In the project management world, we try to track all the things so nothing falls through the cracks.
Emphasis on "try".
There are loads of documents and tools for tracking, but a rather popular and handy one is what's called a RAID log.
If you're in the #PMLIFE, this is pretty common knowledge, but for those outside of our plane of existence, RAID stands for Risks, Actions, Issues, and Decisions.
The basic idea is you track all these important things in any tool of your choice. Spreadsheets are common, but preferably you're leveraging a work OS like ClickUp, or some other project portfolio management (PPM) tool.
Then you review these items on a regular cadence with your team to keep folks abreast of any threats to the project, items that need to be addressed, or key decisions that need to be made. I won't get into a lot of detail here, but you get the idea.
After using RAID logs throughout of my career, I find that I may tweak the standard just a wee bit by adding a 5th item to the log: Accomplishments.
Why?
Generally speaking, whenever there is a reporting period to provide project status to stakeholders, teams like to report on what they've accomplished since the last reporting cycle.
Some teams are decent about tracking their accomplishments. However, many are not because they are so heads down in the work itself, and what you end up hearing back is a chorus of crickets when you ask them what they've accomplished in a week, two weeks, a month, or quarter's period of time.
If accomplishments became part of the standard RAID log, it would accomplish (no pun) at least three things:
Making sure those wins are not forgotten, and perhaps even celebrated along the way.
Helping teams really focus on their short term goals, which will in turn help them with their long term goals since they're now officially being tracked.
Making those status reports a lot easier to pull together.
It's a simple tweak at the end of the day. I'm certain some PMs are already doing this in some form or fashion, because they've run into the same nagging pain I have trying to get teams to remember what they've done.
As a side note, tracking wins is not just relevant in the project management realm. Throughout your professional career and your business you should track your wins, big and small.
It keeps you and your team motivated and makes for great stories to share with your stakeholders, customers, or during interviews.
Now should it be called RAAID? RAIDA? ARAID? AIDAR?
Whatever it's called, tracking wins is a winning move.
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