Presentation on "Follow Through" By Ramgopal Marepally

“Follow Through”
Ram Marepally

What’s Follow through?
Merriam-Webster defines it as : “to press on in an activity or process especially to a conclusion”
Oxford English Dictionary defines it as : “the continuing of an action or task to its conclusion”

Follow Through – Requirements
Be organized - Using Outlook as work tracker
Etiquettes for accepting tasks/responsibilities
Open your mind - Collaborate & Communicate
Next Level : Brand yourself with your work

Be Organized
Using Outlook as work tracker
Organize your emails and tasks using Outlook by setting reminders for tasks/mails
Complete the task at the planned time without snoozing it for a later time
You would never find more time later to complete the task than the current time in hand
One who snoozes, loses!
Regularly review flagged items in Outlook and take action to clear the flags
Suggested Reading : Getting Things Done by David Allen

Etiquettes for accepting tasks/responsibilities
Understand and prioritize your tasks based on urgency and importance, do not let important tasks become urgent
Accepting to lead a lot of tasks/responsibilities can sound good, but it is executing that earns the credibility
Do not accept more than what you can deliver
Assess the amount of effort required for a new task/responsibility and review the amount of available time you have based on your existing assignments
Provide unambiguous time-line for the completion of a task with clear delivery date
Any follow-up by the stake-holders automatically confirms the failure of your follow-through skills

Open your mind - Collaborate & Communicate
Clearly communicate the status of your tasks to the stake-holders on a regular basis
If you seem to hit a road-block on a task
Discuss with your colleagues and peers for inputs/suggestions
Research on the net for more inputs/suggestions
Reach out to the stake-holders for gaining more clarity and for more inputs
If the tasks taken up were underestimated, reach out to the stake-holders as soon as this is realized
Let them know the issue and seek out additional time
This is better than waiting till the delivery date to give a new-timeline-surprise to the stake-holders

Thank you
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