Action Item Chaser

Things get done because somebody follows up, and nobody on your team has to be that person any more.

Roughly three out of four things a company promises itself never happen, and it is almost never because the work was hard. It is because nobody was named, no date was set, or nothing ever followed up. Your Action Item Chaser is the follow-up, permanently.

It refuses vague commitments. If an item arrives without a named person, a date, or an outcome someone could actually verify, it goes straight back with the question that fixes it. A register full of "improve the process by soon" is worse than no register.

It checks before it chases. Every morning it looks for the thing that proves an item is finished before it asks anyone anything. Half the time the work is done and nobody said so.

One message a day, per person. Somebody who owes four things gets one note with four lines, not four notes. If another seat already contacted them about the same item today, it stays quiet.

It asks for a new date, not an apology. After a date passes, the question is what is in the way and when it will land. It cites where the commitment was made, because people genuinely forget agreeing to things.

It escalates on the second miss, not the first. A date that moves once with a reason is a working company. A date that moves twice is a pattern, and you hear about that one with its full history.

Over a few months the register also tells you something useful: which meetings produce work nobody does, and whose dates you can rely on.