What is your IT’s productivity cocktail?
This post was first published in my “Driving IT Productivity” column on CIO.com and has been updated from its original form. A Productivity Cocktail ™ is the unique combination of productivity tools, techniques and best practices that maximizes your organization’s efficiency and provides the largest amount of time, money and resources for use in other business initiatives. When it comes to organizational productivity, there is no silver bullet or one-size-fits-all solution. As a result, the pursuit of enhanced efficiency is truly a combination of art, science, trial and error, and ongoing continuous innovative improvement. That said, there are definable operational categories that can help you identify the productivity activities that will help drive your team’s performance. These categories, described in detail in my upcoming book “Productivity Driven Success”, can help you identify areas within your company where potential operational and personal efficiencies can be found. These categories are; Creative Delegation: Smart delegation is the concept that assigning tasks to your staff should be much more than simply handing out work assignments. If done with thoughtfulness and holistic purpose, it can not only get the work done, but it can also increase team morale, reduce employee attrition, provide training, increase productivity, build your management bench strength and free up some of your day to perform other meaningful tasks. These lofty goals can be achieved by assigning tasks strategically from a talent management perspective in addition to standard operational necessity. Ongoing Process Improvement: Enhancing business and technical processes is an important and long-lasting way [...]