Next Action Analysis

Next Action Analysis(TM) is a new approach for assessing the state of your projects and next actions. It reviews your ResultsManager Daily Action dashboard and scores the state of your system on five dimensions (5 F's).

http://wiki.activityowner.com/images/c/c8/Six_components_of_naa.jpg

Installing and running the software
The fastest way to get rolling is to run the Setup Program. It will install the next action analysis macro along with macros for MindReader and Mark Task Complete. Note that is it important to turn off the ResultsManager "Support Outlook/MM synchronization" option or else the analysis will get confused.

Scoring
The overall "NAA" score is an average of assessments across the five dimensions. Scoring is done according to the following table:

Maximum score at goal level and then 50% reduction for each additional "-50%" amount. The last three metrics are scored linearly between the goal and 100%.

To improve your score see Next Action Analysis Advice.

Software Output
The ao_next_action_analysis.mmbas macro calculates the metrics above on your next action dashboard and adds a branch to it with the reports output.

In additional to the scoring the report includes advice on how to best improve your score and also includes several metrics and lists extracted from your dashboard including:


 * Percentage task without a context
 * Projects without next actions
 * Average age of next actions
 * total age of next actions
 * Lists of the oldest and youngest next actions
 * The total number of projects and sub-projects on your plate
 * The number of projects with target dates
 * A list of projects without target dates
 * A list of sub-projects without target dates
 * The total number of next actions
 * The total overdue and
 * The total non-next-actions that are overdue to you
 * An assessment of the percent complete on your current dashboard.

Note if you have "Map Centrals" or "Ongoing Projects" you can remove them from the lists by adding a "mc*" category code. Be careful not to have too many action living under these.

Sample Output
http://wiki.activityowner.com/images/0/05/Sample_next_action_analysis_report.jpg

Log File
Updated versions of the macro save information to a log file each time you run the analysis. The central topic notes of the "My Maps\AO\NAAlog.mmap" file contains the main score along with each individual metric score. Main topic branches list the actual metrics individually. The notes are in comma delimited format so you can paste them into Excel, and then choose "Data, Text to Columns" to convert them into data.

http://wiki.activityowner.com/images/6/67/Naa_log_example.jpg

Related Blog Entries

 * Next Action Analysis: 5 metrics for assessing your GTD system
 * Next Action Analysis Updated
 * Next Action Analysis 2008 GTD Challenge
 * Six Components of a GTD Review