We always have a lot of strategic projects on the go. What should we do?

We always have a lot of strategic projects on the go. I know we would make better progress if we did less but they all seem important. What should we do?

This week I was witness to an accidental revolution.

A business, which I will code name Spartacus, held its annual planning offsite last week and the first item on the agenda was a review of progress made in the 2009/10 year against its key strategic priorities. Key strategic priorities meaning the objectives that the management team had labelled “must-do” at the offsite the previous year.

It turns out that progress had been woeful against these priorities. The management team were a little glum about this but cheered themselves up with the knowledge that this had happened because the business had been frantically busy working on “other stuff”.

The agenda then took a little detour while the team discussed what exactly the “other stuff” was. After much debate it turned out that “other stuff” was mainly mini projects that had contributed to small steps forward for the business, had been fun to do and had been quite easy for employees to get their heads around but hadn’t, actually, been that important.

The important stuff, it seemed, was still languishing on the business’s to-do list.

So what had gone wrong?

It transpires that a year ago the management team had come up with a very long list of strategic priorities. There had been some discussion about trimming the list but no one could decide which priorities weren’t really a priority so they kept them all on the list; feeling bullish that energy and enthusiasm would get all objectives met.

The long list of priorities was then cascaded down the organisation and some employees – especially the team leaders tucked in just below the management team – were overloaded with projects. These employees tried to get some direction. “Which priorities are actually a priority?” they asked. “All of them” was the response.

So the employees, knowing they couldn’t do everything, simply picked the projects that they thought were most important (and most fun and do-able) and did those.

And that is how the revolution took place.

The management team didn’t decide which “priorities” were most important to the business; the team leaders did. Indecision at the top delegated power down the organisation. Accidentally of course, but nevertheless it happened.

This year Spartacus have pared their priorities down and will focus on just five key projects each quarter. The revolution is over, the management team are back in power.

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Julia Bickerstaff’s expertise is in helping businesses grow profitably. She runs two businesses: Butterfly Coaching, a small advisory firm with a unique approach to assisting SMEs with profitable growth; and The Business Bakery, which helps kitchen table tycoons build their best businesses. Julia is the author of “How to Bake a Business” and was previously a partner at Deloitte. She is a chartered accountant and has a degree in economics from The London School of Economics (London University).