Making It Happen
I see more and more recruitment adverts for people with
experience in “project management” which tells me one thing – this is going to
be more a part of management in the future as change becomes ever more
prevalent and companies adapt to a faster pace.
I’ve managed projects myself, and know others who are deeply
knowledgeable in this art (or is it a science?), but what I’ve seen in my time
is that you need to:
Ask “Why Are We Doing
This”?
Usually, projects have a reason – to improve efficiency, raise
quality, increase revenues or profitability, introduce a new system, or any
other number of purposes.
Make sure you
know
why you’re embarking on this
adventure.
Define the “Owner”:
Who owns the project (i.e. wants it done)?
This will usually be a head of department, function
or company.
Can they make things
happen if momentum is lost?
Define The Objective:
How will you get there if you don’t know what the end result
looks like and when it needs to be in place?
This is sometimes known as an overall specification and needs to be set
firmly, but allow for unforeseen events.
I’ve seen cases where people jumped in without really asking “what do we
want this to look like in the end?” and ended up “starting over”, going over
budget, or both.
Refine The Objective
– Deliverables:
What is actually needed to make sure that the objective is
achieved? This could be premises,
people, processes, systems, changes in the way the business does things - any
number of items which all need to fit together by a certain time.
Delivering the
Deliverables:
What needs to happen to deliver each part of the
project? Break it down into steps
(Post-It notes are great for this!).
Starting at the end and working backwards
is the best way to do this.
Allocate Timelines:
How long will each of the above take? What resources are needed (people, systems,
cash, equipment)? Are they
available? How will you get them? Do you need to hire in extra staff,
plant/machinery? How much will it
cost? This gives you your budget for the
project.
Establish
Dependencies:
Does anything depend on something else happening first, or
can it run “in parallel”? If something
needs to end before something else can start, how do you make sure that things
proceed according to plan? The “Critical
Path” consists of the deliverables, targets or steps that must be delivered or met before
others can begin. Any one of these can
derail the whole project.
Contingency Planning:
What could go wrong?
How will you put it right? What
“early warning systems” can you put in place to tell you that you may have a
problem before it becomes a crisis?
Allocate Budget:
Everything costs time, money and effort. How much will this be? Will it all be worth the end result? Sometimes, the cost outweighs the benefits
and that’s a good reason not to proceed.
Allow room for “unforeseen expenses”.
Too many projects now come in over budget and behind schedule because of
poor planning in the first place.
Allocate Responsibilities:
Who will do what and by when? Are they clear on what they
have to do? Do they have the tools and
resources? What do they do if something
goes wrong? How do they report progress? Does everyone involved know who's
doing what?
Get Support:
Get support – from management above (approval), those at the
same level as you (agreement) and from those who report to you or are junior to
you (acceptance). This is where many
projects founder due to lack of support or commitment from whichever
level.
And Finally...:
Projects don’t manage themselves. Review progress regularly – not only of what
has happened, but what is happening and what is due to happen. How will you track progress? What meetings will you hold, with whom and
when? What information will you need to
track progress? Who will deliver it, how
and when? Who will help make things
happen if delays occur? How will you
measure success? Establish an “early
warning system” to alert you of potential problems before they become disasters
so that you can allocate extra resources.
I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.
Labels: Productivity, Strategy, Teamwork
How Well Do You Manage Your Knowledge?
I’ve been talking about how to protect information over the
last month. Information is converted by
businesses into knowledge and if your business doesn’t have one yet, it’s time
to think about your Knowledge Management Strategy.
Managing knowledge for me means acquiring, consolidating,
storing, updating and sharing knowledge with those who need it when they need
it to remain competitive and profitable.
To use a simple example, when the price of a product changes, the stock
room, sales staff, cash desk staff, accounts department and customer need to
know. If there’s a change in rules,
everyone may need to know.
A number of businesses thought in the past that knowledge
simply meant storing information and ended up buying expensive software (and
were not actively disabused of this by the software vendors). As a result, they spent large sums of money
on what turned out to be next to useless systems, or systems that didn’t do the
job needed.
A Knowledge Management strategy should be based around two
concepts: serving customers and beating the competition. In Verna Allee’s words, “Knowledge Management
means attending to [the behaviours and] processes for creating, sustaining,
applying, sharing and renewing knowledge to enhance organisational performance
and create value”. Equally, it is about ensuring
that there is an environment where people are encouraged to innovate, share,
learn and use knowledge for the benefit of the business and the people who work
for it (Mathew Parsons). Contrast this
with those who take the view that knowledge is power and hold it to themselves.
The business should ask the following questions:
- How does the business currently
define Knowledge Management?
- What knowledge or
information does the business/department/team need to operate effectively?
- How is this
information/knowledge gathered or acquired?
- How is this
information/knowledge stored?
- How is it shared?
- How easy is it for the
people who need it to get it when they need it?
- What can you do to
encourage sharing and collaboration?
- How can you safeguard it?
Once you have the answers to these questions, you can start
to plan how you carry out a proper Knowledge Management strategy.
When it comes to technology, remember Matthew Parsons’
comments: “Technology has a role to play in terms of connecting people, storing
and providing access to information and knowledge and providing tools for
knowledge workers”. However, on its own,
it is not the solution to the problem. Businesses
leverage knowledge through networks of people who collaborate and cooperate,
not through networks of technology (the latter is just a delivery mechanism for
the human element).
People use knowledge if it helps solve a business problem –
in other words, knowledge is subject to being “pulled” rather than
“pushed”.
Simply put, if the knowledge
is needed, it should be supplied.
It
should not be supplied with the idea that someone will find a need.
When you ask what knowledge your business
needs, the best people to tell you this are those who deal daily with customers,
suppliers, regulators.
It should be
clear by now that knowledge management is about human behaviour and
interactions, rather than about storage and IT.
The latter is merely an enabler.
I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.Labels: Productivity, Strategy, Teamwork
Merger Meltdown – Who’s running The Business?
Everyone has their own views on what makes for a successful
merger. My own opinion is that it starts
with good quality due diligence – checking out the potential partner. Eric Daniels (Chief Executive of Lloyds TSB) is
quoted as saying that they carried out 3-5 times less due diligence than they
would normally have done on HBOS. This
resulted in Lloyds being forced to take GBP17billion of government capital,
announcing write-downs of GBP11billion as a result of their takeover of HBOS,
and prompting a drastic fall in their share price. There is speculation that Lloyds were asked
to step up to the plate – but at what cost to the UK financial market, already
reeling from the credit crunch?
Assuming that due diligence is positive, the next step is
persuading stakeholders of the wisdom of the move. Shareholders, staff, customers, unions, regulators,
governments, competition authorities amongst others all have to be convinced
that this will be a good thing. Will it
result in added value all round? The
added value may be a stronger business (or a rescued one). Expect staff and customer losses – there will
be those who cannot work with the new regime.
Assuming that the above works, management need to set priorities
(most of these will, hopefully, have surfaced with the due diligence). They need to think of, amongst others, the
strategy for the new organisation, systems, people, products/business lines,
customers, fixed assets, corporate identity, financial reporting, regulatory
and legal filings.
Ideally, there will be a separate merger team reporting to the
new Board of Directors. Team members should
be drawn from both sides and should have intimate knowledge of their own
organisation. It is best if they are
completely removed from their “day jobs” to avoid distraction. This will not always be possible, but it will
at least mean that senior management at the higher levels are not distracted by
having to continue running their own business as well. Yes, it will cost more, but the longer-term
benefits may outweigh this, and remember, you have more staff available. The merger team should also have the ability
to co-opt members as needed for varying periods of time if this can be done. Don’t forget your legal advisers and audit
firm – they can help.
You need to work out how much it’s going to cost to set
things up for the newly-merged business (again, this should have surfaced with
the due diligence). What legal,
regulatory, financial costs will there be? Will there be redundancy costs once the
businesses are merged? How will all of
this be financed?
In the meantime, “business as usual” must continue. There will still be customers to serve. Staff
morale will be critical at this time.
The best way to keep customers, staff and other stakeholders (e.g.
shareholders, unions, banks, regulators) on side is to issue regular updates on
progress – so gear up your Communications Department (or put someone in charge
of this).
Staff will be particularly concerned over job security and
some unpleasant decisions will have to be made.
Make it clear what will happen and when, and be sensitive. Staff will have knowledge of systems, customers,
processes and networks of others who help them deliver the customer experience. Manage this badly, and you destroy
value. There may also be trade unions to
work with. Remember, uncertainty breeds
fear.
Any merger means change and uncertainty, but good management
minimises potential damage and maintains stakeholder loyalty.
The critical steps are: good due diligence at
the outset, a separate merger team reporting directly to the Board of
Directors, regular communication to all stakeholders and involvement of the line
when needed.
The merger process needs to
happen alongside “business as usual” even if this implies additional costs at
the outset.
I have spent more than half my life working in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services.
Labels: Strategy, Teamwork
