Everyday I experience new things. Here I record my experiences with technology, quality control, policies, management as well as topics such as game theory and geological sediments.
I have been a part of the Product Management Team for almost a year and a half. Being a Product Manager, leads to added responsibility towards gaining insight on product development and communicating requirements from the consumer/client to the developer.
A Product Manager’s role for Requirement Writing includes:
Find problems and convey to development
Represent the customer
Own the Business Case
My experience has taught me that the product manager should:
Serve as the customer representative in planning and requirements definition
Define the requirements and the product roadmap for a market of customers
Support the ideals of agile development (we want process, but not to much process)
Recently I was exposed to White Papers on Requirement Writing from Pragmatic Marketing . My understanding on Requirement Writing has since then matured and I have documented the same in a presentation to share.
The conclusion that can be drawn from my extensive reading and past experience is “If we have been developing and prioritizing requirements for future products on an ongoing basis, we will have success’”.
Presentations are used during meetings or formal gatherings to explain and convey a particular topic of discussion.
Presentations can be defined as a visual representation of something (text or picture or video or demo). Recently I was introduced to SlideShare.net (a site to share powerpoint presentations)
SlideShare.net allows you to:
1. Upload your presentation
2. Share it
3. View presentations by others
4. Tag presentations
5. Mark favorites and post comment
6. Download presentations
7. Share your presentations via other Social Networking Sites like LinkedIn etc.
I remember the days when I used to request a speaker to send his/her presentation via email. Now, I request them to upload it on SlideShare. I use presentations for documenting what I have learned and for explaining our project status. Sometimes, I use powerpoint for building a project plan. The scope is unlimited. With Slideshare, I can learn ways of designing new slide templates and it helps me make my presentations interesting.
The notion of sharing knowledge excites me. I have created more than 100+ presentations and I have uploaded many of them on my SlideShare Network.
My goal is to share knowledge by creating interesting presentations and making the audience understand what I am trying to convey. SlideShare seems to be the right tool for helping me move in that direction.
1. Efficient (Time Bound)
2. Effective (Goal Achievement)
3. Educational
4. Entertaining (Not Dull)
5. Enriching (Feeling a part of the team)
Meeting Minutes: Minutes also known as protocols, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing.
They should contain:
1. Where and when a meeting took place;
2. Attendees, i.e. the names of the participants;
3. Subject;
4. Minutes of the previous meeting;
5. Items on the agenda: the discussion held, the motions made, the resolutions carried (Proposer; Seconder; the results of the vote);
6. Any Other Business (AOB);
7. Date of the next meeting.
Whenever I speak about Priorities, I describe it as a Cold War for “A Beautiful Mind”. Almost everyone I know is overwhelmed with work and most of them are unable to decide on their priorities.
I receive over 400 email messages each day (with virtually no Spam, so they are all legitimate). Currently I am a member of two departments; Product Management and the Network Team. I also work on at least 10+ projects under direct management supervision. Each day I attend at least 2 meetings (in-person/conference calls) and I have multiple walk-in corridor one-to-one conversations each time I walk to/from my desk.
In such a varied environment, one of the most difficult choices is to prioritize work and make sure you deliver your work on time without loosing focus of your other priorities.
How do I prioritize my work?
I make a list of all tasks and activities which I need to accomplish.
I divide my work into these three categories 1) Must-Do 2) Should-Do 3) Nice-to-Do
I give the highest preference/score to requests from the senior management and my direct reports.
If an email is sent on a “High Importance” notification I give it my attention.
If I am mentioned in the “To”, I give it my attention. If I am mentioned in the “cc” or “bcc” field I partially assume the person is trying to keep me in the loop.
I identify the areas in a task for which I am accountable for. This way I take ownership of the allocated task and prioritize accordingly.
If I am allocated an “Action Item” in a meeting, I choose to complete it before the next meeting. I also make it a point to browse through the agenda and revise the previous “Meeting Minutes” before I join a meeting.
I consider the real world limitations on execution of a work plan.
If my current skill set is inadequate for the task allocated to me I will discuss it upfront with the management and try to find an alternative replacement for the task.
If I am stuck in a complicated scenario I run down the “Prisoners Dilemma” model for Game Theory to identify the best available option which will allow me to prioritize my work.
I do not waste excessive time on low-priority tasks.
At the end of each day and the end of each week I try to reconcile with my daily & weekly scheduled tasks and I reorganize them according to meet the needs. Tasks may move to a higher priority as a deadline draws near.
To accomplish any task raw data needs to be filtered so that it becomes information; Information needs to be transformed so that it becomes knowledge. This complex environment of work prioritization involves structuring of data into relevant information by scanning, selecting and justifying data into useful knowledge.
With the idea that there should be a measure to control the work, I use Outlook’s “Calendar” and “Task” options to constantly remind me of meetings and incomplete tasks. I try to answer any questions/emails in a real-time fashion.
These twelve areas are a starter kit to appropriate prioritization in a complex organization. Work prioritization cannot be an afterthought; it is a project which must be resourced.
There have been times where I have had unpleasant email experiences dealing with conflict of interests, ad hoc meetings, communication issues, infrastructure breakdowns, unsupportive team members and inappropriate decisions which lead to a varied set of negative emotions.
It feels good to respond to such emails with a negative thought in your mind. However, every time I have responded to email with mixed feelings I have regretted it.
The CEO of Cerner Corp. (www.cerner.com) sent a very harsh email to his minors. This email killed the company’s morale and drove the stock down 20%. Link: How to kill a company’s morale in one easy memo.
To prevent such incidences I have cultivated myself into a habit of saving emails as a “Draft”. This way I re-open the “Draft” email after sometime, rethink the matter and formulate a better email which will eliminate the emotions from the email and make it a generic email.
Some suggestions to prevent you from sending a mixed-emotional email include:
* Understand the difference between a practical world and an idealistic world
* Have a Thick Skin: Always have a positive mind set for the dynamic work environment
* Have a Poker face: A face/mind without any interpretable expression
* Consulting a co-worker/supervisor during such instances
* Always remember to “Save as Draft”
Running an effective business takes a lot of energy, people and processes. The business manager needs to choose the right people, the right product, the right market and the right clients. In my past experience, I’ve seen a lot of people and processes come and go. The geographically dispersed work culture makes it difficult to manage projects.
With all things changing, I have seen the business myths remaining the same. In general, the business myths have been:
The customer is always right.
Every customer is a good customer
Every opportunity is a good opportunity.
Our competitors are doing it, so we must do so as well.
Everything has a high priority and must be done right away (or done yesterday!)
However, new processes and policies have been introduced which have caused us to re-evaluate these business myths. We all choose to be politically correct and we mitigate the risk of being a system which adopts what has being followed previously. For all of us change is the only constant.
If we don’t our serve our customers with respect and empathy, they will seek someone who will. While the customer isn’t always right, we will always make the customer feel important.
Over the past couple of years, many standards for document management and control have evolved to improvise the adaptability and usability of knowledge driven data in work environments.
Our client base is broad and comprises of:
Those who desert technological use;
Those who are moderately familiar with technological concepts;
Those who depend on making the most mounting use of technology to enhance their daily work flow processes.
Internally in our organization, we identified growing concerns on:
File Format Standards
File Naming Convention
Identification of a team to act as an owner for the document
Validating the document for current updates
The main reason for these growing concerns were:
We do not have appropriate ownership for any document
Documents are stored in multiple locations
Documents are not updated regularly
A database (of indexed documents) relating to internal or external processes is something that we need. This database should be accessible by everyone in the company so that they are aware of all the documents which we have and it will make the Stake Holders more informed on process specific documents.
We had a brief discussion on a list of columns required for a database which would include:
Document Name
Owner of document (at least 2 owners)
Single Location of the document
Is this an Internal / External Document (definitions will be provided later as to what is internal and what is external)
Brief description of the document
List of Processes in which the document is being used
Appropriate naming conventions to this document index will be an added advantage to solve the documents issue.
We also formulated a process to:
Identify the owner or (as we like to call) the responsible party for the document.
Identify PDF as the ultimate document format. Maintain two copies of the same document: One document (Microsoft Word Format) for internal use and reference. Second document (PDF Format) to send to the client.
Get all documents reviewed by the Documentation Team before they are sent out to customers.
Identify periodic internal audits by the team managers to verify the sanity of the document.
Everyday we have over 2500 calls triaged over the phone.
Triage is defined as: The process by which projects or activities are prioritized to determine which should be attempted first, second, etc. (it is also known as “Sorting of Grapes”)
The Triage Team (for a call center) needs:
1 To ask appropriate questions to the client
2 To evaluate the call and classify the same into the appropriate queue
When the Triage Team assigns a call to a member of our company, the member needs a clear understanding of what the client is expecting from them so that they can provide a faster and appropriate response.
In our current situation we get calls from clients on:
Regular Support Requests
Departmental Phone Transfers
Areas which need immediate attention
Uncertain areas
Out of all these 4 situations we are able to handle the first three with appropriate procedures. However “Uncertain areas” are difficult to control due to the fact that they have random occurrences and do not have the correct triage policy set.
To reduce the number of “uncertain” client call domains we defined a process for Smart Triage:
Educate various departments
Gather a list of questions from the support techs and other departments
Prepare a database of appropriate questions needed to be asked by the triage team before transferring the call to the support techs.
Ask intelligent questions to the customers.
Direct calls to the right person so that the “First Call Resolution” goal is met.
Technology Used:
A Wiki for maintaining an updated record of questions to ask for each category of call.
This now brings us to the next project of:
Defining processes to keep the questions updated in the Wiki
Assign owners for various department related questions
Keep updating and recording trends in client call response quality.
This process will allow us to control the quality of calls and respond to the clients needs in a more efficient fashion.
We are a 600 employee company with at least 15-25 members being out of office at any given business day due to reasons beyond control like:
Out for work
Personal Days
Vacation
Maternity Leave
Sick Days
Jury Duty
Military Obligations
There are multiple instances when other team members have some work with a person who is out of office (on that very day). We have set appropriate policies for employees who are out of office. They need to:
Fill out an out of office form and submit it to the HR after approval from their Team Leads
Update their Email with an Auto-Responder (Vacation Message)
Set the External and Internal Greeting in the Phone System describing the out of office message
Send an email to a predefined out of office designated email address which notifies the team leads.
What we realized is that our method of communication was only a two way communication where-in the employee taking an out of office leave is communicating it only to the HR and the Team Lead. The problem lies when a colleague of the out of office employee tries to contact the employee. This is what happens:
The caller remains uncertain whether the out of office colleague is out on a break for coffee or is out of office
There is wastage of time and effort due to the fact that the caller assumes that the other employee will respond to the callers needs in a timely fashion (which is not going to be the case)
To eliminate this confusion we have:
Designed an module on our intranet website “Helpdesk” which will allow all employees to see a list of employees out of office.
The HR team has access to add/modify this list daily (hence keeping this list updated all the time)
We run periodic reports to check whether the data on the Helpdesk matches with our Payroll system (thus keeping both the systems integrated together)
With appropriate planning and policy definitions we have been able to educate all our company members the new policies and are able to save employee time by displaying them who is In-Office and who is Out-of-Office.
My first encounter with materialistic world came into actual realization when I first had to shift apartments from Philadelphia to Boston. I realized that I had almost 30% of house inventory which I had never used or was not going to use in the future. Since then I decided to balance my needs and wants which my factual needs and wants.
This Christmas myself and my wife we both decided to give each other a gift. We decided to:
Organize our Documents with online access control.
Remove all unused items for charitable donation or recycling.
Online Documents: We have scanned all of our most important documents and have uploaded them on a dedicated VPS server with dual backup facility for real time accessibility of data. We are now able to organize our documents online without the fear of loosing them for the rest of our lives.
Charitable Event: We donate our unwanted clothes at the local Walmart’s Cloths Donation boxes. Any other unused item goes to “Salvation Army” or any such projects available locally.
HealthVault: Microsoft HealthVault is personal health technology platform that lets you gather, store and share health information online. With HealthVault, users control their own health records, so they can privately share their health information with family, friends and healthcare professionals, and have access to trustworthy online health management tools.
We spent a total of 2 weekends to take care of the above mentioned tasks. By doing this exercise:
Time is saved (as we lead a more organized life).
We have a clear understanding of our needs and wants.
We are now looking at the bigger picture of being a united family with a sense of responsibility towards the world we live in.
We are able to find anything we need without searching for it.
We have secure Health Records; accessible from any where around the world.
I have always believed in optimizing time and work effort to lead a balanced life.
Todd D. Rakoff is Byrne Professor of Administrative Law, Harvard University. His book “A Time for Every Purpose - Law and the Balance of Life” explains the various laws which govern our effective use of time and it explains that the structure of our time for organized efforts is gradually changing.
Here is my work schedule:
6.30 AM : E-mail
7.00 AM : Write project plan for a process optimization project.
8.00 AM : Read news, blogs and watch videos on Health Care; Technology and Government matters.
9.00 AM - 6.00 PM :
Every day I attend 2 meetings (at least) and define rules for process definition and improvement.
I am a developer by heart; I spend an hour coding for our “HelpDesk” using open source (PHP and MySQL). The HelpDesk is a central source for all our internal communication needs.
Write and send enterprise e-mail about our monthly Network Maintenance updates; Email Policies; Latest updates on Health Care; Introduction of new projects.
I am often asked the reason why I am consulted more than my seniors for any advice in Health Care or IT Services. It is not always the expertise which I possess allow me to provide consultation services; it is my nature of sharing knowledge and educating everyone with updated information on the industry.
Sharing knowledge has allowed for an improvised team effort in our organization. We follow a value added approach rather than a incremental approach in knowledge management. We have a meeting every week to discuss the current processes which are followed by individual departments. We have a steering committee to find gaps amongst these departments and the goal of the steering committee is to monitor these gaps. Once a gap is identified the gap is documented and assigned to the team involved in “Gap Addressing”. After the gap is addressed it is appropriately communicated to the various team managers in the organization, who intern communicate it to their team.
In this fashion, all team managers are aware of any updates in any processes for other departments they interact with. We have a document management system (developed in house known as “HelpDesk”) which allows easy navigation to the meeting minutes and process documents. We send periodic newsletters to our company members - updating them on any new process development or any new projects in hand.
We are developing a process to keep a track of any new project that is undertaken by a member of the company. Currently each department is responsible to keep a record of the projects their team members are involved in.
We are seeing that the Communication Process is making use of the most optimum resources in terms of both member skills and in terms of technology to keep everyone up-to-date. This brings in a sense of “Thought Leadership” amongst the teams and improvises quality of work.
