The Three Cs of Multiple Hats Management

Are you a freshly anointed instructional designer who is learning the ropes of eLearning content development? Do you look at a flurry of activities around you and wonder how those veterans of eLearning instructional design manage to juggle their numerous tasks, and yet smile? At the end of the day, do you sit and wonder whether you did the right thing by giving up that job that you did so well, to enter this high-energy, high-activity, high-stress industry; where the daily task-list doesn’t seem to end…ever? If all this is somewhat familiar to you, then you are my audience today.

As good instructional designers, we should first define and scope the issue that we wish to resolve. The issue is available in form of a fuzzy – the work is chaotic, and organizing the day meaningfully is a tough chore, in fact, we don’t even find time to complete this chore. We realize the importance of planning our time, but then this task is important and not urgent. As every educated person knows, urgent always takes priority over important – and so our day never gets planned. This goes on…some tasks that urgent take priority over planning, and because we don’t plan, tasks that were not urgent yesterday become urgent today, and so we don’t plan again!

The conclusion of the above analysis is that our issue is cyclical and it continues to grow in size because it breeds more connected issues. This issue threatens to become so large in future, that its worry eats into whatever quality time we find in the present.

Let us sneak a peek into the life of this fictitious greenhorn instructional designer, who faces some very real issues.

Amit’s Story:

Amit earlier worked as an Assistant Manager (Training) with one of the best and the biggest BPOs of the country. As he was a good writer, one of his friends advised him to join the eLearning industry as an instructional designer. Amit evaluated the suggestion and decided to accept it. He enrolled himself for an instructional design certificate course as he wished to equip himself with the necessary knowledge before he joined a new industry. He completed the course with flying colors and became competent in the design and development of eLearning content.

Then around two months ago, he decided to add his resume to an online job company’s database. Amit’s ability to apply the instructional design concepts to instructional issues, coupled with his flair for writing ended in his getting the job of an instructional designer with a good eLearning company. Amit’s dream had become a reality. He was happy to be in an industry that recognized his creative abilities.

However, as it happens in most stories, such a happy state of affairs couldn’t last. Within a month, Amit was grappling with the most difficult of all issues – the issue of completing his tasks, in time. The problem wasn’t that Amit didn’t know how to do his work. His ability to apply instructional design for creation of excellent strategy documents and storyboards was unquestionable. The problem was that his job required him to do activities that were not part of the creation effort. Here’s a brief list indicating the various types of tasks that he was required to do.

• Create the strategy documents for the courses.
• Storyboard the courses.
• Set up meetings with the SMEs.
• Meet the freelance illustrator and discuss the illustration requirement.
• Create a list of illustrations to be outsourced.
• Meet the graphic designer.
• Answer the programmer’s queries through email.
• Complete the ID review of the graphics before they are sent for integration.
• Return the Project Manager’s call.
• Attend the meeting with the ID reviewer.
• Attend the language standards training session.
• Fix the ID reviewer’s comments for a course.
• Complete the daily effort data form.
• And so on…
  

Of course, he didn’t have to do all of these on the same day. Depending on their urgency, their importance, and their schedule – these activities had to be completed according to their own individual timelines! Meetings and trainings had to be done according to the pre-decided schedule. Setting up the meetings, answering the queries, fixing the comments, creating the documents, completing the daily effort forms…all these could be procrastinated. And it was in these activities that Amit’s bigger problems lay!

After about a month in his new job, Amit had a long list of jobs that were not done in time. There were meetings with SMEs that were delayed because he set the meetings late, he forgot to reply to the programmer’s queries and the programmer complained to the project manager, he didn’t fix the ID reviewer’s comments in time and ended up uploading the unfixed version for the ratification! The issues were now ballooning and they were out there for everyone to see.

Amit began to lose confidence in his ability to organize and manage! He began to question the wisdom of his decision. The problem however wasn’t with his decision; the problem was the “newness factor.”

The “newness factor” is a factor, which works against each one of us, when we change jobs. This factor becomes extremely strong when we change our roles too. Let us also derive some comfort out of the fact that it doesn’t just work against those who are young; it troubles even the senior people who change their roles and jobs. In fact, it’s worse for them. The young are expected “not to know” certain things, the seniors are expected to “know everything.”

Let us review this newness factor and try to arrive at a solution that could help ease this transitional pain.

In my opinion, our work tasks can be divided into three distinct categories on the basis of what you can do with those tasks. I would like to list them as the three Cs of Multiple Hats Management (MHM).

• Comply
• Control
• Choose

Let me explain each of these in detail.

Comply Tasks:
There are tasks that you are ordained to do. You have no choice in the matter, not can you schedule those tasks according to your convenience. You just comply with your organizational regulation, or with your role’s requirement, or your project manager’s dictum. In the case of such tasks, you comply. Period! Don’t question, don’t wonder, and don’t worry – just add these tasks to your Things-to-Do list and ensure that you tick them off before you leave.
Here are some examples of the Comply tasks:

• Complete the effort data on a daily basis.
• Attend the daily project meeting.
• Attend the mandatory training program.
  

Control Tasks:
These are the tasks that you can control or schedule for. I would recommend that you create a weekly plan for these tasks. If you don’t use a weekly planner, buy one. If you don’t keep at least half-an-hour per week aside for this activity, do so. I recommend that you do this planning before leaving office on Friday (or Saturday) as the case may be. In the beginning you will find this activity difficult as you would not have your effort data, but with each passing day your data will grow and you will be able to plan with more accuracy.

Here are some examples of the Control Tasks:

• Schedule meeting with the SME.
• Meeting with the SMEs/GDs/Programmers.
• Schedule the design/storyboarding/fixing of a course.
  

As you can see, the Control Tasks make up the bulk of your work. They are also the tasks that your performance shall be appraised for. So, be extremely serious and honest when you plan for these tasks. In the beginning, you will probably be working on schedules made by someone else. I still recommend that you chart out your own schedule. If you find a huge mismatch somewhere, sound your PM on it.

There is a possibility that the PM would have a good reason for a tight-schedule (can’t help it, client wants it soon – you will need to stretch,) or a not so good reason (this is based on the average effort data for all the projects done so far/this is based on the industry average) Whatever the reason may be, you will have more clarity on where your job is headed. This exercise will also help you determine the slack in your productivity, which you can then attribute to the newness factor, and sleep easy!

What is more important is that you control your schedule as much as you can! In short,

• Create your weekly schedule and add the tasks against the days of the week.
• Use your weekly schedule as a base for your daily schedule. Remember to subtract the time of the Comply tasks for the day before you add your Control tasks.
• Review your actual performance against your schedule.
• Note the deviations.
  • If the deviations are not too high, attribute them to the newness factor, work a bit harder and forget about them.
  • If they are too high, revise the estimate of your efforts. Speak to the seniors and try to identify the industry-specific shortcuts (Are you committing spelling errors and then spending time in edit-fixes because you’ve not checked “Check Spellings as you Type” in MS Word?)
    

Choose Tasks:
These tasks randomly bubble up to clog the workday. Examples of these tasks are:

• Sandhya has come to office for the first time after her wedding…she is looking so beautiful; you need to go and talk to her – for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes - choose!
• Someone wants to go out for a smoke, and you are a handy companion. You may go; you may not! You may go for 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes - choose!
• A 2-hour training program is being organized for another team; you can also join them. - Choose!

These tasks are essential. We need to belong, we need to be part of our office society – but we shouldn’t do it on the cost of the precious time that we can save to spend with our families. Nor should we spend our invaluable minutes and hours in such tasks, to buy nothing but the stress of unfinished Comply and Control tasks. Remember that these are tasks that offer us a choice. We can choose to either do these tasks or not do them; we can also choose the time that we want to spend on these tasks if we decide to do them. These are the tasks that should be reduced to make space for the Control and Comply tasks.

I recommend that you find the nearest blank sheet of paper, and draw two equidistant, vertical lines on it. Add the three Cs at the top and classify all your work tasks in the three columns. Now you are ready for your daily and weekly plans, and you are also ready to make your choice…the right choice!

Author: Shafali R. Anand