Do you know what your team is getting accomplished?

In 1988, I was planning to hold a January Kickoff Meeting with my IT staff. To prepare, one of the things I wanted to share with them was our organization’s accomplishments for the previous year. I listed the immediate things that came to mind and then began to take a closer look by reviewing meeting notes, calendar events, project plans, etc. When I completed my research, I was literally blown away by how much was accomplished in the past year.

What this told me was that if I, the manager, was surprised and didn’t really know how significant the accomplishments were, then certainly my staff and my clients would be surprised as well. When I shared the information with everyone at the Kickoff Meeting, their surprise was visible.

You see, we all tend to focus on what’s not getting done, rarely thinking about what we have accomplished. It’s a normal tendency, but it doesn’t do justice for the hard work and commitment your employees put into their jobs.

From that point, I started maintaining a list titled Annual IT Accomplishments to track my teams completed work and successes so I can show others (senior management, department managers, and IT employees) how much is getting done.

If you don’t do this as a manager, no one will know!   

As projects get completed, I simply add the information to the list. At the end of the year, I have a nice record of what we worked on.

The approach used in this tool can also be helpful in gathering input for employee performance reviews as it gives you a quick look at who worked on certain projects, etc.

Download the Annual IT Accomplishments tool and start tracking your accomplishments.  CLICK HERE to download.

It’s important for you to share your organization’s accomplishments, , , if you aren’t, I can assure you no one knows how much your IT organization is getting done, , , and that would be a sad state of affairs.