Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Project Management SkillsLearn Management Articles on management-info.biz. Problem-Solving Success Tip: Use Your Project Management Skills article will help answer your questions on Management Articles.We at management-info.biz specialize in Management Articles. Management Articles at management-info.biz provides the most up to date news and articles. If you have questions please do not hesitate to contact us.
Solving a big problem is a project: you’re far more likely to solve it successfully if you treat it like one. That means you’ll need to identify tasks, make and adjust assignments, and keep track of what is due when. Get on the right track immediately by starting a task list as soon as you start working on the problem. Every time you think of something that needs to be done, put it on your task list along with the owner, due date and completion criteria (how you’re going to know the task is successfully completed). That way, you won’t have to worry about forgetting important details, or waste time constantly reconstructing the list in your mind. Once the problem is defined, you can lay out a project schedule and estimate the resources you’ll need. At the very least, you’ll need access to key people who have knowledge of the problem. Some of them may need to be released from other responsibilities to work on your problem-solving team. You may also need money for travel, special equipment, exclusive use of a conference room, etc. Figuring this out in advance and making sure it is allocated will help you run your project smoothly. In addition to the tasks to analyze and solve the problem itself, you’ll also need a communication plan and a contingency plan. The communication plan will identify who needs what information about your problem solving effort, when they need it and how you are going to provide it. The contingency plan identifies the things that could stop you from solving the problem and specifies what you are going to do about it. Add the appropriate tasks to implement your communication and contingency plans to your task list. HINT: Orient tasks to deliverables. Each task should result in something tangible, which will help you make sure the tasks actually accomplish something. copyright 2005. Jeanne Sawyer. All Rights Reserved. Robert G. Allens Challenge. - 1 New York Times Bestselling Author Needs Your Success Story. Science Fair Projects Made Easy. - Science Fair Project eBook. Guest post written by Stuart Ngai, Director of Technology Solutions, VERAX
Continued from last Monday. Read Part 1 >> Enforce a checkpoint schedule Now that you’ve worked out a set of goals with your staff. Who’s responsible to make sure things are on track? My experience tells me that it’s both of you: your staff needs to take ownership to keep up with skills and you, as their manager, need to be the measuring stick. And if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. So it needs to be instilled as a routine in order to keep the momentum going. By measuring training progress on a periodic basis like once every 3 to 4 months , you’ll know whether your staff is progressing as expected or perhaps he or she is being overloaded. With such a feedback loop, you’ll be able to fine tune the training plan and keep things in focus. Not one size fits all Everyone’s different. Some of your IT staff might be more comfortable with structured classroom learning while others prefer to be given time and web resources so they can learn at their own pace. And one of the techniques we have done successfully at VERAX is to provide some of the technology savvy staff with resources and allocated time so that they can put together lunch and learn seminars for their peers. And there are many benefits for that: opportunity to showcase what they’ve learned, efficiency in cross training each other, a chance for the team to gel and discuss innovative ideas for your workplace, and virtually no loss of productivity at a minimal cost to the company. It’s been a win-win training mechanism that has been working well for us. So be creative in your approach to training. Make use of web resources With advances in webcasting and e-learning tools, many companies are no longer constrained to sending their staff on expensive offsite training. Virtual training along with virtual machine images would be a great way to learn. And there are tons of resources on the web for that purpose that you should look into (some free resources - Developer Connection, Channel 9) Make it fun Be aware of e-learning trends and listen to your staff for innovative and fun ideas to learn. As an example, one thing we have done is to provide tablets to loan to our staff along with e-book subscriptions so that they can read at their own pace anywhere anytime. Our staff love such innovative approaches to learning and they appreciate our willingness to invest in them. So not only did we generated excitement and high level of staff engagement, we know our staff will be able to learn throughout the year on their own pace instead of the standard one to two weeks training for most companies. So make it fun and engaging. After all, it’s a small investment that pays back many folds. To finish off - You are not alone Just remember that you are not an island on your own. The best way to avoid missteps is to learn from the lessons and best practices of other managers. And guess what? There are already great resources freely available for you, such as the AlignIT portal and LinkedIn group. They are great places where you can read and interact with other IT practitioners for advice. Stuart Ngai
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Stuart Ngai, Director of Technology Solutions at