Not too long ago, our team finished its strategic plan to align with the university strategic plan. As we finished the process, I found myself incredibly excited about all the new things our team was taking on in support of our mission. Several of these are really going to be game changing for our work.
However, the process helped me to realize that often, in the strategic planning process, we add things. Lots of great new ideas come to the surface; however, we don’t stop to think how we can achieve these things within the human capital restraints we have. I think this is a major reason we face burnout.
As I reflected on this, I identified I need to do a better job giving things up in favor of new initiatives, not necessarily just continually adding.
Three Strategies to Remove Tasks
In order to help me remove tasks from the team, I am trying to take a three-pronged approach. Below are three ways I’m thinking about this and an imaginary use case that helps to illustrate each example.
Engage AI
Are there tasks that are new things to add or existing tasks that could be done more efficiently using AI? Administrating a task through AI can (in some cases) cut about 85% of the task time versus a team member doing the exact same task. If that time, can then be reallocated to new tasks, it allows the team to add something new without taking more total time. If it’s adding a new task using AI, it’s much easier to find the time savings for the administrative function than for the whole task. I think this is certainly a strategy we should consider more.
For example, a team wants to build out emails for students. Right now, no one has capacity for this. However, AI can help develop a communications flow for student emails and help in writing each message. It’s much easier to find the time for someone to help coach AI than to find the time for a team member to do the whole task.
Assess Similar Tasks
Often, in looking at tasks, there’s a task that’s similar to the one the team wants to add. In cases like these it’s important to assess what tasks similar tasks that are already happening. This exercise helps us figure out if we’re changing directions and it’s okay to drop the old task in favor of the new one, or do we need to find a way to combine the tasks to help with time savings. Often as leaders we add the new and don’t pair it with an exercise about what is already happening.
For example, we may have tracked metrics, and now we want to new metrics. We should explore are the old metrics of value, and if there is a way to combine the two tasks. Another example, is we were writing stories about events but now we have members of the team who can capture photos and video of the event. In this example, we should explore has our scope changed, and we can give up the writing task.
Evaluate ROI
At the end of the day, sometimes we must sunset certain tasks to free up capacity for other things. In those cases, it’s important to evaluate the ROI of possible tasks that might be removed. Often times we start doing a thing, and the reasons around it change, but we never go back to stop doing the task. In evaluating ROI, such a task might be taking time but not helping us strategically. As leaders, we need to be better at reviewing these moments and helping our teams determine what tasks might be best to cut.
For example, we may have donor who thought a certain kind of media coverage was crucial. As a result, the team baked that into their work. However, that donor isn’t focused on it anymore, and it takes a ton of team time. This would be a good task to cut, in favor of having time to focus on more strategic coverage.
Closing Thoughts
As leaders, I think the burden is on us to take the lead in helping our teams take off tasks as we assign new ones. I’m curious what are ways you help your teams give up tasks when they take on new things?
And Carrie On 