I got a new boss a few weeks ago. He called a meeting with his staff (4 other managers) and wanted us to do an interim performance review of each of our teams. The idea was to rate everyone in his organization using the typical categories of Below, Meets, Exceeeds, Greatly Exceeds expectations.
To prepare for this meeting I took a quick look at my O3 notes for my team 30 minutes before the meeting. I have 8 direct reports and I looked at the last 3 months of O3's.
I have always worried that my O3 notes were pretty sparse and I wasn't sure if I was taking notes on the right things.
Well, I was definitely the most prepared in the meeting. For each of my ratings I was able to give a 3 - 5 sentence overview of their performance. I was able to highlight any projects that they worked on and the outcome. All from my sparse O3 notes.
I realized after the meeting that I am documenting the right stuff in my notes. I don't write down anything that I consider part of the job work (I run a support team). So I don't write down about the tickets they answer or the volume of calls they take (I have a separate report that shows this data) unless they are below the expected numbers. Instead I write about the other projects that they either take on or I assign to them. And I see from my notes how well they have followed up on the projects (notes in the next weeks O3).
Thanks Mark and Mike for this great tool! This definitely shows that it is not that hard to be a little better than the other manager in your company!
MadAmos
O3 Notes - I must be doing something right
Fantastic!
Another testimonial indicating that O3 are not a loss of time. They are an investement that gives big benefits.
Contragulations.
Ced.
O3 Notes - I must be doing something right
Excellent madamos. The payoffs of O3's are many. Looking good to your boss an added benefit.
O3 Notes - I must be doing something right
Nice going!
If you look at the ongoing discussion about whether O3 notes should be discarded when the manager leaves...
http://www.manager-tools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3212&highlight=
...you'll see several mini-discussions about how much detail should be captured in the O3 notes. Your story adds real life data to the discussion: it shows how much can be made from relatively sparse notes when there's context in the manager's head that can be drawn upon.
Conversely, it's my guess that another manager working from your notes would NOT have been able to provide the succinct overviews and highlights that you could.
-Hugh
O3 Notes - I must be doing something right
HMac,
You are absolutely right. My O3 notes would only be valuable for me. The notes are so short and sparse that only I can make sense of them. I would never hand my O3 notes to another manager.
MadAmos
O3 Notes - I must be doing something right
I agree too : in my opinion, there is a "contract" between manager and direct about confidentiality.
At the same time, O3 notes are the perfect tools when you need to give information to the future manager of your direct.
We recently reorganized our sales force. My sales reps directs and my assistant are now the directs of my saled manager. A review of my O3 with them over the last year was the perfect raw material to give advice and guidelines to the new sales manager.
And the same time, I did not go too far in detaiils because I wanted to let them "discover" each other. Now I am coaching my sales manager into the process of taking over the management of his new directs.
O3 Notes - I must be doing something right
I can't agree more with the discussion on the usefulness of O3 notes. I too wondered if I was writing the correct things.
I try to highlight or make a note on the form in a different colour throughout the year anything that I think may be useful when completing performance reviews. I recently sat down and wrote a great review for my staff, with detail from a year ago including specific customer feedback that they had forgotten.
And the best part was it didn't take me long to flip through a year's worth of O3 forms and actually write it!
Absolute Gold.
Ken.
O3 Notes - I must be doing something right
Ken,
That's the part I love most about O3 notes also... the reviews are SO simple. The O3 notes are one piece of that information I use. I can't imagine trying to do a performance review without them now.
I'm going to miss not having directs for the next 4-5 months.
O3 Notes - I must be doing something right
I only have a few O3s under my belt so far. I, too, feel that my notes are quite sparse. I write down concerns they bring to me and questions I have for them, as well as their answers. I usually have 7-10 brief things written on the page at the end of a meeting. Most of it would not make any sense to anyone but me (hopefully it will make sense to me when I need it!) I'm sure that as we begin coaching plans, I will have more to write.
I see the notes as sparse but I look forward to reading the collection over the coming months. There might be a story there.