In Case of Emergency

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Disasters are sudden events or accidents that have serious consequences. Even great nations are not spared if a disaster strikes - natural or man-made. There are several causes of disasters - either by the acts of nature, by the acts of man or a combination of both.

The same is true within the confines of a business organization. Everyone or anyone is a potential victim of accidents - whether it is a minor incident or a disastrous accident.

However, its disastrous effect can be mitigated by readiness with an extensive risk reduction plan or program. These plans or programs are called by various names- risk reduction, disaster recovery or business continuity. Whatever name it is called, it means that any organization must have one.

In one of my recent projects where I did a business process analysis for a client, I found several flaws or inconsistencies. These I showed and reported to the client.

As a backgrounder, this client has recently installed a new financial system, have undergone reorganization of their IT which is leaning more toward hardware technology than a system oriented orientation. Maybe you would have already guessed what are the possible ramifications of this kind of  situation, which is also common anywhere.

Yes, you are right. It is chaotic.  Although, the organization is not a large one, the transaction being handled daily is quite a challenge for the small number of staff they have. Thus the need to analyze and revise the whole business process within the current resources.

But on this article I will concentrate on one flaw that I have found that can have a tremendous consequence for the client if not properly addressed. What happens when disaster strikes?

Recovering from a disaster requires an organized and methodical response from the whole organization - a bottom to top involvement. If one has no existing plan or program, now is the time to have one, not when a known danger is already lurking on the horizon. It must be carefully planned and organized and it must be regularly updated.

Here is the basic framework.

1. Objective Definition. In disseminating the program, everyone must have a complete understanding of what the program is attempting to achieve. That is why the objective must be described in a clear and concise way.
2. The Organization. Here the roles and responsibilities of each person identified to be involved must be defined. It is also important to indicate the key person either by name or by position.
3. The Communication Plan. This is an important part of the plan that almost everybody take for granted. However, the importance of having one or incorporating it in the program can bring invaluable benefits and nobody has to claim or complain that they were not informed or are not aware of how the program works.
4. The Risk Management Plan. It is said that an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure. This idiom is also best applied to your disaster recovery plan. This is the heart of the whole program. Assess and analyze all the possible risks that can happen, including those that has a very, very low probability with the same rate of consequence. Nothing should be overlooked. Identify each risk, rate them and plan how it is managed - prevent, mitigate or transfer the risk to a more competent entity. This must be continually updated.
5. The Recovery Plan. If despite all the prevention steps have been successfully implemented, still a major accident or incident happens, implementing your recovery plan must be done methodically. In this kind of situation mitigating the loss and work stoppage must be the primary goal. Recovery must be done in the shortest possible time. Define each steps to be taken and identify all the key persons that will be involved in the recovery.

 In this age of system dependency, some organization may find this business continuity or risk reduction or disaster recovery program a secondary priority, but it should not be. Remember Murphy's Law? Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. So it is better to be prepared now than to be sorry later.

For SMBs, Your Interactive Web Presence Need Not Be Expensive

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For small and medium businesses, developing and maintaining an interactive web presence may be expensive.

First they have to worry about the development of its web sites and more importantly, its contents. Infrastructure may not be something to worry about but it also matters when the platform to run the web site is to be considered. Secondly, who will maintain the web site and its database? With a limited number of personnel, it is better for the owner and its existing staff do the work physically than virtually.

After all of these have been decided, there is still no assurance that the web site will really reach the market place it intended to penetrate. What with the billions of web sites competing for your favorite search engine placement.

With all of these serious considerations, is it viable for any small and medium sized business to have a presence in the virtual world of the internet?

Discouraged? Don't be! There are more ways than you can know how to make your interactive web presence a not so expensive endeavor.

First let us map the road we have to take in developing a successful web presence.

1. Your web requirements and strategy.  How do you want your presence to be felt in cyber space? Do you want to have an e-commerce capability? As is any venture, a business has to have a clear understanding of what it intends to accomplish and how to accomplish them. Having a web presence is the same.  
2. The Web site requirements. First to consider is who will build the site - do you need to outsource or do you have the capability? How is it going to be built? What is the infrastructure needed? What kind of platform to use?
3. Web content management. What does your business stand for? What services or products do you offer? How would you like these to be presented to your intended market?
4. Web marketing strategy. This is a very critical part of your whole web presence strategy. What with a hundreds of thousands competing for every keyword you have chosen for your business. It is not that easy to land in the top five pages of every search engines where every web surfer usually start for their search. 
5. Web maintenance. How are we going to react if the web site goes down? Is the database growing unexpectedly affecting web speed? Will we still have our data should we decide to transfer our domain hosting?

Once you have decided on what and how your web presence will be, building and putting your ideas into action is easier than what you think. Developing a web site nowadays need not be built from scratch. There are quite a number of companies offering web services either as an (1) Infrastructure as a service [IaaS]; (2) Platform as a Service [PaaS] and (3) Software as a service [SaaS].

Let me explain briefly what these services are:

1. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is offered as an alternative for companies that do not want to build their own data centers. The cost of building and maintaining data centers is very prohibitive unless you are a global company earning a global profit. Some of the well known companies that offer IaaS are: Oracle, Dell and IBM.
2. Platform as a service (PaaS) is a cloud offering for companies that shares their data centers to their clients. These cloud services evolved as an inexpensive alternative for companies that would like to develop their web applications without the cost constraints of building their own infrastructure or the more expensive IaaS. Mostly, the PaaS offers specific e-commerce applications which you can develop yourselves.
3. Software as a service (Saas) is a type of e-commerce cloud services that offers several shared applications such as Customer Relations Management, Enterprise Resource Planning. These applications are quite expensive if installed in-premise. 

With the diversity of these cloud services being offered at reasonable prices (depending on the plan you will purchase), investing on such software or applications has gone down considerably.

I have already shown you that to establish your cyber space presence, your whole infrastructure need not be expensive through the sharing arrangements several cloud services are offering. Now how about the other matters I have mentioned like web search strategy and web maintenance? This where an IT consultant comes along. SMBs can profit considerably on the services of such professionals as they do not have to hire additional staff or for owners and existing staff themselves to handle the job which may be an additional burden for them.

Google Drive Is An Integrated Project Management Tool

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For my latest project, I was looking for a cloud based service that I can use together with my colleagues as our project management collaboration tool.

I have been using the TeamLab services for a time. It has somewhat served me and my previous colleagues' needs, however, I was also looking for something that is easier to manage and use. Also some member of the team I previously worked with impressed in me that they cannot follow everything posted in the site. Another thing is I was looking for something that I can manage all the tools within only one web service which TeamLab has failed to satisfy. (This does not mean I have given up on TeamLab, it is still a great project management tool offered as a cloud service and improvements are ongoing. But my own set of criteria for the moment tells me I have to.)

Fortunately, I didn't have to look far and wide, I have discovered that Google Drive can satisfy my and my team's needs for a collaboration tool. Aside from being a files cloud storage, it has some additional web applications that can be useful as a tool for my profession and services. And what I experienced was truly amazing. In the course of finding useful tools, I discovered four cloud project management services that can be integrated with all of my Google services.

The application I've integrated with my Google Drive were:
1. Gantter Work Schedule. This is a cloud based service that works like Microsoft Project. It can even import files done with MS Project or saved as an mpp file. The WBS file you have created can even be shared to your co-workers either through the Gantter services or if you preferred to save the file in your Google Drive, then share the generated link directly. Even saving the file in Google Drive, you have to install in your Chrome browser an application to open and edit the file. There is no need to download the application to your computer as working in Chrome browser is also fine. The service is offered free and the browser application works only for Chrome, though the service platform is available for all browsers.

2. Mindjet Project and Task Management. I find this task management tool a better alternative or a complimentary service to Google Calendar's task management. Each task can be categorized as personal or  a project management task. The best feature is it can be integrated with your Google Calendar and can use Google's reminder facility like sending a SMS message. Though I like very much the Mindjet's email service that sends you a daily reminder.

For project management use, create a project folder, add members and assign tasks. Project members can view or create tasks. A report can also be generated to monitor status of the project and each tasks.

Another feature of this service is its mind mapping tool which is a great way to record ideas and concepts. This tool is very versatile as it can also be used for charting. Files created within the service can be directly saved to or opened from your Google Drive.

3. LucidChart. Another valuable tool that can be integrated for charting or mapping processes, organization, and other charting needs of projects. The service is not completely free. Number of pages or objects are limited for each file created on a free account. If you decide to buy a service, then the limitations are nil. Files created in the service are interchangeable with MS Visio.

4. Yam Labs. Having a meeting? This is another invaluable tool which everyone in your project can view and follow while the meeting is being conducted . What ever is being discussed are recorded and can be viewed instantly by everyone on their own devices. Within the service, there are many tools useful in any meeting. The meeting's minutes, the discussions, action plans and ideas generated are instantly recorded. All of these can be accessed by every attendee in the meeting and can be sent to anyone immediately right after the meeting ended. Talk about speed, huh.

These four cloud based services which I integrated with my Google Drive did the job as I expected. I will appreciate if you can recommend some more which you have experienced.

Create a Valuable Project Portfolio

This is a blog written by Mr. Michael Kaplan. In managing project portfolio, prioritize those that builds better business values for the organization.

Growing up: From Engaging the Business to Coping with Change

Project prioritization remains one of the PMO’s key opportunities to generate business value.

The PMO remains under real pressure to generate business value within the limits of modest budget growth. To manage with this challenge, PMOs need to ensure the business project portfolio reflects a balance of projects that maximizes benefits for the enterprise.

The challenges PMOs face in balancing project portfolios include:

• Understanding project value and generating consensus 
• Keeping up with changing business needs 
• Aligning the project portfolio with business’ priorities 

These challenges were mirrored in a finding from a Forrester Research survey of PMOs, who listed poor sponsorship, politics, project coordination, misalignment between business strategy and the investment pool as the key hindrances to project prioritization.

Continue reading:  SoftPMO™ Social Project Management: Create a Valuable Project Portfolio

Are Your Team Members Ready To Take On the Responsibilities?

Most of the time the people we worked with have the capability and ability to go through with us in any given project. Sadly, in reality this is not always true.

There will always be delays in deadlines. Worse, tasks will not be done as expected of the person assigned to it. Then a problem arises that can have an impact on the progress of the project.

Frustrating, isn't it? As a project manager, we surely will do an assessment of what have happened and the things that have been done to mitigate or solve the problem that arose. We often focus on the event, but we seldom focus on the role factor of each members of the team.

The symptoms could be overlooked upon. The person has been missing deadlines or could be finger pointing and not accepting responsibilities or blaming others for every mistakes. These are the causes that must be looked into as soon as possible every time such an instance arises. After finding out the who then immediately find out the why.

There could be a lot of reasons why the person is not performing well as expected - personal, career, emotional, psychological problem. Actually the reasons could be endless including any shortcoming of the project leader himself.

Most of the reasons mentioned may be out of the control of the project manager but there are ways that they can be somehow be avoided or mitigated.

Disseminate the roles and responsibilities of each member clearly. The first thing to do is to communicate the roles and responsibilities of each member of the team. Try to give a very detailed job description for each. If possible create a Responsibility Matrix that everyone can reference upon.

For me, I am more comfortable in creating a work process flowchart. This is what I usually do and show to my team member so they would easily see how the process flows and who is responsible to what task needs to be accomplished in every instance of each processes.

Whether you use the Responsibility Matrix or a flowchart, if everyone knows what each person is supposed to do, then everything will flow smoothly and seamlessly. Know everyone you are working with, their strengths and weaknesses. This way you can have a clear picture of what tasks to be given for each of your member.

Engage and empower the team member with the main objective of the project. At this stage, everyone knows what each is supposed to do on the project. But not everyone's heart could be into the project. As the project leader, it is prudent to share your enthusiasm with your team. It is but natural for you to know the importance of the project, what it means for you, what it means for the major stakeholders, what it means for the project sponsor, and most importantly, what it means for the company.

In my previous work for a non-profit organization, aside from my regular job in IT and managing IT projects, I am also involved in every event that that organization holds. Not as the leader but as a member, assigned in the documentation. Not everyone shares the same personal values, but what we commonly share in doing the project is the belief that what we are doing we do for the Lord. This is what bonds us together, our faith and belief.

In the secular world we work in, this may not hold. But what I mean is as a project leader, we have to find a common cause that will bond the whole team together for the success of the project. One of the most common is the main objective of the project and its benefit for the company. The project leader must be able to clearly and objectively present this to the team so that all shall have a common cause to work for. Working for a cause is a unifying factor and a good motivator.

Delegate decisively and help your people take the helm within the area of his responsibility. It is a cardinal rule in project management not to micro-manage. Create committees and assign persons to handle or manage the deliverables. Remember that as a leader, it is our foremost duty to create leaders not followers. If you got to know who you are working with, it will be easy for you to pinpoint persons that you can delegate to. Allow the persons you have chosen to show what he or she's capable of. This is also called motivation. Any person that is trusted to do something that is meaningful and with a purpose can do even the most difficult task passionately. Sometimes even more than what the project leader can give.

Lastly, as any good manager will do, try to give praise - to the team, to each member, to the performer. Show them your appreciation for doing their tasks diligently. Remember that for every success each member of the team makes, is definitely a success for the project manager. You cannot be expected to do everything, but what is expected of you is to work with and lead the team for the success of the project.

Any project will only be as good as the team that worked for its success.

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