Ask the Right Question!

A business associate of mine is in talks with a local client about a potential consulting engagement.

Due to a number of factors, the client believes they need to reorganize their I.T. resources, and they're looking for help. Certainly the options are obvious; align by customer segment, align by function, align by technology, even align by application.

The problem with the whole exercise is this.

They're asking the wrong question.

First, the client needs to answer the question - "What problem are you trying to solve?". Once you get the question right, the answer becomes almost self evident.

Without a clear understanding of the problem, any internal alignment will do - because you don't know what the outcome should be! The client would be better served hiring my friend to help them identify pain points within their service delivery and support model (which he'd be excellent at doing) - to help them understand the nature of their problem; to help them pose the correct question.

They might even discover that I.T. alignment isn't the issue at all. It could be an I.T. governance issue or possibly an underperfoming department.

The lesson here is that sometimes consulting dollars are better spent helping you ask the right questions, than in providing the answers.

Grow and Die

Two of my favorite blogs both had interesting views about company growth and competition. First Seth Godin blogged about a colleague's despair about how a smaller more nimble competitor was about to eat his company's lunch - and how his company's past success was preventing them from reacting to the threat.

The guys at 37signals, (my new favorite business model), answered the question; How do you handle the pressure to grow (your business)?

What is it about human nature that morphs our motivation and our expectations, once we garner some success? Why is it, that CEO's are so attracted to the phrase "Grow or Die?"

I think it is a self destructive mantra. Self destructive, because it can lead you away from the very core capabilities that achieved some measure of success. Once you adopt a "Grow or Die" mentality, you set your corporate sights on adjacent business opportunities, or you focus only on the highest margin products or customers, or you set your sights on buying the competition.

You enter uncharted territory.

Just because your bagel shop is extremely popular locally, doesn't mean you should grow into a full line bakery. Nor does it mean that you should franchise your bagel shop. Nor does it mean you should open up a restaurant. Nor should you automatically consider buying up all the other bagel shops in town.

Because none of these strategies made you successful in the first place.

If you're like most successful entrepreneurs, you started you business to fill a need or to feed a passion.

Not to rule the world.

I think the guys at 37signals have it about right. Growth is in the eye of the beholder. They can remain true to their ideals, close to their passion, without adding hundreds of staff or moving into a large corporate office. They can add new products, attract new customers without all the traditional bulky infrastructure.

Because staying close to their passion and filling a customer need is their sweet spot. If you do something you love, you never work a day in your life.

If you're determined to grow your business at the cost of staying close to your passion you just may turn the phrase Grow or Die into Grow AND Die.

Your mission changes from serving customers to serving shareholders.

And a corporate mission of Get BIG or Stay BIG, is pretty hollow. Work becomes work.

The Circular Firing Squad

A recent "up close" experience in developing web applications has left me with the following conclusion.

I.T. has met the enemy and it is us.

Attempting to render web based applications in every major browser is a huge task. Basic images don't render the same way in IE7 as in IE6 or Firefox or Safari or whatever. Applications act slightly differently, depending upon which you're using.

This is very OLD news to internet developers. If their business counterparts really understood the challenges, companies like Microsoft, would be under seige, because all these costs are built into the web based software they use and the web based software they're developing.

They just don't know it.

I can't imagine the amount of work this has caused (and is causing) developers around the world. Can you imagine the outcry if Television producers had to adapt their shows depending upon whether you were watching them on a Sony or a Magnavox or a Sharp television?

Give me a break.

This situation makes as much sense as a circular firing squad.

Realizing the Obvious

The guys at 5Rules explain the reason why good, formalized, Performance Management processes matter.

Check it out.

You Can't Handle the Success!

What do Wal-Mart and Home Depot, two of the world's largest retailers have in common?

Everyday low pricing.

Early on, Sam Walton figured out that it cost him a LOT of money to put on sales. Aside from the price changing (and changing back, after the sale), there were sales rung up at incorrect prices, causing customer complaints, etc.

He felt that a much better business model was to adopt everyday low pricing. He didn't make a secret of it. He just did it. Everyday low pricing became Wal-Mart's manta. All the employees know it. All their customers know it. It works.

Home Depot was born and initially grew through "loss leaders". They'd make HUGE bulk purchases and stack the product high in the aisles. Customers couldn't help but trip over the sales. But early on, Home Depot executives made a visit to Bentonville, Arkansas and were convinced to change course. Adopting everyday low pricing helped create the largest Home Improvement chain in the world.

So here's a question to my phone company and my cable company.

Why wouldn't it work for you too?

Communications companies have created a tremendous amount of "busy work" for themselves, churning customers like crazy. There's a whole customer sub-culture out there, who threaten to leave every six months or so, and are granted the latest promotional price. Last week my neighbor threatened to leave Time Warner for Direct TV and instantly received a $40/month discount off his bill. Almost a $500 annual savings! These companies assume that this activity is simply a cost of doing business. A cost they build into their pricing. A cost we, as consumers, pay for.

Perhaps it's time to stop the insanity! Imagine a world where all of Time Warner's customers were paying the same (lower) rate.... A world where AT&T had two or three standard service plans that didn't change from week to week.

Imagine the impact on customer goodwill if these companies actually moved you to the plan which benefited YOU the most, depending upon your mix of services - instead of penalizing customers who happen to "go over" their text message or primetime minutes? Imagine a world where your phone bill was 1 page long.

I don't think AT&T or Time Warner could handle the change. Or the success.

Stop Writing Manuals and Start Creating Videos!

Today I discovered a really neat software tool that allows you to create videos of whatever appears on your PC screen. The tool records both audio and video, so it is extremely simple to create on the fly software demos or even narrate Powerpoint presentations.

Why would anyone ever create another training document, when you could record a presentation?

Here's an example of a video I made in literally a few minutes.



The video was created using a FREE product called CamStudio. And trust me. If I can use it, you can too.

I think you'll find that your employees or customers would much rather spend a minute or two watching your video, than reading a brochure. And as you can see, I uploaded my video onto YouTube, then embedded it into my blog.

The Apathy War

Seth Godin has a great blog this morning about the Two kinds of "Don't Know". While Seth points out these observations as a warning to Marketers, his blog should serve as a beacon to I.T. Project Leaders as well.

My team faced the two kinds of "Don't Know" first hand, when trying to educate and train employees on a new business system.

I had been through the process before, during a Global SAP system implementation for a prior company. For my new company, to help get the message out and to help our employees get trained, (to address "Don't Know") our team did a LOT of stuff.

1. Our team provided monthly project updates via email.
2. We posted project information on a blog.
3. We created a spot on the corporate intranet for project updates.
4. We provided detailed process transaction documentation.
5. We provided "cheat sheets" featuring transaction shortcuts.
6. We provided online web based (self-paced) training, available 24x7.
7. We provided online integrated help within the application.
8. We provided a tool free phone number for any questions.
9. We pre-trained our Helpdesk to answer questions and to support our employees.
10. We built and provided access to a duplicate, test environment, where employees could actually logon and practice their transactions (available months before our "go live").
11. We held classroom system transaction training.
12. We held Process overview training.
13. We built a train the trainer model, to develop local experts, who could be relied upon as a "first line of defense".
14. We created process user groups so our employees could rely on their community for support (and we led the monthly meetings).

None of it mattered, because many of the employees, fell into the second "Don't Know" group.

They didn't care.

And no amount of communications, training materials or practice opportunities can overcome apathy.

In retrospect, our time would have been much better spent "engaging employees", measuring their committment, motivation and project understanding, rather than focusing on training/communications tools and expecting employees to listen and learn.

To defeat "Don't Care", you need strong corporate committment. You need leadership. You need to win "hearts and minds".

We didn't need another training brochure. We were fighting an Apathy War.