The Whole Picture

Impressions are formed over a mug of beer, in PG accommodations and in malls. At any given time your employees know what benefits the other companies provide to their employees. Selective memories help. Only the benefits that the others give (and you do not) is retained. SO much for your coherent and directed employees benefit policy.

You know that other companies have some policies that are better and other that are worse that your own. You try your best to ensure that your employees are given the best facilities - within constraints. You have always hoped that your employees realize what you try and give them and they, in turn, would deliver so that both the company and they grow together.

But your employees always seem to be dis-satisfied. They want more. How do you formulate a employee-friendly policy that makes them happy? How do you make the all-knowing employees that grass always seem greener on the other side.? How do you make them see the whole picture?

What do you do?
What do you do?

Entering Sideways

By policy your company inducts only freshers. Lateral induction is discouraged. Loyalty is rewarded and all higher posts are filled from within. Till now that is.

Things are about to change. You think your company is on the verge of a rapid growth and to take-off you will have to resort to lateral induction.

You are now faced with a dilemma. If you resort to lateral induction, will it discourage the employees who have worked so hard all these years to grow within the company? The promotions that they were looking forward to is now suddenly filled up by 'outsiders'. You are afraid that the logic that growth will create more opportunities within the company may not cut ice.

There is another issue that is troubling you. The company has a culture that is maintained largely due to the fact that freshers can be molded and made to fit. With positions at senior levels filled by 'outsiders' who are not indoctrinated with the current company culture, you may land up with more human issues.

What is your take on lateral induction?

What do you do?
What do you do?

Maintaining pecking order

This post discusses the case study Respect Is Commanded Not Demanded

Your need to maintain a pecking order comes from your desire for control. Which may or may not be such a bad thing. Depends on the context. But before you decide what you need to do about your direct reports jumping over your head to talk to your boss is to think through your own behavior.

The questions you need to ask is as follows:

a) Do the people who report to your direct report jump over their heads to talk to you? What happens when such a thing does happen? Do you ask them to first talk to their boss before coming to you? Or do you have double standards?

b) Why are your direct reports jumping over your head? Don't you generate enough confidence in them that they could talk to you without fear? How open are you to their suggestions?

c) Why did you go to your boss to discuss this problem? Shouldn't you be talking to your direct reports instead? Could you not open up with them to tell then what you feel about it?

d) What is wrong with open door policy that your boss follows? How is it harming you? Other than your hurt ego? Does it actually help the company? Perhaps your subordinates can let out steam and your boss is actually acting as a safety valve. Is this culture actually detrimental to the growth of your company?

Only after you have introspected on the above set of questions can you build up a case for or against the prevalent culture. And why is that you do not have the relevant information? If your ears are to the ground you should know exactly what is going on.

By the way, your boss is right: Respect is indeed commanded; not demanded.

Daughter's Birthday or Project Telecon?

This post discusses the case study: Two World Theory.

The flavor of the season is the work-home balance. However, at times it is a compromise. You would feel absolutely guilty when you see your daughter's sad eyes when you go back home. On the other hand you will kick yourself for not able to get that next project.  And 'money is not everything' is easier said than done. It might not just be your money on line. It is the only chance you have to realize a prized dream of yours. Tough!

The easiest solution to this is of course have a three-way telecon linking your house, office and customer. That is so cool! You get the best of both worlds then. Need to plan for it.

But there are other important issues. Why is that your deputy cannot handle it? Are you not confident enough? I am sure you both would have discussed this project -as important as it is - umpteen number of times, weighing in options, chalking out strategies. Why can't she handle it? Besides, she is sure to understand the importance of this telecon. Haven't you tried out her communication skills in other less-than-critical telecons? If not, why not? When will your deputy take over so that you can move onto to more important aspects of business?

Confidence does not come by emulating. It comes by actually rolling up your sleeves and dirtying your hands. If you had trained your deputy to handle sensitive telecons in your presence, today she could have filled your place in the telecon. Customers are humans too. They understand what daughter's birthday means. Having a deputy who can handle the situation as well as you do also improves the ccustomer's confidence level for you. If you had to skip your daughter's birthday to attend this telecon, does it mean you have no one else to handle the project? How deep is the team's strength in that case? These questions will come up in the customer's mind.

What? Your deputy is capable. Congratulations! You can enjoy the best of both worlds. In any case, do not forget to install a telecon facility at home. You never know when it would prove handy.

Solutions to Problem: Having a Selection Criteria

This post discusses the case study, Choose Between Two Corrects.

Actually this was a trick question. The solution lies before and not after the fact. If you expect more than one solution to a problem - and it is very likely that you will have more than one solution, even if only one person is assigned the task - you never decide on the criteria after the solution is presented. Rather you must - must - always decide on the selection criteria before. In fact, whenever possible you should also make the selection criteria open. This helps in getting better solution. Always.

What if all the solutions presented meet the selection criteria laid down? Congratulations! You have a great team.

Is your team bored?

The human mind has an amazing quality. It gets saturated faster that you can spell s-a-t-u-r-a-t-e-d. This, of course, is why humans progress. The search for new and exciting drives the invention machine.

However, as a Project Manager you are sick and tired of this constant need by your team members for something new. Just when you think your team has crossed that learning barrier you find your team members uneasy and bored. They wish to work on a new project to learn something new. This improves their marketability, or so they think. You on the other hand, try and explain them the advantages of core competency and focus and how the learning curve works.

How do you balance the two forces?

How do you keep the team motivated and accrue benefits of the learning curve?

What do you do?
What do you do?

A Manager's Worth

You come back after a 15-day holiday and you find your organization was running smoothly. As if your presence or absence does not make a difference. That makes you happy because this is what you have been working towards: a decentralized organization and a bunch of section heads who are very responsible. This goes to show that you have chosen the right people for the right job and that you have delegated your work superbly.

But at the same time there is a tinge of disappointment at the back of your mind. You wish some one would miss you ... some one would say that the office is not exactly the same without you. You brush it off and ascribe it to your ego.

However, there is this important question that you need to address: what is the value you add to the organization? Or more broadly, how would you measure the worth of any manager? Managers after all do not produce any thing?

What is your answer?

Dilemma of the first job

You are young, ambitious graduate. With dreams in your eyes to strike it big. Eventually.
You would like to make a dent in the world, like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Sabir Bhatia, ...
But first you need to make a beginning somewhere. You have offer letters from two companies.

One, a big multinational at the cutting edge of technology (or so they claim). This company will give you a wide experience should you decide to stick on with them for some years. As a consultant you will be exposed to various technology and different companies. They have one of the best training program that you are aware of. The idea is to learn as much as possible. Get relevant experience. Develop network and then start you own company. "Join us," says the HR, "and taste the cutting edge."

The second offer is from a start up. They have a lot of promise though they are fledgling now. They are extremely focused in their domain. As with all start up there is no job definition, no training program of any repute and no organization structure. In your job interview, you thought you saw the General Manager carry a box full of stationery. The HR promises growth and says, "grow with us."

Which of the two companies will serve as an ideal spring board for your dreams?
Which one would you join?

What do you do?
What do you do?

Bigger the better?

Your biggest customer has come to you with a request. He has a project that needs to be completed in quick time. Unfortunately you are packed. All your people are in one project or another and there is not much scope to maneuver. Taking people out of one project would mean delaying that project. Taking on this new project would mean sacrificing at least two ongoing projects.

You stake your reputation on on time delivery every time.

On the other hand, you do not want to upset your single biggest customer. You are afraid they may move to some other supplier.

What do you do?
What do you do?

Management Techniques To Chew On

Continuing from where I left yesterday ...

Most of the management techniques we learn by absorption. Our past and present bosses teach us what to do. We subconsciously absorb all. And why? Because somewhere deep within the actions taken by your bosses resonates with your thought. You are also impressed by the results that flow from the decisions that they take. Or perhaps you are in awe of your boss and s/he just can't go wrong. So, slowly but surely you firm up your management techniques. In other words you become a clone.

How does one break away from this cloning process? By understanding that we can also learn not only what to do from our bosses but also what not to do. You may or may not be in a position to question decisions taken by your boss, but surely you can decide which decisions make sense. Surely you can also decide that even if a decision made lot of sense, it made sense because if the context and not because the decision per se.

So there we have it. We learn by doing what is correct and also learn by not doing what is not correct and also by understanding the context in which some management techniques work and when it does not.

Just so that you get a flavour of what I am talking about, here are a dozen of tongue-firmly-in-cheek (or not) management techniques for you to follow: I am a bad manager. Let me know what you think of these.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words

This post discusses the case study, First Among Equals.

It doesn't matter what you say. What matter sis what you do in the first few months of your new job as MD.

Speech does not work. Actions do.

Here's what I recommend:

1) List out your management techniques (some call it principles).
2) List out your job description.
3) Map your job job description to the principles.
4) If there is no match in some cases, either modify the job description or add techniques.
5) Stick to the techniques, but keep your eyes open to see what is working and what is not. (Caution: Be flexible to change, but do not change your techniques too often)


What?
You do not have a set technique / principle?
How did you become an MD then?

Project Resource Planning

This post discusses the case study, Bird in the Bush.

Resource planning of a project often makes or mars it. Please do not take a decision whether to do a project or not based only on the total strength required for the project. I use a spread sheet to plan my resources, though something like MS Project is equally helpful.

I find XLS useful to draw a Gantt chart. List the projects - current and expected - and draw a bar in front of them to make a Gantt chart. Then in the cells that is covered by the schedule bar, fill in the number of employees you will require for that period. Once you have this in place you can very easily figure out the human-resource requirement for a given period. Suppose each cell represents a week. Clicking and highlighting on the top of the week gives you the total strength required for the entire company. So simple.

Now, once you have the Gantt chart and the human resource requirement with you, you should be able to make a better judgment of whether to take on a new project.

The situation in the case study being discussed is not new. You always need to juggle with resources. And I am not talking of human resource alone. You may be in the position to employ 50 employees who are on bench, but should you do that? What about tool constraints? Do you have enough licenses? Communication is a major problem in a big team.

Taking a decision is never easy. But putting all your options on a spread sheet will help. You will also be in a position to negotiate with the customer. Schedules can be stretched, you know!

One last thing. Refusing a project that is available is foolishness. Especially if your engineers are on bench. In business, especially in business, a bird in hand has more value than the the bird in the bush. But be prepared to handle more than one bird, should all the birds come to your hand. That's what planning is all about.

Software Problems - When You Get Stuck

This post discusses the case study Software Is Not Like Making Shoes

Actually it is like making shoes. At least it should be. It is called software engineering, isn't it? And it is definitely not Research and Development. Managing R&D is an entirely different ball game.

If your design team is unable to progress, than 9/10 they are doing it wrong. In engineering, you use elimination method to detect what the problem is. Eliminate the issues that do not pertain to a problem and you have what requires to be addressed.

But more importantly, what is your role as a Project Manager in this situation?

1) It is necessary to set priority. Get involved in the team's effort. You may or may not be a technical person. But ensure that the team understands that you are as much into it as they are.

2) If you are involved in the team's effort, you will notice that their effort, at times, goes off in an tangent. Stop your team to go on their own voyage of discovery when there is a problem to be resolved.

3) Get the team to list the probable cause of errors - as they understand at that point in time. I like to have a white board on which the points are clearly written down. Once the points are listed, periodically - ideally early morning - sit with the team and address progress on those points. You may have to add points.

4) Ensure all members of the team do not address the same point. Use the white board to list responsibilities against each point.

5) Sometimes it is a good idea to stay with the team late into the night, if they are doing so. Apart from bonding, you will also notice how effectively they are working to solve the problem.

6) Realize that monotony and frustration can set in if a problem prolongs. Step in to give breaks as and when you see it happen.

7) Always, always, involve the customer. Hold regular teleconferences and send regular - daily, if agreed to - status reports.

Managing Risks Beyond The Obvious

This post discusses the case study Food Poisoning Ruined The Project.

I wish I could say it is not your fault that the employees fell ill; that your boss is behaving as if she never faced any problems; and that the customer is not accessible when there is panic. But it is. Really.

That is Project management for you. It is your responsibility to see a project through on time, if not before. Now here are a few tips that can help you to avoid such a situation.

1. The most critical resource in your project is your team. Whenever I see a person of my company eating at a joint and if I think the joint may not be that healthy, I make it a point to tell my engineer to avoid eating there. This may look like interfering outside the office premises, but to me anyone falling ill is within the scope of my project management.

2. Share all your risks with the customer, but more importantly, your team and your boss. Thay ensures that there are no surprises.

3. If you do not have a buffer (in days) on your hand your project management techniques are poor. Unplanned non-availability of resources is a standard risk. Your mitigation action may be anything, but your contingency action is generally a buffer.

4. Before the start of the project, you need to establish a protocol with the customer. How can I contact you in case of emergency? Can I call you on your cell phone, if I really need you? Here is my mobile number; feel free to call me at your convenience. If you are not available, who can I get in touch with?

Even with all risk management and project management, you will face such occasional disasters. As long as you keep your customer, team and boss in the loop from the beginning, you will find them more sympathetic and responsive.