The Importance of Knowing What 'Done' Looks Like
For years I've drilled a simple three-point reminder into my staff in each one of my businesses.
It's how we stay aligned.
Everyone is expected to:
1️⃣ Know the vision
2️⃣ Know your priorities
3️⃣ Know what done looks like
→ Direction
→ Focus
→ Finish line
Vision and priorities always get most of the attention. Vision decks, priority-setting, quarterly planning.
But the one that arguably wrecks the most work is not being clear on what ‘Done’ actually looks like.
We’ve all seen it happen. Action items in meetings, project milestones, Quarterly Rocks...
Someone starts out with ambition and good intentions, but along the way it turns into ambiguity and uncertainty.
- "Clean up the CRM." Done when? All contacts tagged? Dead leads archived? Or just... looks tidier?
- "Improve onboarding." Improved by what measure? Says who?
- "Launch the newsletter." Launched when issue one ships? Or when it fires every week without you?
- "Do more content marketing." More posts? More channels? More effort toward... what, exactly?
When "done" is fuzzy, you can't hold anyone accountable, including yourself. There's always wiggle room, and wiggle room is where good intentions get buried in the clutter. And you can't report honestly on something you never defined. "It's coming along" isn't a status.
The last thing you want to hear when it's time to report in are the words "I thought that meant..."
Solving the problem is part of your role as a leader: establishing clarity. You have to take responsibility for instilling the expectation and making the habit cultural.
Learning (and teaching) to define what ‘done’ is? Here is the simple fix. Boring, but it works.
- SMART / SMARTR for the bigger stuff like projects and Rocks. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely, Results-based.
- "Who is doing what by when" for tasks. Three variables. Do it every time. Leave one out and it's not a real commitment.
I also really like how Matt Mochary describes the "impeccable agreement."
A commitment stated so clearly an outsider could look at it and tell you flat-out whether it happened.
There’s one owner, a deadline, and a written definition of done. ~
And if you're going to miss the deadline, you renegotiate before the deadline, not after.
I use impeccable agreements and clear "done" definitions with my clients to this day.
Yes, so they can stay accountable.
But equally as valuable is so that clarity becomes a habit they can turn around and instill in their own teams.
The goal is for "what does done look like?" to become a reflex everyone on their team has.
None of this is complicated, which is exactly the point. Getting clear on what ‘done’ looks like should be the easy part, and doing the thing should be the challenge.
But when people are going to work on it without ever agreeing what "done" was, you get the joy of doing the thing wrong or doing the wrong thing, then getting to recalibrate and try it again.
And rework is evil.
Know the vision. Know your priorities. And for everyone's sake, know what done looks like.
If you want the actual playbook, I put together a guide on setting goals for focus and follow-through. Same principles, laid out step by step.
👉🏻 Get my Guide for Becoming a Goal-Setter and a Goal-Getter.