Valeska I. Jacques

In continuation from this article…

In Dog and Human Behavior , CW Meisterfeld and Ernest Pecci, describe an experiment in which a cage is divided into two equal sections, one empty and one housing lab mice.  When mice were given mild shocks the mice quickly learned to cross into the safe zone. As long as this was consistent, the mice appear to be minimally disturbed by inconvenience. However, start administering the shocks randomly and INCONSISTENTLY, the mice will soon huddle helplessly in a corner, gradually ignoring the shocks.
“Employee rely on knowing the rules.

“If you’re inconsistent, they’ll always wonder how to make you happy, which is obviously not as productive as doing a great job based on clear performance standards.” Alpha Male Syndrome, Kate Ludlam, Eddie Erlanson

The next steps to remain consistent with the implementation of these protocols are:
1.    Create a buy in or prep discussion as to why this is important for everyone as a team
2.    Important your team is COMMITTED to incorporate the new protocols into their day to day.
3.    Make sure you set an example of following protocols as well.
4.    BE PATIENT. There is a learning curve for everyone to understand how to use the web software. Plus, the and the other change they need to adapt to is getting in the habit of how to use it according to the rules. Have you provided some time for your team to adjust to the new processes?
5.    Through out this process encourage your teams’ feedback, ideas, and suggestions. Everyone has different and varied perspectives that each are important to consider while streamlining your operations.
6.    Important your team understands this mantra: Individuals who care about their team identify with other members by watching each other’s back, take personal risks for the common good and do what it takes for the team to win.
7.    Instill a place for everyone to submit their ideas and questions to so you have a consolidated place to review. This opens the lines of communication to allow everyone to feel they are part of the continuous change needed to improve the business process.
8.    Throughout this process you will find the need to fine tune some processes and then provide additional training. It may require team collaboration to revisit the AS-IS Process Map, some team training to learn the new business rules/systems/process, or one on one training. In this article I provide some suggestions when addressing these suggestions, but what’s most important is TAKING ACTION after this information is submitted AND do not wait too long before addressing it.

The benefits of incorporating these steps are that you will find a reduction of negativity that places at work and less complaints about the “toxic co-workers.” Click Here to see the list of benefits of how business process management helps your business.

Accountability is a common problem in the workplace and the demand to find a working model for accountability is challenging. Everyone is different in their personal work and communication styles and the challenge in getting everyone to work together effectively takes a series of steps to ensure each one is creating ownership of how they affect each other in the workplace.

Without accountability you are experiencing:
• Excuse making
• Finding faults
• Misunderstandings

The series of articles that we will discuss is how communication, process, and internet tools may come together as a stepping stone to build an accountable working model.

The following suggestions will help create accountability, prevent blame, and instill good communication into your team environment.

Delegation

Robert Shapiro, former Chairman and CEO of Monsanto said:

“If you could get every person to be 30% more effective in performing their jobs, not by working harder and not by working smarter in ways that have already been tapped, but by becoming 30% more effective in working together, you’d be way ahead of you industry.”

One way of effectively delegating responsibilities with web software is using to do’s and milestones as tools to help manage tasks surrounding your project. If you take the project management system, Basecamp for example, you may use milestones to allow your team to schedule their time. These web tools allow everyone to have a calendar system to refer to in order to understand overall deliverables and ensure an effective working environment.
1. Eliminate the wasted time spent to collectively sort through tons of emails and message threads to obtain real-time project status.
2. Eliminate the wasted time spent following up on items we need to move forward on to complete projects. i.e. overall status reporting, and next step direction (I like to call this the baton pass)….
3. Eliminate confusion about where a project is and who’s responsible for the next step for completion.
4. Create a realistic project roll out so we deliver our projects/services on time, every time with 100% satisfaction by effectively managing both client expectations and production resources.

Encourage everyone to actively follow milestone delegation and contribute thoughtful feedback and ideas to continuously to improve the effectiveness of using this tool.

An upcoming article on Consistency will go into detail as to why it will help employees stick to performance standards.

Below are resources to help you find the right CMS systems. Are you currently using one? DO you recommend anyone in particular? What do you like about it?

Articles on Choosing a CMS system:

http://www.packtpub.com/article/how_to_choose_an_open_source_content_management_system

http://www.opensourcecms.com/hobbes/HowToChooseACMS.pdf

Here is an extensive list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems

Awards:

http://www.packtpub.com/award

The problem with today’s organizations is that each department has optimized its own subdivision by operating off of their own agenda and performance metrics which do not align resources with the overall organizational strategy.

In managing your employees, you find:

• You are spending more time following up
• They are not working on what’s priority for the company’s objective
• Everyone is blaming each other
• Wondering who is accountable to handle these tasks
• You are better off handling the task yourself because it will get done faster

BPM improves business agility which in today’s economy is becoming increasingly important as business moves at the speed of thought. Companies need to be prepared to change direction, capture and develop new markets, or react to industry changes. Click here to read about the different stages a business goes through when incorporating BPM into your workplace.

Executive management needs a comprehensive view into all aspects of the business in order to maximize returns and manage the operation effectively. To make this happen, your organization will go through various work management styles until your organization is capable to evolve easily and seamlessly as competition stiffens, you experience growth or when demand increases. The rewards are greater efficiency, effectiveness, and perhaps even survival.

BPM improves business agility which in today’s economy is becoming increasingly important as business moves at the speed of thought. Companies need to be prepared to change direction, capture and develop new markets, or react to industry changes.

BPM affects business in 3 major ways:

First it provides clarity and allows management to really understand how the business operates so they can make important decisions based on accurate information. Once there is a clear picture it enables better risk management, opportunity assessment, and resource allocation for future strategic initiatives. Knowing where you are and being able to analyze and measure how potential change will impact your business leads to increase in quality, cycle time improvements, and employees and customer satisfaction.

Second, it provides a solid organizational structure. Some think that business agility is merely moving people around or implementing some packaged software, but it really is about creating total synergy between technology, process and people.

Finally, it harnesses mass collaboration and provides an opportunity for all team members, at all levels, the ability to greatly improve productivity and cultivate innovation.

With an effective BPM solution your business WILL experience

• Increased Revenue
• Decreased Costs
• Improved Customer Satisfaction (service)
• New found business agility
• More control over business activities
• Increased efficiency and performance
• Seamless introduction of new team members into existing systems
• Improved ways to process work orders
• Better communication with staff, clients, and partners
• Clear documentation of all tasks in a complete operational manual
• A competitive advantage
• Realistic performance metrics.
• Collaboration among team members cultivating innovation and creativity
• Automated and optimized business processes

Companies are starting to realize they NEED BPM consulting, training, and support in order to compete in the new economy.

Uvium is excited to be a part of the convergence of collaboration and process management, as we consult progressive companies and organizations in uniting: people, process and technology. We optimize our BPM solutions by integrating the latest Web 2.0 tools enabling users to create and share their own applications, processes, and content.

PLEASE LEAVE US A COMMENT BELOW AS TO HOW THIS ARTICLE AFFECTED YOU!

Most businesses fit in one of these 5 stages of the BPM Cycle.

Stage 0 - (Unaware)

People are unaware that business rules have a value worth contemplating.

Business Rules are buried in code, documents, and people’s heads. You lack the ability to accurately predict how change would impact your business. What’s probably taking place in your business is that there is talk about harvesting business rules from your staff, documents, or mining it through the software code that is used to run your day to day activities, but that has yet to happen. You may even lack a well drafted working Operations Manual. Do any of the following sound familiar? 

• Your organization has outgrown your current technology
• Your staff and or clients are frustrated with delayed deliveries, human error, and miscommunication while providing service.
• It’s difficult to quickly access the information you need
• You implemented a business process, but no one uses it.
• Good policy change doesn’t get implemented
• It’s challenging to track and follow up with sales leads
• You don’t have the in house resources or time to keep your website updated.
• Customers can’t seem to get answers to critical questions in a timely matter.
• Processes are managed by different teams, thus increasing the chances of tasks slipping through the cracks and or important issues lost in translation.
• You know the direction you want to lead your business, but are held back due to operational issues.
• You are trying to figure out an internet strategy that compliments your business plan.

These are just a few of the problems small business face at the “Unaware” stage

Its ok! There is hope once you find PURPOSE! 

At this stage there is an understanding that there IS value in establishing business rules and executing day to day operations based on these rules. These rules generally exist in a digital repository accessible and managed manually and available only to top level executives in documents or spreadsheets. The ability to predict the impact of these rules is low. Analyzing your business rules at this stage is possible, but time consuming and often not done at all. You understand the value and organizational efficiency inherent in business rules and you aspire to implement an intelligent, forward thinking BPM system but lack know how, time, strategy, or training to execute this initiative.

As companies continue to rely on technology to drive business growth, they are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits effective performance management can bring to all areas of the organization.

Evaluating or seeking to implement BPM software

Performing an organizational self-assessment is a great place to start

Can your company independently assess its needs and requirements? Most companies find this to be quite difficult. Does your company have in-house the expertise, both technically and functionally, to evaluate the vendor offerings in the market today? BPM is still a relatively arcane science; its blend of business process and technology makes it legitimately a “hybrid” specialty.

The objective to optimize an area which has been identified as an area for improvement – if you don’t know this area you need a mapping session (call 2 action contact  a Uvium consultant to Schedule a mapping session)

Level 2 (Repeatable):

“Employees rely on knowing the rules. If you’re inconsistent, they’ll always wonder how to make you happy, which is obviously not as productive as doing a great job based on clear performance standards.” Alpha Male Syndrome, Kate Ludlam, Eddie Erlanson

At this stage an organization begins to aggressively analyze their business rules and change is driven by this analysis. This happens by creating a custom documentation process that clearly defines the individual role of BPM and incorporates accountability and structure to integrate and analyze established rules on a continuous basis. Analysis of your business rules is possible and automated, yet the ability to predict the impact of these rules is still low. At this point you probably adopted some BPM software and are capable of defining, changing, and implementing business rules.

Early adopters of BPM systems are achieving top-quartile performance results in a range of areas from finance and accounting, budgeting, financial reporting, to planning, and performance measurement, to name a few. In conjunction with solid business intelligence and web centric infrastructure, a new robust BPM system if implemented and administered effectively can support new and improved processes and sustain rapid growth.

Experience double digit growth, increased efficiency, eliminate bottle necks – find out how in a Uvium work session.

What we do in a work session

Identification and prioritization of strategic initiatives

Project scoping and kick-off

Team development

Requirements definition for supporting technology

Design specifications for supporting technology

Risk Analysis

Test Planning and Test Scenario development

Implementation Planning

Work-in-Progress Reviews throughout the project lifecycle

Post-implementation Reviews

Level 3 (Defined):

Robert Shapiro, former Chairman and CEO of Monsanto said:

“If you could get every person to be 30% more effective in performing their jobs, not by working harder and not by working smarter in ways that have already been tapped, but by becoming 30% more effective in working together, you’d be way ahead of you industry.”

At this level an organization usually displays an active rules management system which takes advantage of forward thinking mass collaboration strategies. Implementation of these strategies achieves high levels of success from the practice of sharing business rules past previous executive boundaries. The overall benefits of BPM have become very clear and measurable. These proven rules and techniques can now be standardized and made readily available throughout the whole organization.

Level 4 (Measurable):

Here the ability to predict the impact of rule changes on business is possible, and directly associated with business metrics that correlate with organizational efficiency and growth.   At this point you understand how business rules influence your client base, can predict how managing rules realize future profits, and better understand where time is spent amongst your staff so bottle necks can be eliminated.

At this level you have a well established BPM system that runs smoothly with web centric real-time access without boundaries for mass collaboration and synergy amongst all involved members. The business is thriving following intelligent forward thinking rules. By consistent measurement you improve operational efficiency and predictive decision management. You are poised to react quickly to new market opportunities and generate maximum return on future BPM initiatives. 

Leave us a comment below on what you think!

I just returned from New York where I checked out companies that design, market, and produces Internet TV shows for users. One of them was: http://www.foryourimagination.com/

Here is a picture of one of a movie reel they hosted for their invitees so everyone can check out the latest “tv shows” out there.

I also attended a conference called The Future of Television. I was hoping to hear all the latest and greatest of what the TV has to offer. However, the main focus was about two components about TV. The importance of how TV must incorporate the internet as part of their distribution model to get advertising circulated in various mediums.  The other is how consumers are pushing content themselves and we are in an era where everything we want is on demand. Tivo is a perfect example. We fast forward through commercials, we demand exactly what we want to see and when we want to see it.

Here is an article about how consumers prefer to see something professionally made rather than people recording in their own back yards. Do you think this article is biased or for real? Click here.

Tip for the day:

From Susan M. Heathfield,

One of the 7 tips to manage workplace negativity is to:
Make opportunities available for people to express their opinion about workplace policies and procedures.

This tip exemplifies when your team is unhappy, it is time to reassess your business processes. There have been times that I have seen individuals who have conflict with each other, is due to the different views on how each of them should process the work order.

By allowing collective feedback from your team, it opens up what should be improved…..however, sometimes there is a misunderstanding or a lack of understanding on how a protocol is supposed to work.

When this situation arises, this presents the moderator the opportunity to educate how the process works, thus allowing everyone to get on the same page as to how to approach the situation the next time around.

click here to read the rest of the article.

Take a poll to see what makes you misearble at work and see how you match the rest of those who answered this same question!

What Do You Think?

I am always interested in hearing your reaction to and thoughts about my articles. Leave a comment in this blog or submit a question here.

For immediate release

Contact: Valeska Jacques, uVium, Inc. Chapter Communications Director (305) 443-4110

Or Anne B. Freedman, NAWBO Miami president, at Speak Out, Inc., 305-273-6640

Beyond Networking: Leveraging Your Relationships to Build Your Business and Profits with National President, Lisa Hickey, National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO)

Greater Miami Chapter, National
Association of Women Business Owners

Nov. 8, 2007, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce

1601 Biscayne Blvd.

Ballroom Level – Ryder Conference Center

Cost: $45 for non-members, $40 for guests. $50 at the door (space available basis only)

Reservations: rsvp@nawbomiami.org

Miami – Want to leverage your relationships and networking for increased business and opportunities? Plan to attend the Nov. 8^th “working lunch” meeting of the Greater Miami Chapter, National Association of Women Business Owners, 11:30 a.m., at the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, 1601 Biscayne Blvd., Miami, in the Ryder Conference Center.

Featured speakers are Lisa Hickey, National President of the National Association of Women Business Owners, Gayle Bainbridge, Elliott, McKiever and Stowe, Inc., Chairman of the Women’s Center at Florida International University, and Vickie Marks, Marketing Director for the Small and Emerging Markets, UPS Capital.

Corporate sponsors include UPS, Biscayne Center, and Ocean Bank.

Cost is $40 for members and $45 for guests. You don’t need to be a woman business owner to attend. Payment at the door is $50. Space is limited. Please rsvp@nawbomiami.org, or call 305-271-6797.

Long lines, late flights, near collisions—everyone is unhappy with the state of the U.S. air travel system. Unfortunately, no one, expecially not the FAA, seems able to do anything about it

When no one’s in charge, no one can be held accountable. Small aircraft operators blame the big airlines for scheduling too many flights out of the major airports. The big carriers say the smaller operators aren’t paying their share of what it takes to maintain the air traffic control system. The controllers complain they are understaffed and underpaid, and that their facilities need repair. The FAA says it needs new revenue sources to invest in new technologies. Congress says the FAA needs to manage the money it has better. And passengers blame everybody in sight, but aren’t willing to spend a dime more on tickets.

• It’s not a lack of money. Last year the FAA did not spend all of the money it was allocated. Nor is it a lack of knowhow.
• Existing technology could easily meet the demands created by the exploding number of fliers.
• Nor, for that matter, is it security concerns.

Instead, it’s a fundamental organizational failure: Nobody is in charge.

The various players in the system, including big airlines, small aircraft owners, labor unions, politicians, airplane manufacturers, and executives with their corporate jets, are locked in permanent warfare as they fight to protect their own interests. And the FAA, a weak agency that needs congressional approval for how it raises and spends money, seems incapable of breaking the gridlock. “The FAA as currently structured is impossible to run efficiently,” says Langhorne M. Bond, administrator of the agency from 1977 to 1981.

Click here to read more.

AjaxWP -  Adds AJAX to all aspects of your WordPress site, which speeds up the load times.Alexa Rank - Display your Alexa rank with pride.

Ajax Comment Preview - Allows readers to preview their comment before submitting.

asTunes - Retrieves data from your Audioscrobbler/last.fm profile and posts it as a list on your blog.

Codebox - Creates a side scrolling box for displaying code snippets.

Crossroads - Adds thumbnails and comments from your Flickr account.

FireStats - Full featured statistics including referrers and popular pages.

Google PageRank - Allows you to display your Google Page Rank on your blog.

Hardened-Trackback - Generates a single-use trackback to help fight trackback spam.

imgViewJX - Refreshes an image on your main page from a selected directory.

Live Spell Checker - Adds a spell checker to your posts in the admin area.

Plug ‘n’ Play Google Map - If you include longitude and latitude in your post, this will automatically add it to a Google Map on a separate page. Very useful for blogs writing restaurant reviews or about events.

WordPress Mailing List - Have a mailing list? Let readers subscribe and unsubscribe from the front page of your site.

WP e-Commerce - Adds a shopping cart to your WordPress powered site.

WP-Polls - Adds fully customizable polls to your blog.

WP-Post Ratings - Allows readers to rate your posts.

Zorpia That’s Hot Box - Allows visitors to send posts they like to Zorpia.com and vote on their favorites.

AJAX Comments 2.0 - - Auto updates the comments page with no full reload, enabling much smoother commenting than the older full reload system.

AJAX Google Video Search - Search Google Video without leaving your favorite blog.

AJAX Shoutbox - Real time conversation with sound to alert you to new messages.

Cool Weather - Allows visitors to see the weather forecast for any location they choose.

Currency Converter - Adds a real time currency converter to the page with data from Yahoo Finance.

Google AJAX Search - Allows you to setup search for your site, the web, and another site such as your Flickr account.

Google MapSearch Widget - Allows readers to search Google Maps without ever leaving the page.

Gregarious - Social bookmarking plugin that adds Digg, Reddit, Feedburner FeedFlare buttons and more.

Hottaimoijiruna - Adds a self-updating clock to the site for a timezone defined by the blogger.

Inline Ajax Comments - Hides comments until the user clicks on them.

Inline Ajax Page - Displays a snippet of a post and then allows the reader to click a button to load the full entry without going to another page.

Tagboard Widget - Adds an auto-updating tagboard to your site that displays new messages as they are posted.

Units Converter - Converts hundreds of different units of length, area, volume, weight / mass, and speed without reloading the page.

WP Movie Ratings - Combines data from IMDB with the blogger’s movie review and allows the readers to add their own ratings.

XDTalk - Allows real-time conversation between registered users.

Akismet -  - Anti-spam plugin from the creators of WordPress that uses a central database of spam comments to identify spam. Requires a free API key from WordPress.com

Spam Karma - Analyzes comments for spam based on a karma system.

Bad Behavior - Prevents spam bots from accessing your site by analyzing their HTTP requests.

Did You Pass Math? - Asks users a simple math question before their comments are posted.

Comment Timeout - Closes comments on old posts.

Encourage Commenting

BlogFollow - Shows a snippet of the user’s blog beneath their comment.

DoFollow - Removes “nofollow” attributes from links in comments so search engines can follow them.

DoFollow Trackbacks - Removes “nofollow” attributes from trackbacks.

Show Top Commentators - Lists your most frequent commenters along with links to their blogs.

Improve Appearance

Nicer Trackbacks - Improves the appearance of trackbacks from other blogs.

WP-NoSh*t - Filters bad words from comments.

Numbered Comments Adds numbers to comments.

AuthorHighlight - Highlights comments by the blog’s author.

Comment Highlighter - Styles comments based on the author’s name, email, or URL.

wp-chunk - Truncates long URLs in comments to prevent them from stretching the page.

Enable Rich Comments

Custom Smileys - Adds clickable smiley emoticons to comments.

TinyMCEComments - Turns the comment box into a full-featured rich text editor.

Live Comment Preview - Allows readers to preview their comment before posting.

Edit Comments XT - Allows users to edit their own comments.

Enable Avatars

Gravatar - Displays user-selected avatars next to comments.

Favatars - Pulls the favicon from a commenter’s blog or website and uses it for their avatar.

MBLA - Adds user images from MyBlogLog to comments.

OpenID Comments - Lets readers comment with their OpenID identity.

Click here to find the rest.