Getting things done starts with making a plan. You set goals, target dates, define work to be done, and decide who’s going to do it.
As you use Shibumi to develop your work plan, you may find that “who’s going to do it” isn’t necessarily cut-and-dry. You know you’re going to need an Analyst, but will it be Sarah or Richard…or a temp? And why do you have to decide that now?
Define the plan, worry about the team later
When you know the work that has to be done, but not who’s going to do it, use an Open Resource.
Open Resources can be used anywhere you’d normally add a team member: as an Owner, Sponsor, Collaborator or Follower. Think of it as a person-to-be-named-later. If you know you’re going to need an Analyst, then go ahead and add an “Analyst” as an Open Resource. Now you can keep crafting your plan, until it’s ready to share – and you’re ready to decide just who your Analyst is going to be.
- Use an Open Resource as a placeholder
- Assign someone to fill the resource when the work plan is ready
- Stay focused on building the plan, not worrying about the team
Getting the team involved has never been simpler
When you add someone to a task – let’s say it’s Nina the Regional Sales Manager – Shibumi fires off an email, letting her know about it. Most of the time this is exactly what you’d want. If you’re creating a large plan, however, you may find you’re assigning Nina to dozens of tasks – and that means dozens of emails.
This is where using an Open Resource can help keep inboxes a little bit cleaner. Instead of assigning Nina to all those tasks, assign “Regional Sales Manager” as a placeholder instead, reusing it throughout the work plan. When you’re ready, assign it to Nina once, and each of the tasks will be updated. Better yet, Nina will get just one summary email notifying her of the assignment, keeping Nina and her inbox happy.
- Reuse Open Resources to bulk assign
- Team members get one summary email
- Nothing gets lost
Collaborators, Followers and Sharing
Improving how items are shared in Shibumi is a major concern of ours, and one we’ve gotten a lot of feedback on. While adding Open Resources we saw an opportunity to make a few other changes related to sharing we’ve been planning.
- Share directly with an individual: You can now share with a group or individuals. So, if you want to share an initiative with Larry, you don’t have to share it with a group Larry is a member of, you can share directly with Larry.
- Set a user or open resource as a follower: Individuals have always had the option to follow an item in Shibumi; now you can set users or open resources as followers. As a follower the user will now be included in discussions and notifications about changes to the item.
We’ve already put this into practice internally and have found it to be a huge time saver. Please send us your feedback; I’m sure everyone will find it to be a great addition.