dataland

Feeling Good

Mon, 28 Apr 2014 09:30:00 GMT

To start, here is my friend’s comment: “People used to be so proud of their work. When a tradesperson came out to fix something, one used to be impressed with their interest in solving a problem and skill at finding a solution. Now, everyone is just interested in blaming something or someone else for the problem and transferring the work to solve the problem.”

Excuses, excuses …

I see the problem from two different angles: aptitude and attitude.

Certainly, it was easier to know “everything” many years ago when there was less to learn; there was a single scenario with no variants and it was easy to deal with. Today there is too much to learn, so people tend to specialize in a single task; if they do not know the answer or cannot resolve the issue, their only option is to direct us to another ‘specialist’.

On the other hand, the predominant behavior these days is to only do what you are paid for, or what you have been trained to do. So, if after installing a dishwasher by following the instructions and it doesn’t work properly, it becomes “somebody else’s problem”. In the case of my friend, the technician was hired to install the dishwasher; if in his job description it isn’t explicitly written that he is to install the machine and make sure it works properly, why should he care if he already did his job?

The other day, another friend pointed out a different angle: people are so busy that they would rather send you to deal with somebody else instead of helping you, even if they know how to help.

What is important?

Maybe we need to ask ourselves how important it is to care about how we impact our co-workers and our customers when performing our job. We can choose to do the same job taking into consideration who we deal with. It doesn’t mean that we need to know everything, and it doesn’t mean that we need to do everything for everybody, but a little consideration can make our customers happy and will also make us feel more satisfied when performing our job.

Let’s go back to the dishwasher installer: he decided not to do anything for the customer; but if he had taken ownership of the problem and made a couple of phone calls, given the customer a follow up call, or had simply used the proper language (instead of blaming others), my friend would definitely have had a different impression of the technician and probably he would feel better for having done a good job by making his customer happy.

The bottom line is that if we go the “extra mile” the outcome is much more satisfactory for both sides; no matter which job we do, it is important not only to do a good job, but to do a little extra to benefit everyone.

I know it is hard because sometimes we are measured by quantity and not by quality; but I have consistently found that doing a little more will always help to avoid problems in the future. It is not deciding between quality and quantity, it is maintaining a balance between keeping our customer happy and our manager satisfied with our work. Having a happy customer as well as a happy boss will definitely make you smile at the end of the day.

Resources

Sometimes the reason for not helping is because we feel overwhelmed, given the fact that we don’t know everything. But what gives us better credibility is to accept that we don’t know the answer when faced with a challenge; instead we can use the many resources available everywhere to look for answers. This has two effects: we learn new things all the time, and we feel the satisfaction of solving a problem or helping somebody.

Co-workers, friends, the web, and even books are resources that can help us make a difference as people and as workers. Asking questions to help somebody indicates that we care and that we want to help. As I said, we aren’t expected to know everything or to have every answer; it is a matter of having the attitude to look for answers to everyday problems.

Why not?

It might be a personal choice, but I guess my parents taught me that it is better to give more than less. Why not? It makes us better people and, in my case, it makes me feel good with what I do.

What makes a good Project Manager?

Thu, 06 Feb 2014 09:35:00 GMT

Introduction

During my professional career I have worked with many project managers; I have also played the role myself, managing various small and big projects, so I have come to appreciate a good and skilled project manager.

It is very interesting to see the different types of skills each project manager brings to the table as each person is different, but it is also fascinating to learn from achievements and failures. Yes, we have all participated in both successful and unsuccessful projects.

So what makes a good Project Manager?

Definition

Let’s start with the definition by Wikipedia : “A project manager is the person responsible for accomplishing the stated project objectives. Key project management responsibilities include creating clear and attainable project objectives, building the project requirements, and managing the constraints of the project management triangle, which are cost, time, scope, and quality.”

Is it enough?

Each time I search for contracts, I come across postings for “Project Managers”. Most of them require the candidates to be able to handle a budget, provide solutions on time, and meet project objectives. In essence, companies look for professionals who are more or less “administrative assistants” for the project. But what about defining the project?

The definition reveals something very important when handling a project: one of the most important skills a Project Manager needs to have is the ability to analyze the objectives in detail in order to define solid and reasonable requirements. More importantly, the Project Manager has to make sure that the objectives make sense for the business and are understood by the stakeholders: what are they going to “get in return” by going ahead with a project? Efficiency, cost reduction, customer satisfaction, growth?

But is this enough? Unfortunately, in certain situations the stakeholders are not the ones who operate the business on a day to day basis, and their needs might not be realistic. The project manager needs to gather information from every level in the company in order to be objective when making decisions. This, at the end, is one of the keys to implementing a successful project.

As I see it a Project Manager needs to have certain skills that are usually overlooked: he or she needs to be a good listener and a good negotiator, making sure to always have the purpose in mind, because ultimately, the project manager is accountable for the success of the project.

Facilitator or Obstacle?

Last year I had the experience of working for a company as a contractor; the Project Manager assigned to the project I was working on didn’t have a clue about it. I have to say that he was brought into the project when the requirements were already defined, so I wrote a scope of work describing in detail the requirements and the proposed solution. It was very sad to see that he ignored everything described in the document and only read the page outlining the cost of the solution and when it was going to be delivered. This project was going to affect the daily tasks of at least 50 users and my only contact in the company was the project manager who never got up to speed.

Let’s analyze the two sides of the coin: Probably for him it was overwhelming because he wasn’t able to help me and didn’t have the skills to feel confident about the functionality and the quality of my work. From my side it was very frustrating because he wasn’t able to deal with my inquiries; he became an obstacle for the project.

No matter how big or small a project is, one of the roles of the Project Manager is to facilitate communication between all parties involved. I am not saying that the individual needs to have all the answers, but being resourceful and solving problems while under pressure is a must when dealing with a project. Each unanswered question contributes to an unsuccessful project; even though not every answer will make everybody happy.

Conclusion :

Project Managers wear many hats, but apart from having a business background, they are people oriented: listening, negotiating, facilitating, giving constructive feedback… in other words, they are leaders.

Usually leaders are trusted, leaders are followed, and leaders get people working together. Leaders protect, and leaders have specific objectives to fulfill people’s needs.

So, in my experience, a good Project Manager is someone who is a natural leader and who can cover every angle of a project from start to finish.

How PlanetPress became a “Best Friend”

Mon, 13 Jan 2014 09:47:00 GMT

In 2005 I was introduced to a tool called PlanetPress . In the beginning the experience was exciting because I was able to visit Montreal for a week while in training. But when I came back I felt overwhelmed because I had a tool that was supposed to help me print and archive the company’s operational documents but I didn’t have a clue how to make it happen.

The users were very frustrated with the current system that generated invoices and statements as it was very slow, so it was a very good opportunity to find a new way of creating and handling these and many other distribution and manufacturing documents.

Initially, we focused on fixing the problem: performance. At that time the users didn’t care about the documents’ layout. They were only looking after handling high volumes of documents without needing to wait for their screen to slowly process one document at a time. We were able to cut processing time by 85%. This was the first victory PlanetPress had among the end users and managers!

Even though users didn’t want to change the documents’ layout we redesigned them using PlanetPress and this opened the managers’ eyes. They started requesting changes to French labels, custom messages and branding. We ended up having a very different set of documents for each brand which gave a visual identity for users and customers. At this point it became clear that the users were starting to trust PlanetPress as a “friend” and not a system that was simply imposed by the IT department. The term PlanetPress became a common word in the company’s dictionary.

But why stop there? Even though we purchased PlanetPress to solve a specific problem, we had the opportunity to go even further and automate the delivery of those documents, so we started by analyzing what was done with each document after printing. It was incredible to learn that users spent a lot of time dealing with the majority of the printed copies: adding stamps, photocopying, scanning, sending them through inter-office mail, filing copies for reference, and mailing, faxing or emailing copies to customers.

We had the tool to automate all these tasks, so for each type of document we described the business process behind it and implemented the automation with PlanetPress. Once the document was printed from their system, users didn’t need to do anything else. PlanetPress took the whole task from formatting to delivering the documents to their destination based on their content and business practices. At this point PlanetPress became the “best friend” among users and managers!

Then we decided to launch a campaign among the customers in which they were able to choose if they wanted to receive their invoices, credits and statements through regular mail, email, and/or fax. Customers’ response was amazing and we were able to reduce our mailing by 50%. At that point we decided to schedule printing of invoices, credits and statements to the time when printers weren’t busy which resulted in the elimination of lost documents.

At this point we needed to have an IT person dedicated 100% to PlanetPress as everybody wanted to implement new processes and make changes to the automation. Users got so demanding that we had special workflows for certain key customers and suppliers. We implemented rules that allowed PlanetPress to decide what to show on the documents:

Once our distribution documents were all settled and the workflows were implemented as per users’ satisfaction, we started to analyze other manufacturing documents. PlanetPress then started producing purchase orders, manufacturing work orders, inspection documents, instructions and ingredient documents, etc.

The only “little” task remaining was getting executives and managers on board to rely on our archiving system and to stop printing filing copies.

When we implemented PlanetPress for the first time we started saving copies of each document; we didn’t have an archiving (EDM) tool but we knew it was something very important if we really wanted to see a complete solution around our operational documents. We chose Fortis from Westbrook because it has a flawless integration with PlanetPress and we loaded all the documents with success. The problem was that users were used to reprinting certain documents from the system and spent endless hours looking for documents that couldn’t be reprinted.

The issue was that when we implemented PlanetPress users didn’t need to learn anything new, the only change to their tasks was changing their default printer to the one used by PlanetPress and magic happened. But with the archiving system they needed to have another application open to search for the documents which caused some resistance. Let’s face it, when printing more than 5,000 documents per day, it is impossible to keep up with the amount of work around them.

It took two years to get everybody on board but suddenly one day we received the request to stop printing filing copies. It was that day when I considered PlanetPress my “Best Friend” as it was the tool that helped the company become more efficient by the use of technology.

The bottom line is that even though we implemented PlanetPress to solve a performance issue we ended up having a solution that helped the company reduce costs, improve customer service, eliminate human errors, reduce paper consumption, reduce storage space and, most importantly, operations became more efficient. PlanetPress was not only formatting and delivering documents, it was also alerting users of special activities and actions happening in the company.

Getting Noticed

Fri, 06 Dec 2013 15:00:00 GMT

I have been lucky to work with companies that invest in what they offer rather than exploiting their competitors’ weaknesses. Knowing others’ challenges is simply an opportunity to become better by offering what your competitors cannot offer. In this way, your customers will notice you for what you provide, and not by your marketing strategies. The bottom line is that the best marketing instrument is leaving a good impression. When a customer feels good about a product and/or service, he or she will become your marketing tool.

The other day I was having a discussion with my 17 year old son about his future, and which career to pursue. One of his options was to become a realtor; I didn’t disagree, but recommended that he think about what would make him different from any other realtor; maybe perfecting his design skills or learning about sustainability. Many people can become realtors in a short period of time, but not all of them will be successful in the field. Something makes the successful realtors different, something makes them get noticed.

Whatever we are doing now, we can always do something to be better and to be noticed for our actions more than simply our marketing. Depending on the type of business, different actions can make companies get recognized: from concentrating on efficiency, customer service, innovation, and customization, to educating employees in social awareness; there will always be something to implement in a company to make it better in the eyes of the customer.

Is Understanding Important?

Mon, 25 Nov 2013 12:09:00 GMT

I won’t discuss the hiring process at the kiosk, because I don’t have enough information about the business, the owner, or the cashier. I can say, however, that in the IT world I have seen similar situations where people are hired to perform a job only because they know how to execute a specific task, but they don’t understand the concepts behind it.

It’s interesting that some recruiters are always looking for the perfect candidate who knows the tools to be used inside out; they forget that tools are simply enablers to perform a task in a more efficient way, and sometimes it’s more important to know what the tool is able to accomplish rather than simply knowing which button to press.

Once I had an interview when I applied for a database administrator role; this interview was with the Information Services Manager and he spent all the time asking me about the specific syntax to write certain queries in MSSQL instead of verifying my knowledge of the topic: for example, what those queries meant. Obviously, I didn’t get the job because my skill was not to have good memory, my skill was to know the ins and outs of how databases work and how data can be manipulated efficiently. In my opinion syntax can be found in a reference manual or searching the web, but knowing when to use the specific commands might require more than good memory.

So, when looking for somebody to work with your team, should you look for the candidate that can repeat a task because he or she knows the sequence of actions to follow, or should you rather look for somebody that might be able to do the job even if the specific actions cannot be performed as expected?

I know it’s impossible to always have the perfect candidate, as there are many other pieces to the puzzle; usually budget is the piece that somehow defines the profile to consider. The more you pay, the more you get isn’t necessarily always the case.

The fact is that giving priority to a certain skill set might be difficult when searching for a candidate, but I would rather have somebody who may not know how to use a tool or system but understands what needs to be done; this person will always be successful in learning to use the provided resources to perform the job.

Body Language

Tue, 22 Oct 2013 23:30:00 GMT

I was invited to speak at the Xplor/BCPIA/BFMA Annual Conference this week, which brings to me a lot of emotions; I feel appreciated and happy that people see some value in my experience, but I also feel anxious; not because I don’t know what to say, but how to say it.

Some people say that when speaking in public, the best way to calm your nerves is to visualize the audience naked as this will take away the stress of being in front of strangers. I personally think that the most important factor when giving a speech is to observe what is your audience doing. It is not worth spending your time talking to a group of people if you’re not getting your message across. To me, the most important skill a speaker should have is the ability to change the language they use to capture the interest of the audience.

Usually before giving a speech I prepare and make sure I know the ‘ins and outs’ of the topic I am presenting. (That is a given; never get in front of people to talk about something you don’t know in depth). I don’t need to be an expert, but if I prepare well, the presentation will come out as second nature and I can then focus on my audience.

Sometimes I know the profile of the people listening to my presentation, but I never know how they will react to what I say! I might be speaking about something new to them, or they might be experts and know more than me. That is when the body language of the audience will tell me which path to take.

According to Wikipedia : “Body language refers to various forms of non-verbal communication, wherein a person may reveal clues as to some unspoken intention or feeling through their physical behaviour. These behaviours can include body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. … Body language signals happen on both a conscious and unconscious level”.

We can see from the physical posture of our audience if they are interested, confused, bored, believing or unbelieving, positive or negative, so we can use these clues as a tool to give a successful presentation! I am not saying that they will drive the agenda of the presentation, as the agenda has a purpose which needs to be fulfilled; but the audience might help the speaker decide on the spot what language to use to get the message through.

Applicable examples of what I am trying to explain are: maybe skipping a definition of a term because the audience is already aware of it; maybe asking questions to engage the audience; maybe talking about a personal experience the audience can relate to. These are only a couple of examples, but there are many options to drive your presentation. It is only matter of paying attention to the people in front of you instead of simply following a script.

One of the most commonly used tools when presenting to others is a set of slides which help us keep on track. One suggestion is to minimize the amount of words on each slide unless statistics or references are needed. This allows the presenter to work around the presentation based on the audience’s body language.

A couple of weeks ago I gave a presentation on VDP (variable data printing) in Vancouver and in Calgary. Each presentation was completely different even though I had the same set of slides. Based on the questions I received during the presentation and the attention I was getting from each group I was able to change what I said about each slide. Yes, both groups listened about the same topic, saw the same statistics, and in some cases I used the same examples, but each presentation was unique.

I am so excited about Friday because I will be talking about some business automation processes I have implemented in the last 7 years. So as I said, I definitely know what I need to say. I only need to have the proper language for my audience. I will have the morning to get to know some of them a little bit; but it is still only at the time of the presentation that I will know how to say it.

… Hmmm, I also need to take into consideration that my speech is at 2:30 pm!

Why do I need a Blog?

Wed, 16 Oct 2013 23:10:00 GMT

After more than 20 years developing my professional skills, I have finally decided to start my own business. After talking to friends and colleagues I have concluded that it is important to express my views and opinions in regards to the evolution of business and technology. This will be a difficult task because even though I have been in Canada for 13 years, English is still not my first language and unfortunately I think it never will be: Spanish is my mother tongue and Business is my second language!

After I decided to start writing a blog, I felt overwhelmed because writing is not my strongest skill; but guess what, I always have something to say! So, at least once a month I will have a different topic to write about; I will do my best to write about an interesting topic which will still be easy to read; I know a lot about IT but I would rather write about general topics related to my professional experiences helping companies improve their business.

The other day I was talking to my uncle about his memoirs because I was very impressed with how all his memories came to him in order to write his book. His explanation was very simple; you only start writing and one thing will lead to the next. I just hope that this will also work with my blog!

So WHY DO I NEED A BLOG?

The people I have worked with know that I always do my best, that I am reliable and very professional (don’t take me wrong, I don’t want to be arrogant). But unfortunately my friends and my previous colleagues are not going to be my customers and the only way I will be able to get known outside my “circle” is by exposing my company to the media. A website, a Facebook page, and a LinkedIn page can definitely show I exist, but I think that anybody can do that! Even my 13 year old daughter who is not technically advanced, and my 74 year old mom are on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

So what will differentiate me from everybody else? How can I show that there is somebody behind those “advertisement” tools? Well, I CAN HAVE A BLOG ! It is one way for strangers to know a little bit about me. It is a tool that I can use to expose my skills and my thoughts. I can share experiences, we can have discussions that can help us grow as professionals, and we could even become better human beings!

These are the reasons why I WANT A BLOG , and I hope that you enjoy my future posts!