Mumbai Attack -Couple of articles I wish our PM reads (acts)...Really.

I wish I too get to write like them:

Arun Shourie:

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/govt-knew-about-the-threat-did-nothing-arun-shourie/79457-3-p0.html

 First article, that touched my heart on the attack. Under normal circumstances, the writing would have empowered me, but this time, the enormity of the situation left the article wanting a little more punch. Educatory Value: Thank You.

MJ Akbar: http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/dec/02mumterror-pakistan-will-have-to-pay-a-heavy-price.htm

Very subtly touched the complicacy in dealing with the issue, but article keeps the head and heart straight in doing what is right than what is politically right. Definitely a large sample of Indians would subscribe without a change to a single word. Thank You

Practice Eco System - Support Systems

A practice or a young organization exists for servicing a particular need in a narrow area. It is easy at start. You quickly build trust with the single trusted source(for your revenue and existence) and so assemble a team who share the same spirit. You go to great lengths to keep them satisfied and get few more orders based on this work and relationships.

Over a period of time, you move into domains that are traditionally not your fort, but you still know it is doable given the experience you havehad with past projects and processes.

As a coincidence, a project comes in, which is typically skewed, towards higher price figure, and it demands you ramp up team and also need them to work from day 1 in the unknown yet optimistic allied sphere. This is where the problem starts. The talk of this project consumes you completely and make you leave other priorities behind.

This is when support systems, if carefully managed and tuned to anticipate this day, will you show your mettle. To do business as usual when you explode with big orders, it is necessary to evolve with support systems than organic hiring and growth. To integrate multiple partners, vendors, service providers, contractors, part time staff, administrative staff, for bringing a service closer to customer needs requires enough maturity in processes and concern for their well being in not only you, your bosses, but with the organization itself. For pointers I would like to see implemented for good support system would be:

1. Give a differential badge when they enter your premises like "Participative vendor", "Esteemed service provider", "Our Customer" and treat them better - subject them to lesser queries, attend to them faster, give a recognition smile, etc. And please, use a better quality paper than normal visitor tag card.

2. Typical description of support system is that monetary consideration are the fundamental priority over relationships. They start with relationships and would continue long after the professional engagement, but when they become your support system, they need money - simple. So my wish list is to clear their payments immediately or within 7 days than make them give credit and service together.

3. Make legal life simpler - Legal teams are well within their roles and I respect the people in this field who suspect and prevent liabilities and would like to spin their command on language in the stamp paper. But your support system gives you life support and it is important that legal gives in win-win clauses than just look at preventing liabilities at the cost of other. Many a times, my major frustration is in crossing this hurdle.

A good "practice eco system" with support system being the central pillar and other pillars being

1. Your employees

2. Your processes

3. Your IT infrastructure

4. The project management team and

5. Your administrative Team

will deliver the transformation from a cost center to a profit center.

To ensure deliverance in a harmonious ecosystem, you need to cultivate it with Focus, Discipline, Course correction with love for co-existence than as a self contained unit..

Where do you start

Every project, I always fumble the start. This also could be due to fact, that I kick off a new project with new customer every 6 months. Having a behavioral preference for being numbers driven , I prefer hard data collection with which the project plan will be near accurate. Making guesstimate is most uncomfortable situation.

So my own checklist will be
1 .Can you delegate more work to customer. DO IT FIRST.
2. Customer Education (I am posting a new one under "Project Literacy" - includes project team literacy as well)
2. Schedule Plan FIRST. Schedule Plan FIRST.
3. Don't take it on your plate, if you have not done it before and the stakes are high (less time, more work for you, etc)
4. Report Report Report!! This is hardly followed as it is kinda more administrative and mostly good things only happen which is taken for granted.
5. Escalation is a bad word. So if things don't go your way start reporting daily, saying the phase is crucial.

Whose Project is it?

When you win a project, how much do you, rather should you take on your plate? The full responsibility of success or just your work for which you are paid?

In hindsight experience, lack of owner and a project master at client end always ends in a mess and stress. Typical project master qualities should be
1. The project owner should be the direct beneficiary of the program.

2. The content owners/providers must have "something in it for them" individually. May be say, a cosmetic overhaul / better looking PPT service would need to be considered without a change request to customer.

3. The requirement has to be from "business" and not from training/HR cell. Our most business is from Training/HR cells. But such projects are delayed, content inputs flow is disrupted, pressing business transactions, push this to back seat,. Business is the ultimate sign off authority and hence dealing with influencer is most importance.

This now brings me to next question - Do you then work ONLY for which you are paid.
Well Yes. That would be meaning business. However, you as a vendor need to provide perspectives and qualify multiple options out of which a concious decision is comin from customer. So you do share what works and what doesnot based on your past experiences, but not with responsibility and only suggestive in nature.

Start, Stabilize, Explode

Did you guess the missing word in the title ? Well, it is fine and this is the way it should be.

If you feel that instead of Explode, "Grow" must be the word, then you are right, as far as mental models go. However the reality in business is not to "Grow" but explode after a certain point of time.

Growth is very static as the graph rises steadily. But with competition, changing business landscape and above all team and management changes, the graph slopes very lean, that there is hardly any excitement in growth phase. Explode on the other hand, gives your professional career a meaning and reason to stay on against all odds and weaknesses inherent in the company.

"Explode" brings along its disruptions that consumes your attentive mind and body, that it is important to explode on every year. Money with disproportionate lower risk is always better - right. When you explode, the amount of money vs risk of downside is disproportionately low.

We are exploding right now. Challenges already started. What is happenning with you?

Where has our fire gone - Missing Love, Passion from work

This is in continuation to my earlier post - Execution Attributes. Few of my friends pointed out to the cold bloodedness implication of the post. They also said, if the fire within is missing, work is considered the same "W O R K".

This Friday late night, we friend colleagues joined together and were rattling our experiences till 3:00AM in morning. The core revolved around only one theme - Where has our fire gone ? Why do we consider work to be work and do not enjoy it anymore. The more we discussed, the more the topic seemed endless.

This post is to correct the impression and put my execution attributes in the title's perspective.

Focus, Discipline, Course Correction is still the mantra for good executor. Becoming the best requires Love, Passion, Learning which leads to enjoyment in work.

How to create the fire in team? Why should the manager instruct and police the team to work on select weekends or late nights ? Cant the team understand the scope of their and others work to make their mind on how to deliver ? Did we -4 some along with other friend colleagues expect the management to tell us what to do ? Didn't we party hard, work hard, and still wanted to be together to do more?

What should we as managers do to bring the team we worked with back in our own lives? Where will people get love, passion to their work and do what they love?

Googling for practical answers.

Parrot Lines

It is often a sub conscious act that we make monotony of ourselves by repeating our pet ideas, themes, defenses for our line of thinking, with various people, forums, and rake the topic when there is a minimal pause in conversations. Think of times, when you spoke of a topic with same sentences with same group or multiple people at multiple instances. You will often see it when we say the same story over and over again.

It is important to understand the power of this situation - "Parrot Lines".

Parrots are used in India to forecast your future (Still very popular). They are trained to see the color of a card deck and say exactly the line that is appropriate for the card. So the foreteller person,plays a mind game with you. He says that the parrot has intelligence that it chose a color card and after completing his reading, the parrot will speak a line that is apt to the contents in the color card. He says that what he said by seeing the color card that Parrot picks up is validated by parrot again. Hence, having an alibi say the same thing, makes you believe that it is about "YOU" and so the future truth is bare open by parrot and not the foreteller person.

1. Parrot lines are instruments that serve the cause of focus and discipline. Saying them again again in same way, seeks to drive the seriousness of the point and hence rallying teams is easier. At times, they signal closed mindset as well. Rephrasing the parrot lines and reasoning the various other thinking hats, may seek to open the person for better insights, or you know where you are headed if any good discussion always ends with the same parrot line.
2. So be it a peer, juniors/seniors, bosses, customers, vendors, partners, it is important that they know a consistent picture of you when you are not around. Parrot lines help this cause.
• For example, when my boss asks any of my team members about a task/assignment, the member will recollect to give an answer that satisfies me and then my boss. Because, my questions are parroted every time in more or less the same sequence, the team member will exactly know the questions, will answer according to my order.
  
3. Parrot lines can also serve a good reminder message for the critical success factor that is in consideration.It could be like:

• We need to be careful if this would exceed the scope. The scope is for 80 screens. In our recent project, this is the favourite line, I start with and end with in a discussion.
• I would prefer to put more resources and effort, but still schedule constraint may not be addressed. In one of the projects,that I am unable to close (yes, my failure as on this writing date), this is the parrot line, I repeat to customer for every request.

Parrot lines, help a manager to rally the team to a cause with commitment on "passion" than just monetary considerations.

• Imagine the cognitive load, you are putting on me and other reviewers for this output. Can't you make it more easy to comprehend? My favourite line to all my team members, to push them for better output and buy myself more time for task on hand. ;)
• What is your value in this system if you are just a postman, transferring deliverable from one to another? Again my parrot line to all my team members to think of their value in their system. (inherently to reduce the cognitive load on deliverables, that would have been passed without you in the system)
  

Parrot lines are important to put things in perspective. Perception is built over a period of time looking at consistent and inconsistent behavior of group (mostly senior management leading by example, needs to be careful about this one). When I need more than realistic expectation, my parrot lines are:

1. Let us get it done for leaving a legacy and add it to our portfolio first. It is up to company to leverage it or not.

What parrot lines do you have in your arsenal and are you conscious about it?