Is there any need at all for you or the organisation to keep job description information - a statement about each job?

• Does a job description exist for your job? Why?
• Is it any use at all? Do you ever refer to it?
• If one exists, does its contents even reflect the dynamics of your job - how it moves and changes day by day - even as a general list of main duties and responsibilities?
• Is it up-to-date?
• Could it ever be "up-to-date"?
• Whe would such a statement be useful and how?
  • for recruitment
  • for job planning
  • when reorganising the organisation - or part of it - on paper
  • as a guideline to employment contract definition
  • as a starting point for staff appraisal and performance review?
• Do you think about your job in "structured" ways?
• What "structures" do you use?
  • The main duties and responsibilities?
  • Your key result areas and priorities (objectives)?
  • The overload and underload areas?
  • Where you have mastery in your job and where you could improve?
  • Aspects of the job that are challenging?
  • Aspects which are dull and lifeless?
  • The roles you most demonstrate in doing your job? See Mintzberg and role analysis
  • How your job and the way you do it could change - from
    • time management to
    • job-life balance to
    • simply getting out of the rutted ways in which you behave in the job?
• What types of authority do you have?
  • Ascribed authority?
    • How does your boss define and support you in terms of "your authority"?
    • In what ways do you feel under supported by your boss and others? Why does this occur?
    • Where do your responsibilities exceed your authority? What problems does this create for you? How do you manage it? What do you do?
    • Where does your job give you power and ability to influence others or even block them?
  • Personal authority. What personal qualities do you bring to the job which you use particularly to overcome lack of clarity in terms of ascribed authority?
  • Expertise authority? What particular expertise do you bring to the job which others value and so they refer to you on matters even though you have little ascribed authority over them?
  • Rewards authority. What rewards - tangible and/or intangible- are you able to offer or withhold from others in ways that have a bearing on your authority?
• What are your critical sucess factors in the job?
• How does your job content compare in relation to the job them yourself?
  
  
• Is the main scope of your work clear in client-server terms?

Do you actually need a job description - if not, why not?

How is a job "structured"?

• Who do you report to?
• Who are you are responsible to?
• What ambiguities are there?
• What matters must be referred to your boss before you can take action?

Exercises

• Draw a diagram of your network of job relationships (up, down and sideways)
• Show how the job relates to others, internal and external to your organisation.
  
• Summarise the main purpose of your job in three, snappy sentences.
• Discuss the sentences with your boss.
  

What is your 'time-span of discretion' i.e. the period of time that can elapse before someone evaluates work you have done and can intervene in decisions made and actions taken?

How do you "manage" your work plan with its explicit or implicit targets and schedules?

• Do you keep a list of priorities and tick things off when done etc"
• How do you prioritise specific activities and results you must achieve?
• What are the problem - for you - s in drawing up such a workplan plan and maintaining it?

Managing by objectives and results

• the main duties expected of you and rank these by (i) importance and (ii) time spent on them
• List the operations, staff, expenditure and other resources you are responsible for.
• What are your priorites/projects for your next planning period? Describe each as standards and results that must be achieved. Indicate the essential quantity, quality and cost elements, target dates and deadlines etc.
• What are the 'performance indicators' that will be used when your performance is next appraised?
• Where are you not achieving the expected standards and objectives? Why not?
• How aware is your boss of this situation?

If the scope of your job less clear than you would like it to be

• what can you do to remedy this?
• What problems arise in taking these matters up with your boss.