need to know how large an error we had in “some expectation.” The actual work is always different from the expected work. What is the delta?

Several things here for everyone attempting to accomplish work:

Be ready to answer clearly. Answers such as, “Okay. You know, shrug,” are insufficient. Everyone, including the person attempting to accomplish work, needs to have a brief and clear answer.

Don’t be defensive. Everyone asks this question of everyone else everyday. No one is being highlighted for special treatment either good or bad. We seek information about the task, not the person. We seek to improve the management of the work, not review a person’s abilities.

As managers of work, clearly state these to the persons performing the work. Those persons will be better able to answer, and your job will become much easier.