Talk to staff in any organisation and there’s usually agreement that there is “too much to do”. But often, it’s simply a matter of being more disciplined and taking a few moments, on a regular basis, to plan the time available.
In this 60-minute activity participants are faced with a stream of emails and ongoing projects.
It’s the start of a new week and the general manager at Cavendish is faced with a lot of ‘things to do’. It’s the perfect time to take a few moments to organise the week ahead:
- to plan the diary
- to prioritise the workload
- to decide where/how to best utilise staff
- to arrange meetings where necessary
- to sometimes just say ‘NO’.
Teams - or individuals - have two forms: Your Diary and Your Action Record, on which they record their responses.
In addition, the emails reveal some organisational problems and at the end of the activity participants are asked what underlying issues they were able to identify.
A scoring system allows teams' time planning skills to be assessed and scored. Teams then have a benchmark for improving their time management skills and productivity in the workplace.
The activity is straightforward to facilitate - full details in the Trainer’s Notes.
Time Trial! has been developed from the original Northgate activity, InBox and has been redesigned, updated and improved.
- How to prioritise important / urgent / not urgent but important etc
- When to delegate and to whom
- When just to say NO!
- When to hold face-to-face meetings
- When to delegate back
- To avoid diary overload
Ideally suited to:
Illustrating planning and organising competencies. Use it as a hands-on tool on Time Management courses, either as a starter or to reinforce newly-learned theory. Use also as an assessment tool.
- Issue emails to teams (or individuals).
- Tell teams they have 60 minutes to complete their task.
- Issue forms: Your Diary and Your Action Record.
- Observe teams (but do not get involved).
- After 10 minutes issue the first of six additional emails - and one more every 10 minutes so that the final email is issued just a moment before the 60 minutes is up.
- At 60 minutes stop the session and move on to the debrief.
- Debrief the activity by leading a discussion to the whole group. Work through the forms, reveal the ‘right answers’ and allow teams to score their forms. They can then compare their decisions - usually provoking a lively discussion and plenty of disagreement. (Remember, the principles of time planning are the issue - rather than exactly the right response to a particular email).
- Summarise the key learning points and announce the winning score. (Performance rating indicator supplied in the Trainer’s Notes.)
- Issue 20 Top Tips handout to take back to the workplace.
Full guidance supplied in the Trainer’s Notes.
Hard & Digital Copy
- ☑️ Hard copy pack supplied
- ☑️ PDFs supplied
Digital Copy
Contents
- Trainer’s Notes
- Team Brief
- Sets of Emails
- Handout 1: Your Diary
- Handout 2: Your Action Record
- Handout 3: Top Tips
- Specimen Answers for completed Handouts 1&2
This activity is for face-to-face and virtual classroom use. The digital files are supplied via the Northgate Trainerhub.
This Northgate Training activity comes with a five-year licence for repeat use with up to 24 participants at a time, for use by Trainers based at one licence-holding site.
All Trainers physically based at the same office location can access the Northgate resources during the five-year term, including the digital resources supplied on the Trainerhub via your own site-specific Trainer Dashboard. If you have Trainers based at other locations, and/or remote workers, who would like to access and use the Northgate resources, we can advise further depending on your requirements.
For further information on our licence terms please view the Northgate Licence Agreement.
To use with more than 24 or for multiple site licences please contact us for a quote.
