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Congratulation, you’ve been appointed as a manager either for the first time, or for the first time at this level. You’re likely to be responsible for managing a team of up to 15 people, either in a company you already work for, or in a new organization. This is obviously very exciting for you though you may feel somewhat daunted at the prospect especially if you were previously a member of the team and now the manager.

However, provided you follow a few basic rules there is no reason why such fears shouldn’t be easily overcome and your new role will give you excellent scope to stretch your wings and fulfill your potential. This action list is intended to give you these basic rules and help to smooth the path forward into this new phase of your working life.

BECOME A CERTIFIED STRATEGIC MANAGER

Research and Plan Your New Job.
First things first: if you’re moving to a new employer, find out everything possible about the company you’ll be working for the department or section you’ll be in, the job itself and anything else you can think of. Don’t prejudge what you’re going to find, and don’t be bound by what you’ve done before, or by how any of your previous employers operated. I’s also a good idea to find out a bit about your predecessor: why he or she left, what style they preferred, how people responded to that, what may need to be changed, and so on. (If you’re staying in the same company, you may know this already, but it’s worth doing some extra research.)
From all this information, try to form a least tentative plan in advance – it’s much harder to do this once you’re in the position. What do you want to achieve? How might you need to develop yourself to match the new demands? Reflect as honestly as you can on your strengths and weaknesses; how might you use your qualities and experience to the greatest advantage, and compensate for your limitations?
Engage with Your Team
Once you start your new job, make this your first priority. What is the purpose of your department, team or unit? What work is being done, how do things stand at present, what customer expectations need to be met? Get all your team members together as soon as possible to introduce yourself, and then arrange meetings with each of them individually. While keeping these meetings as friendly and informal as you can, allow a generous amount of time and plan some kind of framework for the discussion. Listen carefully to what people have to say, and get information about them as individuals. Most importantly, ask each person the question: what should I do or not do to help you perform your job effectively.
Plan some “Quick Wins”
Now is the time to plan a few targets that you can hit quickly and easily, which will help you to feel more at home and on top of things. Achieving these also eases the pressure you feel to perform and create a positive first impression, and begins the relationship-building process. Quick wins might include things like familiarizing yourself with systems or ways of working if you’re new to the company (for example, the internal e-mail system); setting up an early discussion with your line manager, arranging introductory meetings with suppliers or customers (external and internal), or even taking your team members to lunch.
Clarify What Expectations Others Have of You
You may be lucky enough to have been given a detailed job description but the chances are there are still large gaps in your understanding about the task and priorities, what is or isn’t acceptable in the new environment, and on what criteria you will be judged by your boss, peers, customers and others. Don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions to clarify these issues and then be very honest with yourself. Can you meet these standards? If not, what might you need to do? Who could help and what might the price be?
Beware of “New Broom”
While you will evidently be eager to get going and to make your mark, it is important that you tread delicately – at least to start with. Don’t assume that your new team will welcome your style or your ideas with open arms, even if your predecessor was unpopular. They need to feel they can trust you and that you respect what they’ve been doing previously, before you can count on their support and cooperation. Above all, don’t depart too dramatically and quickly from established practice.
Show Your Commitment to Individual Development”
From your initial meetings with your team, you will know what their individual inspirations and hopes are for their jobs going forward. Follow up by setting a code of management practice that you tell all team members about and then follow it rigorously. This code might include commitment to assess training needs to hold regular team meetings and one-on-one sessions to set specific goals and to evaluate performance against these goals. Support this code by the way you yourself behave toward team member. Make a point of appreciating extra time and effort that people put in, listen closely to what they say and be generous in your praise of their good qualities or achievements. The point is by demonstrating to your team that you as their manager are on their side and will do everything in your power to support them, you will gain their trust and acceptance and the performance of the whole team will be greatly enhanced.
Lead By Example
An effective manager needs to be a role model so it almost goes without saying that you must be / set an example for how you want your team members to behave. Lead by involving people in establishing group objectives, setting standards, and achieving deadlines and demonstrate your own strong personal commitment to achieving the team’s goals. Set an example too by maintaining high standards in your appearance and general behavior and by establishing warm, friendly relationships
Take Stock Regularly
At the end of your first week, identify issues that need attention and make a plan for the following week. Get into the habit each week of setting aside time for review and planning. Don’t let your mistakes lead to self-doubt: everyone makes them, and good managers learn from them while bad ones repeat them. The pattern of behavior you set in your first three months will be extremely hard to change later.

BECOME A CERTIFIED STRATEGIC MANAGER

SUCCEEDING AS A NEW MANAGER Read More »

“Project Management” is a term that’s often bandied about today. It first became popular in the early 1960s, driven by businesses which realized that there were benefits to be gained from organizing work into separate, definable units and from coordinating different kinds of skills across departments and professions. One of the first uses of project management was to handle the U.S. space program, and governments, military organizations, and the corporate world of business have all since adopted the discipline.
Although the term is now universally familiar, not many people fully understand exactly what project management involves. We tend to think of it as common sense, and that anyone can manage anything by being calm and well organized. These are qualities that a project manager definitely needs, but other things are essential too. Project management is, in fact, a structured way of working and recording events that can bring order and coherence to any set of tasks with a predetermined goal.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Can a “project” be defined in any way?
It can, yes, although it’s one of those words that is defined in various different ways by different bodies. However, all sources seem to agree that a project is:
A task or set of tasks undertaken within specific time frames and cost constraints in order to achieve a particular benefit.

Are there any stages common to all kinds of projects?
Yes; there are three of them, in fact. Think about the following:
⦁ Arranging a vacation
⦁ Decorating a room
⦁ Assembling a garden shed
⦁ Moving to a new house
⦁ Organizing a party
These are all examples of a project, because they all have three things in common. In each case, you:
⦁ Identify a need and benefit first of all;
⦁ Start to produce whatever will satisfy the need
⦁ Use, operate or simply enjoy the fruit of your labors once all the work has been done.
This basic three-stage cycle is common to all projects, large and small, whether you are producing a physical product (such as a bridge or computer system), an event (like a project launch or sporting event), or a change in circumstances (an office move or reorganization, for instance).

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What other factors have to be taken into account?
As well as the three stages mentioned above, all projects have three key parameters (or factors) which have to be taken into account:
⦁ Time
⦁ Cost
⦁ Quality (also referred to as “performance” or “specification”)
The relationship between these three elements is often shown as triangle, with each different element joined to both of the other. This is because, throughout the life of a project, the three factors are likely to conflict with one another, you will nearly always find that everyone wants high performance within a very short time at minimal cost! However, if any one of these factors are likely to conflict with one another. You will nearly always find that everyone wants high performance within a very short time, at minimum cost! However, if the any of these factors is absolutely essential, the other two will have to give way to a certain extent -its impossible to be in all three corners at once, so you have to set priorities for the project, whatever it is.
Say, for example, your project had been to make all your IT systems 2000-complaint in time for the new millennium. Your priorities would probably have been in the following order:

Time: You would have needed to get everything ready for midnight on 31 December 1999.
Quality: It would have been essential that everything worked properly when the clocks changed.
Cost: You might have had to spend whatever was necessary to make sure the other two parameters were met.
When you are beginning a new project, its a useful exercise to place it in this triangle to indicate how flexible -or not- you could be with any of the three parameters.
So, from a combination of the three stages and the three parameters, We cab see that a project:
⦁ Has a finite and defined life span
⦁ Aims to produce a measurable benefit or product
⦁ Contains a corresponding set of activities designed to achieve that benefit or product.
⦁ Has a defined amount of resources allocated
The final, vital requirement is that the project also has a proper organization structure with defined responsibilities, so that everyone involved knows what they are doing and why, how it must be done, and by when.
One important thing to bear in mind is that projects are finite – they have a definite beginning and end. If these are unclear and others are working away without a proper goal in sight, its not a project.

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Understand what Project Management is
All projects, large or small, are established to create something new to an organisation, and, as a result, they create an environment which is unstable and risky.
Without change, though, we’d stagnate. Projects help us to develop, but its important to keep them under right control so that they stay focused and achieve what they are supposed to. This is where the project manager comes in!

The whole project management process revolves around three main areas:

Business. Projects must support your organization’s business strategy. If they don’t, they shouldnt be started in the first place. To work out whether a project is a good idea or not, there has to be agreement from everyone involved or affected about
⦁ What the project is
⦁ What its targets are
⦁ The benefits to the business
It’s the project manager’s job to make sure the project has been properly defined and planned from the outset.
People. projects revolve around people, and, if the project manager isnt managing the team doing the work and all the other stakeholders, he or she isnt managing the project. Identifying or appointing certain people is also key, such as the project sponsor (the person who’s requested for the project-usually the one who is paying for it) and “champions” who can support and promote the different areas of the work.
Control. As soon as authorization is recieved to start work, the project manager must plan the route of the project, assess what risks are involved, identify what skills and resources are required, then constantly check progress and adjust its course to make sure the targets are reached successfully.

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Know What Skills Are Required
The project manager is often seen as a juggler, the person who has to keep all the balls in the air at once-plans, budgets, people, communications, and so on, as well as keeping the balance between the three parameters of time, cost, and quality mentioned above. Project managers therefore need to have a good level of know-how in whatever field their project is in (such as IT or manufacturing expertise, for example), as well as sufficient “clout” to have influence with senior decision makers.

All these requirements can be split into two different areas of skills: business and interpersonal.
Business
⦁ The project manager should be able to:
⦁ Plan all aspects of the project;
⦁ Monitor costs, efficiency, and quality without generating unnecessary extra work for others;
⦁ Use both technical and general management skills to control the project;
⦁ Make sure that the whole team takes part in decision making which boosts trust and productivity;
⦁ Get things done right first time without being a slave driver;
⦁ Get the right people for the right task at the right time;
⦁ See clear-sightedly through tangled issues;
⦁ Keep focused on results;
⦁ Demonstrate excellent problem-solving skills
Interpersonal
He or she also needs to:
⦁ Lead both by example and taking a back seat when appropriate;
⦁ Negotiate any project requirements (such as suitable time frames and budgets) with senior decision makers;
⦁ Motivate with integrity, sensitivity and imagination;
⦁ Build excellent team relationships;
⦁ Communicate clearly and unambiguously with everyone.

Understand The Project Life cycle
Any project has a natural progression, following a series of different stages from when it is first established to when it is finished and the benefits are seen. This is known as the project life-cycle.
Depending on their complexity, some projects will need more stages than others. Having said that, the same steps can generally be applied to any sort of objective.
⦁ Evaluate ideas. This stage evaluates the business need for the project; documents the initial idea(s), assesses the benefits; identifies risks which might threaten the success of the project; and outlines how it is going to be done, how long it will take, what it will cost, and whose authority will be need to proceed.
⦁ Define and design. Now you’re into the detail. How will you run the project? Who will be needed to do it? How will you divide up the responsibilities? What key measures and milestone will you use to monitor progress? To make sure things don’t get missed out, think in terms of what your business/team needs, what customers need, and what your competitors are up to. Do they have any new initiatives that you need to improve on, for example?
⦁ Build and test. With all your plans and designs in place and agreed upon, you find and build all the new processes, places, and people involved in the project. At every stage, you test to make sure that everything works as its meant to.
⦁ Implement, Pilot and launch. Here you pilot the project, evaluate how its gone so far, and refine as necessary. Then you finalize the full-scale launch, prepare the processes and systems that will be required, andd provide any necessary training. This is the last point at which your project sponsor can make a final decision on whether or not to go ahead.
⦁ Evaluate and monitor. Following the launch, you mske sure that the project had delivered the expected benefits. You also record any learning points so that you can manage things more effectively next time-things are bound to go wrong along the way but, if you learn from them, you will start your next project much better equipped.
Bear in mind that this process doesn’t necessarily flow through in one smooth sequence, as you will need to keep evaluating and monitoring plans, budgets, schedules, and so on throughout the life of the project. However it does act as a good “road map”, and none of the stages should be left out even if your project is a small one.

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Understanding the basics of Project Management Read More »

Root Cause Analysis provides a methodology for identifying and correcting the sources of problems. It differs from troubleshooting and problem-solving in that these disciplines typically seek solutions to specific difficulties, whereas Root Cause Analysis is directed at understanding wider underlying issues.
This should not simply be seen as a problem-solving method, but rather as a vital component of the executive decision making process and constant monitoring of the efficiency, quality and cost-effectiveness of business operations.
Why not use your customer complaints and feedback to drive business improvement? This is exactly what regulators want organizations to do.

The “Five Whys” principle credited to Sakichi Toyoda is a very simple process applicable in root cause analysis that results in very positive outcomes. In the event of a failing, the employee responsible for establishing the cause asks five questions. When using the Five Whys technique it is important that you go back to assess all branches of investigation, in particular if you choose a path of investigation that leads you to things that cannot be changed.
As a simple example, we’ll take an initial complaint of customers not receiving their bank statements.

Before root causes can be investigated and the five whys can be asked – there needs to be a system in place to capture initial information. Root Cause Analysis is not only a regulatory requirement: having a system or function in place to handle complaints is also necessary. If the details of a complaint are not correctly or efficiently recorded at first point of contact, then any investigations into the root causes will be unsuccessful.

Equipping front line staff with the necessary technology to quickly and easily capture important information when speaking directly with a customer will make the process of Root Cause Analysis easier further down the line, and ensuring consistency across the board when categorizing complaints will make it easier to spot trends across products and services.

A process driven workflow should ensure additional information is consistently being captured at the appropriate stage of the case investigation. The end product is a complete picture from which the organization can make fact based decisions. With this, the organization can then follow a structured approach to analyze the information captured, identify and implement a corrective action and then track the progress of new initiatives.

Root Cause Analysis doesn’t just end when a root cause has been identified. The cause must be acted upon. In the example above, the root cause is that the links on the change of address form had not been properly checked before going live. Corrective procedures must now be put in place: the links need to be fixed immediately to make sure this error does not affect more customers, and analysis needs to be carried out find those it already has affected and if the same fix corrects all issues. But these corrective procedures are still not enough. In order to make ensure this issue does not occur again, a process needs to be put in place so that each part of the form will be checked before going live. This could include creating warning screens before the form is published.
Once the corrective action has taken place, the process needs to be documented which is essential in providing compliance statements and creating management information to drive improvements across all areas of the organization.

There are clear and tangible benefits for organizations that embrace Root Cause Analysis as a process of continual improvement. The key to successful Root Cause Analysis is not solely the responsibility of the analyst, but starts at the point where feedback is captured within the organization making sure that the data captured is comprehensive, accurate and consistent. All areas of the business share the responsibility of ensuring that a quality-driven process collects the data that will drive future strategic decisions within the organization.
Companies that implement such a strategy, supported by the right technology, will gain valuable insight to drive organizational improvements. The results will be in service improvements, customer loyalty gains and increased revenues

The Process of Root Cause Analysis Read More »

As the cliche goes, you learn from your mistakes. At least, you should learn from your mistakes. When you mess up and apologize to someone, the most important thing they need to hear from you is that you understand why you’ve done the wrong thing. You need to know what you did wrong and how that came to be, or you’ll repeat your mistakes again and again.

The way we do this in business is by following a process. We note down which stage of the process we’re on so if and when something goes wrong, we know exactly what happened. When you’re running a business, you’re unlikely to know if anything you’re doing is any good until disaster strikes. That is, unless you create, maintain and optimize your process documents. This is why every business need to write their process. A written process contains instruction for getting jobs done.

Process-related disasters span a massive range of areas, from pure human idiocy to legal and technical trouble. If it’s not an issue of ineptitude (a managerial issue) it’ll be an issue with ignorance (a legal / technical oversight).

Whether it’s an IT problem, laziness, ineptitude, or just a lack of proper education, there have been countless mistakes in business over the years that have led to serious consequences, from billions of dollars lost to the total downfall of huge corporations. it’s all because these businesses weren’t following their processes.

The solution, of course, is to develop and follow processes. It’s a simple solution. It doesn’t take up much time or effort. But it isn’t that attractive. It’s not something that rock star hackers think is part of their job, and no one who was hired as any kind of ninja feels too great about it either. It’s time we realized how silly that is, and look back at the catastrophic errors businesses have fallen victim to.

It’s time we started taking stock of our processes — whether that means admitting we don’t have any, admitting they’re not so great, or just cataloging them. Remember, you can’t manage what you can’t measure. It’s time to analyze your processes, create new ones and manage them. Let’s get to the heart of the issue.

How Processes Protect Your Business From Crashing and Burning Read More »

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