Mapping out the New Year

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Wait… A New Year? why is 2018 gone already? Oups where did time go?

Sooo we are now yet again at this lovely period of introspection under the sun (for us kiwis and aussies) in jandals and shorts… What is 2019 going to bring to you?

Are you mapping out your year and give yourself some structure or do you let it flow?

When I say mapping, I’m not referring to your bottomline. But more of the tiny milestones that you would want to achieve?

If you do map, what’s your logic?

I’ve only been here for just a few days, but participating to this forum will clearly be one of the highlight for this year :blush:

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So I’ve thought about it long and hard and my map for the New Year consists of 4 words:

HAPPINESS

HARMONY

ELEVATE

EXPAND

HAPPINESS: because Abundance of things comes with happiness and gratefulness
HARMONY: because this is what makes everything fall into place
ELEVATE: meaning educating and broadening my perspectives
EXPAND: well do I need to explain this one?

The good thing with these 4 words is that they apply to business, work and personal goals. You can carry them in your pocket or behind your phone or on a post it on your fridge.

What’s your year going to bring?

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Good thing you did not say

The abbreviation would be HeHe … which sound like laughter :joy::rofl:

For me I will try and have more HEART

  • Happiness with self
  • Engagement with others
  • Appreciation of life
  • Retrospection of my day
  • Thankfulness for those around me

Happy New Year!!

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Hi @marine I’m for happiness, success and growth. These have always been my priority. Be happy in what you do, feel like you have been successful and growth through continued learning.

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Hi Marine,

Natalie and I always spend a week planning the year over this period, we love it! (Nerdy I know)

We have just had our first 2019 alignment meeting and have started using OKR’s, have you heard of these or are using them?

At LPMA we have used these for a few years, and only recently have I looked at how a PM company could use them effectivly. The-Beginners-Guide-to-OKR.pdf (309.0 KB)

Have a look at the above, it could be a good thing for you guys and your business.

Cheers, I hope that you are well and had a great break!

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Thanks Ashley.

Had a great time, it still feels unreal to have Christmas in Summer even after 6 years.

OKR was essentially what were were doing in Deloitte. There was a compensation under the form of a team event if we met all team and company wide objectives for a specified quarter with review every week.

I liked the team event compensation because it was set at the outset so that we were definitely motivated to earn a good time together and learn about each other in this context. It provided a why which I think is the glue that keeps everyone going when things get tough.

What this guide doesn’t address is the resources part of the deal. There’s always a trade off especially when you set up goals with a team mainly made of people with employee mindsets. What I mean by this is, if you have ambitious goals all along, the resources part may call for overtime or for a need to have an additional budget which may impact the stability of cash flow on the short term.

If overtime is happening over long stretches of time, retention of good people will take a hit and this is something that also needs to be taken into account. If you are looking at increased budget, where is the cash flowing from and how do you make sure this investment was good and efficient.

I love OKRs but after 3 years of doing those I found that to be an effective piece of the deal, resource planning is necessary and generally not done. The managers need to understand the trade offs and be accountable to their team for that too.

What OKR need to power them to the moon is the B at the end for Budget.

I was the first to hate this word (and I’m an accountant) because for me preparing a budget based on last year’s income and expenses is completely unrelated to OKRs that are currently required for the business to keep their edge. Believe me, if you knew how unimpressed we were by how the budget was set up, it would probably have made it to the joke of the year.

And, I tried thinking of it differently and realised that this was a thing, it’s called Zero Based Budgeting. And you start from ground Zero, same as the OKR, just that 0 is the level of resources given to a a goal, a business line ect and the whole team needs to justify the level of budget and resources given to a specific OKR (that probably means that you need a strong W for Why) and review along the way if this is still good company practice to keep the OKRW based on Budget review.

This gives agility at every level and engagement but it also proves that the whole company understand and is behind the goals set up by each team, because it gives them the resources they need at the outset. The resources may not only mean just advertising or copywriting, but it may also mean getting a thought leader on the subject to have a chat and give the level of understanding needed to make the moonshot achievable.

Heinz, Danone and other big groups are implementing it with great results from a cost saving point of view. My belief is the sooner you start in this culture, the easier it gets when you grow.

Thanks for the guide, I think it gave me the link I needed to make it work easily and efficiently and get buy in (even for non number geeks)

Looking forward to meeting you nerdy map mapping during the year by the way.:wink:

Cheers

Marine

P.S. as an aside, Zero Based Budgeting makes wonders for your personal finances. You wouldn’t believe the turn around I got in how we now reach consensus and engagement on money matters as a family unit.

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This will be required reading for my leadership team this week.

Or better

I will ensure this document is read by the LPM leadership team this week by providing a copy to the slack leadership channel and receiving a positive affirmation in a slack thread that the document has been read.

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