Keep what helps, stop what does not
Improvement should create permission to stop work as well as add a new habit, meeting, measure or tool. A review closes the loop by testing the original claim against real outcomes and deciding what to retain, adapt or retire.
Review the original problem, baseline, expected benefit and cost at an agreed date. Check outcome, quality, effort, experience and unintended effects with people affected. Decide explicitly to keep, adapt, pause or stop, then remove obsolete tasks, reports, meetings and controls from the normal workflow.
Run a short evidence review
| Question | Evidence | Possible decision |
|---|---|---|
| Did the intended outcome improve? | Baseline, current result and user feedback. | Keep, adapt or stop. |
| Did quality or risk change? | Error, rework, complaint, audit and exception evidence. | Strengthen controls or reverse. |
| What did it cost? | Setup, recurring effort, support, attention and displaced work. | Redesign, simplify or retire. |
| Who benefited or lost out? | Feedback from users, staff and affected partners. | Address fairness, access or workload impact. |
| What can stop now? | Duplicate report, meeting, queue, approval, workaround or manual re-entry. | Remove it with a named owner and date. |
Make stopping a normal decision
- Expiry: give temporary work a review or end date when it begins.
- Evidence: record why it was started and what would prove it useful.
- Ownership: name the person who can retire it and communicate the change.
- Safety: check legal, records, privacy, quality and customer implications before removal.
- Learning: retain the decision record so the same work is not recreated without context.
Make review part of the change
GOV.UK guidance on performance metrics recommends monitoring, iterating and improving as context changes. This does not require endless measurement: it requires a clear decision question and enough evidence to answer it honestly.
Productivity review FAQs
How do we know work is low value?
Ask who needs the outcome, what decision or risk it supports, what happens if it stops and whether a simpler route exists. Use evidence from users and the people doing it, not only tradition or visibility.
Can a team stop a report or meeting without permission?
Follow the organisation decision and governance rules. Often a short trial with clear stakeholders, a replacement route and a review date is safer than an abrupt removal.
What if a change improves speed but harms quality?
Treat that as a failed or incomplete improvement. Revisit the design, quality threshold, controls and capacity rather than presenting speed alone as success.
Continue your productivity decision
Use the next guide that fits the bottleneck, measurement, work design, communication, attention, automation, knowledge or review question still in front of you.