The Daily Do- An ‘Agile’ Technique You Can Apply Right Now

This post describes a simple, effective technique called the ‘Daily Do’. My team (myself included) send an email every morning by 10am answering the following questions:

What did I accomplish yesterday?

What will I do today?

What obstacles are impeding my progress?

Here’s an example of my Daily Do from May 25th (I replaced or supplemented items that lack context with the material in brackets []): 

What did I accomplish yesterday?

• Concluded meeting and follow-up’s with [Partner] on consulting partnership
• Investor meeting
• Prep’ed for [Customer x] Call
• [Customer x] Call
• [Customer x] follow up's
• Posted priorities through to 5/26

What will I do today?

• Review possible consulting item with [Customer B]
• Prioritize backlog for Loki Provisioning and Loki Portals [these are two of our products]
• [Customer] follow-up's around sizing new features
• Stretch: get Visio on my Mac and draft first set of updated process diagrams
• Post priorities through to 5/27

What obstacles are impeding my progress?

* [Product Development Manager]

Need rough sizing’s on new [Customer A] features

* [Sales VP]

Need outputs from customer meetings on [new roadmap item]

Things I’ve grown to like about the Daily Do are:

It’s Simple

Project plans seem great, but how many have you seen collect dust after their inception because they were too complex and not useful enough for someone to maintain them? The Daily Do should be paired with some more general description of priorities but I’ve found no better way to keep myself and my team focused on a day to day basis.

It’s Focused

If you don’t work for a big company (and maybe if you do) you’re operating against a difficult pairing of urgency and uncertainty. Creating long range plans is hard but a lack of focus is equally unmanageable. I find the Daily Do helps keep focus on what’s important vs. what’s urgent at the moment.

It’s Workable Across Time Zones and Locations

I try to avoid meetings with more than two people- they’re thieves of time where nothing of importance is usually accomplished. Everyone at Leonid (where I work) sends in their Daily Do by 10am ET and if I have a question I can get in touch with an individual one-on-one as needed.

Like any management technique, particularly one that has to do with reporting, you’ll probably get some moaning and groaning. I get it, I regard every new reporting requirement with suspicion. I will say I’ve found this one particularly useful and minimally annoying for staff. Here are a few ideas on selling it to your team:

1. Sell the Specific Benefits

I’ve found the fourth item above around reducing overhead time to be the most effective- ‘This is a way to keep people from interrupting you all day to find out what you’re doing.’

   2. Lead by Example

You absolutely must do the Daily Do yourself. If you’re dealing with something that’s not for general consumption, describe it in general terms or just leave it out. If you’re a manager, you may have less discrete work items than your staff- also OK. As a manager, I spend most of my time up until lunch checking in with my team in quick ad hoc meetings, so my list doesn’t have as many discrete work items. That’s OK- they know I spend 10-30 minutes talking to each of them and that I do so for the rest of their colleagues.

    3. Allow for Specific Exceptions

There will be days people can’t complete their Daily Do- travel, emergencies, etc. Describe what you’d like everyone to do in these situations (skip it, send it out later, etc.).

    4. Diaper it for the First Two Weeks

You should set a specific time of day by which everyone should have sent their Daily Do. Check in with anyone who hasn’t sent theirs by then, particularly in the first two weeks.

    5. Treat it as an Experiment

Treat the Daily Do is an experiment. You’re going to get it up and running and then after six weeks, see how well it’s working. If it’s not working well, you’ll can it. If you have multiple teams, you might pick the one you think will be the most successful in the shortest time, and start the Daily Do with them.

The Daily Do is based on a technique called ‘the daily standup’ that’s grown out of ‘agile’ management techniques. If you’d like to know more about the Daily Do or agile, there’s more detail available here or in general on alexandercowan.com.

Feedback? Ideas? Stories? Please post here or drop me a line at acowan@alexandercowan.com.