Ensuring the basics are in place.
The steps to get Inspirometer up and working are very simple and take very little time to action. In favourable situations, with good links to the internet, people can be fully installed and ready within minutes.
However, people are busy, and things slip their minds, and despite the easy and effortless nature of implementation we find that without proper management of progress, it can still take weeks to have everybody on the system and thereby a complete and accurate picture of meeting time.
So how do you manage progress? How can your management levels:
- Quickly identify where any shortfalls lie?
- Use this information to ensure the shortfalls are addressed?
The Traffic Light System
The Inspirometer uses four RAG indicators (Red, Amber, Green like traffic lights) to highlight the progress of individual accounts. These provide a quick visual update on the status of:
- Whether the appropriate software has been installed for the individual (Add-In)
- Whether the individual is enabling feedback for the meetings they have organised (Asked)
- Whether the individual is taking opportunities to provide feedback on meetings they attend (Given)
- Whether the individual is reviewing the feedback that is accruing to their account (Review)
These traffic lights appear in a prominent position on the dashboard of user accounts, and in a table of users for different departments in the organisation.
- Green indicates that everything is in place and working as required
- Amber indicates that progress is partial, or that there are issues
- Red indicates that nothing has happened or that there are big issues
The thresholds for Red, Amber and Green can be set by the organisation, but by default are as follows:
| Red | Amber | Green | |
| Software | Uninstalled | Inactive | Active |
| Feedback enabled | 0% this month | <50% this month | >50% this month |
| Feedback given | 0% this month | <50% this month | >50% this month |
| Reviewing results | Not this month | <4 x 5 mins | >4 x 5 mins |
Management Overview
On manager’s dashboards they can see both their own status, and miniature pie-charts for the status of their team members. They can get further explanation of those pie charts by delving into the status (RAG) page on the User Stats which they can access via the left hand menu:
> Manage My Team > User Stats (See the image on the right)
This will open up a page of the people within the department being viewed and, by default, show their connection status. This can be changed to RAG status by clicking the Current View drop-down (where it says ‘Connection’) and selecting one of the two RAG views.
- RAG By Individual will show you the individual RAG status for each person reporting to the selected level of the department (providing they have accounts set up in Inspirometer)
- RAG By Department will show you a series of Pie Chart indicators for the next-level sub-departments (as shown below)
The people outlines shown on the right of the department name indicates that individuals report into this level of the structure, and clicking this icon will open up the ‘RAG By Individual’ view for this (sub)department.
The ‘+’ symbol shown on the left of the department name indicates that the (sub)department shown has a further level of sub-departments, and these can be accessed by clicking the + symbol.
In previous implementations (of both this tool and other similar tools) the following approaches to using this data have proven very effective:
- Present the User Table in the management meeting and ask for comments. Develop a shared agreement on what the table should look like at the next meeting
- The prominent position of the status indicators on the dashboard will serve as a reminder of the need to do something for those who are using their accounts
- Where people are not using their accounts and/or are not making progress, the manager should enquire as to the reasons for this and agree a strategy to help the individual move forward
The ability to see the user table broken down into teams and departments, and to see the pie charts for these helps more senior managers to focus on the progress of their management team in driving implementation.