Driving Short-Term Results toward Long-Term Goals

When results must be accomplished in shorter timeframes using fewer resources, a model for quickly identifying, organizing, and achieving them in 30 to 90 days using existing resources and authority is essential to organizational success. "Business as usual" is no longer adequate if the organization is going to meet its goals.

Using the Quick Win Projects approach, cross-functional teams focus first on the results that must be achieved within 30 to 90 days, and then on how to accomplish them. This approach differs from traditional activity-oriented project work because the teams do not lose time and energy talking about how to do the work, but instead learn quickly what approaches are effective.

Using the Quick Win methodology shifts the focus from activities to the short-term results that must be achieved to meet a larger business challenge. The process has three key phases:

1. Setting up the project. Business managers working together for one to two days to identify the 20% of business challenges that must deliver 80% of the results needed in the next four to six months. From these results, they select those Quick Win projects that will have the greatest impact.

2. Project launch. In a high-energy, two-day working session, managers present the compelling business challenge and teams define aggressive business results to be achieved in 30 to 90 days. Then the team, along with management, resolves all open issues in real time before beginning to execute the plan. Everyone is on board; everyone is motivated; and everyone experiences the challenges and successes. It is not “business as usual.”

3. Executing and sustaining the plans. Teams hit the ground running with positive results beginning to occur immediately. The teams quickly resolve any open issues, challenges, and team dynamics that surface, through an execution model that leaves no room for the normal power plays, politics, and risk avoidance. The link between the team, project leader, and senior manager is direct. When issues are raised, the team or manager makes decisions in hours, vs. days or months.

Quick Win Projects are not just about results but also about shifting the way people work. These projects create a new way of working that generates ongoing results leading to higher levels of performance, new solutions for doing the work, and new levels of understanding and confidence.

Back to Top