When our goals and long term vision posted somewhere on the organisation’s intranet seems far away, a decision support system in paper format on our desk could be what saves us. By shifting outcome data and the description of where we are heading in the long run from the digital to the physical world, such info is more often visible and does not disappear among all open windows on our laptop.
The decision support system that I use is simply a letter sized sheet of paper that I have folded into a tube with three sides. On one side, I keep my organisation’s vision. On another, the goals I am responsible for attaining and to what extent I succeed in that. And, on the third a checklist for those days when “everything is just too much” and I need help even getting started.
This paper based tool helps me keep in mind where we are heading in my organisation and what we need to accomplish in the short run to succeed. It makes me prioritize more deliberately and with greater ease (and confidence) disregard tasks that are not steps in the right direction.
Maybe it could be useful to you as well.
Here, you will find a simple template in Excel-format that you can base your adaption of this tool on (xlsx format, 1,5 MB).
David Stiernholm
