5 Organizational Skills

Every Manager Must Know

 By Unito Team
 on July 3, 2018
 in Leadership, People, Productivity, Project Management

Try to picture the perfect manager. What do they do, and how do they act?
Different companies call for different management styles, but some things are
universal. You probably imagine a manager that has a clear and consistent
vision for the project they’re overseeing, who knows how to pinpoint specific
problems, while still keeping their eyes on the big picture. They communicate
well, they’re organized, they keep their team happy and motivated, and they
know how to keep the work flowing smoothly.

Are you that kind of manager? Maybe the perfect manager doesn’t exist, but

there are organizational skills you can adopt to get as close as you can. Here
are the five you should know about.

1. Have A Solid Project Management Methodology

Having a consistent methodology to fall back on can keep your team on track
and guide your decision-making process when the unexpected happens and
you’re flying without instruments.
There are a variety of different frameworks to follow, and choosing the best one
for your team and project can depend on many factors. Some of the most
widely used methodologies include:

 Agile, which is based on an incremental approach that seeks out

constant feedback and emphasizes changing what needs changing as
you go, rather than relying solely on planning before the project starts.
Accountability, face-to-face communication, and teamwork are key
elements of the Agile method.
 Scrum, a methodology derived from Agile, focuses on using iterative
processes to develop complex projects. Scrum’s iterations are called
“sprints,” which consist of four regular activities (sprint planning, daily
stand-up, sprint demo, and sprint retrospective) to move your project
forward on a fixed schedule.
 Kanban, a visual framework that emphasizes incremental changes and
uses a physical board as an organizing principle, to keep your team
working at the appropriate capacity and encourage flexibility and
transparency.

2. Evaluate the Most Important Effort in the Moment

Prioritizing relevant goals requires envisioning the end of a successful project.

When there are a million things that need to be done, assess the most
important efforts to focus on. One of the most important organizational skills
for mangers it to prioritize the team’s work, and help individuals understand
which weekly and daily tasks are most important to do first. Regular check-in
meetings can help you identify the areas of your project that most require your
attention.

One popular way to prioritize workload is the RICE method. You give each
project a score based on four criteria, then tackle the projects with the highest
scores first. Here’s how it works:

 Reach
o How many people will be affected by this project in a given period
of time? That could mean a number of customers per quarter, for
example. Be realistic, and try to use existing metrics to backup
your estimate.
o The number of people affected in your set time frame will be used
as your Reach score.

 Impact
o How much of a difference will it make? Ask yourself how you think
your audience will react to the change, and just how much it will
improve their experience.
o Score your Impact as 3 for “maximum,” 2 for “high,” 1 for
“medium,” 0.5 for “low,” and “0.25” for “minimal.”
  Confidence
o How confident are you about your estimates?
Evaluate Confidence based on how much evidence you have to
back up your projections.
o Confidence is scored as a percentage.

 Effort
o How hard is it going to be to accomplish your goal? Effort
measures the total amount of time the project will require from all
members of your team.

o Effort is measured in “person-months,” the amount of work one

team member can do in one month. After calculating
this, determine the overall Effort score for the project.

Determining the RICE score

Once you’ve scored the project on the four RICE criteria, you just need to do a
simple calculation to get your final number. Here’s how you do it:

(Reach x Impact x Confidence) / Effort

This will give you the total impact per time spent on a project. The higher the
score, the more important it is for your team to do!
3. Communicating Clearly, and How to Document It Well

There are a number of different ways to communicate with your team, and
one of the organizational skills you should have, is to pinpoint when each way
is most appropriate:

 Verbal
 Written
 Visual

For group communications, you might find Slack a better fit than a group
email. Some companies find that messaging platforms, like Asana or Trello,
work well with their culture. Don’t get stuck on a single platform. Try different
things, listen to your team, and embrace what works.

Finding the perfect communications style for your team is a matter of trial and
error, so always seek feedback from your team while looking for a solution. A
good communications platform should feel effortless, and should make it
easy to reference past conversations when needed.

If you’re on the hunt for an effective communications strategy, we highly

recommend reading this article right now!
4. Celebrate Wins

When your team delivers, it shouldn’t be just another day at the office.
Celebrating wins is one of the most vital organizational skills to reinforcing
performance and keeping the team’s morale up.

Find fun ways to recognize accomplishments, whether it’s honoring individual

achievements with a “wall of fame,” or coming up with traditions or celebratory
activities for the whole team to enjoy together. Inc.com has some great ideas
on how to that, here’s a few:

 If the budget allows, take the team out for a lunch

 End a Friday early, provide snacks and beers, gather the team and give
shout outs for individuals’ accomplishments.
 During team-wide meetings, make a point of publicly giving regular
kudos to recognize effort and wins. When you see somebody doing
something right, reinforce it!

5. Build Team Cadence

If your team goes through periods where they’re working overtime to rush a
task to completion, followed by periods where nobody seems to have enough
work to do, you probably need to establish a better cadence for workflow.

Cadence is an important concept in Agile and other project management

methodologies. Put simply, it’s the rhythm your team follows, a predictable
pattern that keeps them on track. There’s a lot you can do to get your team
into a cadence that works for them, such as:

 Scheduling regular meetings to go over the successes and failures of

the past week and review goals for the current week.
 Working in sprints based on a set time frame which fits your team’s
collective and individual work styles.
 Planning rituals, like weekly stand ups or daily check-ins, will establish a
routine for your team, keep them informed, and help them plan their
own schedules accordingly.

Improvement Never Stops

Applying great organizational skills as a manager, but aiming for greatness is the

least your team deserves. Remember, all of these skills take regular practice
and effort to develop and maintain. You may be doing some of them right
already – and others may be a perpetual challenge for you – but as long as
you’re trying your best to hone your leadership skills, you’re on the right path.
Got any questions or comments about organizational skills for managers?
Tweet us at @unitoio!

6 Essential
Organizational Skills
for Leadership
Success
17. Apr 2018

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Applications, Business

Organizational skills include practices like time management, scheduling, prioritizing through to-
do and to-don’t lists, project management skills, consistent communication, multi-tasking, and
flexibility as well as adaptability. If you’re disorganized, these skills will change your life!

6 Essential Organizational
Skills for Leadership
Success
Time Management
In order to complete all tasks efficiently and effectively, a leader cannot befriend procrastination.
Time management through scheduling projects, meetings, and other tasks by creating time
blocks in calendars and keeping a list of tasks will help organization skills. By using scheduling,
prioritizing and focusing on certain tasks becomes simple, and allows increased opportunity for
multitasking. Seeing your schedule on paper or on a monitor shows you exactly what days and
times you can be more flexible to adapt to business needs, and at what times you are completely
unavailable. Google Calendar is a favorite when it comes to scheduling– it is simple to use and
there is an option to sync scheduled meetings with the calendar on my phone. It’s convenient and
accessible at any time.

Prioritizing
Task lists include to-do and to-don’t lists, with the former likely being more familiar than the
latter. You’ve probably created to do lists before – they are pretty common. But what about a to-
don’t list? Have you ever heard of such a thing? A to-don’t list is exactly what it sounds like:
writing down what you don’t have time for in your day. Examples include: unscheduled calls,
meetings, or tasks, stress, going out for lunch when you brought your own, checking social
media sites…anything you can think of! Regarding your to-do list, know what is important vs.
what is urgent. Urgent work should always be prioritized! Create a weekly to-do list including all
tasks to be completed, and organize them by weekday, but always be flexible enough to adapt to
a spontaneous urgent deadline. Creating your to-do and to-don’t lists on any given day will help
you stay organized.

Project Management
As a leader, you’ll likely manage projects while simultaneously managing your team. You don’t
need to have the title ‘Project Manager’ to manage tasks, but you do need the skills to ensure
organizational success. Project organization skills are necessary when it comes to managing
timelines and deadlines for external clients or internal assignments. For project management and
clear communication, meeting in person, sending emails, or having video calls and messaging on
Skype may be preferred. Negotiation and risk management are also valued project management
skills. Risk management is being able to track a project to predict possible issues that may arise
and have solutions at hand just in case a problem does occur. Negotiating everything from
budgets, to resources, to deadlines is a part of having great communication skills.

Consistent Communication
While managing projects, you’ll be responsible for communicating with others who are directly
involved in the project either internally or externally, which is just one situation where consistent
and clear communication comes in. If messages are misunderstood, tasks can become
unorganized, and projects can get messy. Another situation where communication skills come
into play is work relationships: establishing a great relationship with your colleagues and
employees is extremely important. Your employees should feel comfortable talking to you about
trials and triumphs at the office, so you know what works well and what needs to be improved
upon for the success of the company. If the employees see you as a great leader, they are more
likely to accept feedback and constructive criticism and be able to discuss it with you. Being
available to talk to them and providing an open-door policy sans intimidation will contribute to
workplace culture, which is essential for keeping employees happy, and will help keep the
organization, organized!

Multi-tasking
Most of us multitask all the time without even giving it a second thought: writing an email and
answering a co-worker’s question, checking a text while watching TV, exercising while listening
to music, and so on. In the workplace, leading one project or person at a time would be ideal, but
normally, that is not standard. Being able to juggle multiple tasks and complete all of them
efficiently and effectively (without getting stressed out) is a necessary skill for leadership
organization.

Flexibility and Adaptability

Believe it or not, many great leaders have mastered the ‘downward dog’ yoga pose…just
kidding, don’t believe it. When talking about flexibility – be flexible about your work load, task
urgency, deadlines, receiving feedback and constructive criticism, etc. Organizational change is
constant and being resistant to change will not allow you to shine as a leader. Being adaptable is
also of extreme importance. Say you need to train someone, there’s a new skill you need to learn,
or you need to brush up on something you already know. Adapt to the training and learning
curve by doing your own research, reading articles, watching and presenting explainer videos,
creating presentations, and asking colleagues any questions you have that they may be able to
answer.
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