Management and Leadership Maturity Assessment

Use this prescriptive self-assessment tool to evaluate your organization’s Management & Leadership Program Maturity. Rate your compliance with best practices across the following dimensions: Leadership; Training; Staffing; Budgeting; Purchasing; Project Management; Communication; and Team Building. Once you have completed the assessment, you will immediately be provided with results and recommendations for improvement.

Standardizing Project Management

Many organizations operate in a state of mild chaos because of poor project management processes. This summary will provide the business case for implementing a formalized project management policy, methodology, and toolset. Review the Action Plan to obtain 11 downloadable templates and tools to assist you with creating your own customized project management procedure.

Benefits of Structured Project Management:

• Increased Visibility – reporting project status, milestones, and deliverables are planned, documented, communications that can be viewed anytime.
• Reduced Risk – by implementing scheduled project checkpoints, quality is assured and failing projects are quickly identified and crashed. Additionally, the risk of key project team members leaving is mitigated through the use of formalized project communication documents.
• Better Allocation of Resources – scheduling work, prioritizing multiple projects, and managing costs and human resources become much simpler when all projects follow a consistent methodology for changes & approvals.
• Effective Scope & Time Management – every executive can relate to projects that ‘creep’ in scope as they progress. Documenting changes to project scope and deliverables, and adjusting budgets and timelines, cannot be done effectively without using proper project management tools.
• Clear Organizational Development – if you can effectively implement a standardized project management process, your successor will certainly thank you. Establish a baseline project management capability, and benchmark improvements to your maturity level by using industry standards like PMBOK.

Project Management Methodology & Tools:

1. Complete a Project Request Form – this template documents the project overview; strategic goals & objectives; impact of non-completion; stakeholders; project timelines; anticipated resources required; and how results will be measured.
2. Achieve Approval from Project Sponsor – determine which senior executive will champion this initiative and be accountable for project results. Consult the Project Priority Index to determine the level of urgency.
3. Identify an Appropriate Project Manager - select a project manager who will be responsible for gathering business requirements, managing communications, assuring quality, and reporting to the project sponsor.
4. Develop the Project Charter – this template organizes the project by documenting the purpose of the project, scope, and project plan. The project plan includes: project title; start date; end date; project team; communication tools & plan; project deliverables; milestones; anticipated budget; and cost/benefit analysis. Obtain sign-off before proceeding.
5. Complete Work Breakdown Structure – organize project tasks and deliverables into the 5 project stages: Initiation, Planning, Execution, Control, and Closure. Estimate costs, effort (hours), and identify internal/external resources that will be required for each task.
6. Produce a Project Schedule – determine start/end dates to create a master schedule for delivery of each task. Ensure your resources will be available for your project and obtain sign-off by the project manager and project sponsor.
7. Kick-off the Project – assemble the project team and hold a project kick-off meeting to communicate the Project Charter, Work Breakdown Structure, and Project Schedule. Ensure that team members understand their role.
8. Manage Scope Changes - Use the Project Change Request Form to ensure that all changes to project scope are documented and approved.
9. Communicate at Regular Intervals – draw from the Communications Plan in the Project Charter to develop a schedule for reporting on project progress.
10. Finish the Project – complete final deliverables and have stakeholders approve quality. Determine if there are any outstanding items to resolve.
11. Conduct a Post-Project Evaluation – use the Post-Project Evaluation template to assess: overall project success; scope management; quality of deliverables, key accomplishments; opportunities for improvement; future considerations; and develop and formalize business process best practices.
12. Complete Project Closure Checklist – use this tool to ensure that all tasks were completed results have been measured and communicated.

Standardizing Performance Reviews

Completing performance reviews on a regular basis is essential for maintaining motivation, assessing department capabilities, and managing your staff effectively. Managers who do not complete performance reviews or deal with performance issues reduce employee morale, decrease credibility of management, diminish organizational effectiveness, and contribute to increased costs for resources. Use Demand Metric’s downloadable Performance Review Template to help you standardize your employee performance review process.

What are the Key Areas to Evaluate & Measure?

• Competency Evaluation – this section provides a series of objective skills, behaviors, and attitudes, and asks respondents to rate the employee’s ability.
• Objectives & Results – compare results for the review period with the pre-defined objectives set at the last performance review.
• Accomplishments – use this area to discuss key accomplishments made in the review period and highlight how these helped the organization hit its goals.
• Strengths & Opportunities – document the top 3 strengths and opportunities for improvement. These areas will be evaluated in subsequent performance reviews to determine if the employee is developing new skills & abilities.
• Suggestions for Organizational Improvement – this section allows the employee to suggest any business processes that could be improved. It is very important that a review is a two-way process; be sure to take these ideas to heart and go to bat for your team with Senior Management.
• Professional Development Plan – development plan should include specific development objectives, related activities to support knowledge & skill growth, and measures & timeframes for completion.

Develop your Team’s Strategic Skill-Set

Leaders of marketing departments are charged with increasing the knowledge and skills of their team, but many do not have a plan for educating and developing their staff. Use this summary to identify which skills you have, and what strategies you can deploy to engage your team and expand their strategic & tactical skills. Don’t miss our Marketing Skills Matrix which outlines simple, developing, and advanced tactical and strategic marketing skills required for marketing executives.

What are Key Team Building Exercises?

• Read & Discuss a Book - consider assigning some proactive reading to get your team on the same page when it comes to marketing strategies and best practices. We highly recommend High Performance Marketing.
• Attend Industry Conferences – doing some business traveling is a great method for getting to know your staff on a more personal level. If you do not have any tradeshows or industry conferences in the near future, consider attending a Pragmatic Marketing or Demand Generation training course or workshop provided by Demand Metric.
• Build Personal Development Plans – use our Performance Review template to create a personal development plan for each of your staff. Work to develop star performers and experts in each key marketing competency.
• Create a Steering Committee - invite your top performer to join you at Steering Committee meetings to provide insights to your senior executives.

Sharpen your Focus with Goals

There is no question that effective goal setting can improve the performance of your department. Top performing leaders in all fields use goals to increase confidence, extend vision, and stay motivated. Use Demand Metric’s downloadable Department Goals & Individual Goals templates to break your high-level strategic plan into smaller, manageable chunks.

Benefits of Goal Setting:

• Better Time-management – operating with defined goals maximizes productivity because team members focus their effort on set deliverables.
• Increased Confidence & Moral - teams that are consistently achieving goals feel productive, and more self-confident than teams who simply react.
• Stronger Collaboration - when peers are involved in a common goal, they support each other and keep the juices flowing. Imagine the atmosphere when a Friday afternoon ‘leave early’ sales goal is about to be reached.

Reduce Employee Turnover Costs

There are many statistics and complex methodologies to support the notion that employee turnover costs are seriously affecting mid-sized enterprises. On the low end, the Hay Group reports that the cost to replace an employee is 50% of their total compensation, including benefits. On the high-end, Hewitt & Associates puts the cost between 100-150% of annual compensation. While executive management and sales staff are more costly to replace, churn in any function affects the bottom-line.

How Can You Retain Top Talent?

• Share Long-Term Vision – it is critical that all employees understand the long-term vision for the organization to find real meaning in their work. In particular, star performers who are shut out of the high-level strategy and direction of the company will be the first to defect, while costing the most.
• Conduct Employee Surveys – establish an annual Employee Satisfaction Survey to gather information and determine some of the reasons why people may be looking for greener pastures. Be sure to keep this anonymous.
• Consider Flextime – for employees who are managed based on deliverables, consider implementing a flextime policy, which allows for telecommuting. Best Buy recently instilled a Results-Only Work Environment and boosted productivity in their corporate office by over 35%.
• Offer ‘Personal’ Days - consider offering 1 day per month/quarter for a personal day. This will allow your employees to take care of business in their personal life without having to call in sick to work for fear of persecution.
• Create Focus Groups – bring leaders from each level in the organization together for informal employee focus group sessions. Discuss corporate culture, social activities, and the work/life balance at your company. Use our Facilitating Insightful Focus Groups report for advice.
• Do Exit Interviews - last but not least, be sure to conduct an exit interview. Use Demand Metric’s downloadable Exit Interview Questions Tool for help in this area.