Accomplishing a Lot With Not Enough: Defeating a "Busy Team"
MSP life is difficult
The MSP is responsible for a lot...and that's an understatement. Almost daily it seems there's a new attack vector, security control, tool, project, or just something out there in the wild that we the MSP need to consider, and likely take action on. This is even assuming we're avoiding distraction like "shiny new tools or toys we don't actually need". So, how do we manage it? More importantly, who in your MSP does it? Every time there's a new thing that needs to get done and you're surrounded by a team of people that are already at capacity, where does the time come from? Where does the labor come from?
Employees are terrible at judging their own capacity
This section says it clearly enough. Employees are terrible at it. When you ask someone to handle a new problem or project and you're met with "I'm too busy" or "I already have too much on my plate" or whatever it may be, they're likely wrong, but they don't know it. What I mean is, yes, they could technically keep working on what they have right now for forever and probably never run out of work, but what about taking little chunks of time out to get this new initiative done? I want to talk about a couple tactics here that takes a fully "busy" or "at capacity" team and creates room to get more done without hiring more staff. This isn't by neglecting work that needs to get done, but rather by banking on the fact that at all times this capacity is there and has been the whole time, but your employees let the emotional feelings of all the things that need to get done sit on their shoulders as "I'm too busy". When we start to break it down, truly break it down, not everything everyone is doing needs to be getting done right now...but some other things do. So how do you know when an employee is truly at capacity, or when they're just doing a bad job judging their own capacity?
Methods to create, or at least test employee capacity
Time block challenge
My favorite method is to ask if they can toss 30min on their calendar for [new task] or [new project] tomorrow, or the next day. Just take 30min dedicated to it and, this is important, say "see how far you can get". This open ended non commitment of completion makes it feel risk free, like they can't let you down, but rather it really is just a time to see how far they can get. Anyone at any time can generally find 30min. One of my favorite things in this method is often, and I mean surprisingly often, the person ends up making massive progress to the point that they may have finished/solved the problem, or so much progress that another 30min session or two may bring it to completion by the end of that first 30min session. But...how? If we would have asked them to [do this task] they surely would have said "I'm loaded down I really can't right now" or "man we've just been so slammed lately" etc. What created capacity? Challenging their perception of their capacity which I call the time block challenge. They aren't saying "I'm busy" because they don't want to do anything (unless you have an employee you need to fire), they're saying that because they really, truly feel that way. They're stressed, overwhelmed, fill in the blank...MSP is hard and very demanding. This time block challenge forces a re-evaluation of their time by taking a small chunk of it, and the low to no commitment result of "see how far you can get" relieves the stress of not having enough time to get it done. This has been a game changer in my leadership career, and the key is to not just use it once, but over and over– but only once at a time. Don't set 30min for every day for infinity. Instead, set 30min for tomorrow or the next day, then when that's done set one more, etc. The fact that this is a one time thing every time is what makes it feel digestible. Yes, this requires more hand holding from you the leader, but it's WORTH IT. Being a great leader, like it or not, often looks like work. Suck it up!
Timeline challenge
When working through a new initiative, project, or problem, often the question from leadership comes to the "how long will it take?" stage. The team stirs in their seats nervously, you can tell they're unsure. They come up with a rough estimate with a million caveats hoping that appeased you without over committing. It's clear as day this is a guess at best, but you don't really know how to do what they have to do yourself so to some extent you just have to trust them– and you should trust your team, but also trust in their inability to know their own capacity, and how long things will take. It's time to help them through that. I always notice a couple funny things about their given timelines:
- The dates they give you are always obviously an arbitrary time like "end of the month", "end of the week", "by end of Q3" etc. How is it that every major task happens to be done at such a convenient day? Well obviously, it doesn't.
- The amount of time to complete the task is often comedically far out. I'll be listening and thinking "2 months to change these couple small things, really?". But the truth is I probably don't have enough context to truly challenge them so maybe they're right? I need to help them through this.
Okay so lets get to the timeline challenge. Here's the scenario. Your team says "we're going to need at least 3 months to get that done, we can commit to end of Q2".
You to the team:
"Okay, so we need 3 months. What if for some reason, and I'm not saying this is the case, but what if for some reason we had to have it done in a month. What would have to change? What would I have to give up? If this had to be done in 4 weeks theoretically, help me understand all the things that would prevent it from happening".
Get ready for a ton of context and information you would have otherwise likely never have received. The team dives into the specifics, talking amongst themselves, challenging each other, working through the concept. You just sit back and listen. Observe. Take the time to educate yourself on what is actually involved, this is super helpful stuff. Take notes! The result from your team may be "there's no possible way to have it done in 4 weeks, 6 weeks would be doable but 4 is just absolutely impossible".
You to the team:
"Great! So 4 weeks is a big no go, but 6 weeks sounds doable did I get that?
Your team:
"Yeah that's about right."
You to the team:
"Okay so if we put this down for an 8 week project to give plenty of buffer because I don't want to make this impossible to hit, is that reasonable? Anyone have any reason that wouldn't work?"
Your team:
"No that should be good."
This method has carefully removed an entire month from the first projected timeline of completion, and it's forced your team to conceptualize and visualize the finish line and all of the things it would take to get it there. It's given everyone a chance to speak their peace about the timeline being unreasonable, the task being unreasonable, and it wasn't the boss commanding a result– it was a team effort at solving a problem and we all made a decision. I would argue that this is what great leadership looks like: a team united in solving a problem together. Again, this is more work for you as a leader than saying "have it done in 8 weeks thanks"...but it also produces a dramatically different result. Do we want better results or excuses? Lets get buy in, lets challenge the timeline, lets be a great leader that talks to their team and not at them.
Wrap up
Is your team overwhelmed and tired? Try these out! They really can shift the attitudes and productivity of your entire team if you take the time to implement them well. It's more work, but that's likely what got you into leadership in the first place. You got this!