"And even, if circumstances required, a contingency plan for his contingency plan's contingency plan."
-Frank Beddor
As recent events have shown, plans don’t always go as planned, especially when the context changes so much. This week’s Weekly Planning Hack is all about contingency planning.

My former world of work with the international sector, and in working with disaster management, was grounded in contingency planning. I like to say that I would start my day with a plan of A – Z which would morph and adjust to become a list of D2  to I2   over the course of the day.

Contingency planning is grounded in flexibility and consistent action. It is reactive, and sometimes proactive, making sure that plans are fluid and always moving.

Contingency planning allows for changes and learning to occur from event to event.
It does require strong skills in prioritization, adaptability, and flexibility.

What can contingency planning look like for you?

Enjoy!
​Jennifer

Just like a cup of coffee or a stew, creative ideas often benefit from some percolation time. Perhaps you are working on a big project, or a creative task. Taking time to step away can be of benefit to let our brains still work on it. In fact, our brains still work on projects, even when we step away from it.

A great strategy for tasks which might not be flowing yet, is to start it and then let it percolate. Perhaps go for a walk or a swim or have a discussion with some one.

This marination, percolation time can be necessary.

Check out these articles:

• Minda Zetlin’s article at Inc on: Your Brain Has Two Ways of Solving Problems, Which One Is Better
• Redbooth.com’s blog post from Diana Ecker on “Letting Ideas Percolate and How to Do It” 

​Enjoy your reflections!
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!

Ten minutes of planning can save upwards of 60 minutes of unfocused efforts, according to an old project management adage.

It’s alluring to write something down or put it in the system without taking a few minutes each day to look ahead and think about how our planning works, or to look to the wider picture and to think about what’s important.
​
At what levels are you planning? Planning doesn’t always have to be undertaken in a daily focus. Many times, the traction comes from looking to the wider landscape. In fact, PlanDoTrack isn’t a daily planner. It’s about focusing on monthly, quarterly and annual planning.

When we shift our attention to the higher level of planning, it can serve as an anchor for us, through the ups and downs.

Don’t forget to explore planning at these levels:
​
Annual planning – While we spend a lot of time focusing on these at the start and end of the year, when was the last time you reviewed your annual plan? When you achieve these items, what are you doing to celebrate?

Quarterly planning – What are the things you are aspiring to on a tri-monthly basis? For many of us there is seasonality in our work. What are the core goals you want to engage in throughout the year?

Weekly planning – What are the key goals you have this week? What are the things which are getting carried over week to week? This may be a signal that they need to be dropped, delegated or deleted. What do you want to do about those tasks?

Enjoy your planning!
Jennifer

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last fifteen years sparking conversations around partnering, teamwork and collaboration. A common question I’ve asked is “what makes your partnership work”? 
​
Beyerlein, Nemiro and Beyerlein in their chapter entitled "A Framework for Working Across Boundaries" in The Handbook of Virtual Teams (pg 28, 2008) write that the ingredients for successful collaboration include:

• a shared goal
• relationships with purpose
• commitment towards each others’ success

What do you see as the elements required?

In the work I have done as a team coach, there are usually four factors which are mentioned regularly by the teams and groups I work with:

1. Trust
2. Complimentary Skills
3. Planning 
4. Leveraging Strengths

 
Without Trust, it is unlikely that the relationship will sustain itself and that goals will be achieved to the amount that they can be. Trust is the foundation of most great partnerships. How are you being transparent with each other? What are you doing to follow through on what you said you would do? What are you doing to offer feedback in order to further your relationship and results? Trust is one of the four cornerstones of great partnership and is linked back to the behaviors which can be seen.

The second cornerstone is Complimentary Skills. Complimentary skills are important in partnerships to help you accelerate or augment what is possible. If skills are too similar and you are cloning each other, it is likely that a huge blindspot will be created.

Planning involves having a shared vision, meeting regularly to pause, making adjustments and thinking about what’s working and what’s not. Having a shared vision for your work or projects is a key element of success.

Questions you may want to ask regularly:

• What's working well? What's not?
• What areas could use shoring up - vision, focus, skills, communication, roles?
• What are you learning about collaboration?

Finally, what can you do to Leverage Strengths? We naturally bring elements to the table. What are the things we can do to augment what we are naturally talented with? Our talents/strengths usually create a unique mindset or approach to our work. In the partnership, how is each person uniquely positioned?

All the best,
Jennifer

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019), Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon.

Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
​Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326

Check out these Instagram accounts @coachingbizbuilder & @remotepathways!
Check out upcoming programs on our calendar!

Are you a remote professional? Listen into the Remote Pathways Podcast on your favorite podcast player!

One of the three tenets of PlanDoTrack is Track. As we move into the last week of the month, what are you noticing about the activities you have undertaken this month?

Are they giving you the results that you want?

As you consider your annual, or quarterly goals, what are the major milestones? Milestones are things we can measure or use as markers of our achievement.

So if one of my projects is creating a new course, milestones might be drafting and producing a certain # of modules.

If I want to increase sales and enrollment into a program we offer, what are the major milestones? It might include a certain number of registrations OR a number of marketing messages.

Activity:
Take a look at your top 3 goals this year, or quarter, and identify and write out what the milestones are.

Get granular with what milestone success will look like.

Mark the items and the milestone checklist in your calendar.

Note the trackers that you want to follow around these milestones (it could be calls etc).

A reminder that there are several tracking tools available to you in the PlanDoTrack planner including, Weekly Daily Trackers – with space to track more than 10 areas, consider some of the habits and consistent actions you want to get into this year, or the results you want to track.
​
Some of the areas readers have been tracking range from:

• Personal items – Reading time, time spent with loved ones, journaling
• Fitness goals – Time spent walking, at gym, swimming, heart rate, sleep achieved
• Business goals  - Calls made, revenue in, program design time, product design time
• Special project focus – include any part of the design, implementation or delivery

Trackers can be a great way to get habits ingrained. What are the habits you explored in last week’s post?
 
Thanks!
Jenn

​Week 38 Focus – Onboarding New Team Members
Focus Question: What is important to communicate about your business?

Description
In bringing people onboard to your team it's really critical that you:

• Are clear on what the task requirements are
• Get specific with what the end result needs to look like
• Provide check points to review and adjust the actions undertaken

 
Story
Onboarding New Team Members:
 
It’s likely that you may be bringing on new team members, and also doing this in a virtual setting. As you approach onboarding your new team members consider sharing:

• What the business is about
• Key business values – what’s important in every touchpoint (speed, accuracy, quality)
• Philosophies of the business
• High level priorities
• How their work fits into the other sectors of the business
• Expectations abut work, punctuality, output
• Confidentiality and Ethics

On the work front you will also want to discuss:

• Job requirements
• Reporting
• Information sharing, security and privacy
• Feedback loops
• What else?

Activity
This week make a list of all the things you want to cover in onboarding new team members. What materials are needed? What support?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Going back to your values and vision as a business, what is important to communicate? Many of the areas we explored – values, strengths, can be explored with others.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

​Week 37 Focus – Building Your Team
Focus Question: What are the roles that are going to help you as a business? What are the roles that are non-negotiable? What else is going to help your team?

Description
There are many elements which make teams work. We often call this team effectiveness. From leveraging your people’s strengths to the Six Factors, team development is process which occurs over time. Many of the topics we explored earlier in this series (i.e. values, strengths, vision) can also be applied to your team. Take a look back at some of the earlier sessions.
 
We know that teams excel when they have clarity around both the results they are working on, in addition to having strong relationships. In future weeks we will be exploring additional areas.
 
As a starting point, consider:

• If you had the funds and the time, who could be a valuable asset to your team? What are the areas that you would like covered in your business? Business team members can come in all shapes – from virtual assistants to full time staff that work with you.
• Some of the members that you might want to have on your team include an accountant, a legal professional, a content creator, an instructional designer, videographer or photographer, an accountant, a virtual assistant.
• Many virtual businesses start first with a VA and see how that goes. Some of the areas that are supported by virtual assistants include social media posts, graphic design, customer service, accounting and payments.
• Who is needed when?
• What are the tasks not necessarily done by you?
• Make a list of all the things you have been involved with recently or have on your list. Are there any things which could be done by others?

In next week’s post we’ll look at the process of on-boarding, or what is useful to explore as you orient people to your organization and their role. Stay tuned!
 
Activity
Return to your vision and think about WHO you need to help you grow your business.
​
On an immediate level, make a list of all the things you have been involved with recently or have on your list. Are there any things which could be done by others?

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Check out the Time Management and Personal Productivity sections. These will be useful in exploring what tasks you are doing and where they are in terms of urgency and importance. As your business grows you will want to consider what tasks could be delegated to others. This will be a signal of the types of work which could be handed over to part-time or full-time staff.
Use the chart connected to the 4D model to capture the tasks required by others. This can be found on page 120 of the Coaching Business Builder and page 122 of PlanDoTrack.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

​As I went to write Effective Virtual Conversations back in 2016-2017, I was curious about how much time people were spending in meetings. If anything, the pace of meetings has not decreased in recent years but increased. From face to face meetings, to ones where some are in a room and others are virtual, meetings can take up the majority of people’s time if we let them. What are you doing to ensure you are maximizing your meeting time?

Next week I’ll be bringing in 8 Essential Meeting Questions you want to be asking at any meeting (so stay tuned). In this weeks’ post I thought it would be useful to curate a list of ideas for you to consider as you go to strengthen your meeting processes:

#1 – Is a meeting what’s really necessary? – We often think we need to meet for meetings sake. Is a meeting really necessary or can it be covered off in another way?

# 2 – What is the purpose of the meeting? - Is it to provide information? Invite discussion? Make a decision? Brainstorm? Coordinate across the team? Support learning?
​
These are all very different reasons to hold meetings. Consider what is the purpose of the meeting, and then WHAT the best platform is, and WHO should be at the table? Does it even need to be a face to face meeting or can it be completed some other way? (i.e. a learning event may be offsite or on WebEx/Zoom or other)

#3 – What is the outcome we are looking for? Without a clear direction, meetings can derail quickly. Has the outcome been circulated before hand so people can prepare with whatever is needed? As well, are they able to build in time based on the outcome?

#4 -What involvement are we asking for? Helping frame expectations is another key part of the process. What is the involvement we are asking for?

Enjoy!
Jennifer

​Week 36 Focus – Weave it Together: Quarterly Check In
Focus Question: What have you achieved? What’s needed in this next quarter?

Description
Taking time to pause and undertake a quarterly checkpoint is important. Here we are at our next quarterly checkpoint. What are you noticing each time you undertake a quarterly review? What are common themes across the quarters?
 
The book’s subtitle is “Putting the pieces together”. What are the elements you want to fuse or combine?
 
Activity
For this week’s activity, you are invited to consider some, or all, of the questions I posted in my March 2019 article for the Coaching Tools Company: Help Clients Pause, Take Stock with a Quarterly Review or Retreat https://www.thecoachingtoolscompany.com/create-a-pause-for-clients-via-quarterly-reviews-or-retreats-by-jennifer-britton/
 
Start by reviewing the past quarter:

• What were your major achievements this quarter?
• What do you want to celebrate?
• As you consider the goals (and resolutions) you made at the start of the quarter, how are you doing with these on a scale of 1-10?
• Which activities are becoming new habits?
• What is something you can check off?
• Which goals need to be adjusted or let go of?
• As a leader/coach/business owner, what have you noticed about your team this quarter?

Answer the following:

• The thing that has helped me be most productive this quarter has been __________.
• The thing that helped me be most successful this quarter has been __________.
• The thing that has helped me be happiest this quarter has been __________.
• What has helped me be most healthy has been __________.
• What I have noticed about my work/productivity/results and/or relationships this quarter is __________.

Also take note of any key metrics which are important for you, and your work. For corporate leaders, metrics may be progress on key KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). For small business owners, key metrics may include revenue, items in the pipeline and social media targets.
 
Looking ahead to the next quarter:
 
My priorities are:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________
Our team/business priorities are:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________
 
My goals are:
1. __________
2. __________
3. __________
 
Other questions to consider:

• This quarter, I want to __________.
• I'll be really happy at the end of this quarter when __________.
• I also need to think about __________.

 
Activity: Part 2
Depending on your style you may opt to:

• Complete these questions and undertake your own quarterly review process
• Participate in a quarterly review session with Jennifer (these run for one hour)
• Join Jennifer for the four-hour PlanDoTrack Virtual Retreats. More information and registration at https://www.coachingbusinessbuilder.com/plandotrack-virtual-retreats.html
• Complete the Quarterly Worksheet and Video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f4ESiJN8ko)

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Refer to the Quarterly Tools including:

• The Quarterly To-Do list
• The Quarter in Review
• If you are interested, explore the supplementary supports listed above

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track

​Jennifer Britton - Potentials Realized
Author of PlanDoTrack (2019),  Coaching Business Builder (2018), Effective Virtual Conversations (2017) and From One to Many: Best Practices for Team and Group Coaching (2013). Pick up a copy of any of her books at Amazon
Book Jennifer for a coaching session to explore productivity, teamwork and business issues.
Contact her by phone at (416)996-8326
Check out the new 19 Productivity Tips on-demand program. Explore this video based program at  your own pace, and join Jennifer for bi-weekly calls as part of your course.
Follow the #90DaysPlanDoTrack series on Instagram

​Week 34 Focus – Systems in The Business
Focus Question: What’s working and what’s not as it relates to your systems?

Story
Systems help us to replicate things on a consistent basis. They also help us to:

• Scale business
• Be more efficient rather than having to reinvent the wheel multiple times
• Organize – so things take less time

Think about your work, whether you are an entrepreneur, leader or team member. My guess is that you already have a variety of systems in place to help you do things, and that there’s room for growth. Throughout the Coaching Business Builder and PlanDoTrack I cover a variety of systems.
 
Consider these systems for your business:

Activity
Note what’s worked and what hasn’t around the different systems in your work or business.
Do an audit on your systems. Consider:

• Systems to be created
• Systems which are working
• Systems being used in other organizations/parts of the organization which could be adopted
• Best practices around systems in your business

Connection to the Workbook and Planner
Refer to part 3 of the book and what is noted around systems. Part of doing a review is noting metrics and trends. Take a look back at your notes. What do you notice?

​You may want to:
Review the Annual Planners and Quarterly Tools
Review the Monthly Daily Planners – what do you notice?
Use brainstorm lists to capture these ideas around systems.

Download a one-page copy of this week's 52 Weeks of Plan, Do and Track here.

Best wishes, 
Jennifer

Read and download the initial weeks of the 52 weeks of Plan, Do and Track