Tag Archive for ‘Management’ at Life as a Knowledge Manager

Tag Archive for 'Management'

Giving Credit to the Right People

Published by Nainil Chheda on February 5, 2009 in Life, Management and Organization. 0 Comments

I work in a company with a varied set of team members. We depend on each other to make the right choices and deliver the right services. We all try to deliver products, services and processes to our team members and the clients. Yet, I often ask myself “Is there any tangible product which comes out of my work?”.

Here’s the way I think about my work:

* I am a “Facilitator”. I help in getting people the right correct answers. It does not mean I am always the one who is giving these answers.
* I am a “Shovel Supplier”. I supply the tools and services that others need to make their lives easier.

Every day I receive emails, phone calls and have people come to my desk asking for all sort of answers. I might know a few of these answers as I might be involved in the project. However most of the times I am asked for the right direction. I am asked if I can point them to the right person who can do the job. I am asked if I can get an answer for the questions they have.

While looking for an answer to a question, I tend to involve various other team members. Many a times they give me an answer which is complete. I inturn transfer the answer to the team member who requested it. So, I diligently perform my duties, find the answers and convey the same to the team member who has requested the same.

Does this mean:

* I did all the hard work to get the answer?
* I have the answer to every question?
* I am the one to be praised and thanked?

The answer is No. I believe, in an ethical business environment where all the members involved while providing a solution should be respectfully thanked. The effort is a group effort and the right person deserves the credit. I always try to remember what our old folks used to teach us “It’s always good to give than to receive”.

While on a project, I make sure that I broadcast the efforts of the other team members who helped me find the answer to the main requesting party .This leads into a “Win-Win” situation. It keeps the requestor informed and the efforts put in by the other team member are also brought to light which acts as a motivational factor.

This sure does not mean that I (the facilitator) do not deserve a part of the credit. However, considering the nature of my job I choose to do the right thing and take credit only for the things that I deserve.

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It’s not Personal. Its Business!

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 31, 2009 in Life, Management and Organization. 0 Comments

Michael Corleone: [to Sonny] It’s not personal, Sonny. It’s strictly business. — The Godfather (1972)

In an office environment, there are often times when :

1. It is difficult to negotiate with a client/colleague
2. Someone gets fired
3. Emotions (sometimes excitement, anger etc.) are spilled out

There is nothing personal when it comes to business. In an environment where accountability and ownership fail, people sometimes run into a brick wall. The only recourse is to find another way around it and gain insight on how impersonal business can be.

In many instances, when a mistake is pointed out :

The person gets all worked up;
The person gets defensive;
There is a cold-war situation in the environment;
Things are not taken in a positive fashion;
Negative work environment only creates a destructive pattern to erode the success. “Do I loose a friend when he/she points out my mistakes? How can I trust the person? Do I give up a friend because of a conflict of interest at work?” — We are all victims of such thinking.

An escalated matter (to the management) is sometimes required to get things done. Yet if this option is chosen all the time you will not be ale to earn the respect and get things done in the future.

To avoid such thoughts here are some tips:

Personal life situations should not affect your business decisions.
Remember that business is an impersonal entity.
Accept your mistakes and be honest.
Look at the big picture and think about the company first.
Find a recourse of action to avoid business matters affecting your personal life.

Remember: It’s not personal. It’s Business!

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Self Motivation

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 23, 2009 in Management and Organization. 0 Comments

I am a big fan of Peter Drucker (Management Guru). At age 13, his teacher once asked him “What do you want to be remembered for?”. He did not have an answer then. His teacher said, “I didn’t expect you to be able to answer it. But if you still can’t answer it by the time you’re fifty, you will have wasted your life.”

Since my high school I have believed that “The person with the most responsibility for an individual’s development is the person himself”. While in high-school my I had an attention span of a moth. I would seldom concentrate on what the teacher was teaching.

I believe everything which I have learned (till date) is a result of three things:

Observation
Self Motivation
An Analytical Mind

What motivates me?

Being Busy: I like it when I am busy;
Empowerment: I like it when I am given the authority and the empowerment to do my job;
Work Environment: I like it when there is an honest work environment;
Variation: If I am given the same task/activity I feel bored. I need variation. After coming to eClinicalWorks I have already switched 5 main roles from being a “Trainer to Installer to Developer to Network Manager to being a Product Manager (Research)”;
Recognition: I am motivated if I am recognized for my hard-work;
Communication: I like it when there is a constant and consistent communication with and from the management;

All the above points induce me to renew myself, because it makes me see myself as a different person - the person I can become. Self-motivation can go only so far and it needs to be constantly reinforced by rewards from your colleagues and management.

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It’s OK to say NO

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 22, 2009 in Management and Organization. 0 Comments

In my professional experience:

I did not always have a Team to work with;
I did not always have a Team Lead to report to.

Most of the time, I used to work on Individual Projects assigned to me by the Management. Currently I belong to two teams (Product Management and the Network Team) and I still spend most of my time working on various Individual Projects.

In an environment where I have two team leads and multiple management members to report to, it is often difficult to make everyone realize the current items you are working on.

This results into:

Difficulty in prioritizing
Uncontrolled assignment of work (Work load increases)
Wrong judgment in terms of assigning the correct work to the correct people.

With my 16 years of experience, one of the most important skills I have developed is to judge when it is right to say “No” to an assigned task. It is not always the correct accept all the projects which have been assigned to you. While your team lead does make the best judgment in assigning the task, it is also your responsibility to evaluate your skill set and your current list of priorities to accept the task.

Based on my experience I use a starter kit of questions to evaluate when it’s OK to say NO to an assigned project:

Do I have the bandwidth to take another project?
Do I have the right skill set?
Based on my experience, will this project succeed? Does this project need more planning?

There have been instances when I have personally met the management team and/or the team lead, explained them my skill set and I have provided them with a valid reason as to why I would not be able to take the assigned project. It should be noted that saying “No” to a senior management is not the easiest of the tasks. You need the courage and the motivation to go to the team lead and explain them the same.

By this exercise, the management/team lead is well informed in advance about my thoughts. They then have the time to make the right decision and assign the project/task to another team member. I can now concentrate on my existing projects and complete them on time without any other distractions which might affect my quality of work. The team leads are confident in you as you have given them your honest opinion and prevented any last minute confrontation of backing out of the project.

By learning to say ‘no’ to projects that don’t fit your targeted strategy, you’ll often end up with more time and energy to say ‘yes’ when it really counts.

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An Ideal Company Meeting

Published by Nainil Chheda on June 10, 2008 in Management and Organization. 1 Comment

An Ideal Meeting (5 E’s of a Meeting)

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.

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Must-Do | Should-Do | Nice-to-Do

Published by Nainil Chheda on March 24, 2008 in Management and Organization. 1 Comment

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.

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A War with Emotions

Published by Nainil Chheda on March 5, 2008 in Management. 2 Comments

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”

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Business Myths

Published by Nainil Chheda on March 3, 2008 in Management. 0 Comments

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.

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Call Center - Triage Team

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 7, 2008 in Management and Organization. 0 Comments

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.

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Notifying who is In-Office or Out-of-Office

Published by Nainil Chheda on January 2, 2008 in Management and Organization. 1 Comment

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.

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Looking back at 2007

Published by Nainil Chheda on December 26, 2007 in Health Care, Life, Management, Organization and Technology. 0 Comments

This time of the year I tend to rethink all that I have accomplished through out the year.

2007:

Personal Life:

Got married!!
Expanded my field of study from Technology to Health Care with IT.
My rock collection/study (Petrology) is progressing.
Extended my lifestyle as a Jain follower.
Organized all our important documents online for real time access.

Work:

Successfully coordinated the $28,000 valued CCHIT certification effort for the company product.
Improvised the company intranet website — HELPDESK — allowing internal communication improvement.
Formulated appropriate communication policies within the company for directing the employee efforts in the right direction.
Transformed from being a Knowledge Research Specialist to being a Knowledge Manager.

We (myself and Avni) wish you a Merry Christmas and hope your holidays are filled with joy and happiness.

My Contact Information:
Email: nainil@eliteral.com
Orkut: nainil@gmail.com
IM: nainil@hotmail.com

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An Organized Life

Published by Nainil Chheda on December 25, 2007 in Health Care, Life, Management and Technology. 1 Comment

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.
Scan all our Health Records and upload it on Microsoft HealthVault

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.
We embrace technology to make our lives simpler.

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An Executive Schedule

Published by Nainil Chheda on December 16, 2007 in Life, Management and Organization. 0 Comments

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.
- Attend communications-project steering committee meeting
- Define pricing for customized development items and lay down a road map for timely completion of the projects
- Define knowledge transfer rules for an employee
- Meet with senior vice president of sales to discuss plans for: Website updates; New ideas on marketing
7.00 PM : E-mail
8.00 PM : Dinner with family
9.00 PM : Update Blog; Write research paper [on Governing Dynamics of Internet (Health Care IT)]
10.00 PM : Study Jainism and geological sediments (rock formation)

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Meeting Frequency

Published by Nainil Chheda on December 4, 2007 in Management. 0 Comments

Every week (5 business days) I attend 9 meetings (approx.); which accounts to 110 meetings a month or 1320 meetings a year. Every meeting I go one of the most frequently occurring question I have encountered is “How often should we have these meetings for a particular topic or subject?”.

Meeting has two aspects:
* Regular Updates and Progress
* Momentum

While a topic is fresh and needs more attention and if the project needs to be sustained I believe the frequency of the meetings should be weekly. Eventually once the project is brought to a level of stabilization, the meeting frequency may be changed to “Bi-weekly or Monthly”.

A meeting is worthy if:
* The meeting starts and ends at an appropriate time.
* The agenda of the meeting is met
* There are some action items which need to be followed upon until the next meeting.

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Extremely Quick Growth of an Organization Hurts Itself

Published by Nainil Chheda on November 27, 2007 in Management. 0 Comments

Many a times I have been asked why Quick Growth is “Harmful”. Organizations have a growth curve. If they grow too quickly without appropriate planning it causes a harmful reaction.

It affects:

The Company
The Customers
The Employees
The Environment

Proper planning, Knowledge Transfer and Resource Management are extremely important in maintaining stability in the company. Management must take the required steps to educate the clients and its employees about its future plans.

People, Policies and Technologies are often too complicated to bring together in Sync. The management has to think outside the box to co-ordinate their efforts.

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Life as a Knowledge Manager