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Eight questions for every measure. Before the meeting, not after it.
Most measures do not fail in execution, but because one of these eight questions was never answered. Take the list from your next steering committee and go through it. Free to use, no sign-up.
The worksheet
The eight questions
Every question has an answer that fits into one sentence. Where that does not work, that is where the real issue lies – and not with the colleague who is supposed to deliver.
Question 01
Which problem is gone once this measure works?
Two sentences, in the language of operations, not of the committee paper. Anyone who describes what is being done instead has written down an activity, not a result.
Question 02
How do we recognise the effect, and who measures it?
One figure, one source, one point in time, one name. “Qualitatively improved” is not a measurement but a hope with a technical term.
Question 03
Who is responsible, and what may this person decide alone?
A name, not a department and not a team. Plus the scope: how far alone, and above which threshold it goes to the committee. Responsibility without a scope is an imposition.
Question 04
Which decision is still outstanding, and where will it be taken?
Committee and meeting date belong in the same line. If the answer is missing, the measure is not planned but hoped for – and in two months it will be in exactly the same place.
Question 05
Does the deadline hold if you calculate it back from the meeting calendar?
Submission deadline, meeting, implementation time, evidence. Calculated backwards, a surprising number of deadlines have already been missed on the day they were agreed.
Question 06
What stops in return?
The same people cannot do everything. Anyone who takes nothing away has not prioritised but sorted.
Question 07
What happens if the deadline is missed?
Escalation with a date and an addressee, agreed at the start while nobody is yet affected. Later, the same rule feels like a vote of no confidence.
Question 08
How will we see in ninety days that it is still working?
The evidence comes from operations, not from the project: a sample, a key figure, a follow-up review. Only then is done really done.
How to use it
One hour, five measures
Take the five measures that carry the result in your institution and go through the eight questions. What you cannot answer is not a planning error – it is your first agenda item.
Anything that gets stuck at question 04 does not belong in the status report but on a separate list of open decisions. This list is usually short, and that is exactly the uncomfortable news.
Why it almost always gets stuck at question 04 – the article on it →
Project check: twenty statements, four minutes, no registration →
In the leadership team
These questions are easier to ask for someone who does not share in the decision.
In facilitated sessions, I go through the list of measures with exactly these questions. By the evening it is clear what stays, what stops and who decides by when.
Your next step
How many of your measures are waiting for a decision?
In 30 minutes, we will clarify where decisions get stuck in your organisation and what can be changed immediately, without a project and without a budget.