Archive for May, 2009

Closework, Consulting

“Closework”
by Adam Lury, Simon Gibson
ISBN-13: 9781904879008

This is a business novel commissioned by Celerant Consulting. The essence of the book has merit, success comes by virtue of better -doing-; less so from smarter ‘thinking.’  While I did find the book worth having read, I’d rate it a 6 out of 10, overall.

If you’re interested in consulting, particularly for Celerant, then this book serves three basic roles: *Introduction for potential candidates; *Corporate values intro for new hires; and, *primer for customers looking to engage Celerant.

You won’t find this in a bookstore; you’ll need to specifically know about it and place an order.

For the newcomer to an organization, institutional knowledge (aka ‘fact’) is almost immediately recognized.  As you meet with people, you are frequently exposed to ‘facts.’  Institutional knowledge, or ‘memory,’ is formed of those tidbits of foundational knowledge on which decisions are based, often pre-dating the individual(s) providing them.

Institutional knowledge is something that, the older it gets, is increasingly subject to becoming a factoid.  A ‘factoid,’ in an original definition was simply considered a snippet of a fact.  Over time, the definition has evolved to be, “something which becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true.” (Oxford English Dictionary)

Some time ago, Read the rest of this entry »

How do you lead?  Do you have all the ideas, yourself?  Or, do you struggle with how to move forward, hoping ways to improve will ‘come to you?’  Worse yet, have you resigned yourself to believing that yours is a business that is uncontrollable, subject to the whims of whatever industry you’re in?

How you answer the question may suggest whether you’re really leading or simply managing.  Similar questions show up frequently, either in current discussion, or in innumerable articles.  It amazes me how so few ‘leaders’ seem willing to ask interested parties for their input.  As a product manager, Read the rest of this entry »

Phil Fersht, a recognized BPO analyst, shares with us a discussion with Lee Coulter.  Coulter, SVP of Kraft Foods Global Shared Services Group, highlighted some high-level thoughts on BPO, where it’s successful, where it has yet to perform.  There are two areas I want to append to the discussion:

1)       Behavior is a key player behind success. Lee is right, behavior of both client and provider are the more likely determiners of long-term success.  The MSA (master service agreement) is something often toiled over for months, sometimes it’s never even truly completed. Eventually it gets stuck on a shelf and simply gathers dust. Once the process has matured (e.g. after 90 days), it’s typically looked at very infrequently.

As a result, Read the rest of this entry »

Someone recently highlighted an ‘article’ presented by PNMsoft (BPM, workflow automation).  The opening premise is, “A common myth is that technology has not yet advanced enough to create a paperless office.  Nothing could be further from the truth. The main obstacle is not technology, but people.”

Nice try, but not quite.  Technology is not the issue, nor is it people, it’s a business issue.  ‘Greening your office’ is a struggle for many senior managers.  You face the same two core issues facing the green movement in general.  While you want to do right by the world (e.g. Go Green!), you also need to do so cost-effectively (you know, profitably).  The correlations to your needs are Read the rest of this entry »

In an opinion article at Sand Hill, Eyal Maor discusses the business challenges caused by having too many processes running ‘under the radar.’  Specifically, the extensive use of email to conduct 60-80% of all processes.  Here, I share my own thoughts on the topic…

Ferris Wheel Rigging - Your Business Processes?

This is an interesting article whose premise is more of an issue for some businesses than others. In a recent role as product manager this was an issue I needed to address.

The pre-existing processes were fine for a business unit with one, then two product offerings. As the product line grew to have six offerings Ops increasingly had to deal with ‘fires.’

Stepping back, I came to realize the problem was due to ‘human processes.’ As the article described, we had everything driven through email. The customer-facing project management team was disjointed with my organization bearing the brunt of delivering and managing executables. All too often Read the rest of this entry »

There seems to be a battle amongst us: Simple versus Complex.  At times it seems complexity, especially unnecessary complexity, is winning the day.  But Why?  A key reason: Simplicity can require courage and hard work.

We become embroiled in the day’s events; the to-do list grows; the priorities multiply; and, whether our minds frame it quite this way or not, we wonder, “Why aren’t things ever simple anymore?”  Stress goes up, productivity down, and revenue is straight-lined.

At one point, a subordinate lamented being unable to get anything done, he was spread too thin, he needed more time.  He’d become so mired in constraints as to begin losing effectiveness.  My request was that he right down every single obligation (to-do) he had.  It ended up being a list of about 70 things completely covering a 4′x8′ whiteboard.  The very act, the work, of writing it all down helped.  Preparing to run interference for him, I had him pick only 4 or 5 items off the list, and work on them until they were done.  Forget the rest.  At least if he got 4 or 5 done, he had 4 or 5 done, instead of being spread so thing nothing was done.

Writing it all down, picking a few off the list, and focusing on only those few was a simple approach.  Sometimes applying simple tools can be amazingly effective in revealing and up-ending complexity.

As we move forward I’ll address Simple some more.  But given the notion of ‘needed simplicity’ came up in two meetings this week, I wanted to remind you: Step back, take a breath, and see if there isn’t a simpler way to do what you need to.