An action item is a small task, activity or an action which have to be executed by the project manager, a member of the project team or any other stakeholder. All over the project life cycle you can determine that action items have to be performed. In many cases you determine them during meetings, discussions with stakeholders, but also by logical deduction. As a project manager, you have to assign them for execution and , in addition, you have to track them. In a small project, your memory might be enough. But in a larger projects with many team members and a lot of other stakeholders, you need to document them properly.
Personally, I manage the action items in a tabular document (see example) with the following columns:
The action item list is managed by the project manager and I prefer to place it in a document management system as for example SharePoint. Since a document management system is corporate wide available, each team member can check for his action items and update them accordingly.
How the action items are communicated? Those which are issued during a meeting are communicated along with the meeting minutes. In the other cases, they can be informally communicated.
Very important is to track the status of the action items. Most of the project managers are checking the status of the action items during the status meeting. Personally I check them one time in a day, sorting them by the due date and urgency. Case by case, I escalate them to be resolved.
Personally, I manage the action items in a tabular document (see example) with the following columns:
- ID: an incrementing identification number
- Action Item: describe the action which needs to be performed.
- Status: can be „Open“ if the action is not yet done, or „Closed“ if the action is resolved.
- Creation Date: Represent the date when the action item has been issued.
- Due Date: The date until the action item has to be resolved.
- Urgency: Depending by the urgency of the action item this field can have the the following values: Showstopper, High, Medium and Low.
- Responsible: the person assigned to do the action. I recommend to assign only one responsible per action item in order to have a clear ownership of the action item.
- Comments: You can add here different information about the action item. For example you can give more details about that action item, add information about the status, problems in solving it, etc.
The action item list is managed by the project manager and I prefer to place it in a document management system as for example SharePoint. Since a document management system is corporate wide available, each team member can check for his action items and update them accordingly.
How the action items are communicated? Those which are issued during a meeting are communicated along with the meeting minutes. In the other cases, they can be informally communicated.
Very important is to track the status of the action items. Most of the project managers are checking the status of the action items during the status meeting. Personally I check them one time in a day, sorting them by the due date and urgency. Case by case, I escalate them to be resolved.
