Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Want to Improve Your Organization? Beware These Pitfalls

Joseph Drasin is the director of University Process Innovation, Division of Information Technology, at the University of Maryland. In a recent article for Educause, Drasin described his dealings with the university department known for being inefficient and difficult to work with. “Their processes were perceived as cumbersome, costly, frustrating, and antithetical to their stated objectives,” said Drasin. “Several IT systems had been purchased and implemented to address these issues, which actually exacerbated the problems.”

Drasin and his team worked with the department in question to develop an overarching process that improved service and reduced administrative costs. After ensuring that all practices were consistent, aligned, and adding value, the group was able to implement a complementary technology solution.

Reflecting on the redesign process, Drasin shared words of wisdom that likely apply to most readers here. “When an organization buys a shiny new piece of technology and then tries to implement it without first having looked hard at its own processes and people, the vast majority of the time, the project doesn’t live up to expectations,” he said. “Even when successful, too many times the new technology looks a lot like the prior technology in terms of how it works.”

Drasin went on to share process excellence lessons from his journey, some of which were inspired by Alec Sharp, the author of Workflow Modeling: Tools for Process Improvement and Application Development. I’ve cited several of them here and also included some additional gems from Velaction blog author Jeff Hajek.

Issue 1: Getting ahead of yourself

“It is easy to let the conversation go straight to the details before describing the environmental context and determining what the individual processes are and how they relate to one another,” said Drasin. “Everyone needs to be on the same page contextually, and you’ll need to emphasize the importance of discussion — or the project can derail quickly.”

Issue 2: Decisions by consensus

“You should never vote on a process or other business decision,” said Hajek. “Those should be grounded in facts, not popular opinion. If there are two competing choices, decide on the criteria you will measure them by, but let the options go head-to-head against each other on their own merit.”

Issue 3: Placing stock in the law of averages

“It is very uncommon for averages to help you improve processes,” explained Hajek. “For instance, the average ship time compared to your target time tells you very little about on-time delivery. The average size of the component may make it look like a part is in tolerance when in reality it has a high defect rate. Make sure you have some way of looking at the spread of your results rather than just the average.”

Issue 4: All hail the artifacts

Drasin described physical deliverables like diagrams and flowcharts as artifacts. Problems occur when teams focus on artifacts to the exclusion of the processes and conversations that build them. “If the tools themselves held the value, you could simply borrow flowcharts from a similar organization and implement them. But developing artifacts alone, without the necessary context and commitment, rarely results in effective recommendations,” Drasin said.

For more where this came from, have a look at the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Process Improvement Questions You Should Ask

Most people can identify when something’s broken, either by themselves or with help from their teams. But it’s another matter entirely to improve the process in a way that aligns with overall business objectives, integrates well with existing systems, is fully visible, and improves productivity and other essential outcomes. Here, we explore questions you should ask before taking action.

What defines process improvement success?

It’s critical to improve an individual process not for the process’ sake, but because it helps to solve a business problem. Often, when your constituents say they’re unhappy with something, they haven’t really explored the root of the problem and what can be done to solve it effectively through a business process. 

The main strategy here is to openly discuss your constituents’ core priorities and pains. Gather their input not just on processes they don’t like, but ones that they DO like. This will facilitate everyone’s understanding of why certain processes exist in the first place and the issues they were designed to alleviate. Once you’ve identified the business problem at the heart of this particular process, you must also identify what the process will do to address the problem, the parameters of the improvement and/or solution, and how you will measure success. On this last point, process improvements should be quantifiable and easy to map to common business metrics.

How can our process have the biggest impact?

If you’ve completed the activities above, you have likely achieved alignment between the organization’s overall objectives and the process that’s being improved upon. You should also ensure that the new process can evolve fluidly with business strategy and that it offers numerous opportunities for decision makers to track progress toward major goals.

As you can see, this type of thinking on process improvement leaves little room for the silo mentality. As Digital Clarity Group analyst Connie Moore succinctly put it while at Forrester: “While it’s possible to tackle projects within a single business function, usually high-value business processes belong with a larger, cross-functional way of working.  Getting organizations to overlay their functional thinking and org charts with a process mindset is a challenge that often requires prying 100 years of crusted-over work patterns and practices from executives who have never imagined any other way.” So yes, if you want your process to have a larger impact, you have to talk to people outside your department.

How should the new business process be designed?

This is where business process modeling, otherwise known as BPM, comes into play. According to Creately.com, BPM is a mechanism for describing and communicating the current or intended future state of a business process. It’s a means of representing the steps, participants, and decision logic in business processes. By doing this in a formal way, you enable solid analysis and further improvement of these processes.

BPM is commonly a diagram representing a sequence of activities. This diagram shows events, actions and links or connection points, in the sequence from end to end. It’s often cross-functional, including both IT and people processes and combining the work and documentation of multiple groups in the organization. People, teams, and departments feature in BPM in terms of what they do, to what, when, and for what reasons – especially when different possibilities or options exist. BPM software is often used to apply its methods more efficiently.

For the rest of this post, head over to the QuickBase blog.

The Rise of the Chief Project Officer Role

The Project Management Institute recently commented that organizations are, in increasing numbers, seeing added value from appointing chief project officers.

According to Rebecca Langdon’s piece on Morgan International’s supply chain blog, the chief project officer (CPO) is responsible for providing governance over an organization’s internal projects. Specifically, he/she:

• Ensures every project supports the right business goals
• Links all projects to business strategies
• Drives efficiencies and linkages between projects
• Manages resource requirements across the project portfolio
• Ensures that every project as an effective project manager
• Implements and oversees implementation of a project management methodology

Chief project officers, which are more common in some industries than others, are sometimes seen as preferable to project management offices because project management offices may not have board-level influence and therefore can’t accomplish their strategic priorities.

Langdon pointed out that chief project officers are in the ideal position to raise the profile of the project portfolio, and to demonstrate the importance of projects to business development and maturity. “The CPO can also ensure that projects are resourced effectively. In organizations in which there is no chief project officer representing the needs of projects, projects might suffer for resources compared with other functions that shout louder,” she said. “A CPO is also a cost-effective option than a full-scale PMO.”

The logical next step in project management’s evolution

The idea of a chief project officer is not entirely a new one. Back in 2014, Andy Jordan, president of the Canadian-based consulting firm Roffensian, made a case for it on ProjectManagement.com.

Jordan explained why having a project management office and rolling project portfolio management (PPM) into it doesn’t go quite far enough. “At best, the PMO is a subset of the accountabilities of a CIO or COO, and the focus and objectives of those functions reflect that. Sooner or later, that is going to send the message that PPM is not a top organizational priority, which in turn results in a loss of focus and a degradation of performance,” he said.

“By creating an executive role responsible for project execution, an organization sends a very strong message. It is a visible commitment to the importance of portfolio management as a tool to deliver corporate results, and ensures that there will always be a focus on not just delivering those benefits this year, but also on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the process going forward.”

When project management is elevated to this level of importance, it can no longer be viewed as optional by other business functions that may have their own processes. A chief project officer, said Jordan, makes it easier to manage initiatives in a multitude of departments, reduces the organization’s risk exposure, and drives lower costs, better results and a more engaged employee base.

For more, read the rest of the piece at the QuickBase Fast Track blog.

Should You Jump Through Hoops for Your Customers?

Customers are always right—or are they? As business owners, we try to go above and beyond to provide the best possible experience and customer service to our clients. However, there are times that, despite our best efforts, we simply can’t resolve the situation in a manner that’s satisfactory to both parties.

Three business owners—Patrick Barnhill, founder of SpecialistID in Miami, Florida; Tim Maliyil, CEO of AlertBoot in Las Vegas, Nevada; and Mona Patel, CEO of Motivate Design in New York City—sound off on how they’ve handled unreasonable or impossible customer service situations.

Tell us about a time when a customer made an unreasonable demand. How did you handle it?

Patrick Barnhill: It seems that unreasonable demands have become the norm these days.  Amazon’s two-day Prime shipping and lots of other factors have totally distorted most shoppers’ perception of real costs for small businesses fulfilling orders. 

Luckily, a small percentage of demands are unreasonable and we are able to write them off as a cost of doing business and staying competitive. If it will cost us less than $100, my staff is trained to “Do the right thing” by the customer. The right thing is making them happy even if it’s a loss for us. If it is over that amount, it will get special attention and may require asking the customer if they can meet us somewhere in the middle.

Tim Maliyil: Being in the software business, we often have to balance requests that would genuinely improve the software and requests that are overly specific to a particular customer’s needs. We try to educate the customer about the necessary engineering process involved in fulfilling a request, and we help them understand the cost to the company. Reasonable customers tend to understand why something gets rejected, but the unreasonable ones will still put up a fight.

Mona Patel: Last year, we worked with a client on a design SWAT project in which we were tasked with branding a new kind of conference. The project was scoped, staffed and started within a few days, and our designers were excited to get to work. These SWAT projects are designed for quick turnaround: two weeks, two rounds of iteration and final delivery of branding materials—icons, fonts, color palettes, etc. In this case, the client asked for more rounds of iteration, which required more hours. Our designers wanted to please the client while delivering their best work, but we had a dedicated timeline.

When the partnership began to feel abusive, I stepped in. I called the client with scope in hand to clearly and directly communicate what we promised, how we over-delivered and how he overstepped. I presented him with three solutions: take the deliverables as is: no added iterations, no added time, no added budget; two more rounds of iterations for added time and budget; [or] a working session with the designers to address all issues and hand off the deliverables at the end of the session, billed at their hourly rate for three hours. He went with option #3 and launched a successful conference. We have worked together ever since.

For the rest of the interview, head over to the AMEX Open Forum.

How New Businesses Secure Funding

Funding can be a major hurdle for business owners. While many owners traditionally turn to banks, loans are increasingly harder to obtain thanks to increased regulations. From credit cards and grants to self-funding and venture capital, entrepreneurs are finding creative ways to make their business dreams a reality.

We asked three small-business owners—Nick Gentry, CEO of Iconic Solutions in Raleigh, North Carolina; Wesley Mathews, co-founder of High Level Marketing in Detroit; and Hesam Meshkat, CEO of Guzu in Los Angeles—to share their experiences with funding and their advice for securing enough financing for their businesses.

How did you initially get funding for your company?

Nick Gentry: At first, we pursued every funding option available, including applying for credit lines; giving up equity for convertible notes and seed investments; and even government-sponsored grants.

We chose to bootstrap our operations and fund everything ourselves.  After discussing our business model with key advisers, we realized that a large cash infusion significantly limits how you're able to pivot the business as time goes on. We knew that we would have to evolve our offering as the market changed, and with outside investors this would be more difficult. 

Ultimately it comes down to deciding if you’d rather own your own business or partner in a larger, potentially more successful one. We knew that an external investment would provide operating cash, business expertise and connections, but it also meant loss of control and ownership of our business. 

Wesley Mathews: High Level Marketing was self-funded via credit card. I bootstrapped about 40K to get things going and float expenses for the first six to nine months. This was the only option I considered.

Hesam Meshkat: Initially when we launching Guzu, my partner and I decided to self-fund so that we would maintain ownership. The pro is that we had more control, but the con is that we were personally liable for the business.

Looking back, what’s one key lesson you learned about accepting and using funding?

Meshkat: Since we launched, we did receive a small funding round. The most critical lesson is to allocate those funds to marketing campaigns and expenses that directly connect to revenue coming in.

Mathews: Make sure you have a plan for the dollars. Have a clear vision of what the money is for and how you are going to use it, track it and repay it. Stick to a playbook.

Gentry: After launching multiple products, I’ve learned that it always takes more money and more time than initially anticipated to bring something to market. Make sure there is a clear understanding of cost and timelines, as external investors want their return as quick as possible and will be less likely to fund a subsequent round if they begin to doubt the delivery.

For more where this came from, check out the full interview on the AMEX Open Forum.

Succession Planning is Now Officially Urgent

Succession planning means different things to different people, but it can be broadly defined as a process of developing high-potential employees to fill future strategic roles within the organization. Many organizations engage in succession planning activities informally or not at all, especially if they are small to medium-sized businesses.

However, lacking an official succession plan opens up a company to substantial risk and danger. Many baby boomerleaders act like they’ll be working until they die, but if something happens and they have to leave the organization suddenly, without an adequate knowledge transfer what will happen to those key roles? There is grave potential for at least a moderate disruption of business.

Why Succession Planning is Good for Everyone

Obviously, senior-level talent is essential to keep an organization meeting its current goals, but growth plans should be considered as well. As a company expands and offers new products and services, it will require more fully trained employees to guide its hand.

Formal succession planning not only provides a ready pipeline, but communicates details about that pipeline to the organization so talented candidates can be placed in the best possible role. And frequently, these roles are difficult to fill externally.

Formal succession planning is also one of the most effective ways to motivate and retain your best employees. Employees who understand that they are being groomed as future leaders experience increased loyalty to and respect for the organization.

By focusing on these individuals’ career development and customizing a plan for each person that might include classroom training, cross-functional assignments, and temporary project leadership, companies appeal to a universal hunger for new skills, challenges, and innovation. They also show high-potential candidates that they are valued and worth the investment of time and resources.

For more where this came from, check out the SilkRoad blog.

Millennials View Diversity and Inclusion Differently

Today’s workplaces are politically correct. We are careful not to say anything that might be perceived to marginalize or offend a particular group, and when it comes to age, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation, companies want to make sure every employee is respected and equally represented. We do this not because of profit, but because it’s the moral thing to do. This goal is at the heart of what most of us think of when it comes to diversity and inclusion.

But as of this year, the millennial generation (comprised of those born 1980-95) constitutes a majority of the U.S. workforce – and this group of younger professionals has a unique idea of what true diversity and inclusion should look like.

According to a 2015 study by The Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative (BJKLI) and The Deloitte University Leadership Center for Inclusion (which surveyed 3,726 global professionals of all levels, ages, genders, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations), while millennials value the ideals of diversity and inclusion just like professionals in other generations, they define the constructs differently.

Most baby boomers and even Generation X-ers view diversity and inclusion in terms of representation and assimilation.  But for millennials, walking into an office lobby and seeing all types of people should be a given. True workplace diversity and inclusion means that people can come to work and be their genuine selves without fear of negative consequences. This is known as cognitive diversity.

The study’s millennials shared that cognitive diversity is the secret sauce for better engagement and empowerment along today’s fickle employees; inclusion is important not as an abstract ideal that checks a box and makes everyone feel good, but as a critical tool that enables business competitiveness and growth.

For more, head on over to the SilkRoad blog.

Are You Ready for the Rise of the Contract Workforce?

When we think of the gig economy, ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft come immediately to mind. However, it’s much bigger than that. The US Department of Labor actually breaks down the four main types of alternative work arrangements into independent contractors, on-call workers, temp workers and workers employed by contract firms.

Since 2005, the number of workers in alternative arrangements has climbed by more than half, rising to nearly 16 percent of the workforce from 10 percent a decade ago, according to new research by Alan Krueger of Princeton University and Lawrence Katz of Harvard University. But the on-demand workforce (i.e. companies like Uber) employs only about 600,000 people or less than 0.5 percent of the workforce, the research found.

Krueger and Katz hired Rand Corporation to replicate their survey, sampling roughly 4,000 people. The findings showed how alternative work has spread across industries and occupations—including those not usually associated with the gig economy. For example, they estimated the share of workers in alternative arrangements has more than doubled to 11 percent in manufacturing and to 16 percent in health and education. It has quintupled, to 10 percent, in public administration.

For more about the professional contract workforce, visit the SilkRoad blog.

Talent Activation is the 21st Century's Talent Management

People are your organization’s greatest asset and most expensive resource. We recognize the importance of employee engagement and do our best to measure and boost it, and yet engagement is not always in a company’s control. Why not instead consider talent activation?

Talent activation focuses on the experiences, processes, and metrics that create an aligned and equipped workforce in the best position to realize its true potential. Talent activation connects all stakeholders and their goals, elevates the employee experience, transcends traditional HR disciplines, and integrates day-to-day work into big picture strategy.

How is talent activation different from talent management, you ask? Here are some specifics.

• Talent management is about one size fits all. Talent activation means adapting in real-time to business and employee preferences.

• Talent management works within departmental silos. Talent activation provides a bigger picture view of the entire talent ecosystem.

• Talent management involves HR paperwork or transactions. Talent activation is about understanding your leadership’s business goals as well as how to get there.

• Talent management focuses on full-time employees (FTEs). Talent activation takes into account everyone in today’s talent economy, including FTEs, contractors, freelancers, vendors, partners, interns, site visitors, and seasonal workers.

• Talent management mandates the collection data and generation of historical reports. Talent activation leverages analytics for meaningful business decisions.

• Talent management involves managing the hire-to-payroll-to-benefits funnel. Talent activation is about aligning individual goals with business goals, motivating them, keeping them engaged, moving them up, providing meaningful ongoing feedback and appraisals – and the learning to keep them going.

• Talent management is concerned with cost and time savings. Talent activation delivers new key performance indicators about the ongoing post-hire journeys employees take.

For more where this came from, head over to the SilkRoad blog.