What does it mean to be “good” at stress? Does it mean that you don’t get stressed out? That you stay calm under pressure and bounce back from adversity? Not exactly. Stress researcher Kelly McGoni…
Source: How to be good at stress |
How To Use 2018 To Develop The Most Powerful Business Culture So People Want To Stay For the Long Haul | Inc.com
Money & Prestige don’t cut it by themselves. A connection to something positive, something bigger and longer lasting than yourself, is becoming a driving force in workers choosing a workplace. People are the basis for EVERYTHING. When you invest in people great things happen.
Here are the most important ways to create the kind of organization that breeds loyalty, limits conflict, and insures heightened productivity.
A Taxing Matter
I was brought into a manufacturing and distribution company to enable the ability to create 1099 and 1042 forms in their existing SAP instance and file them electronically. The client, headquartered in Japan, had manually performed this task and it had become too cumbersome with an increased number of these forms required to filed. I enabled Extended Tax Withholding in SAP, had their Basis group apply updated SAP Notes, and tested the new configuration with the client to their satisfaction. Once they received their Transmitter Control Code (TCC) from the IRS the client was able to test and file 1099’s and 1042’s with the IRS electronically, increasing efficiency, reducing errors, and reducing risk to the company.
Simple, right???
Managing Your Career Like a Business
Being responsible for #1: Create value. Give more than you take. Add to the common good. Carve your niche and have people asking for you. Know your true worth, not the value someone else places on you.
If you think of yourself as an ‘entrepreneurial enterprise’ instead of an ’employee,’ you’ll find it easier to always be the boss of you.
How will Amazon Dash affect the Internet of Things? | Logistics | Supply Chain Digital
An interesting conversation starter for IoT. It does, however, beg the next set of questions:
1) Who will be fighting for the revenue for the associated shipping?
2) If a customer orders multiple items on the same day with different Dash devices, how is the order aggregated? Who/where is that logic applied? At order packing? 3PL?
3) How long before all these “butler bells” strain IT infrastructure to its breaking point? – JM
With the UK launch of Amazon Dash, a leading expert discusses the future of Internet of Things
Source: How will Amazon Dash affect the Internet of Things? | Logistics | Supply Chain Digital
Current Project: The Return of…
I am engaged by a client who manufactures, markets, distributes, and services medical devices. My current project involves the identification, retrieval, and destruction of pumps the client has deemed at End of Life (EOL) and wishes to retire from the marketplace. While the program scope is worldwide my project management responsibilities are scoped to US based customers. All of the work we do, from customer contact to return of the pumps and updating the tracking system, is done under in an FDA regulated environment using Good Documentation Practices (GDP). This is a reverse logistics project that involves product/customer identification, use of a Third Party Logistics (3PL) provider to collect and recycle the pumps, and completing the FDA required documentation to provide the audit trail of documentation and objective evidence that pumps are indeed out of clinical use.
This project combines scope planning (how many customers, how many pumps, where are the customers and pumps), communication planning (how do we initially contact customers, how do we get them to cooperate to return the EOL pumps), and customer service skills along with KPI tracking and status reporting. It’s a Supply Chain / Reverse Logistics project, a discipline I’ve been involved with before. This is also a client I’ve worked with before so being called back a second time to help out provides a measure of satisfaction of a job well done the first time around. Clients remember you when you do a good job for them – repeat business is the best measure of that.
5 Mindset Secrets to Achieve Your Goals Faster by @scotthansen1210
In order to get what you want, you must know what you want, and then manifest it into reality.
Source: 5 Mindset Secrets to Achieve Your Goals Faster by @scotthansen1210
“Tell me what you want”. Five words that can mean a world of change. From my experiences as a Project Manager and Business Analyst It’s the toughest question to answer. The ones who know had the most success. The ones who think in terms of the possible rather than just the present moved their projects and organizations further, faster, than those who saw the future in terms of the present circumstances.
While Limited, Wi-Fi-First Phones Are a Good, Frugal Bet – The New York Times
Only some phones work with the services, which seek out Wi-Fi networks to carry call and data before turning to cell towers.
WiFi enabled phones provide another alternative to high priced cell plans but can drain a battery faster than a teenager drains a bank account.
Source: While Limited, Wi-Fi-First Phones Are a Good, Frugal Bet – The New York Times
Are we placing importance on the correct skills?
“Software is a list of instructions that tell a computer what to do” (Wikipedia). Instructions, by their nature, can produce the same result, time and time again and can be performed by many users. Once written, tested, and accepted by a user community, collections of instructions become known as “software”. As software matures and updated versions are released, the instructions become common between each of the major programs. Instructions or commands like “open file”, “print”, or “save” are ubiquitous across applications. Even ERP programs have common commands that create a master data record, record a sale, or post a customer payment to an invoice. All the user needs to be shown is where the commands are in the menu structure, what set of business conditions must exist to use each command, and what results successful and unsuccessful transactions produce. Once a user learns how to perform a command rarely does it change. So why do employers place such a high value on potential employees using a set of repeatable instructions with a known result, over and over again?
One would think an employer lists their job requirements from most important to least important in a job ad. Specific software packages are usually called out at or near the top, along with other skills specific to the employers’ work environment. I see many job postings with requirements of “Must have x years’ experience with [fill in your software tool here]” listed first or near the top of their ad. Why is it skills with a specific software package get top billing? Software is nothing more than a canned set of steps in a specific order yet employers place a premium value for prospective employees to have extensive experience with them. Why is that? Packaged software can be easily learned yet employers insist prospective employees have years of experience with their particular software.
Learning business processes, how they work, how they consume and produce data, and where they receive their input is much more valuable than the ability to execute a canned process in a software package. Understanding, and being able to explain in simple terms, what a stored set of instructions actually does and what it produces are much more valuable skills than remembering the code for a certain transaction. Anyone can push a button, type a transaction, or execute a stored command. The value a potential employee brings is what happens after that button is pushed or the command is executed. What is going on in the background while the computer is churning away, busy completing the task you requested? What happens when you post a customer payment to an invoice? What is the business process effect of executing a command that returns goods to a vendor? And where will the transaction end up in the General Ledger? The Financial Statements? Which business processes will be effected by the command you just ran? Far more importance should be placed on the effects of executing a stored command than remembering the code for a command or where it is in a menu structure.
For organizations that perform projects (which ones don’t?) there’s a question that invariable is asked at some point: “Do we use our own people for the project or do we bring in consultants and temporary workers?” While there are a few different ways to answer this question ultimately the answer has to be made in the best interests of ALL the people involved. I’ve seen many a project go quickly off course because staffing, communication, and planning weren’t seriously considered. Companies usually fall into one of three categories when making this decision:
- Use consultants/contractors to perform the project work and let the employees handle the day-to-day tasks
- Use employees to perform the project work and have consultants/contractors do the day to day work
- Use the project as an opportunity to have employees lead project teams with consultant Subject Matter Experts (SME’s) to guide them.
In the first instance companies engage a consulting firm with most if not all the necessary project resources. The consulting firm leads the project, performs the requirements gathering, development, testing and, at the end, (maybe) trains the client personnel on how to use their shiny new software tool / process / upgrade, hands over any documentation, and leaves. Any “institutional knowledge” they may have picked up leaves with them. Ideally the documentation they leave behind and the knowledge transfer they perform are adequate for the client to use the new tool they have. Many times the success of the project is solely determined by how well the knowledge was transferred.
In the second scenario employees are thrust into roles they may or may not be familiar with: Project Manager, Business Analyst, Requirements Manager. Most projects initiated by business users depend heavily on their IT staff to move the project forward. Business users often do not have formal project management or project documentation training, leaving those duties to already overly-burdened IT staff. Business users have ideas of what they would like to see or how the new product should function but these ideas get lost in translation between their vision and the reality of well-defined functional specifications. As they attempt to perform their project duties they are constrained by the temporary replacements doing the day to day work.
The third situation requires much more planning and broader, enterprise level buy in for the project. Project training for employees has to happen before the project formally commences. Planning and communication of project management and documentation basics, as well as expectations for phases and milestones, must be clearly laid out before the project begins. Ample time must be allotted for employees to train replacements before they move to the actual project. The enterprise must be willing to invest not only in the project itself but the time and resources necessary to back fill for employees while they embark on the project journey. Once properly equipped, replacement workers and employees are ready to devote their full attention to their new roles.
Which approach is best for your project? It depends on your circumstances, budget, timeline, and level of urgency. I’ve seen the third approach work the best in practice. It requires much more thought, time, money, and resources but, in the long run, it is best for everyone involved. Employees are shown they are valued when the organization takes the time to train them and then allows them to apply their new skills right away. Temporary workers are trained in a new corporate environment, increasing their skills and adding to the professional backgrounds. Learning and professional growth happen all across the organization with much more engagement by everyone involved. Everyone knows their role and has a support network to engage should they need. It may take more effort but in the long run many more people benefit from this type of approach.
So what are your thoughts? What is the best way to staff a project?
Fullerton & Campbell 