Managing Your Way To Personal Success With Project Management Techniques

Project management is generally thought of as a business or organisational term, and it is true to say that project management techniques are normally applied to УmajorФ projects within an organisation. For example, the installation of a new computerised accounting system would (or should) be managed as a project; the design and build of a new aircraft would be managed as a project; a major restructuring of a company or organisation should be managed as a project.

Before I had my own business, I was involved in project management in some quite different types of projects. Those experiences were invaluable, with each project being quite complex in its own right, and affecting many people in many departments and disciplines. Their daily working lives were to change; their working practices were to be changed. As well as the technical, administrative, organisational, financial and practical aspects of each project, change itself had to be managed.

One thing that is always present in any project is the personal element. The successful outcome of a project does not only depend on the planning and implementation of the project detail. It will always depend on the people affected and the people on the project team; how those two sets of people interact is also critical, and especially how the project team will deal with concerns, or even outright opposition, of the individuals, or groups of individuals, who will be directly affected by the project on completion.

From observation and experience, if the Уpeople elementФ of a project is not managed well, the project is at risk of delay or even total failure. So, the people affected do have to be embraced as an integral part of the project. For this reason, I would spend as much time, as a project leader, in dealing with the personnel to be affected by the project's implementation, as I would with team members, and technical and planning issues.

It is because of this experience that I have got used to the idea of project management, and individuals affected, being closely related. I then began to wonder whether, in a non-project situation, individuals could make use of project management techniques and principles, to manage key aspects of their personal lives.

My thoughts turned to personal success: if an ambitious person had a vision of success, could they not take that vision, treat it as a project, plan what is needed to achieve that vision, and then implement that project much the same way a company would with a project to install a new computer system? After all, a new computer system started out as a vision of someone within that company or organisation.

At the very least, some lessons from project management may be of help to an individual who has a desire to succeed, whatever that success might entail. The route to that ultimate success can be broken down into different elements, much as the installation of a new computer system can. Surely a plan to achieve success can be devised and implemented in much the same way? And then managed accordingly?

In Part 2, I will consider what lessons can be learned from project management in your own УProject SuccessФ.

Management Gurus

It highlights the sources of inspiration and guidance that are available from management and leadership gurus born in the East, who have individually and collectively made as great a contribution as the more well-known, more commercially promoted, American gurus. Many of the Western gurus have based their theories and models on the original ideas of the leading thinkers from India, China, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Also, as we shall see here, some of the so-called Western gurus were in fact from Central or Eastern Asia or the Pacific Basin. This article gives an insight into just a few of this influential group of original thinkers.

Mistakenly considered by many to be one of the American gurus, Ansoff was in fact born in Russia but moved to the USA with his family when he was 18. There he studied and later obtained a PhD in Mathematics, worked for the Rand Corporation and then the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, before moving into academia in the USA and Europe. Ansoff is best known for establishing strategy as a management discipline, and for laying the foundations of modern strategic planning techniques. His approach was, in his time, criticised for being too focused on analytical and planning techniques, but is now highly regarded as appropriate for the fast-changing, complex business world of today.

Hu-Chan is an international management consultant, executive coach, speaker, and leadership development educator. Specialising in coaching in cross-cultural leadership, she has become a leader herself in the new discipline of executive coaching. Through her individual and team coaching activities, Ms Hu-Chan has influenced the strategies of major corporations and public sector bodies, in North and South America, Australia, and Asia.

Born in India, Ghoshal forged a reputation as a brilliant thinker whilst studying at MIT and Harvard, and then teaching at MIT, INSEAD, and the London Business School. In partnership with Christopher Bartlett of Harvard he first came to prominence as a leading thinker on international strategy and then developed this further to stress the importance of innovation and the empowerment of people as the key to creating a moral and value-creating organisation. Ghoshal was considered to be one of the leading thinkers in the field of how business must focus on relationship building and innovation, rather than operational efficiencies, to be successful. Revered in India, Europe, and the United States, Ghoshal played a major role in shaping the behaviour of the first tranche of today’s global companies.

His own name would not be recognised by hardly any member of the general public, his company IKEA is a name recognised by most. Kamprad is also known in the world of academia and business as having established a model for successful entrepreneurship. He took his personal values, developed from the harsh upbringing in his native Smaland in Sweden, and turned these into a set of concepts that laid down how he wanted his company to be managed and how he wanted his workers to behave. Called A Furniture Dealer’s Testament, it is a list of simple but powerful statements that can be applied to most entrepreneurial projects.

Kartajaya is the founder of Indonesia’s leading consulting firm, and past president of the World Marketing Association. His thinking on marketing management is now incorporated into most masters level marketing courses. Kartajaya has worked in writing partnership with Philip Kottler, one of the most respected marketing gurus, focusing on the application of marketing concepts and principles in the Asian markets. One of his major lines of thinking is that to stay as the market leader, the organisation must act as if it is not the leader, and must constantly challenge for the lead, even though they have temporarily technically achieved that.

Best known for his innovative work in speech recognition technology for Microsoft and establishing Google's document management and research centre in Beijing, Lee has been an influential figure in the advancement of China's position in science and technology. He has written on the benefits of combining the ancient wisdoms and culture of the East with the established management and leadership approaches of the West, and the advantages to organisations in building a culture of learning, personal empowerment and development of their people. He argues that both of these approaches will create balance in the organisation, in line with the Middle Way, one of the principles of the teachings of Confucius. Interestingly, he also talks about the importance of viewing failure as a positive learning experience, a concept that is still alien to many elements of Western society including the business world.

Also known as William Ding, Lei is the founder and head of Netease.com, the Chinese portal that focuses on on-line gaming and pc to phone messaging. Lei, still in his 30s, is one of the new wave of young Asian entrepreneurs who are leading the development of internet based businesses. His ideas on how to manage in the internet environment are fast becoming the template which most organisations in this field are adopting.

Mayo spent his early academic life in his native Australia, where he forged a reputation as a leading thinker in the areas of logic, ethics, and psychology. In his forties he moved to America where he eventually taught at Harvard as a professor of industrial research. Mayo is now acclaimed as the father of the Human Relations school of management, being the first major voice advocating a move away from the scientific management approach towards a more humanistic one. He is also credited with being the first to recognise that flexible, responsive, learning organisations were likely to be more successful in an increasingly fast-changing business world.

Morita left the security of his family’s sake business to start a small electronics company so that he could continue what had been until then his amateur enthusiast interest in electronics. He formed a company called Tokyo Tshsushin Kyogu, later to be changed to Sony. Pursuing a policy of risk, innovation, creativity, and intuition, Morita built Sony into one of the modern world’s industrial giants. It was Morita, through the success of Sony, who put Japanese innovation into the world’s consciousness. At the same time, Morita has contributed enormously to the world of management and leadership, through the lessons learned from the success of Sony.

One of Japan’s most respected management gurus, Nonaka is the Dean of the School of Knowledge Science at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. Developing earlier thinking by Drucker and others, his ideas on knowledge-creation and innovation generating processes in organisations has helped to consolidate the establishment of Knowledge Management as our newest major management discipline. Few organisations have embraced every aspect of Nonaka’s vision, but those that have are reaping huge benefits from building the active management of knowledge into their strategies and structures.

Ohmae has pioneered modern approaches to strategic management, focusing on the role of the strategist, the three key players of organisation, customer, and competition, and how to gain strategic advantage. His background is diverse, covering gaining a PhD in Nuclear Engineering, leading the Tokyo branch of McKinsey Consulting, acting as an advisor to the Japanese Prime Minister, and being an accomplished clarinet player. Ohmae’s ideas have had a major impact on the way in which leading managers think and behave today. His emphasis on strategists needing to be intuitive, innovative, and creative are now the norm, and are required reading for managers and leaders in industry and in politics.

Taguchi’s importance is in his development of the Quality Management approach introduced into Japan by Deming and Juran, and pushing the quality control activity backwards into the supplier and design stages, so establishing one of the foundation stones of what we practice as Quality Assurance. He also proposed a more holistic approach to quality improvement, and in doing so made a major contribution to what eventually became known as Kaizen, or Continuous Improvement.

Now recognised as the source of much of today’s leadership and strategic management thinking, Sun Tzu was a military general in China at the time of Confucius. His writings, known as The Art Of War (Sun Tzu Ping Fa) are a compilation of his reflections on the strategies and leadership behaviour that underlie success in war. Translated into to relate to today’s business world, Sun Tzu’s thoughts on strategy, information and intelligence, tactics, competition and competitiveness, communication, and leadership and management, have enormous relevance and are followed by some of our most successful leaders.

There are many worthy management and leadership figures. Some are giants of business, some are academics, some come from the world of battle and war. In the West we tend to turn towards the European and North American gurus, perhaps because many of them also become expert in the art of self-promotion, perhaps because our natural tendency is to look to our own. However, there have been, are now, and will be, equally valuable contributions from other parts of the world. Here we have looked at some from the East. They are great thinkers who we can learn much from. We should not ignore them.

Management Consultancy interviews - planning to succeed

The following article arose from discussions between Mindbench and its clients about where candidates go wrong in interviews. This prompted us to carry out a qualitative survey with clients, candidates, HR personnel and recruitment consultants involved in the management consultancy sector to establish some of the key skills and major pitfalls of ...

Recruitment is buoyant - so is the number of candidates

The current market for recruitment at management consultancies is highly bouyant Ц indeed it appears set to reach record levels this year. However the competition for these positions is still intense, with record numbers of MBAs looking for work in the sector! There are over two hundred applicants for every role in strategy consulting - the vast majority of these will be screened out at the C.V. stage and go no further Ц but if you do get through to the interview stage the following advice may prove highly valuable.


Understand whom you are applying to

A significant skill-set in consultancies of all types is research Ц and the less published information available the more important consultants become to their clients Ц and the more these skills are tested. It is very important that you donТt waste time in the interview room Ц also that you display a genuine interest in the company and itТs work Ц good research is the key! Research the company on the internet Ц not only on their own website, but follow any links they may give, search press articles, industry associations and look at their clientsТ sites. Try to fully understand what type of work they do and what is it like to work for them. Know which industries and sectors they operate in and who their major clients are. Never be afraid to pick up the telephone and ask other peopleТs opinions. Talk to anyone who has worked in the sector or ideally at that firm! Again, a good recruitment consultant should be able to put you in touch with such people.

As in life Ц it is all about selling! In this case you are there to sell yourself into the consultancy Ц make it easy for them to hire you! Show them how your qualifications, qualities and experience will match and enhance their own Ц but you can only do this successfully if you understand what they do and who for. Corporate culture has become more important in recent years and consultancies in particular have embraced this idea. Again their website should furnish you with a good overview of how they see themselves as a work-environment Ц but remember, this is how the like to see themselves. Speaking with a current or former employee will give you a better insight.

The ideal candidate

First of all we discussed the key characteristics that a candidate should possess and - crucially - be able to demonstrate during the interview process:
Х Strategic thinking - is this candidate able to think in terms of strategic direction?
Х Analytical rigour - does this candidate think in a logical, methodical way?
Х Mathematical ability Ц does the candidate have the mathematical aptitude to cope with financial modelling, understanding of statistical analysis, corporate financial reporting etc
Х Commercial awareness - is this candidate able to think in terms of pricing, competitive environment etc?
Х Intellectual curiosity - is this candidate sufficiently curious to go beyond the surface and seek out the detail and underlying reasons?
In addition to identifying these specific qualities a number of less tangible facets were mooted. These are traits that a consultancy would ideally like all itТs consultants to have, but are rather more difficult to identify or display:
Х Drive Ц has the candidate demonstrated the necessary levels of drive and ambition so far in their career?
Х Focus Ц can the candidate demonstrate the ability to ignore distractions and follow the main thrust of a project?
Х Ability to manage people Ц has the candidate shown a willingness/ability to manage others, in any environment? This can be managing down (staff, subordinates), managing colleagues or managing upwards
Х Commitment Ц is there a willingness to work long hours and under pressure
Х And finally, УDepth of characterФ Ц this last trait proved the most difficult to define. The following quotes from Consultancy Recruitment Heads were inciteful in summarising their views:
УAs long as the candidate is reasonably intelligent and willing to work hard we have in place training plans and mentoring systems that will enable us to pass on all the skills our consultants need to fulfil their roles Ц the one thing that you cannot teach is character... and itТs probably the most valuable trait of all!Ф
УHow do you recognise it in interviews? We look at the prepared responses that candidates give to the more predictable questions, and we also try to ask them some questions they wonТt be prepared for! But ultimately - you know it when you see it!


Successful interviewing

It is in the consultanciesТ interests to allow you an opportunity to sell yourself to them. They want you to be able to demonstrate your qualifications, your abilities, your enthusiasm and Ц to some extent Ц your personality!
You need to be able to do this effectively and efficiently Ц so BE PREPARED!
Preparation will allow you to speak fluently about whichever facet you are called upon to discuss Ц as well as talking about yourself and your achievements in a structured and logical manner. These are all highly attractive abilities in a consultant!
The best way to prepare for this is PRACTICE!
Х Think about the questions you are likely to be asked
Х Search on the internet and in libraries for further examples
Х Talk to the recruitment consultant or the interview co-ordinator
Work out some answers to these questions that allow you to show your best qualities and highlight your achievements.
We would also highly recommend that you practice answering these questions out loud. Find some friends or colleagues and arrange to spend some time asking each other interview-style questions and listening to responses. Discuss your own and others performance Ц there is no substitute for СperformingТ in front of other people!
The ultimate goal in these situations is a difficult balance to achieve:

 УBe prepared - sound spontaneous!Ф

Management Basics. Enjoy the Perks !!

"Management" is an umbrella that covers a host of activities: leadership, working through others, planning, organizing, communicating, controlling, and making decisions, to name a few. How can you grasp all of these things? Fortunately, you don't have to.


     The basis of effective management tactics activity is to keep control of a situation without enough information, assets, or power to justify that control. That, as it happens, is also the essence of management.

     In some ways management needs no introduction. Most of us do it one way or another every day—in families, social groups, clubs, and businesses. Management is universal; it exists whenever two or more people try to do something together. You may not notice this, however, because only mismanagement makes headlines. Planes arrive late, companies go bankrupt, orders are lost, and the Pentagon pays defense contractors several hundred dollars for parts that cost a few bucks Wal-Mart because management has somehow failed.

    People become managers by several routes. Those who work for family-owned firms inherit the job. Others may have worked their way up the organization or married the boss's son or daughter. Be especially suspicious of people who declare that they're "born managers," however. They can be identified by their total ignorance of management and their supreme confidence that their every decision is right. But how can you masquerade as a real manager? Very easily, as it often turns out. Few managers really take the time to clarify or analyze their objectives, actions, and motives for what they do. If you, on the other hand, spend even a fragment of your work day thinking about what you're actually doing, you can rise above the rest of the pack. Especially if you maintain steady eye contact, dress neatly, and act sincere. In the words of George Burns, "Sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you've got it made."


 MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

   Managers perform many activities. It's important for you to understand what each one involves so you can set goals, assign tasks, and delegate the authority to get them done right.

   The major areas of a business include purchasing, production, sales, and finance. Service and retail businesses, which make no tangible product, still have a core of similar areas (minus production) that are vital to success. In fact, lots of people—especially those who sell insurance-now call services "products" to make them sound less vague and intangible. Bluffers have to understand the role of several key management activities that will help them deal with the major areas of a business successfully.

Decision Making

   One of the problems with being a manager is that you have to make decisions from time to time. This can be very troublesome, because decisions can blow up in your face. But do you really have to decide? Sometimes not. If you want to sidestep a decision without looking indecisive, you can often fall back on philosophical quotations such as "Sometimes the best decision is no decision" and "If it works, don't fix it."

   In any event, don't be intimidated into making a decision until you've analyzed the problem thoroughly.
Most panic decisions deal with symptoms of the problem and overlook the problem itself. If your car has a flat tire tomorrow morning, you could pump it up, but a block or two down the road it'll probably be flat again. You mistakenly treated the symptom (lack of air), when the actual problem (a hole) went unsolved. Adroit bluffers also tend to let subordinates participate in making decisions. Go down to where the problem is and ask your workers, "What do you think is wrong?" Often, after they've recovered from the shock of being treated like people instead of robots, they'll tell you exactly what's wrong because they knew it all along. It's just that you're the first boss who ever bothered to ask. Follow up the previous question with "What do you think we should do about it?" This may produce several solutions that are worth their weight in gold. The end result is that you've shifted the burden of defining problems and solving them from yourself to everybody in your work group. And, if the decision backfires, it'll be more comforting to be able to stand up and say, "Well, we thought.. ." than to have to take all the blame yourself.

Delegating

   You should be quick to delegate authority for routine decisions to subordinates. Delegation makes you look very professional. It also saves you time because you have to wrestle with only unusual, off-the-wall problems.

    And how should you deal with those? Maybe the best thing to do is fall back on the suggestion offered a moment ago: call your subordinates together and have them propose what you should do. Emphasize, of course, that you're not relinquishing your authority. You're merely being a democratic leader who believes in lots of employee involvement. It won't hurt to point out that the Japanese make decisions by consensus and participation, and you're simply adopting a tried-and-true technique. It's tough for anybody to dispute the success of the Japanese in the automobile industries these days especially in comparison to the former market leaders – the big 3 American car companies especially General Motors (GM) .

Communicating

    It's been argued that communication is one of the most valuable tricks of the management trade. Getting a simple message across the way you intended can be harder than it seems. People define words differently, have conflicting sets of priorities, and harbor hidden agendas that conspire to make communicating difficult.
    One good rule of thumb is to follow the KISS technique-Keep It Simple, Stupid. Another guideline is to reject meaningless jargon. Because people write and speak to impress as well as to inform, they sometimes feel compelled to make memos and reports sound "businesslike" or profound. The result can be a pompous, indecipherable mess. If you believe you're the target of a verbal snow job from subordinates, assert yourself by sending back a memo or report to be rewritten. This puts people on notice that you're a no-nonsense, hard-headed manager who tells it like it is and expects others to do the same.

Accounting

   Accounting is a fairly simple process. It's mostly a blend of basic math and common sense. The information, however, is often susceptible to manipulation and several interpretations. You can take the advice of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson, who said, "Success depends on knowing what not to believe in accounting."

   The term "creative accounting" is a euphemism for doctoring the books to make a company look better than it is, while "conservative accounting" makes a company look mediocre or worse. Most corporations prefer to look like heroes to stockholders and bag ladies to the IRS.

   As an effective manager you may encounter a mass of incomprehensible figures can cover their confusion with such phrases as: Do you really believe this bottom line is realistic? Have you checked for a recent FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) ruling on this? How much could this change between now and the end of the quarter? And Are you sure overhead has been allocated properly? Perhaps the best comment of all, however, is "You'll have to simplify this so the board of directors will understand it." That probably means that you'll be able to understand it too.

   It's important to consider the impact of the notes at the end of accounting reports, because these can reveal situations or conditions that figures tend to hide. For example, one company discreetly admitted that it was so strapped for cash that it had borrowed on the cash surrender value of its president's life insurance policy. Another's report celebrated a rise in its stock price, but the cause was the death of its founder and president

   He was an autocratic octogenarian well past his prime, and investors apparently believed the business was better off without him. Notes may reveal what the figures conceal. Catchy slogan, isn't it?

   Decision making , delegating , communicating as well as a simper understanding of basic accounting concepts that hold you steadfast in the turmoil of the management quagmire especially when you realize that most of your peers are incompetent .
 In most cases they were promoted either for personal or family reasons or as a reward for some behavior or achievement that has little to do with the task at hand

  All in all the selection process may have been totally at odds with the long term health and profitability of the firm or organization

  A management career offers many benefits , Most of your collegues in the field are idiots .Enjoy the “ perks” of management

Know When To Get Help - Performance Management Consulting

Most people dread performance appraisals because it is tiring and tedious, and people believe their jobs may be on the line. Of course, performance appraisals are really quite useful because management can fully make sense out of the things that have been happening in the company. Through a yearly performance appraisal of employees, companies can finally be able to find out about the reasons behind why the company is losing money here or there.

1. Perform Appraisals In A Serious And Scientific Manner

As the part of the management that ultimately runs the company, the superiors who are actually doing all that performance appraisals year after year, they should really take this task seriously so that that the company will be able to greatly benefit from the yearly performance appraisals of the employees. In case the people who are going to head these yearly employee performance appraisals are actually clueless on what they should really do, they actually have the option to get some performance management consulting so that they will able to know what people from the management like them should really do when its time to once again make those employee performance appraisals.

Employee performance appraisal may seem to be a scary and highly difficult task but through good performance management consulting, you are sure to be able to get the ideas as well as the strategies that other companies are doing with the aid of performance management consulting. When it comes to performance management consulting, experts in the field of business management will actually instruct company heads that before they actually go on to their employees' performance appraisal meetings. Whether they will give out a presentation to other company heads or just be talking to the employees, performance management consulting will actually advice the management to actually make a draft of what they are going to report first before actually going out to the meeting and fumbling on the employee appraisal meeting.

2. Appraisals Should Focus On Positive, Not Negative Aspects

When it comes to performance management consulting, it is highly recommended that you plan everything out from the beginning so that the whole process of the yearly employee performance appraisal will go on smoothly and without any hitch. The performance management consulting activity should be able to help out the company's management to actually be able to produce clear and concise ways for them to make their thoughts be fully understood throughout the performance appraisal report. Performance planning is definitely the key to a well-executed performance appraisal meeting according to the performance management consulting.

- Heed the advice of the performance management consulting group
- Decide on the important factors
- Tackle those factors

3. It Works!

According to the research from the performance management consulting, top companies today are using the performance management process to eliminate a best-effort directed culture in the company, instead the company should move on towards a results-driven culture instead, the next is to be able to establish as well as reinforce the extreme importance of the company's core competencies and lastly, the company should also be able to target the poor performers in the company for termination.

Based on this research from the performance management consulting, the management should be able to target he poor performers in their company by actively weeding out the bottom 10 percent of the pack while completely nurturing the upper 20 percent of the company's employees to be able to sustain their dedication and good work for the company. It is extremely important that the company is able to full acknowledge the presence of such beings in there company so as to be able to further motivate them into doing good for the companywhile the bottom feeders need not be kept in the company anymore since they are hired to do their best and not to actually become a liability to the company.

Key Measures of Success for System Implementation Project Management

Have you ever wanted a short list of of items to keep "in check" as you are managing projects? This short list would contain key measures which, if always kept in check and balance, would lead you to project success? Sure it is important to follow industry project guidelines from the Project Management Institute and within the Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification, but it is important to always keep these key measures at the forefront of my mind ALL THE WAY through the project - from beginning to completion. Sometimes these factors can be overlooked or forgotten, or thought of as "not needed" in the rush to get a project underway. Stand Up and stop the madness, make sure you have a clear path before trying to get to your destination.... Or you will get lost along the way.

Key Measures:
1.    Before even looking at business requirements or spending much time on a project, make sure you know:
        a.    Who the executive sponsor is and obtain the following information directly from that sponsor:
              i.    Project intentions and scope
              ii.    What the project is NOT or what is out of scope
              iii.    Who the “Customers” are for the project. (many times, customers are internal to the organization)
              iv.    If a Return on Investment document has been created and what is expected of a ROI document. What areas of the business are returns expected?
              v.    Project Budget and how expenditures are approved
              vi.    Expected Project Success Factors
              vii.    That they want this project moving forward at the present time, if not, when is it to start
              viii.    Timeline expected for project completion
              ix.    Agreement to put companies resources on the project to get it done
              x.    Required project status and reporting
              xi.    Agreement on a communication plan to sponsors, customers and other impacted parties
              xii.    Agreement as to the assigned project manager and support from the sponsor that if there are problems with the project that require the executive sponsors attention, that the sponsor will extend support for obtaining the resolution
        b.    Then put all of that information in writing, generally in some sort of project initiation document and then all project leaders, sponsors and customers and CIO SIGN the document. I cannot stress
how important this part is. I cannot stress how many times we have come the end of a project and at least one of these parties (sponsors, customers or CIO) state they never agreed to some portion of the documented information in the project initiation document. This is especially important for System Implementation projects as a lot of time can pass between the time the project got underway and the time the final product is delivered.

2.    Business Requirements
        a.    It is vitally important, before talking with any IT personnel (if the project involves internal IT – which, if it is system implementation, it most likely will) or product vendors, that you take the time needed to adequately document all business requirements from all customers. Documenting business requirements should, at a minimum, involve going through the following steps:
             i.    Identifying the subject matter experts and project representatives from each part of the business that serve as your customers for the end result of the project.
                   1.    Identify the current problem or need
                   2.    Document current processes
                   3.    Discuss what is not working about the process
                   4.    Review results they would like to see to support the business and analysis they need to perform to manage the business
             ii.    In business requirements documentation, DO NOT spend time discussing what systems or technology will allow them do. Discuss what is needed for the business. Do not let your customers try to define a process around systems or technology. Technology is there to support the business, not to dictate how a business should be run. Don’t worry, All the technical pieces will come together later.
             iii.    Document all the business requirements as discussed with all customer groups and subject matter experts. Be sure you specify the problems and needs, how it is hurting the business, what is needed, and how that will help the business. Be specific. This information will help you put together the ROI document to be sure the cost and expected benefits are in line with what the project sponsor(s) is expecting. Some project managers might disagree here and state that the ROI should be done before getting to the business requirements stage. However, I have always found new areas of investment (cost) and return on that investment present themselves when going through the business requirements discovery process.
             iv.    Always be sure to think about how a product will be used and how reporting will be required. This can really get you in the end if you don’t pay close attention up-front during the requirements phase.
             v.    You will then match the business requirements to the scope that you created in the project initiation document, or change the scope, which would require an amendment to the project initiation document requiring new signatures.
             vi.    Once the right set of requirements is documented and it lines up with project scope, then be sure to again have project sponsors, customers (remember, customers can be internal or external), and CIO acknowledging these are the business requirements, that the project is active and sponsored, and that they are in agreement with moving forward to the next project phases. This piece is especially important, as people tend to forget or say things like “I never said that” as you get further along in the project. You can always bring them back to the initial documentation and signatures.
If you do not get signatures, you are a sitting duck.

3.    Now it’s time to figure out how you are going to deliver on these business requirements. This usually leads to a buy or build decision. That is, buy software from a vendor that specializes in the type of product needed, or build with internal IT personnel. The business requirements document is your basis for evaluating the buy or build decision. Do not stray; do not extend scope or budget, without going back through the sign-off process. If you are “buying” a product from a vendor, do the initial “paring down” process of determining top software products which match the business requirements.

4.    Now that you have your top list of software contenders, have demonstrations performed by the vendors for your customer group(s). They can help cast the vote for the selected product. It is critical to get buy-in from your customers every step of the way.

5.    If possible, it is a good idea to perform a trial phase with 2 top vendors to see how the business requirements match up to the product.

6.    After the trial phase, get back with your customers to demonstrate the products against the business requirements. Then have your customers make their final selection. At that point, be sure a technical specifications document is written that matches up against the business requirements. The purpose of the technical specification document is to demonstrate within the product, how business requirements will be met, what business requirements cannot be met or can only be met partially, and the IT requirements for the product. Be sure that, before beginning a major development phase, that you have gone back to your sponsors, customers and CIO or other representative IT parties for agreement on the specifications and agreement for moving forward. This phase will also require an updated project schedule outlining the full development schedule, resource requirements, and commitment from involved parties.

7.    Be sure to do a “pulse check” with your customers and sponsors at many points throughout the development cycle. This will ensure your customers are not surprised by the end result or that you haven’t gone completely down a path that they did not want or that you developed something incorrectly. It is much better to catch these things while development is still going on – your time-line will probably be impacted much less this way AND the perception of project success by customers and sponsors will be much higher this way. Ultimately, it is best not to have any such “hang-ups” during the development process. But, it is probably not realistic to expect that you won’t have any. That’s the job of the project manager – to work through such issues and still complete the project on time.

8.    When the development phase is complete, it is important that you have documented not only how to use the product, but how it impacts that business processes. It will require discussion with customer group representatives about what the system will now do, and what the new process should look like. It is important to have this document and be in agreement with customer group representatives BEFORE any product rollout occurs. If you do this, you can expect a much smoother training and rollout phase of the product than if you just try to throw the product out there. If you do not have a carefully planned training and rollout phase, all your work will go down the drain, and the project will most likely not be perceived as a great success.

9.    During the rollout and training phase, it is extremely important to communicate what the users need to do if they need help with the product. What support for the product is available? A good project manager will already have this in place and be ready to put the support process into motion during the rollout and training phase. It is also important that you obtain agreement from the customer groups on the support process and that they think it will work for their group.

10.    Lastly, be sure to follow-up with customer groups ensuring things are running smoothly and to see what problems or issues need to be corrected. Keep doing so until your customers are happy with the product. 

Remember, there are no levels of success. Either it was a great success, or it wasn’t.

Is Excel Running Your Business?

Is Excel Running Your Business? A Transition to Project Management Software is Worth the Investment.
Businesses small and large have been using MS Excel for years to run processes and manage projects. For small, simple projects Excel is a useful organizational tool. However, projects have a tendency to grow in complexity at a rate that Excel can not keep up with.

Imagine that a business needs to track projects or processes and does not have the time or budget to put a sophisticated tracking system in place. An IT department does not exist or is busy handling other affairs. Excel often seems to be the obvious, quickest and easiest resource to get things started.

Skip ahead a few months or a year later and those same Excel spreadsheets have now become a burden to the company. Many different versions are being passed around. No one knows who has the most up-to-date files saved on their computer. The project has evolved, making the spreadsheets so complex that only one person understands how to update them or even interpret them, in some cases.

It is now nearly impossible to generate reports from the spreadsheets or track progress and historical data. The data is also not searchable since Excel does not function as a database. The list goes on and on with all the limitations.

It is very understandable why business professionals turn to Excel to run critical processes: most already own a license on their desktop and are familiar with enough to quickly get the project started. They can even bypass IT altogether and maintain the Excel files themselves. The problem is Excel was never intended to be used as project management tool. It is no surprise that collaborating via spreadsheets becomes unbearable rather quickly as projects and processes grow in complexity.

Project Management software solutions such as <i>Interneer Intellect provide business professionals with the same benefits they seek with Excel - ease of use, quick setup, ease of maintenance without IT - all with the full benefits and robustness of a database system, that is collaborative, web-based, multi-user and enterprise level. These systems even incorporated many other features that make it easier for the business users to manage documents, projects and process workflows.

Excel is best for what it was designed to do - accounting and financial calculations. Stop running your businesses on a thread and read white papers and view demos of project management software system. Web-based systems like Interneer Intellect allow for real-time collaboration between team members anywhere. The time saved using project management software will provide ROI.