Podcast episode 027: 12 steps to better team organization [26:51m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2337)

In today’s podcast we talk with Suzanne Babb of the Let’s Talk Organizing podcast to find out how project managers and their teams can become more organized.

For over 20 years, Suzanne has been helping people organize their lives so that they can spend more time and energy doing the things that are most important to them…  Like listening to the pm411.org Project Management Podcast or mastering “Slow Ride” on Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock!

As an organization consultant, public speaker and former radio talk show host, Suzanne has been fortunate enough to work with individuals and corporations throughout America, Canada and Scotland.  Suzanne has been running her Let’s Talk Organizing business for six years.

Suzanne’s business focuses on organizing home-based to Fortune 500-sized businesses by looking at their systems and customizing the systems to the individual.  Let’s Talk Organizing goes beyond just implementing a set system for everyone.  Everybody is different:  Your thought process is most likely different than others, so Suzanne first tries to determine if you are an inspirational thinker or a logical thinker and what systems might work best for you.

Below are 12 ways that Suzanne recommends that project managers and their teams can get better organized.

1. Determine what information you need easy access to so that you can have it at your fingertips when someone calls you or asks for information.
2. You need to have one “special workspace” at your desk where you can focus on your project and keep it maintained and organized.
3. Try to keep everyone on your team on the same email client platform.  Microsoft Outlook is a good choice because of its easy organization capabilities and features.
4. You can set up Outlook email rules to help you manage and maintain your email.  For example, every time you receive an email from Sally you can have it go right into her folder automatically so it doesn’t clutter up your inbox.
5. In Outlook, you can also arrange emails by message thread so that you can quickly find the latest and greatest email by conversation and date.  To do this simply go to your toolbar in the Mail view, select View > Arrange By > Conversation.  Then you can reduce your inbox size by deleting the previous emails in the thread that you don’t need.
6. Making sure that everyone on your team uses consistent formats in the email subject line provides easy identification of topics and categories.  For example, you may use the prefix “Product Analysis:” for emails on a particular market analysis.   You could even have a rule that stores emails with this prefix into a predefined folder.  So an email with the subject “Product Analysis:  Survey Results” could automatically be stored in your “Product Analysis” folder.
7. You can categorize emails with multiple categories by right clicking the email in your Outlook inbox and selecting > Categorize.  This allows you to sort email by various categories that you set up.  You can even select a common category before sending an email.
8. You and your team should archive paper files, emails and electronic files.  You want to also categorize all three in the same way.  If you store hardcopies of a document in folder “X,” then you should also store similar electronic documents in folder “X” on your computer or team network, and related emails should be saved to folder “X” in your mail client.  This keeps all your files consistent and helps people find related documents.
9. Using classification folders, which are actual file folders with file sections as well as a two-prong fastener, can help teams organize information about a particular project or client in one folder.
10. Teams should create a “central command” area or what it commonly referred to as a “war room.”   The common area should include “master copies” of documents, a white board for brainstorming, and “foam-core” push-pin boards where project schedules and information bucket lists can be posted.  More on this topic was discussed in Episode 003:  Managing effective meetings (part 2 of 2).
11. Consistency in categorizing / filing / and labeling is key to team organizational success.  The project manager should lead the organization system for the team.  The Project Manager should also be able to explain the reasons and the methods behind the madness for the system that is chosen for the team to follow.
12. Other key factors include keeping the organizational system simple, keeping it consistent, using just what you need to use, and having a good time being organized.  You can rest assured that the end result of the project will be phenomenal when everyone is on the same organizational page.

For those of you that really want to “get your anal retentiveness on,” check out Suzanne’s podcast at http://www.letstalkorganizing.com/ as well as her blogs below at:

http://letstalkorganizing.blogspot.com/
http://suzannesfavs.blogspot.com/
http://adminbasics.blogspot.com/

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