As you look at the list of project team members you realize this project is different. Very different. You realize your Subject Matter Experts are scattered all over the globe. You will never meet them face-to-face.

Don’t panic. Weave these guiding principles into your PMO and you will you deliver.

1. Get off to a fast start

Set the tempo and create project momentum on the very first day. Use The World Clock to find a good time for everyone to attend the kick-off meeting – or several if APAC and EMEA are both involved. At the first meeting, the SME’s engagement may be at its peak. It’s absolutely critical to use this time to your advantage. Collect and catalog a baseline set of source materials. Identify the reviewers and approvers of each deliverable up front. Then schedule and confirm review meetings for the rest of the project and get their commitment to attend.

2. Treat every meeting like the last meeting

Distance causes distraction and disinterest. When you’re on another continent, meetings are easy to blow off. So when you have their attention, use every minute wisely. You may not get another chance. Preparation is key. Use the SME to address unanswered questions from your research, not bring you up to speed. Do your homework and learn everything you can about the products before your meetings. Then, record every meeting and review later, especially if you unfamiliar with the technology.

3. Be flexible but relentless

When the success of your project relies on the participation of people around the globe, it doesn’t pay to be rigid. Be willing to bend to their schedules, even if that means scheduling meetings in the middle of the night. Sure it’s no fun when you’re 3am meeting is cancelled at 2:59. But it happens. In fact, expect this to happen. You may have to reschedule but stay flexible and understanding.  Remember, the people you are working with tend to be the best the world has to offer — and that means they are busy.

When you start fast, prepare rigorously and stay flexible, you will deliver world-class results together with your worldwide team.

The post A Survival Guide for the Time Zone Warrior appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.

Good news.  There are things we can do to make leadership and project management a powerful combination capable of delivering fantastic results.

Let me offer a concrete example.  A project manager we know had been given the responsibility of training personnel worldwide in new sales methods and tools.  She created the training.  She made sure attendance was compulsory.  And at the end of the effort – field personnel were resistant and frustrated.  There was very low adoption and little discernible business impact.

The training was well-conceived, designed and delivered.  The processes were clearly presented.  The tools were powerful and useful.  So, what went wrong?

Some might argue that the failure in this situation was a change management failure.  It was.  But I think the real failure happened much earlier.  The project manager thought her responsibility was to develop and deliver training. She tracked deliverables. Managed to budget. Stayed on time. She checked every box – and was done.

Her real job was to drive adoption that could lead to measurable improvements in sales force effectiveness and productivity.

But she assumed her job was to inform, so she created materials that were informative.  If she had understood her job was to change behavior, she might have produced a broader set of activities and changed the tone of her communications to drive interest, understanding and enthusiasm.  Because it is those three things that lead to adoption and improved business performance.

That is the difference between project management and leadership.  Business leaders focus on business outcomes. Project management, in its worst form, checks boxes.

Here is a single technique that can really help:  Set business outcomes for each of the workstreams you are driving.

For example:

Business Outcome:  Increase field operations capability.

          Related Deliverables

New Operations:  Process Definition

New Operations:  Training Materials

New Operations:  Communication Plan

New Operations:  Communications

We have used this planning technique to great effect with projects that vary from small teams to projects involving hundreds of people.

When you are clear about the business outcomes each deliverable drives, you clarify the purpose of each deliverable, increase executive alignment and provide a way for measuring whether or not you managed the project – or helped lead change in the overall business.

The post Project Management is Not Leadership appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.

Below, you will find 5 guiding principles for taking the intimidation out of data analysis. These principles will make your data analysis comprehensive, relevant, and applicable to any problem you are solving.  

1. Define the Story You Want to Tell

Think of the data you pull akin to the main characters of your favorite novel. Without a plot, the characters are only static beings that are not relevant to anyone or anything. Imagine reading The Lord of the Rings without knowing that the Ring holds great and mysterious power. We would think it ludicrous that Frodo is risking everything for something of seemingly little value.

It is the same with data analysis. Columns and rows upon rows of values are simply just that- rows and columns. In order to drive meaning and insight, we need the story. The story will provide support for the initial hypotheses and will allow you to target your effort. This can usually be framed within an overriding question. For example, “Which of my partners are causing the greatest amount of developers to create the highest quality apps?”

If we pull specific data in an effort to answer a clearly worded question, we can drive to insight. Once that data is collected, we can ask the follow up questions, “What are these partners doing to achieve such success?” And finally, “How can we leverage this knowledge?”

Knowing the story the data is meant to tell paves the way for application and ultimately process improvement.

2. Verify the Credibility of the Source

Ensure the data is accurate and complete. There are two ways. The first is to go directly to the actual source of the data.

Have you ever played the game of telephone? It is pretty much a guarantee that the last person in the circle will receive a message that is totally different than the one initially passed on by the first person. 

So it is with data. The more people you have to go through to get the data, the less likely it is to be accurate. If possible, pull your data as close as possible to where it was generated. This will greatly increase the validity of your data.

The second way to verify the credibility of the source is to actually take some time to study the data before starting to manipulate it. Do the values seem reasonable, measureable, and reproducible? Do they make sense within the context of the story you are telling?  Oftentimes as data analysts we get zeroed in on singular bits of information. It is important that we take a step back and ensure that what we are analyzing supports the overall picture.

3. Automate, Automate, Automate

When dealing with millions of pieces of data, it is all too easy to spend hours manipulating it. Not only that, but we are all prone to human error. The more manual a process, the greater risk there is of making mistakes. Because of these two factors, it is imperative that you automate the entire process of data analysis as much as possible. Not only will this build confidence in your numbers, but it will also allow for scalability.

The key is to look for patterns. If anything seems repetitious, chances are you can probably automate it.  It can be as simple as writing a macro that organizes the data in Excel or as complicated as creating a web crawling engine. However, beware of over-engineering the process. The definition of success is when you automate the process in a way that is repeatable and easily executable by anyone, at any time.

4. Measure Twice, Cut Once

This adage is especially true if you have moved to the point where the data collection is almost entirely automated. It is easy to fall into the trap of pulling the data and moving on without taking a moment to ensure that it is correct.

To combat against this, it is important to create a system of checks and balances. A good approach is to take a moment to brainstorm everything that could possibly go wrong, and then actively defend against it. This can include doing a simple checksum formula or a check point for text in the cells you expect text. In fact, you can even go a step further and check that a certain cell contains the value you are expecting.  Whatever the case, this will help to make you data as robust as possible.

5. Present the Data in a Simple, Meaningful Way

This is key. When pulling thousands and thousands of rows of data, it is all too easy to get lost in the sea of numbers. Organizing the data in a way that makes sense will relieve you and everyone involved in the data analysis process of some serious headaches. It is this final principle that gets practiced the least.

Before presenting the data, you need to decide who the audience is going to be. Is it going to be an executive who wants a high-level summary? Or is it going to be someone in the field who wants the raw numbers for process improvement?

A good way to reach the widest audience is to present a high-level summary of your results with the option of drilling deeper. Too often, data will not be comprehensive, or it will be so complicated that no one besides the data analyst can understand it. A good test is to present your findings to someone with no knowledge of the project. If they can understand the meaning behind the data, then it’s a safe bet that your client will too. Remember, data is only relevant if it tells a story. It is this story that will bridge the gap from numbers to insight.

The post 5 keys to Robust Data Analysis appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.

You face this question over and over during post-mortem project reviews: ‘What quality results did we get from allocating considerable budget to a ‘proven’ and ‘experienced’ project support team?’ Too often the answer is disappointing. Your peers and colleagues tell you experience is the key to getting results from outside companies. But, the years of entry level experience you are told to look for are in fact the primary reason you aren’t getting results.

Using the same unproductive project staffing method doesn’t give you the talent required for quality results. What’s more, the ‘experience’ companies often highlight only serves as a justification for charging you unreasonably high rates.

Touch Staffing+ consultants work at a fraction of the cost typical companies charge. This gives more mileage to the budget you allocate to project support. While many companies would place paramount value on experience in the hiring process, we value candidates with high potential. For Touch, hiring employees with high potential is a more effective approach to finding talent than hiring candidates with years of entry level experience. Combine these advantages with meticulous oversight from Touch Principals and Senior Managers, and Staffing+ is a win-win. You save budget, and receive top-quality results.

Staffing+ has already made a difference for our clients. A large software corporation has brought on a team of Staffing+ consultants to support a corporate alignment project. Another large software company has hired Staffing+ consultants to staff a partner program improvement project. Our consultants have hit the ground running, and the results are showing this innovative new approach to staffing to be effective. In each scenario, these clients have realized success through the new model.

Hit the reset button and avoid the headaches with which your projects have been plagued. Take advantage of Touch Staffing+.

The post The Project Headaches You Don’t Need appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.

Here, we’ll call this kind of large initiative a business transformation effort, and outline some of the key elements required for this kind of effort to succeed. This post supplements two other pieces of guidance that we’ve offered elsewhere:

• Our white paper on High Stakes Initiative Project Management, which provides insight on how to handle five common challenges in large business initiatives
• This blog post by Ray Rasmussen, the managing principal at Touch Business Consulting, offers perspective on what makes business transformation efforts successful

In addition to the above guidance, there is another set of “make or break” success factors that can be easy to underestimate or overlook. While these factors may seem like basics, it’s surprising how often they get glossed over – and yet transformation efforts fail if they lack one or more of these:

1) Single point of leadership.  When leadership is splintered across multiple individuals and groups, it’s easy for things to fall apart. Decisions – even simple ones – take weeks, stalling project momentum. Conflicting leadership guidance creates confusion among team members. Milestones get missed. In contrast, a single leader clarifies accountability, creates consistency and accelerates decisions, allowing the project to maintain momentum and engagement.

2) Leadership conviction. Transformation efforts are hard. They don’t produce rapid results. They typically involve heated discussions. They often require long hours. Given the challenges, leadership must continually reinforce that the effort is a top priority through demonstrated the conviction & visible support. In most cases, the leader must dedicate significant personal time and hard work to keeping the effort on track. Without a committed leader, tough projects like this routinely fall by the wayside.

3) Confirmed investment. Even if a cross-organizational transformation effort has a single, committed leader, it cannot deliver on its objectives without significant, dedicated resources. While the need for adequate investment may seem obvious, we have seen numerous cases where this need is overlooked. Transformation efforts are inherently resource-intensive – business impacts must be analyzed, process revisions developed, job descriptions revised, training created, and so on. As a result, these initiatives must be resourced to support the work effort required. Investments should be clearly sourced and assigned at the outset; otherwise the project team is forced to waste time “tin-cupping” for resources instead of getting project work done. And if the team isn’t successful in securing resources? The effort dies on the vine.

4) Sufficient, dedicated staff. In the same vein, a transformation effort cannot succeed if it is a side job. People’s day-to-day commitments take precedence if transformation responsibilities are added on top of existing workloads. When forming the initiative team, leaders must recognize this by helping team members rearticulate priorities and shift preexisting workloads. Only then will the team have the capacity and support necessary to effectively deliver on their mandate.

5) Commitment to address operational issues. For many leaders, things like tool functionality and enhancements aren’t all that exciting. But this is the area I think is most neglected. Unless the operational environment is set up to support the transformation, the effort falters. In other words, asking people to change without making the necessary systems, tools and operations adjustments to enable the change guarantees failure.

What factors have you found to be critical to success in business transformation efforts?

The post Five Additional Critical Success Factors That Can Get Overlooked in a Strategic, Cross-Org Effort appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.

Finding your passion isn’t as easy as it would seem – sometimes, it takes the journey of experience to teach you to find the intersection of the critical elements that combine to satisfy your passions.  For me, the elements are the ability to help technology companies make a significant step change in their go-to market execution, working with smart, value-driven people, and working in a culture of collaboration and support.  After deciding to leave Microsoft, I took some time to look at the opportunities in the market and, more critically, to align my work to my passion in a more concrete and material way.

After taking some time to assess the market, I spoke with several firms and decided to join Touch Worldwide.  My reasons for joining Touch were several:

1. People – first and foremost, to align to my passion, it was important to me that I work with people of integrity, respect and talent and in looking at the marketplace, I found a lot of firms with good people.  Touch specifically had a depth of bench and structure to talent development that I resonated with, as well as a solid culture of mutual success and support.
2. Approach – Touch is a diverse firm, with capabilities to deliver on both the analytical and the creative in amazing ways.  I first met Touch through the work they did with Microsoft on the Worldwide Partner Conference and saw both sides of the firm come together to deliver both compelling partner opportunities in support of Microsoft and amazing visuals and creative delivery.  As I got to know them better, I saw a full-service firm with the ability to respond to client needs from initial market research through to in-market execution and events.
3. Passion for the future – After my initial discussions with the Touch team, I realized that we had the potential to deliver some new services and capabilities that would greatly accelerate the performance of our clients and deliver ongoing value.  In this area, we are developing and bringing to market over the next several quarters some significant new services and offerings for our clients to help accelerate the performance of their staff, increase their insights into their partner business, and to support their execution with experienced and talented on-site staff.

Aligning your work and life to your passions isn’t easy, but once you do, it’s magic.  I look forward to the opportunity to talk with you about how our passion and talent can drive results for you – don’t hesistate to get in touch.

The post Getting in Touch with Your Passion appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.

“Reengineering cannot be planned meticulously and accomplished in small and cautious steps. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition with an uncertain result. Still, most companies have no choice but to muster the courage to do it.”

In the years that followed, it was not unusual to find a consulting company with 100 consultants changing processes at a major corporation.  The criticism of these large reengineering efforts is that they did not always produce significant results beyond enriching consultants; that they were often long and protracted; and they frequently created more turmoil than answers.

Don’t you find it easy to agree with Hammer and the criticisms leveled at reengineering?

So then, what is missing?

Leadership.  Literature sometimes talks about a change agent.  Sheesh.  I want to talk about leadership that recognizes the need to make dramatic change and demonstrates the hard work, courage and conviction needed to invest treasure and personal time in making change happen.

I saw this demonstrated well.  A senior executive was looking at problems with one of the world’s largest technology channel programs.  The channel program partners literally delivered billions in sales.  And the systems that maintained membership information were broken.  Really broken.  In a meeting of senior executives, I saw two executives that should have been arguing agreeing with one another.  The first executive received services from the system.  She was mad.  The second executive was the business leader responsible for providing the system.  She agreed with every criticism made by the other executive – and added her own.  This exchange is from memory (and therefore not accurate), but it is close to some of the things they said.

Executive receiving services:  “Here is an email from one of our partners saying they wasted over 100 hours last month correcting errors in this system.”

Executive delivering services:  “That is intolerable.  I can’t believe we have not taken corrective action already.  I am getting visibility into other problems as well….”

Now in fairness the executive delivering services was relatively new to the position and could reasonably say these problems did not occur on her watch.  But what happened next was extraordinary.

This senior executive, who had massive responsibilities, took weeks of her personal time and examined the problems.  She forced her team and others to build a complete diagram of all processes and how they worked.  She examined them in detail and flagged areas that needed correction immediately.  She secured funding for an end-to-end redesign of processes and systems.

And she worked on it personally for 18 months.  18 months of really hard work.

The result?  A 75% reduction in work effort.  And a very pleased set of partners.  People on the receiving end of the work made a “thank you” video.

An ingrained intolerance for the dumb.  If leadership needs to be embodied at the top of a transformation effort, leadership needs to imbue the organization with an allergy to stupid processes.  This is actually good regardless of whether or not transformative change is underway – and perhaps transformative change is needed less often if people resist poor ideas.

My friend Ted worked on navigation software that was considered secret.  Although he worked at a private company, he and his team had to follow government dictated security protocol that went something like this:  Ted wrote complicated navigation software and then turned it in.  Once it was turned in, Ted could not look at it again.  Inevitably errors would be found in testing, but Ted was not allowed to see or correct the code.  Others were instructed to correct errors, but they could not talk to Ted about the code or the problems they had encountered.  Testing and correction took a long time.

Maybe there are good security reasons for such a process.  But it feels inefficient.

We run some very large projects.  We have a mantra for people working on these projects.  “Follow the process, or fix the process”.  I am sure we stole that idea from someone.  But we tell people to be unaccepting of poor process and not to let poor processes continue without attention and correction.  By making it the responsibility of everyone on the team to notice problems and make suggestions, a much larger set of problems are addressed early and well.

A time-bound focus on results.  Here is where I think a lot of transformation efforts go sideways.  The goals set for the team are amorphous and conceptual.  For example, “delight our customers”.  Delighting customers is an easy thing on which to agree, but it lacks the level of specificity required to really drive results.

Let me offer an alternative.  Imagine a retailer that has a growing e-commerce site.   The executive leading the transformation reports, “Our research shows customers hate waiting for packages to arrive.  We are going to work on two things:  Getting the right package to our customer, much faster – and doing it in a way that substantially reduces our expenses.”

Now that is something a team can work on.

To make the team really effective, set objectives.  “We are going to reduce the modality for time to deliver to 2 days.  And no delivery will take more than 5 days.  Concurrently, we will work to reduce overall procure, pick and ship costs by 50%.  And we will do this in less than 6 months.”

When you take on a transformation project, learn from Hammer, but also learn from the practical experience of those who achieved large, significant results by leading, being practical and setting specific goals.

The post Growth Rates Never Double Through Evolution appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.

Why Losing Hope Is (Sometimes) Necessary

Swiss psychiatrist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross argued that people go through 5 stages of grief.

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

Often, that seems to be what some people go through with the introduction of project management techniques.  There are those that hold everything in their heads.  Then there are those that prefer to get started and see how it goes, assuming people will gravitate towards what must be done.  There are those who see planning and management as impossible – as if they have a fear of being organized.  Some, like me, are just lazy.  These techniques work sometimes – although often not as well and most often not on complicated things.

We can watch resistant people go through all 5 stages.  They will begin by denying the need for project management.  Then they will be angry for having to devote time and energy to the process.  They will bargain with you in an attempt to lower their work loads.  They will soon become depressed, just wishing the project was over.  Over time, they move to acceptance.

Reduce the Pain with 5 Guerilla Techniques

Here are five guerilla techniques for gradually introducing project management discipline when you have determined doing it all at once is simply impossible.

1. Set a regular meeting cadence.  Consider a daily cadence with whatever leadership team you have.  Use 15 minutes every day to figure out what really matters on that one day.  People are generally willing to have a short meeting and, in the process, the leaders will discover what the top priorities need to be.
2. Establish the leadership structure.  You might be thinking “after setting up a daily meeting?”  Yes.  The process of discussing the direction of a project often identifies dependencies and the need to change or broaden the leadership team.  It is also the forum where one can ensure the correct executives have been identified for oversight and guidance.
3. Track decisions.  This one thing can make a tremendous difference.  Each time a decision is made, document that decision.  Who made it.  When.  The rationale.  Keep this list visible through an accessible medium that, ideally, everyone can see all the time.  When a topic resurfaces, use the decision log to move beyond the topic – or in rare instances – assign someone to reopen the decision for further review.
4. Focus only on deliverables.  We say this all the time.  Forget activities.  Drive deliverables to finished.  A deliverable is something you can point at, refer to, build on – electronic or tangible. A completed deliverable is like a base station that allows the project to move forward.
5. Introduce a simple, one-page timeline.  Many timelines are so complicated that only someone who loves timelines can get anything out of them.  Consider a simple, one-page timeline organized by responsible leader with 5 to 10 key dates.  Once a simple timeline is in place, allow detail to be added for those that benefit from more information.

Steps 4 and 5 are really hard.  Some people will not know the meaning of “deliverable.”  Some people will actively resist creating products that are approved and final.

And timelines depend on deliverables and understanding their relationship to one another.  This is not for the faint of heart, but is essential if you want to keep a project moving in the right direction.

Even if all you are able to accomplish is steps 1 – 3, know that you have moved the team forward in important ways.  And steps  4 and 5?  They will come in time if you continue to ease your way toward them.

It’s time for you to join the guerilla movement.  And gradually convert your project and team into the high performing powerhouse you know is possible.

The post Five Project Management Guerilla Techniques appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.

Mary Kay Ash is quoted as saying, “A mediocre idea that guarantees enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.”  I would like to suggest a corollary:  A mediocre idea that is understood is more powerful than a great idea that no one understands.

You may have seen people ignore this simple truth.

Paula Simmons cited a course description from the University of Alberta as an example of writing that is hard to understand.

“We will interrogate the production of ‘society’ out of a non-totalized set of archival fragments or ‘ruins,’ and we will ask how the writing of history sets hegemonic discourses into opposition with counter-discourses.”

I think this means “we will look at how culture influences the way history is written”.  But really, I have no idea.  Perhaps the person who wrote it felt obligated to use intellectual jargon.

Your dilemma may actually be worse. What if you have an important idea that is really complex and really hard to understand? This is very possible.  Many of the clients we serve have very complex, technical concepts that they need to convey to broad business audiences. Under these conditions, what is one to do?  Here is a 3-step process that can offer your audience an on-ramp to comprehending your important, hard-to-understand idea.

1. Start with the problem you are solving.  Suggest for example, that the world needs an abundant source of renewable energy that has little or no environmental impact.
2. Connect your idea to something people already understand.  For example, fusion is how the sun creates energy.  Our new process takes advantage of this same concept…
3. Offer more resources.  For more information on our new fusion generator, see our web site here.  And for more general information, consider buying Principles of Fusion Energy: An Introduction to Fusion Energy for Students of Science and Engineering.

In the extra-credit zone:  Don’t make up new words unless you must.  It is tempting to lead an industry by coining a word or phrase.  But most of the time, a new term either confuses or leaves the audience feeling you might have aggrandized a bit.

When you bring clarity to a tough topic, you are viewed as an expert and a person that customers, executives and others can turn to when they need to understand. It is an enviable and powerful position.

The post Ideas Are Not Powerful appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.

Let’s start with what executives hate.  Ever listen to an exchange that goes something like this?

Executive:  Where are we on the launch plan?

Bad Answer Person:  Well, we met with the team last week.  And we have had other meetings as well. We have generated some ideas that we continue to refine and we have started engaging with people cross organization.

Executive:  So is there a plan?

Bad Answer Person:  Next week we are getting back together with the extended v-team.  We are taking a very inclusive approach that we think is going to build awareness and consensus.

So far, nothing like an answer anywhere in sight.  Expect the executive to be frustrated.

Let’s try this again.

Executive:  Where are we on the launch plan?

Good Answer Person:  We only have an outline.  We have identified the teams to involve and named people to lead work streams, but it will be next week before we have a detailed plan on paper worthy of review.

Same set of facts, but feel the difference?  Forthright answers build trust and understanding.  And from your perspective, more executive confidence in you.

Answer, then explain.  Don’t make the executive wait to know.  “Are the parts all here?”  “Yes, except for one that is scheduled to be here Wednesday.”   – or – “No.  We are still expecting one more part to arrive on Wednesday.”  Same set of facts.  Two answers.  Either answer is OK because it answers the question, then explains.

Always give one of four true, respectful answers.

1. I don’t know.  If you don’t know, say that.  Don’t ramble.  Best case, tell them when you will know.  “Are the parts all here?”  “We won’t know until later this morning.  We complete the inventory then.  I’ll pass along status to you as soon as that completes”.
2. I won’t tell you.  Sometimes the respectful answer is a polite refusal to answer.  “What is the unit margin on your company’s new product?”  “We’re not able to share that but we’re pleased with the initial market reaction.”
3. The truth.  If you know the truth, most often you want to provide it.  “Are we going to hit the original go-live schedule?”  “No.  We are moving the go-live date to Friday because although testing is complete, the final regression test will not finish until Thursday.”
4. Speculation.  Almost never use this.  Use only when you absolutely must.  “When do the parts arrive?”  “They might be here Tuesday.”  People only hear Tuesday in that answer.  They do not hear the word, might.  Use speculation very sparingly.

Armed with this fantastic guidance you are now able to talk to executives at their level.  And perhaps, create the impression that you should be on the executive team yourself.

The post Want Executives To Love You? 4 Answers For Any Situation appeared first on Touch Business Consulting.