PRINCE2 Goes from Strength to Strength

Since being re-launched in 1996 PRINCE2 has gone from strength to strength, becoming the UK de-facto standard for project management. This article looks at what’s behind its success and where the methodology is heading.

Keywords:
PRINCE2, project management, methodology, managers

Like it or loath it, PRINCE2 is here to stay.

Since being re-launched in 1996 PRINCE2 has gone from strength to strength, becoming the UK de-facto standard for project management. Originally branded for the management of IT projects, the second version brought PRINCE away from IT into the general project management arena.

The UK is the main user of the methodology, which was developed originally by the UK Government for use in the public sector thirteen years ago. Since then it has been adopted by the private sector and is now starting to spread beyond these shores. Countries in which PRINCE2 is becoming established include the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Australia, India and even the United States.

With organisations realising the importance of project management, its perhaps not so surprising that in the UK around 250 people a day are taking the PRINCE2 Foundation and Practitioner exams. This may also be attributed to the fact that it is easier to adopt an existing project management methodology than to create your own, with all the cost and time that involves. Estimates in Project Manager Today magazine (August 2002) say that the cost of developing a project management methodology is between Ј100.000 and Ј250.000

The good news for business is that it has never been easier to learn PRINCE2 and become certified with a whole host of APM Group accredited training companies to choose from. The best way to learn PRINCE2 is by attending one of the many accredited public courses being run throughout the UK.

The APM Group is an internationally recognised provider of qualifications in PRINCE2. The schemes supporting the methodology have gain recognition by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS). This is the first time a qualification scheme aimed at Project Management Professionals has achieved this recognition.

UKAS is the sole accreditation body recognised by the British Government, against internationally recognised standards, organisations that provide certification, testing, inspection and calibration services.

The APM Group have approved 22 accredited training organisations that have successfully steered nearly 8000 candidates through their PRINCE2 practitioner’s examination. At present UKAS accreditation is restricted to the PRINCE2 programmes in the UK, there are plans to introduce it to APM Groups activities in Australia and The Netherlands.

At Project Smart, we are asked about PRINCE2 more than any other methodology. Most people have only heard good things and often wonder what its shortcomings are. It’s not easy to criticise PRINCE2 but sometimes it can be seen as bureaucratic. This is usually before people realise how easy it is to tailor to their particular needs. As with any other methodology, you should use the bits that work for you and discard the rest. Don’t be too religious in trying to follow the method to the letter.

In recent Gartner Group research, they found that, “over the next 3 years project management will become one of the top five major strategic issues that most managers will have to address to be successful,” so things have never looked so good for PRINCE2 and its like.

Peter Krischel, President of Krischel Group believes, “PRINCE2 is eventually going to become the spider in the web that will link up with all the other so called project management methods and PRINCE2 will become THE standard to be used by ISO quality management for quality control of project environments.”

One thing is certain, like it or loath it, PRINCE2 is here to stay.

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Manage your project on time every time

In introduction to some of the most important best practices which will enable you to plan and manage your projects on time and within budget.

Keywords:
project management

As both an active project manager and a project management trainer, people often ask me what are the fundamental aspects to successful project management. Whilst there have been many great books written on the subject, I always summarise what I believe to be the best practices at the heart of good project management.

Define the scope and objectives

For any project to be successful you need to understand what the project is supposed to achieve. Suppose your boss asks you to organise a campaign to get the employees to donate blood. Is the aim of this to get as much blood donated to the local blood bank? Or, is it to raise the profile of the company in the local community? Deciding what the real objective is will help you to determine how you go about planning and managing the project.

The project manager also needs to define the scope of the project. Is the organisation of transport to take staff to the blood bank within the scope of the project? Or, should staff make their own way there? Deciding which activities are within the scope or out of scope of the project has a big impact on the amount of work which needs to be performed during the project.

An understanding of who are the stakeholders is also crucial if you are going to enlist their support and understand what each person expects to be delivered from the project. Once you’ve defined the scope and objectives, you will need to get the stakeholders to review them and agree to them as well as agreeing who should be on the list of stakeholders.

Define the deliverables

To achieve the desired outcome from the project, you must define what things (or products) are to be delivered by the end of the project. If your project is an advertising
campaign for a new chocolate bar, then one of the deliverables might be the artwork for a newspaper advert. So, you need to decide what tangible things are to be delivered and document in enough detail what these things are. At the end of the day, someone will end up doing the work to produce the deliverable, so it needs to be clearly and unambiguously described.

Once you have defined the deliverables, you will need to have the key stakeholders review the work and get them to agree that this accurately and unambiguously reflects what they expect to be delivered from the project. Once they have agreed, you can begin to plan the project. Not defining the deliverables in enough detail or clarity is often a reason why projects go wrong.

Project planning

This is the time when you define how you will achieve the desired outcome of the project embodied within the objectives and definition of deliverables. Planning requires that the project manager decides which people, resources and budget are required to complete the project. You will need to decide if you will break up your project into manageable phases, decide which products will be delivered in each phase, and decide the composition of your project team. Since you have already defined the deliverables, you must decide what activities are required to produce each deliverable.

You can use techniques such as Work Breakdown Structures (WBS) to help you to achieve this. You will need to estimate the time and effort required to complete each activity, dependencies between related activities and decide on a realistic schedule to complete the activities. It’s always a good idea to involve the project team in estimating how long the activities will take since they will be the ones actually doing the work. Capture all of this into the project plan document. You also need to get the key stakeholders to review and agree to this plan.

When developing the project plan, a project manager is often under pressure to produce a plan which meets the (unrealistic) expectations of some of the stakeholders. It is important here that the project manager comes up with a realistic schedule – one which he/she thinks is realistic to achieve. You will be doing nobody a favour if you succumb to pressure and agree to deliver the project in a totally unrealistic schedule.

Communication

Even the best made project plans are useless unless they have been communicated effectively to the project team. Everyone on the team needs to know exactly what is expected of them, what their responsibilities are, and what they are accountable for. I once worked on a project where the project manager sat in his office surrounded by big colour print outs of his latest plans. The problem was, nobody on his team knew what the tasks and milestones were because he hadn’t shared the plan with them. Needless to say the project hit all kinds of problems with people going off and doing the activities which they deemed important rather than doing the activities assigned by the project manager.

Tracking and reporting project progress

Once your project is underway and you have an agreed plan, you will need to constantly monitor the actual progress of the project against the planned progress. To do this, you will need to get reports of progress from the project team members who are actually doing the work. You will need to record any variations between the actual and planned cost, schedule and scope. You will need to report any variations to your manager and key stakeholders and take corrective actions if the variations get too large.

There are lots of ways in which you can adjust the plan in order to get the project back on track (rearrange the order of tasks, assign tasks in parallel if the variation is small, or add more staff to the project or reduce the scope if the variation is very large).

All projects require the project manager to constantly juggle three things: cost, scope and schedule. If the project manager increases one of these, then one of the other elements will inevitably need to be changed as well. So, for a project which is running behind schedule to recover so it can be delivered to it’s original planned schedule, the budget might be increased by employing more staff (although this invariably never achieves the desired result of reducing the time left to complete the project), or the scope will need to be reduced. It is the juggling of these three elements – known as the project triangle – that typically causes a project manager to tear their hair out in frustration!

Change management

All projects change in some way. Often, a key stakeholder in the middle of a project will change their mind about what the project needs to deliver. On projects of longer duration, the business environment has often changed since the start of the project, so assumptions made at the beginning of the project may no longer be valid. This often results in the scope or deliverables of the project needing to be changed. If a project manager simply accepted all of these changes into the project, the project would inevitably be delivered late (and perhaps would never ever be completed) and would inevitably go over budget.

By managing changes, the project manager can make decisions about whether or not to incorporate the changes immediately or in the future, or to reject them. This increases the chances of project success because the project manager controls how the changes are incorporated, can allocate resources accordingly and can plan when and how the changes are made. Not managing changes effectively is often cited as a major reason why projects fail.

Risk management

Risks are any events which can adversely affect the successful outcome of the project. I’ve worked on projects where some of the risks have included: staff lacking the technical skills to perform the work properly, hardware not being delivered on time, the control room being at risk of flooding in a major thunderstorm and many others. Risks will vary from project to project but it is important to identify the main risks to a project as soon as possible and to plan the actions necessary to avoid the risk, or, if the risk cannot be avoided, to at least mitigate the risk in order to lessen its impact if it does occur. This is what is known as risk management.

Do you manage all risks? No, because there could be too many to manage, and not all risks have the same impact. So a simple way is to identify as many risks as you can, work out how likely each risk is to occur on a scale of 1 to 3 (3 being the worst), estimate its impact on the project on a scale of 1 to 3 (3 being the worst), then multiply the two numbers together. The result is the risk weighting. A high risk weighting is the most severe risk. Just manage the top ten risks i.e. the ones with the highest risk weighting. Constantly review the risks and constantly be on the lookout for new risks since they have a habit of jumping up at unforeseen moments.

Not managing risks effectively is also often cited as a major reason why projects fail.

Summary

So, in a nutshell, these best practices are the main things that I would expect all project managers to do. They are applicable on all projects big or small. Project management is not rocket science. Applying best practices on your project cannot guarantee that your project comes in under budget, on time and exceeds all the expectations of the stakeholders, but applying them will certainly give you a much better chance of delivering your project successfully than if you don’t apply them on your project.

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Managing Employees Is A Little Like Herding Cats

Q: I started my small business about a year ago and it’s grown steadily. I like having my own business, but I’m having a tough time managing people. I have 5 employees now and it seems like I spend half my time making sure they are doing what they’re supposed to be doing and the other half of my time doing things they didn’t get done. Things were much easier when I was a one man shop. Any suggestions?
- Paul C.

A: Ah, Paul, welcome to the wonderful world of employee man…

Keywords:
Small Business , handle on hiring and managing employees

Q: I started my small business about a year ago and it’s grown steadily. I like having my own business, but I’m having a tough time managing people. I have 5 employees now and it seems like I spend half my time making sure they are doing what they’re supposed to be doing and the other half of my time doing things they didn’t get done. Things were much easier when I was a one man shop. Any suggestions?
- Paul C.

A: Ah, Paul, welcome to the wonderful world of employee management, the bane of many a business owner’s existence. I hope you have a full head of hair now, because depending on how quickly you get a grip on this situation, you could end up bald in a very short time. And if you’re starting out bald all you can do is put on a cap and read on.

Some business experts will tell you that managing people is an art. Others will tell you that managing people is a skill. I’m going to tell you that managing people is more like herding cats. Just when you think you have them all going in the same direction one will run off and you have to go catch it. And by the time you get back with the stray cat the rest of the herd has all gone off in different directions. It’s no wonder most entrepreneur’s hate cats. They remind us how little control we sometimes have on our employees.

The hardest part of employee management is maintaining control over your business while the herd is running wild. To further push the analogy envelope consider this: if your employees are running the business instead of you, it’s a little like the inmates taking over the insane asylum. Crazy things might start to happen, like losing customers and being run out of business.

Here’s the bottomline, Paul: you either manage your employees or they will manage you, it’s simple as that.

The truth is the key to managing employees is to hire only the best people, train them well, make them feel that they have a vested interest in the success of your business, and expect nothing but the best from them.

And when you do find that rare employee who will do all that for you, you should go out of your way to do nice things for them, like giving bonuses, raises, job security, added responsibility, praise, a big turkey at Christmas, etc. Finding good employees is hard. Keeping them happy shouldn’t be.

One of the most difficult tasked faced by every business owner is finding good people to work in their business. And by good people I mean honest, loyal, dedicated, hard working individuals who will give their all for the good of the business and go above and beyond the call of duty to satisfy the customer.

Finding these people is as hard as… well… herding cats. Hard to do, but not impossible. Here are a few tips to help you get a better handle on hiring and managing employees.

Only hire experienced, qualified people with a proven track record of performance. Since your employees are usually the main point of contact with customers, it is vital that you hire only experienced, qualified personnel to represent your business. It’s also important that the potential employee have a track record of success in the kind of position he’s being hired for. If it’s a sales job, you want to hire someone who has proven that he can sell. If it’s servicing copiers you want to hire someone who has proven himself a pro at fixing copiers. Forget hiring rookies and offering on the job training when it comes to key personnel. Go with an old pro every time, even if it costs you more to do so. The investment will be returned to you manifold.

Screen every applicants thoroughly. There are lots of applicant screening products on the market now that will help you screen applicants for things like honesty, integrity, ambition, former drug use, past criminal behavior, etc. These products range from simple paper forms to fancy web-based applications. Find one that suits your needs and use it on every applicant that comes through the door. You will be amazed at how a good screening program will help you weed out problem employees before they are hired.

Perform drug tests and background checks on key personnel. I beg the pardon of those “right to privacy” do-gooders who tell me that a person’s personal life and urine contents are none of my business, but if I’m going to be paying someone’s salary every week you can be certain that I will exercise my right to check out that person as far as the letter of the law allows. The U.S. government tells me what I can and can’t do when it comes to checking out potential employees, not you. Go save a tree and leave me to run my business.

Always check professional references. This is a huge mistake that many employers make. They ask for references, but never check the quality or legitimacy of the reference. Surveys have shown that most job application references are either bogus or just family and friends who are willing to say how great the applicant is. Forget references from family and friends. Ask for the names of their last three employers then call to verify the information on the application. By law, past employers are limited as to what they can divulge about the applicant, but if you simply ask: would you hire this person again given the chance, you will be amazed at what you can learn. The former employer will either answer immediately that they would rehire the person or there will be a long pause on the other end of the phone. Either way, you have found out what you wanted to know.

Never hire out of desperation. Many employers are more concerned with just filling an open slot than filling it with someone qualified to do the work. You see this mostly in the fast food, retail, and manufacturing industries where the turnover rate is off the scale and finding good employees is like herding mammals of the feline species (last one, I promise). Never hire someone just because they have a pulse. It will always come back to haunt you.

Use a probationary period to weed out non-performers. You should inform new hires that you have a 60 day probationary period in which you will regularly assess their attitude and performance. If at the end of the probationary period the employee is not the worker you thought they would be, gracefully have a final review and let them go. Most non-performers will never reach the end of the 60 day period anyway.

When someone does a good job reward them for it. Incentives are a great way to improve employee performance. We are all like little kids. If we think we’re going to get a new toy (or a bonus) for doing a good job we are more likely to excel. You should reward good performance and make a very big deal out of the fact that you do. You can do this with stock options or bonus checks or free vacations or whatever.

It is important that all your employees understand that when the company does good, they will do good. As the company grows, so will their paychecks.

Here’s to your success!

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Sales Management Strategies

The paper discusses three sales management strategies that are currently used. Each of the strategy is analyzed in details. The entity advantages, disadvantages and practical application are discussed for each of the strategies.

Keywords:
Sales Management Strategies

Abstract

The paper discusses three sales management strategies that are currently used. Each of the strategy is analyzed in details. The entity advantages, disadvantages and practical application are discussed for each of the strategies.

Introduction

Nowadays the world economy becomes more and more complicated because it becomes more and more global. As a result this leads to the development of an unparalleled competitiveness. Naturally in such a situation it is extremely important for survival in the market to remain competitive that demands to use the most advanced technologies, including not only technical aspect but managerial as well. It means that a company that uses the most advanced and most effective management strategies can be more competitive and has more chances for success. It is especially important when the company deals with the sales management.
The sales management is one of the most significant part of any company’s work since it is due to sales management the company can finally sell its products or services to customers and the general success of the company greatly depends on the effectiveness of the sales management. Consequently, it is absolutely necessary to know well recent trends and strategies that are used nowadays by the most successful companies that would permit to realize what strategies are the most perspective what are their advantages and disadvantages and finally it would be possible to define what strategies may be used in the future or in what way the current strategies should be modified in order to be the most effective. In terms of this paper three sales management strategies would be basically analyzed and discussed. These strategies are: Establish a Never-Before Sales Quota, Establish and Build a Team Selling Program, Employ Advanced Prospecting

Technologies.

Establish a Never-Before Sales Quota
This sales management strategy deals with the market visibility problem since very often companies have problems at this respect and consequently they cannot afford competitiveness and their sales rates would gradually decrease, as the company is not well known or recognizable among the consumers. Traditionally it is said that if the company’s percentage rate of new equipment sales to customers who have never done business with this particular company and with its dealership is 20-23% or even lower than the company obviously has market visibility problems. As a result, in such a situation the circle of the company influence is not expanded as well as the rate of sales does and probably will not increase if certain measures are not undertaken. Basically such companies can work about three years than they have to retire.

However, if a company is planning to work in a long-term perspective than the company should set 30-35% rate as a ‘never-before’ goal for each of its equipment and product support sales reps. For instance, 30-35% should be with accounts that have never before done business with the company’s dealership and may even not know it exists. As a result such an increase of the company’s visibility in the market would proportionally increase its sales rate.

By the way it should be pointed out that if the company just starts some business in a new area the rate should be even higher. Basically specialists indicate that it should be about 45-50% (George 2002) only on such conditions the company sales and influence would gradually expand.
Nonetheless, it is only theory and the advantages of this strategy are obvious since the growing visibility is vitally important for increase of company sales but in real life the company that use this strategy may face certain problems that may be treated as disadvantages of the strategy. It should be mentioned that the Establish a Never-Before Sales Quota strategy is based on the never-before customer’s motivation and practically always the customers feel fear. They are fearful of the company’s reliability, its equipment, which, as they afraid, would not work as promised, and the list may be continued.
Naturally the question arises: how the company can best overcome the fear of customers in the never-before account? Basically specialists (Reilly 2000 and Goerge 2002) single out two main ways in overcoming this problem. So, the problem may be solved through short-term rentals and product support.
Obviously the two ways mentioned above are not the only one but they are probably the easiest ones. Using short-term rentals and product support it is relatively easy to penetrate never-before accounts for “by demonstrating strong dealer customer care capabilities with an aggressive, short-term rentals program and highly responsive parts and service programs, a company can quickly build a positive relationship in the new account” (Reilly 2001, p.184).

Furthermore, a very effective parts and service support tool is the planned maintenance contract. For instance, nowadays planned maintenance and full-maintenance leases are quickly gaining acceptance in North America in the construction equipment and heavy-duty truck industries.

Finally, among other advantages of this strategy may be named the fact that short-term rentals and product support capabilities eventually can eliminate fear and sales reluctance in the never before account. Thus, summarizing the Establish a Never-Before Sales Quota strategy it is possible to say that on the one hand, it may be quite effective and increasing the company’s visibility, on the other hand, there is still the risk that the customers’ fear won’t be overcome.

Establish and Build a Team Selling Program
This is another strategy that may enhance the company sales rate and its general position in the market. Traditionally dealers have three or four different employees working in the same territory. Traditionally they are: a capital equipment sales rep, a full-time customer parts and service sales rep, one or more field service technicians and, as a rule, a rental and used equipment sales rep.

However, the problem is that in some cases team selling does not work. But the root of the problems lies in the fact that the equipment sales rep is at odds with these other dealer representatives and does not consider them allies or partners in development activities. Nowadays such a situation is not affordable anymore and such type of reps should be eliminated, or, it would be better to say, changed.

Establish and Build a Team Selling Program strategy implies quite the contrary role of all representatives of the company. Nowadays this strategy becomes more and more widely used. This is why in some very successful dealer organizations prefer the thoughtful formation of territory sales teams but it should be pointed out that this is not just the assembly of field employees to grovel and provide the equipment sales rep with leads (McBride 2001, p.311). Team selling requires enlightened leadership. Consequently in order to unite all the reps as a team it is necessary to organize team activity.
Practically it means that sales team activity is a frequent meeting of specialists to share insights, establish strategies, set information gathering goals, etc that would eventually complement one another’s strengths and work together to foster the overall business development of the dealership in that given market area.

Also it should be said that this strategy demands to provide team selling recognition awards that would stimulate the work of the whole team but not its separate participants. It is also especially effective in account management and penetrating, new account development, problem solving success, market share gain.

A very important positive feature of team selling is the fact that it offers the possibility of utilizing of all of the resources. Team selling captures the mind and spirit of the company’s business and can present total solutions to customers (McBride 2001, p.349). An effective sales team is generating the highest possible revenue and profit for the business.
Summarizing the strategy, it is only should be pointed out that its main disadvantages are the problems of organizing all the reps in an effective sales team with a strong leader.

Employ Advanced Prospecting Technologies
This strategy implies the usage of the advanced and prospecting technologies as tools in achieving better results in sales rates. The most effective technology that can be used nowadays is teleprospecting. It is quite effective and inexpensive. The objective of teleprospecting program is to contact, profile and identify short-term needs, problems and opportunities of a large number of inactive and prospective customers.

To achieve such a goal it is necessary to train a teleprospector by having him/her update the company’s current customer mailing list for correct contacts for promo mailings. It is also important to train a teleprospector for ‘cold calling’ by having him/her first test a survey questionnaire or interview guide on five very friendly customers for constructive feedback. Furthermore, proper facilities and resources should be set up.
However, this strategy also has its own disadvantages. To be effective the prospecting program will require intensive administrative support to avoid wasted, non-productive time. Otherwise, the effectiveness of the program would be low.

Finally, it is necessary to provide challenging incentives. For instance, it is possible to set three completion level goals for the week and to offer a 20% base hourly rate increase for entire week if the goal is reached. It may be done as follows:

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Labels

In this age, there is a lot of focus on the importance of “getting organized.” There are even professional organizers for hire! Labels are a huge presence in the field of organization, because they enable everything to be tagged and put in its place. From birthday party invitations to mass market mailings to identifying file folders, consumers frequently employ labels in their everyday lives. Labels are a convenient and simple way to increase organization in business and home…

Keywords:
label,marketing,design,business

In this age, there is a lot of focus on the importance of “getting organized.” There are even professional organizers for hire! Labels are a huge presence in the field of organization, because they enable everything to be tagged and put in its place. From birthday party invitations to mass market mailings to identifying file folders, consumers frequently employ labels in their everyday lives. Labels are a convenient and simple way to increase organization in business and home settings.

By using the templates provided on word processing programs, making personal labels has become fairly easy and much less time consuming than writing them by hand. There are several name brand labels and many generic store brands that work with the same templates. Labels are available in several different shapes and sizes and in color, white, or clear. Some are permanent and others are removable. They are tailor-made for optimum print quality on either Inkjet or Laser printers. Labels are available for almost any need that the consumer may have.

For larger projects and for transferring data from a mailing list in spreadsheet format to a label template, many people use Mail Merge, a feature in Microsoft Word that uploads a list of names and addresses and reformats it into easy-to-print labels. Even if only one typed label is needed, label companies now sell detachable labels that can be printed one at a time without wasting other labels.

The uses for labels are unlimited and include archiving and record keeping, shipping, advertising, and organization.

Archiving and Record Keeping

Even in one’s home, the amount of papers accumulated in a year from bills, statements, and reports are staggering. Businesses collect a much higher number of invoices, publications, and correspondence. Sometimes there is the temptation to throw it all away, but the day may come when a receipt or invoice from two years ago is needed and the consumer is so glad that it was saved. One way to get rid of all the clutter is by archiving the information monthly or yearly, according to the amount. Office supply companies sell archiving systems, which include sturdy boxes for storage, labels and programs for record keeping, and an internal filing system for use inside the box. This helps tremendously in keeping track of the important communications that have occurred.

Shipping

Labels are necessary when shipping and mailing various items. Label templates on word processing programs offer a wide array of different labels, such as large labels for boxes, tiny labels for return addresses, and several sizes in between for labeling CDs, videotapes, floppy disks, and more. Full sheet labels are also available so that the user can be creative with their own cut outs, graphics and clipart.

Advertising
Many businesses place their company logo and tagline on their mailing labels to make an impression on the buyer and create brand familiarity. For example, mail order companies know that it increases the buyer’s satisfaction level when they see the familiar packaging and label arrive at their doorstep. Labels are also used in advertising for mass-market mailings of brochures, coupons, offers, and special sales sheets.

Organization

Just about every aspect of life can be improved with increased organization. Labels help the user to achieve order by designating specific spaces for items. There are so many areas in which organization and labels are useful, including safety issues, like keeping track of alarm codes and times to replace fire detection units. Also, labels assist in keeping automobiles current on tune-ups, and family members and pets up-to-date on medical checkups. Household chore schedules, gift wrapping area and supplies, coupon clipping, and rummage sales are just some of the other areas that are greatly helped by the use of labels.

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Seven Ways to Enhance Organizational Culture

For a whole variety of reasons, organizational culture is important to the health or viability of any organization. This article will give you some specific things you can do to act on the importance of your organizational culture.

Keywords:
organizational culture, culture, employee satisfaction, improving culture, organizational change

As a young employee I was transferred to work in an office tower in downtown San Francisco. I wasn’t the only person to arrive in this new office space – the group had changed significantly due to reorganization and many of us were working together for the first time.

My boss, the Marketing Manager, asked me to help him with some unusual projects. First, I organized an ugly tie contest. Next, we created a puzzle where everyone told me their fantasy identity (who they would be if they could be anyone) and I created a quiz. People had several days to try to figure out who was who. This culminated in a party and the revealing of all the secret identities (and prizes for those who had done the best guessing).

Along with many other events, we eventually instituted the first casual Friday in this company (hey, this was 1987).

At the time I knew what was happening and why it was important to the development of the culture in this organization. But I didn’t understand it the way I do now. . .

For a whole variety of reasons, organizational culture is important to the health or viability of any organization.

It is one thing to know something is important. It is another thing entirely to know what to do about it. This article will give you some specific things you can do to act on the importance of your organizational culture.

Get help. Wherever you sit in the organizational structure or hierarchy you can impact organizational culture in a positive (or negative – but why would you want to do that?) way. Admittedly, if you are in a position of leadership, it might be easier, but we can all have an impact. But we can’t do it alone. Form a team of like minded, interested and enthusiastic people, and get them on board with developing and enhancing your culture.

Get a vision. Get your team to discuss the current culture. Define the parts of the culture that are already great and need to be supported. And honestly determine where the culture could use some polishing. Then create a vision of the culture you want to create, taking into account the entire current picture –the warts and the beauty marks.

Get strategic. Your team will recognize that this is important – you’ve picked people who already understand that and you have developed a deeper understanding as you created a vision of a desired future culture. Help everyone understand – the team and organizational leadership – that this isn’t a band-aid, quick fix; but an ongoing, strategic intention to build a more attractive culture that fits the needs of the organization.

Get people excited. Chances are your culture team will be excited. If not, get them excited! Help the team recognize that not everyone else in the organization is going to think that these efforts are worthwhile immediately. Remember that enthusiasm is contagious. Do what you can to keep the enthusiasm of your team high. If their excitement falters, remind them of the vision they created to re-invigorate them.

Get a champion. That person may be you, or it may be someone else on the team. In my case, I took on an alter ego of the “phun phantom.” While a moniker might not be necessary, a point person, whether anonymous or not, is important. Culture change is like any other change – it requires champions. The champion needs to be someone who is passionate about creating the new culture. As in my case, this might be a perfect role for a young energetic person, but don’t assign the role. The best champions will rise up and “select” themselves.

Get started. Yes, I have listed the first five suggestions in a chronological order. But that doesn’t mean you can’t so something today, as soon as you finish reading this article or right now. You already know some things that need to change in your culture, so role model one of them starting immediately. Maybe your first step is to invite a couple people to lunch that you think might want to be on your team. Whatever your first step is – do it.

Get momentum on your side. Any change will have a greater chance of success with momentum. Don’t form your team today if you don’t think you’ll be able to get them going quickly. Don’t think of this something that can be done in a couple of weeks. A single event that you hope will permanently change the culture – won’t. In fact, it might have the opposite effect entirely. Get started but be committed to building momentum and staying with it. It will be one of the most rewarding efforts you and your team will ever engage in.

I haven’t given you specific cultural events to try. Why? Because I don’t know what kind of changes you want to create. In my case we were trying to create higher levels of camaraderie and more fun in the workplace. You may have that and may want to enhance your culture in completely different ways. You and your team will figure out what to do. This list is meant to help you figure those things out for yourselves.

These seven things are by no means a complete list – but they are a great place to start. And getting started is the most important next step of all.

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Organize Your Life With Document Management Software

Over the years, it becomes quite a tedious job to rummage as well as sort through your files. This has led to an increasing demand for document management software. It is now a whole lot easier to organize your paper documents from paper format into digital archives.

1. Itaz doQuments

Itaz doQuments document management software is a document management application that can help you create a more centralized, searchable database for all your electronic documents. Saved …

Keywords:
electronic document management software,document management software services,workflow document management software,digital document management software

Over the years, it becomes quite a tedious job to rummage as well as sort through your files. This has led to an increasing demand for document management software. It is now a whole lot easier to organize your paper documents from paper format into digital archives.

1. Itaz doQuments

Itaz doQuments document management software is a document management application that can help you create a more centralized, searchable database for all your electronic documents. Saved scanned documents must be in PDF, TIFF or PEG file formats so that the document management software can process them. For easy reference, you can put additional indexing information to your electronic documents so that you will use these information to quickly find as well as group your documents based on whichever criteria that you can come up with.

The document management software is available in three editions: from the Standard edition to the Professional edition to the Enterprise edition. You can choose from these three editions the type of doQuments document management software that can cater to your needs and lifestyle. Each edition of this document management software is specially designed for:

- Individuals
- Small businesses
- Large organizations

Starting from this document management software’s Standard Edition, this edition of the doQuments document management software application is especially designed for the home as well as for the use of small offices. It is the easiest one to use out of the three and provides an effective solution in the managing not only of paper but as well as electronic documents.

One of its key features is its ability to provide the multi-user environment – users from multiple computers can have access to the doQuments document management software simultaneously. As for being economical, this document management software is fairly easy to upgrade once you start thinking of getting the doQuments’ Professional or Enterprise document management software editions.

2. Advanced Features

Paramaterized search results ensures you can easily locate the documents that you need in just one mouse click. DoQuments is ideal for companies with large intranet or internet sites as it is possible to integrate them easily.

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PRESENTEEISM: Another Dimension

In the past few years the terms “employee engagement” and “employee disengagement” have emerged to more fully describe the employee’s level of motivation and commitment to their job. An engaged employee is considered to be passionate about their work and emotional connected to their work and to their company.

Keywords:

In the past few years the terms “employee engagement” and “employee disengagement” have emerged to more fully describe the employee’s level of motivation and commitment to their job. An engaged employee is considered to be passionate about their work and emotional connected to their work and to their company.

Disengaged employees are those employees that are at work but their minds are not necessarily on their jobs. The term presenteeism has also been used to describe disengaged employees. There minds are somewhere else. They could be thinking about their children, their upcoming date, a party, last’s night basketball game or be engrossed thinking about their own personal problems. From a productivity perspective this may not be that serious for a person working manually on repetitive tasks. However, in the advanced economies of the world such as those found in North America, Europe, Japan and elsewhere, where the contribution of knowledge workers to the GDP is greater than that associated with production workers in the manufacturing sector. Mental performance is the key determinant of productivity and profitability. In this setting if an employee’s mind is not on their jobs they become a significant liability to their organization. The mind today is the ultimate productivity weapon.

This new paradigm has brought awareness to the serious increase in the rise of mental disabilities. For example, it is estimated that the cost of depression to the US economy is approximately $150 billion a year. Forty to 50% of the cost of absenteeism is on account of mental disabilities in medium to large North American organizations. Prescriptions such as Prozac, Welbutrin, Zoloft, Paxil and others used to treat mood disorders and other types of mental disabilities are among the fastest rising category of drugs. To respond to this situation, managers are increasingly challenged to create workplaces that will support a mentally healthy environment.

We also know that there are anywhere from 10%-15% of employees who suffer from depression and who are not absent but who are in fact are at work. This group of employees is incapable of working at peak performance. They are at work and they fall squarely into the disengaged or presenteeism category of employees. To add to this new research in the October 2004 issue of the Harvard Business Review showed that there was an additional dimension to presenteeism. There is another threat to productivity that can be added to the presenteeism group: physically sick workers who show up at work but are not fully functioning. In a research study commissioned by Lockheed Martin in 2002, the single largest group of employees who were at work and were suffering from allergies and sinus problems had a prevalence rate of 60% and were costing the company close to $2 million in lost productivity, followed by chronic lower back pain at 21% and $859,000 in lost productivity, arthritis at 20% and $860,000, depression at 14% and $787,000, dermatitis or other skin conditions at 16% and $610,000, and flu at 18% and $607,000 in lost productivity. This research estimates that presenteeism costs the American economy about $150 million in lost productivity.

What Can We Do?

1. Human Resource Departments need to begin to collect and use the absenteeism and other health statistics in a strategic way. This means being proactive in their organizations to begin to educate their own managers.
2. Train managers to manage for performance as well as managing for health. If they see a performance change in an employee who is considered a good performer, managers need to be given the language to enter into the appropriate conversation with their employee to discern the problem. The manger is not being asked to be a doctor or psychiatrist. She is being asked to point the employee in the right direction, i.e. going to EAP or whatever is the most appropriate course of action to restore the employee to fully productivity.
3. Educate your employees. This can be done using lunch and learns. Use your own internal health statistics to determine the priority for the programs.
4. Ensure that your absenteeism policies are not encouraging sick employees to come to work.
5. View employee productivity from a systems perspective. Employee health is inexorably linked to productivity. Therefore all managers should be held accountable for both their own business performance measures as well as for their unit’s absenteeism. In other words the health of their employees is now their responsibility and not the responsibility of their health department. We worked with a client where this was instituted. The health of the employees in their department was discussed along with business issues at the weekly departmental meetings. Absenteeism decreased and productivity increased.
6. Assess your company drug plan. Does it support a healthy workplace or is it acting as a disincentive. You may be surprised what you find. Make sure that in your assessment you consider the whole system. Look at the cost side and also look at what is gained by supporting for example, employees who may be suffering from allergies and with the correct medication are able to be fully productive.
7. Introduce health promotion programs. There is a litany of programs and you have to choose the most appropriate for your organization. For example, EAP, flu shots, blood pressure testing, exercising, smoke cessation, weight loss and stress management programs.
8. But before you lunge into any of these programs make sure you understand root causes of the disabilities in your organization. For example, how much are organizational practices and leadership behaviors contributing to stress, chronic back pain and depression. Although health promotion programs can be effective, their effectiveness is dramatically reduced if organizational causes are not addressed first. The use of a leading edge diagnostics such as the Entec’s Employee Engagement Survey that measures both organizational factors and employee health factors can be an invaluable first step to identify causes of employee ill-health and to create a framework for improving health and productivity.

Better management of employee health can lead to improved productivity and this in turn can create a competitive advantage. With scare resources you may discover that reallocating funds towards health from training dollars will achieve greater productivity gains.

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Save Face, Time, and Money on Your Next IT Project

Well-managed communication can increase the rates of success on your IT projects by improving relations between you and your customers and decreasing the odds of hasty last-minute enhancements, thus saving face, saving time, and saving money.

Keywords:
communication specialist, communicator, freelance writer, communication plan

How many times have you been involved in a project where a newly-released piece of software required an immediate enhancement because the right people were not “in the loop”? This is an example of how poor communication costs money and damages the reputation of an Information Technology (IT) Team.

Well-managed communication can increase the rates of success on your IT projects by improving relations between you and your customers and decreasing the odds of hasty last-minute enhancements, thus saving face, saving time, and saving money.

Most developers are familiar with technical writers, who produce documentation. While these writers are important to your project, they do not typically handle communication. That requires a person well-versed in communication planning and execution: the communication specialist.

A communication specialist will:
• determine your communication objectives (educate?, gather specifications?, change behavior?)
• identify the people who have and need information about your project,
• identify the best way of reaching these people,
• and build a list of key messages.

The communication can occur through many channels, such as focus groups, face-to-face meetings, status reports, newsletters, email messages, web sites, PowerPoint presentations, or phone hotlines. Communication can also be executed in less formal ways, such as establishing mail lists and selectively copying the appropriate people on relevant email.

The communication specialist brings all this together in a communication plan.

Then the communication specialist will execute each communication, according to the established timeline. And of course, he or she will adjust the communication plan as the project evolves.

Well-planned and managed communication is crucial to how your organization is perceived and it will have a direct impact on your project. Adding a communication specialist to your next IT project will increase your odds of success.

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Learn from the Olympics How to Organize your Events: Part 1 of 3 – Planning Event Logistics

Learn valuable lessons from the olympics about how to manage the logistics of an event.

Keywords:
Events, Tickets, Planning, Logistics

With the Winter Olympic Games in Torino underway, on time and over budget, it feels like a good time to take a minute and look at the lessons the Olympics have to teach us about managing events. To be fair, the Olympics are a massive set of groups with multiple venues hosting simultaneous events with visitors from all over the world. To make matters worse, you only get to do it once, you prepare for years leading up to it, when it arrives you try the best that you can to control the chaos for just over 2 nonstop weeks and then, in a blink of an eye, it is over. While there is a chance that your children or grandchildren will be involved in hosting the Games again, for most people involved there is no next time.

It is still too soon to look closely at what has and has not worked for the Winter Games in Torino. It is not until all the smoke has cleared that they will know how the event really went. I did however, have the good fortune of being involved with hosting the Salt Lake Winter Games (2002) while I was a college student in Provo, UT. Those Olympics are now four years old and time has given us a great perspective to glean some valuable lessons from them and the way that they were managed.

For the sake of learning, let’s skip past the Olympic bid scandal and look at the things that were done right for those games.

Let’s start with logistics in this part of our series – I-15 was under construction for years before the Olympic Games were held, but more importantly, some one had clearly thought out the most popular routes to the venues and where people would be going within the venues. The roads were modified to accommodate the increased traffic and the venues were laid out with the fans in mind. I spent most of my time during the 2002 Olympics at Soldier Hollow, the Cross Country Ski and Biathlon Venue. You could tell that time was spent to design the venue in such a way as to give the fans the most access to the course while making it a great course for the athletes competing. Often times this is a detail that is overlooked for smaller events. The venue will be decorated in a manner that looks great, often times at the expense of functionality.

It is also important to take the time to think through how people are going to arrive and leave your event. Look for things that might make it harder for people to attend and try to handle those issues in advance. I was involved in an event once where there was construction on the primary route. Since the location was vaguely familiar to most of the people attending we sent out flyers warning people about the construction and advising them of alternate routes that were available. Printing little maps on the back of your tickets is also a great way to help people get to your event.

The goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to 1) get to your event and 2) do what you want them to do when they arrive.

Next: Planning a Profitable Event

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