Work in Progress (WIP) meetings are—problematic. Being either a vital tool in the management and development of an organisation or a complete waste of time. The former, a vital tool, sees effective management of the WIP process driving value for the organisation, improving team cohesion, and enhancing levels of employee trust. The latter, a waste of time, bears witness to managers and teams playing another round of capture the flag, in the game of being busy but not productive.
WIPs can create resentment in teams—an inevitable result of organisations loading employees with ever more work and then blocking them from doing said work by ensuring days are meeting heavy. WIPs can be seen as selfish—a manager asking, ‘what have you done for me?’, seldom querying ‘what can I do for you?’ WIPs can even be outright awkward—as social conventions clash and two or more people stumble around and pray for the meeting to end soon. A situation that is unlikely to improve the relationship between manager and employee.
The good news is we can successfully navigate this minefield by following a few simple practices.
Establishment of Trust
The first step, and this cuts both ways for manager and employee, is to create an environment of trust. For the manager, this involves ensuring the WIP does not seem like a process for checking up or micro-managing. For an employee, it is an opportunity to show your boss you are a ‘safe pair of hands’ and that they can leave objectives with you—confident the desired results will be achieved.
It is usually most efficacious when the trust relationship is initiated by the manager. This is done via the approach to process, layout of the WIP template, and the guidance on what the WIP is trying to achieve.
As an employee, if your manager has not seized the initiative, you can always use that time honoured tradition of managing up. There is, I should hasten to add, a line between successful managing up and trying to tell your boss how to do their job and run the team yourself. The former, will generally result in a benign smile, as you are taking on responsibility and making their day easier. The latter, ‘telling your boss’, is pretty much guaranteed to get your name on a watch list. Marked as someone who is not a ‘team player’. Lack of promotion and a PIP (Personal Improvement Plan) often follows closely.
If you have avoided being ‘that guy’, who seems to be telling everyone what to do despite not being CEO, then you have the chance to shape not only your own WIP, but the experience of your colleagues. Because with any luck—read competence—your boss will roll out your initiative across the team. Something which will mark you as someone with leadership potential and generally improve your standing in the organisation. It also, on a purely selfish front, means you spend less time dealing with ‘bullshit managers’ and more time getting on with delivering value to the business. Enabling you to get out of the team, or perhaps take over the team, and let your abilities echo benefit around the organisation.
