Focus Staff and Set Clear Goals with a Whiteboard Planner

Focus Staff and Set Clear Goals with a Whiteboard Planner

All parts of your business need to be moving in sync to reach the same target if you want your company’s long-term strategies to be successful – this is about more than just your own entrepreneurial skills. The best way to move toward fulfilling your company’s long- and short-term objectives is to set specific, relevant and clear goals for each department.

Employee retention and engagement can also be greatly improved by setting and tracking each of these goals and the progress made toward achieving them. It’s vital that your team works together to achieve your organisation’s overall strategy, and that every member of the team fully understands their role. It’s estimated that up to 80% of small business owners fail to keep track of their business goals – make sure you’re part of the 20% that does things right.

One easy way to keep track of your business goals and achievements is by using a whiteboard planner.

Whiteboard Planner Hack: Getting Crafty with Whiteboard Gridding Tape

Whether you use your whiteboard at work or at home, gridding tape is an excellent investment with a variety of uses. It’s super easy to cut, peel and apply, and when you’re done with your design you can just peel it right off – no mess, no fuss, no sticky residues. It’s the perfect way to make your whiteboard look a little more fun, create visual presentations or hold up decorations, and comes in a range of colours. Try thinking about how you could use this handy equipment – some common uses include…

• Playing games on your whiteboard.
• Creating visuals for a presentation.
• Decorating your whiteboard planner.
• Entertaining your children.
• Message board.

Read more: Get Creative with Whiteboard Gridding Tape

Make All of Your Goals Time-Based

So you’ve come up with some goals for each department or team-member and set them out on your whiteboard planner (this works with a pre-printed board or a blank board mapped out with gridding tape – it all depends on how confident you are in your design). What comes next?

Well, next you need to map each goal on to a set time frame. If there’s no time frame tied to your goal-setting process, there’s a strong likelihood that your objectives and goals just won’t get done. Choose a time-frame to accomplish your goal, whether that goal is to find 5 new clients or to come up with a new brand colour scheme. Once your time-frame is decided, mark it out on your whiteboard planner so everyone in the office can see exactly how much time they have to work with.

Get Creative with your Whiteboard Planner

Many offices still haven’t quite pinned down how to make the most of their whiteboard, even though they’re a standard accessory in most spaces. You can turn your whiteboard planner into an incredibly useful tool if you get a little creative with how you use it, and this can have a really positive impact on your staff.

• Think Stylish.
  Consider investing in a glass whiteboard if you’re struggling to get creative with a standard whiteboard.



• Make it Picture Perfect.
  Most whiteboards are magnetic, so why not use magnets to hold up a few pictures and liven up your display?



• Get Confident.
  Go big or go home: If you’re doing up your office space anytime soon, why not turn a whole wall into a whiteboard?



• Build a Rainbow.
  A colour-coded planner is not only more attractive than a mess of black and white, it’s also much easier to read at a glance.



• Count the Days.
  A whiteboard planner works so much better than a standard calendar, because everyone can see it no matter where they sit.



• Get Collaborating.
  Use your whiteboard planner as a collaborative working space.



• Make it Permanent.
  Coming to terms with the inevitability of wiping the slate clean can be difficult – save yourself from losing your design by investing in a permanent display.

Read more: 7 Creative Ways You Can Use Your Whiteboard

Plan for Success

The heart of project management is a strong plan. You’ll save on resources, capital and time in the long run if you take the time to plan out your projects in advance. Give proper thought to what it will take to get you to your goal, and what will be required to carry out this work. Think about what you and your team really need to accomplish – not simply what your client is asking for. For this, it can be work getting a second whiteboard planner to keep your own thoughts in order, so you can focus on your goals for the business while your staff focus on their individual goals.

Be sure to pay attention to the smallest details. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” should not be part of the vocabulary of a project manager. Your team are relying on you to lead them through this project, so you need to give them a reason to have confidence in you. Identify any staff or resources that you need, make sure you have access to all of these things and make plans to hire new employees or buy new resources if you’re missing something or someone.

When writing on your whiteboard planner, try your hardest to be honest and realistic. The planner is a tool to make your job easier, but it can’t do that if you’re withholding details for any reason.

Read More >

If you’ve found this post helpful, the following articles may also be of interest to you:

• Your Step-By-Step Guide to Cleaning Your Office Whiteboard
• Which Office Whiteboard is Best?
• How to Turn Your Whiteboard into the Ultimate Planner
• How to Remove Permanent Marker Once and For All!
• A Good Whiteboard is Hard to Find

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