alignment

Squishy Goals Mean Squishy Outcomes

By |October 31st, 2014|Categories: Strategy|Tags: , , , , , , , , |Comments Off on Squishy Goals Mean Squishy Outcomes

Performance measurements are only as good as your goals.

Goals ► Priorities ► Outcomes ► Initiatives

Do your organizational goals sound something like this: Foster talent by building a culture that maximizes opportunities for growth. Sounds nice, right? But how would you measure that? How would you know when you’ve achieved it? The truth is, it would be next to impossible. Whether you’re creating goals at an organizational level or at an operational level, here are some tips for improving them so that you can demonstrate their achievement.

Describe the outcome.
The trick is to describe the result you hope to achieve rather than the activity. Measuring an activity can result in meaningless metrics. (It is also wise to stay away from words and phrases that cannot be measured such as maximize or more efficient.) Here’s a possibility: Growth and innovation will increase through training, mentoring, and creating time buffers around scheduled projects.

Studies have shown that goal specificity and level of difficulty have a direct impact on employee performance: Goals that are specific and challenging (but not unreasonable) lead to better performance by motivating employees.

Create line of sight.

Just as important, a clear line of sight should exist between corporate objectives and the goals set at the operational level—employees should be able to grasp their roles’ importance in the larger picture. In order to achieve this, it is helpful to include different levels of the organization in developing the goals to ensure consensus, cooperation, and realistic goal-setting.

Define the measure.

Once your goals have been determined, you will be able to think about how you will measure the outcome.

Performance measures should be as explicit as your goals, and answer the following:

It is an old saying but true: you cannot manage what …
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Applying The 80/20 Principle To Portfolio Management

By |October 9th, 2014|Categories: time|Tags: , , , , , , , |Comments Off on Applying The 80/20 Principle To Portfolio Management

The 80/20 principle posits that 80% of organizational value comes from 20% of your projects. The 80/20 allocation seems to hold true for a lot of things: I know I wear 20% of my clothing 80% of the time, and I use my pots and pans the same way. Nevertheless, the 80/20 principle is a particularly handy concept when thinking about managing the projects in your portfolio.

First, using the 80/20 principle, think about which projects are critical, must-haves, and core to your mission (about 20% of the whole array), and set aside those that are discretionary or not vital. During this exercise, projects that should be eliminated altogether should be obvious. (Be ruthless.) Of the mission-critical projects, decide which should proceed and which should be deferred based on urgency and capacity. Considerations during your deliberations should include:

Second, having decided which projects should proceed, it is time to collaborate with the entire range of managers, from line managers to senior managers, to prioritize them. Each will contribute something to the debate, and it is better to debate now than waste valuable resources (time, money, and people) later. Line managers will have first-hand knowledge of processes and capacity; middle management will have a better view of the interplay and inter-relationships between departments and activities, and top management will possess the long view that encompasses the overall organization direction and strategy. And obviously, inviting greater participation overall means greater cooperation and commitment.

Third, once your projects have been prioritized, it is time to figure out who will be doing what. Streamlining your projects down to the vital few has the added benefit of not stretching the capacity you have, but concentrating it where it is needed most. Here I …
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Cutting Your Project Portfolio Down to Size

By |July 10th, 2014|Categories: Planning|Tags: , , , , , , |Comments Off on Cutting Your Project Portfolio Down to Size

That big project portfolio of yours is your biggest headache. It’s true. If you are like most companies, your portfolio has grown to an unwieldy size, which means you have way too many projects competing for the same resources. Here’s what to do.

First, inventory ALL projects and activities that require any kind of IT resources, making sure to include non-obvious ones like SMEs and user training time. According to Gartner, 60% of IT’s budget is spent on operational, “keep the light on” activities, so it is important that these are included to ensure correct allocation of project resources. Projects that pull resources from core operations can create business risk.

Second, decide who will comprise a governance committee, i.e., who will make decisions concerning the portfolio. This should be a mix of IT and business leaders with the authority to make decisions for the organization. The governance committee will determine which projects should continue, which should be delayed, and which should be terminated. These decisions will be made based on determining which projects have the potential to create the most value for the company. Each project in the portfolio should align with business goals and be ranked on the strength of its business case outlining benefits, costs and risk. Keep this simple, but also be on the lookout for project interdependencies. You certainly don’t want a critical project bungled because it relied on deliverables from another project that was killed or delayed.

The importance of strong governance in the portfolio process cannot be overstated. Projects that are nice but not essential drain away resources that could be used more productively. Focus on cutting unnecessary demand and don’t start new projects until you know for certain that …
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Transparency & Cost Optimization… Bank on it!!

By |June 19th, 2014|Categories: Leadership|Tags: , , , , , , , |Comments Off on Transparency & Cost Optimization… Bank on it!!

In my last blog I spoke about the four principles that lead to better Cost Optimization. They were Transparency, Flexibility, Simplification and Discipline. I would like to take this opportunity to discuss Transparency in more detail.

How many times has IT management staff felt that their business partners don’t appreciate or understand the effort, time and money required to satisfy a business demand? On the other hand, how many times do you think business partners wonder if IT is focusing on the correct enterprise initiatives, or why their requests are not satisfied to their expectation level? The answer? Too many times to count on both hands. Without transparency, the worst fears of both sides and all stakeholders become a reality.

Webster defines Transparency as “the quality that makes something obvious or easy to understand.” At TransAccel, we view Transparency as a prerequisite for making better supply and demand decisions that are based on cutting the right costs in the right way, while maintaining what is most valuable to the organization. With transparency, the IT organization can participate in valuable discussions that balance costs with IT benefits.

Transparency should exist across all sectors of IT – but especially crucial are:

The first step toward Transparency is to divide IT services into two camps: those that support core (vital, no one else can do them) activities and operations, and those that could be outsourced if need be (non-core). Obviously, step one goes a long way in determining where resources and assets should be allocated (or not). For transparency and cost optimization to occur, defining and validating IT business services must be carried out, even if this is done through a series of incremental steps rather than a complete transformation.

Poor Transparency …
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September: Conscious Planning… IT Planning Season Has Begun

By |September 1st, 2011|Categories: Planning|Tags: , , |Comments Off on September: Conscious Planning… IT Planning Season Has Begun

Although strategy determines IT’s focus and direction, it’s planning that drives execution. And, despite the obvious importance of planning, very few IT organizations do it, other than to create a list of projects they hope to focus on. That’s not planning—that’s a wish list. We could argue for hours about the myriad reasons IT organizations lack a robust annual planning process, but it all comes down to needing to know how to do it, and having the discipline to do it once you know how.

In an effort to make planning less overwhelming, every month I am going to provide in this space a guide for the upcoming month. This guide will include a checklist and a set of questions that every IT leader should contemplate to be successful in 2012.

The first step to IT planning is aligning the IT calendar to the corporate calendar. If you are like most of our clients, the corporate financial calendar is based on the yearly calendar. This makes September the most critical time of the year in terms of planning for the following year’s success. Therefore, from a corporate calendar perspective (January through December), the first month in an annual planning calendar should be September.

September has begun, and, with the Labor Day holiday, we’re all probably behind schedule already. It’s time to get back to work—there is little time to be wasted. Here is where I recommend you begin:

September Theme: Alignment

To do:

Determine what 2011 projects are slipping
Ascertain what needs to happen to complete 2011 projects
Focus resources on completing those projects
Arrange for face-to-face meetings with divisional leadership. The objective is to hear and engage with each business unit regarding its objectives for 2012.
Immediately following these meetings, the IT business …
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