Monitoring the team
Monitoring performance means checking it. Why should you need to monitor your team’s performance? There are two main reasons, which are: ™to prove and™to improve. Proving means to show to your manager and to yourself that the team is doing what it is supposed to be doing. To improve means to find out any problems and put them right, or to identify things that could be done better. ‘Doing things better’ means being more effective (producing better quality goods and services) or being more efficient (producing them using fewer resources), or both. The starting point for both proving and improving is knowing what you should be doing. It means knowing: ™What you are expected to be producing (your team’s outputs). This means both the quantity and the quality of goods or services your team produces. ™How you are expected to produce the output (the processes you use, the rules and procedures you should follow), and any efficiency or cost reduction goals you are expected to meet.
Monitoring is important because it enables you and the team to be sure that you are achieving your goals. It also shows that you are per-forming to the highest standard you believe possible. That helps you to find ways of improving your performance. Your employer will also want to be kept informed about the team’s performance. However, monitoring can also have a negative impact on the team. Monitoring can appear to be ‘checking up’ on people. It can imply a lack of trust and respect. In some organisations this is the case! As an effective leader you need to demonstrate to your employer that your team is performing to the highest standards. You should also be able to argue for keeping the level of monitoring to the minimum. This session will show you how and why.
Monitoring the team's activities
Monitoring is important because it enables you and the team to be sure that you are achieving your goals. It also shows that you are per-forming to the highest standard you believe possible. That helps you to find ways of improving your performance. Your employer will also want to be kept informed about the team’s performance. However, monitoring can also have a negative impact on the team. Monitoring can appear to be ‘checking up’ on people. It can imply a lack of trust and respect. In some organisations this is the case! As an effective leader you need to demonstrate to your employer that your team is performing to the highest standards. You should also be able to argue for keeping the level of monitoring to the minimum. This session will show you how and why.
Monitoring performance means checking it. Why should you need to monitor your team’s performance? There are two main reasons, which are: to prove and to improve. Proving means to show to your manager and to yourself that the team is doing what it is supposed to be doing. To improve means to find out any problems and put them right, or to identify things that could be done better. ‘Doing things better’ means being more effective (producing better quality goods and services) or being more efficient (producing them using fewer resources), or both. The starting point for both proving and improving is knowing what you should be doing. This is what the two BS2 sessions Making best use of your resources and Performing tasks effectively are all about. It means knowing: What you are expected to be producing (your team’s outputs). This means both the quantity and the quality of goods or ser-vices your team produces. How you are expected to produce the output (the processes you use, the rules and procedures you should follow), and any efficiency or cost reduction goals you are expected to meet.
This saying, ‘You don’t fatten a pig by weighing it’ means that monitoring alone doesn’t improve anything. All it does is show (prove) what is being done. Monitoring needs to provide feedback to the team. Feedback simply means that the monitoring tells them how they are performing. It’s the only way that the team members will know what they are doing right and what needs improving. If monitoring data is simply passed onto your managers, it is weighing the pig, but not doing anything to fatten it. (Data means the raw infor-mation about your team’s performance. It could be sets of numbers, but also includes things like customer comments and complaints.) On the other hand, two much data can be overwhelming. If everything that could be measured is measured, then it is hard to know what is important. This is why many organisations talk about Key Performance Indicators or KPIs. KPIs identify what it really important for the organisation. By focusing on what really matters the team knows what its priorities should be. There is another saying that reflects this - ’An organisation becomes what it measures itself to be’. In other words, the KPIs not only measure performance, they shape it, because hitting KPI targets is all that matters. This can produce problems, as we shall see.
Monitoring techniques:
There are many ways that performance can be monitored, just as there are many aspects of its performance that can be monitored. Here is a summary of the main approaches:
- Automated recording of workflow - this means that the level of output of the team is monitored through the equipment they use - their workflow. This is particularly common in manufacturing operations and in service activities using com-puterised equipment, from call centres (as described in the Case Study of Alice and Sam) to retail outlets.
- Manual recording of workflow by team members - in many organisations team members or the team leader will keep manual or electronic records of what they have produced. This could be on printed forms (manual) or in computer databases of some sort (electronic).
- Sampling of output - this is usually done to monitor the qual-ity of what is being produced. It may be done by inspection teams, by the team leader or by team members themselves (especially when the process is automated). The principle be-hind sampling is that a properly selected sample (and there are usually rules about how the sample is chosen) represents the ‘population’ from which it is taken.
- Visual monitoring - simply watching people at work. This is probably the most common form of monitoring by team lead-ers and allows them to see how well team members are per-forming. If they see anything wrong they can take action there and then to correct it.
- Video or audio recording of team performance - this is often used in call centres where telephone conversations are re-corded and may be monitored, and also in retailers were tills are kept under video surveillance for security reasons.
Literature:
- Macbeth, Steven W., et al. "Monitoring group activities." U.S. Patent No. 8,364,514. 29 Jan. 2013.
- Groesbeck, Richard, and Eileen M. Van Aken. "Enabling team wellness: monitoring and maintaining teams after start-up." Team Performance Management: An International Journal 7.1/2 (2001): 11-20.
Open ended questions:
- Monitoring is important, because _______________________________.
- Which are the two main reasons to monitor the team’s performance?
- Monitoring needs to provide _______________ to the team.
- What does KPI identify?
- Which are the techniques that can be used to monitor the team’s activities?