The term Action Required, or AR for short, was originally coined by Andy Grove of Intel. It's synonymous with what others might call an Action Item or even just a task or to-do. Their use often originates from meetings, but can also be used in less formal settings such as hallway conversations. But unlike general to-dos, an Action Required has various components that make it a task on steroids:
- Specific, measurable and actionable
- Has a defined due date
- Assigned to one or more individuals
- Is accepted or agreed to by the assignee(s)
Let's break this down piece by piece. The first item ensures that there is little to no ambiguity to what needs to be done. As stated by the term itself, it's an action required by someone to take. It should be clear what that action is and what it isn't. Additionally there should be some way of measuring completion. Sometimes this is very binary, such as "empty the trash," which either gets done or it doesn't. But in other situations there might be more of a gradient of what is considered done. In these situations you will still want to place a target for when the action is considered accomplished, such as "Have 50% of our customers submit an anonymous vender survey on our performance by June 20th."
The next item is a due date. ARs generally are not open ended otherwise you end up in a situation ripe for Parkinson's Law which states, "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Ultimately you don't want a task that never gets done but also has some degree of urgency to ensure completion. The timeframe is entirely subjective but can be bound by business needs, resource scheduling or even the difficulty to complete the task. It's common for this to be as short as an hour or a day to as long as a quarter or by the end of the year. For larger time scales you're probably better suited by a business process that might be a bit more strategic such as OKRs, MBOs or BHAGs.
Third on the list is assignment. You can't very well have a task to be done but no one assigned to do it, can you? Depending upon the scope, timeframe involved, effort required, etc. an AR might be assigned not just to a single individual but instead a larger group such as a team. In these situations all those assigned share ownership of ensuring the task gets completed. But in some company cultures, they may instead opt for a Directly Responsible Individual or DRI. The idea is similar except you only have a single person responsible for the task to get done but they may enlist others to assist in its completion. In this manner, there is a single throat to choke, so to speak, which quickly eviscerates any kind of blame game that can take place if more than a single person owns a task.
Finally one of the most important aspects of an Action Required is the acceptance. ARs are often given out by management, team leaders or in the context of a meeting, the meeting facilitator. But they're not hierarchical in nature and it's very common for colleagues to give each other ARs as well. But just because someone wants to give you an AR do you automatically have to accept it? The short answer is no and there's a long list of reasons to decline agreeing to take an AR. Maybe you're going on vacation next week and things don't align with the due date, maybe you're not the right person for the job due to your skillset, or maybe the task is big enough that you can't take it on and still get your primary job done. This key inflection point of accepting or declining an AR will ferret out all kinds of issues in advance that can keep the AR from being accomplished on time or even at all. And as you can probably tell, this can be where an interesting discussion and negotiation can take place.
With this definition now complete, we've now set the stage for next week's blog post on Tracking Actions Required (Action Items).