Tag: Planning

How to optimise resources in matrix organizations?

Written by Mahendra Gupta on January 6, 2021. Posted in Articles.

Matrix organizations have prevailed for decades, predominantly in multi-project environments.

Gallup states that 84% of organizations are matrixed to some extent. A resource pool allocated to cross-departmental projects is typical in a matrixed organization, which means employees have dual or multiple reporting managers.

Matrix organizations have proven beneficial in terms of breaking traditional silos within the organization, enhancing collaboration, and helping in better decision making.

However, critics have adjudged that managerial conflicts and challenges in monitoring and controlling resources limit such organizations’ effectiveness. Moreover, in matrix organizations, several projects across departments and locations are on the boil. So, shifting priorities that skew resource utilization is quite common.

Optimizing resources against their availability and competencies is easier said than done.

To meet dynamic resource demands, resource managers end up over or under allocating resources, unintentionally.

So the question is: How can matrix organizations optimize their resources amid the changing demands of multiple projects?

Many project-intensive businesses are still relying on clunky spreadsheets and homegrown solutions to manage their resources. These legacy systems are cumbersome and fail to mitigate the resource optimization challenges within the modern business ecosystem. To optimally tap your resource pool, you need enterprise-level resource planning and scheduling software.

The following tips will ensure effective resource optimization in a matrix organization:

1) Enterprise-wide visibility: Matrix organizations have multiple dimensions, so enterprise visibility is a prerequisite for effective resource optimization. Matrix organizations can benefit from resource management software that provides 360-degree visibility of all your resources and work demands.

Also, complete visibility helps keep track of tasks, resource availability changes, and impact on project health and workforce capacity. Hence, appropriate resourcing treatments are applied to optimize resources in a multi-project environment.

2) Set clear expectations: According to Gallup, matrixed employees are more engaged than their non-matrixed counterparts. But they lack clarity on expectations at work. Therefore, maintaining open communication, including actionable performance feedback, is necessary for role clarity. It helps keep employees and managers on the same page, but it also drives outcome-driven alliances and informed decision-making.

Mc Kinsey’s research on Organizational Health Index (OHI) reveals that role clarity improves accountability, a critical component of OHI. Role ambiguity is highly pervasive for matrix organizations. So, leaders must ensure setting clear expectations aligned with business objectives is a continuous process. So, instead of annual performance reviews, regular feedback on employee progress can improve overall engagement.

3) Prioritize projects before allocating resources: In a matrix organization, it is common to have multiple active projects demanding a common skilled worker. Ideally, the allocation of highly skilled members should be prioritized for high priority projects. However, the distribution of skilled workers across all the projects is essential, otherwise, one project will get all the focus.

The organization should also have an out rotation strategy to kick start new projects by pulling out the niche resource from ongoing projects. Accordingly, backfills can be trained and allocated to fill in the vacancies. This way, the current projects can continue their course, while new projects get off the ground on time.

4) Identify and allocate competencies: One of the crucial steps for resource optimization is competent resource allocation. Most resource planning and scheduling tools help identify and assign the right resource to the right job. Based on criteria like skills, experience, qualification, location, and cost rate, resource managers can make optimal use of the resource pool.

Besides, these tools’ self-serving model enables users to update their skill and training information, which undergoes verification before approval. So, the resource competencies are up to date in real-time. Subsequently, seamless resource requesting in matrix organizations takes place.

5) Measure capacity vs. demand: Matrix organizations can vastly benefit from a resource capacity planning tool. It can forecast capacity vs. demand from multiple perspectives like role, department, skills, location, team, etc. The scientific forecasting model helps in identifying excesses or shortages ahead of time.

Accordingly, resources can be hired, reskilled or upskilled, or juggled around project timelines to attain resource optimization. Besides, predicting resource demand for future or pipeline projects buys you time to have an optimally balanced and skilled resource pool. Having a judicious blend of full-time, part-time, casual, and contractual staff prevents last-minute hiring and firing costs.

6) Minimize bench time: In large organizations, especially in IT firms, unplanned ramp down on current projects are common. Additionally, if pipeline projects are absent, the bench strength increases. This adversely affects the bottom line and narrows project margins. Foresight into future project vacancies helps identify resources on the bench due to under allocation of work.

Proper capacity planning will minimize bench time by mobilizing resources from non-billable to billable work. In case benched resources lack the skills needed for a task, upskilling and reskilling them eliminates the hasty hiring process.

The Takeaway:

Efficient and effective resource optimization within matrix organizations is achievable using modern resource management software. This tool breaks traditional silos within multi-project intensive organizations and facilitates quick reshuffling of resources across departments and locations. As mentioned above, these tips will resolve utilization issues and optimize your resource pool for enhanced profitability.

Taking responsibility for the outcome

Written by Shane Turner on November 25, 2020. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Taking responsibility for the outcome

As a Junior Business Analyst who’s about to go into a meeting to report on why our latest deployment into production had so many bugs –

it made me think about all the missed opportunities and potential questions I could have asked myself to catch them sooner.

As a business analyst, it’s my job to brief the team on the features that need to be developed, and ensure they get the designs and documentation to ensure a smooth, (hopefully) bug-free implementation that can be thoroughly tested before release. So why did we have four bugs then?

Assume responsibility

Asking yourself these questions may help to pinpoint where the issue originated:

1. How often are change requests initiated (not due to a change in business requirements), within the project – due to incomplete or incorrect requirements?

2. How often are bugs added to the backlog, as a result of unclear or misunderstood requirements?

How often are the designs or documentation being updated to re-clarify the requirements which have been misunderstood by the developers?

How often are the testers missing potential test scenarios due to lack of knowledge of the scope of the work being implemented?

How often are additional backlog items and stories created due to lack of completeness within the specifications?

How often does the client point of missing aspects of features or stories which have made their way into the staging environment or production due to a poorly fleshed out requirements spec?

(Less) Consistency is key.

I found myself answering ‘frequently’ to too many of the above questions, which not only impacts the overall deadline of the project, but it also costs our clients a fair penny in project costs.

Striving to be a better BA does not mean perfection from day 1, but rather small improvements over time – and that means starting with an honest reflection of where you may be falling short.

Don’t fall into the blame game of, “Oh, but the developer should have thought of this scenario”, or “Oh the testers should have picked it up”. You created the spec, you were there for the grooming, and the planning – and had the opportunity to glance over the test cases before development began. Take ownership of the outcome.

So where did I fall short this time? Even though my spec was well thought out AND I provided the testers with a list of test scenarios to consider, the one thing I didn’t do – was consider the scope of the system being impacted in the development -resulting in an entire segment of the system going untested.

Sometimes we’re so focused on the little details that we forget to take a step back and take in the bigger picture.

Why AI Drives Better Business Decision Making

Written by Nicole Garrison on November 25, 2020. Posted in Articles.

Are you ready to trust AI to make decisions for your business?

If you’re unsure if AI is good enough for this task, you might be surprised by the time you’re done reading. No, I’m not going to convince you to dramatically change the way you make your decision making process, like, right away. That’s not the right way to go.

Instead, you’re going to see how AI is really used to make a difference for businesses. We’ll also talk about how entrepreneurs like you are benefitting by incorporating AI in the decision making process.

How to Incorporate AI in Decision Making the Right Way?

The hype around AI has generated a quite false impression that it’s a complete solution to decision-making. For many business leaders not ready to embrace the technology, this impression has played a final role in making the decision whether to try it.

In reality, things are a little bit different.

AI doesn’t make decision-making automatic. It gives you never-before-accessed insights to make the best possible decisions faster.

In other words, AI doesn’t take away your decision making privileges. It becomes your partner whose ability to generate useful business insights is superb.

Virginie Grandhaye, the offering manager for IBM Decision Optimization, has recently given a great interview where she explained how the process of AI decision making really works.

According to Grandhaye, the primary role of AI is to enable the business to use data “to both analyze and formalize the decision-making process.”

There are five success factors involved in making AI work, says Grandhaye.

AI Decision Making Process Success Ingredients by Grandhaye

A good understanding of the problem faced by the business
A team of experts knowledgeable of AI analysis methods such as machine learning
Close cooperation with the business growth team. AI experts and decision makers should work together on data analysis to come up with the best solutions to a problem
A data science platform to manage data, validate assumptions, and visualize models.
Adequate capability to deploy. Having a platform for deployment makes it easier to monitor and manage the lifecycle of data models.

As you can see, AI experts and decision-makers need to work together to make the best out of the technology. The outcome of the cooperation will be the so-called “ intelligence decision.”

The biggest benefit of an intelligence decision, according to Grandhaye, is the ability to help businesses focus on a business need instead of having them dealing with algorithms and numbers.

Here’s how AI decision making does that.

How AI Improves Business Decision Making

1. AI Eliminates Cognitive Bias

Human analysis is inherently prone to cognitive bias, which has them focusing intently on irrelevant or wrong factors. It’s a really big problem just because of the sheer amount of them. Science says there are over 180 cognitive biases that could potentially affect your business decisions and steer you in the wrong direction.

A human decision maker is susceptible to all of them, especially when he or she is stressed, poorly trained, tired, or multitasking.

“Cognitive biases are bad for business,” writes Dr. Jim Taylor, an expert on the psychology of performance. [They’re] “most problematic because they cause business people to make bad decisions.”

AI, on the other hand, doesn’t have this problem. Its algorithms search for all connections and relationships in data, not just the ones that people want or need to see there.

2. AI Helps with Better Content Personalization

Content personalization is a must for online businesses to generate more traffic, leads, and sales. Deloitte says that 47 percent of online shoppers are ready to switch to a different brand after having impersonal experiences with a business.

A business can personalize content well on a small scale, but doing so for thousands of customers might become a challenge. For one, analyzing their browsing behavior to create relevant content becomes incredibly time-consuming.

That’s where AI intelligence decision comes in.

An algorithm can:

Personalize content based on a user’s browsing history, purchases, subscriptions, or other characteristics
Help content creators by supplying them with insights into customer behavior
Create more relevant brand experiences for customers by managing content in real time (content sequencing).

AI decision making can significantly improve digital marketing campaigns.

A company relying on content marketing to attract leads, for example, can use the insights generated by AI to write more engaging and targeted blog articles.

Content marketing platforms like OneSpot use sophisticated algorithms to deliver content sequencing, i.e. showing relevant content at specific points in the customer journey. This approach helps to increase the ability of the content to engage customers.

3. AI Makes it Easier to Understand Customer Journey

The existing AI-powered tools can dramatically advance understanding of customer experience with a brand.

Here are some ways in which businesses are using them already:

AI-powered chatbots automate lead generation and improve customer service by making your business available 24/7 and gathering lots of customer data
Chatbots share content based on a customer’s interactions with a brand automatically through Facebook
Algorithms detect customers’ emotions in social media posts and analyze the brand perception
AI systems conduct up-selling and cross-selling in eCommerce to help to sell more
AI face recognition systems make online payments easier and faster
AI identifies and prevents eCommerce fraud by identifying subtle behavioral patterns in transactions.

The results are already pretty amazing. Amazon’s AI-based product recommendation engine, for example, generates 35 percent of the company’s total revenues.

4. AI Helps to Create Better Emails

Email marketing, the best-performing digital marketing channel, has just got an update thanks to AI. Today, businesses use mostly traditional email marketing tools to send automated messages and get more customers.

With AI, a lot more becomes available:

Write more relevant subject lines. The algorithm can generate personalized email subject lines to increase open rates. It evaluates the performance of previous campaigns and suggests specific line options based on best-performing ones
Automate distribution. AI takes email distribution one step further by allowing to send automatic emails based on the stage a customer is in their journey
Generate emails. AI is good at creating emails that look like they were designed by humans. Already many AI-powered email marketing tools can both automatically generate emails and suggest the most relevant content ideas for specific recipients.

Together, these benefits allow businesses to deliver personalized emails at any scale. Since online customers appreciate personalization so much, chances are good that businesses will see their email campaigns paying off nicely.

AI Decision Making: Faster and More Effective Processes

So, how do you feel about AI decision making now? The technology can clearly benefit your business by giving access to previously unavailable data insights and patterns. By the end of the day, you’re still in charge plus your decision can be much better informed.

Businesses across different industries are already making better decisions thanks to AI. It’s up to you whether your company should join them, but don’t take long to make your mind. Your competitors are exploring AI, too, you know.

The Power Of Scenario Planning

Written by Christina Lovelock on July 30, 2020. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on The Power Of Scenario Planning

True busines agility is achieved by considering what might happen in the future, and developing an outline response.

No one could have PREDICTED the current global situation, but some organisations were better PREPARED for it.

Whether you are delivering projects, products or services, it’s all about the future.

Increasing profit/market share
Increasing customer loyalty
Improving customer experience
Improving quality
Developing and retaining staff
Diversifying the offering
Decreasing costs
Reducing complexity

Each of these aims can be followed by the phrase “in the future”, as that is where they all reside. Most organisations believe they are thinking about the future, but they are usually just extrapolating the present, and that’s not the same thing at all.

What is Scenario Planning?

Scenario planning is a strategic analysis tool which recognises the future is uncertain and unpredictable, and encourages us to explore how we can prepare for it.

There are three broad steps to scenario planning:

Consider what is the current reality for the organisation and wider world, and how that might be different in future.
Consider what those differences would mean for the organisation.
Act on this new knowledge. (This might be: develop a plan, mitigate a risk, explore an opportunity…).

There are many models that facilitate the process of scenario planning, which is usually run as a series of workshops with relevant stakeholders.

Advantages of Scenario Planning

1. Framework

Scenario planning provides an opportunity and framework for people to contribute their fears and ideas in a legitimised and structured way. It’s proactive, and removes some of the worry of being perceived as ‘doom-monger’.

2. Awareness

It encourages us to think outside of our organisational boundaries, and lift our heads from the day-to-day rhythm and routine of work. It asks: what’s going on in our organisation? our sector? the wider economy? in society? for our customers? for our suppliers? and for our staff?

How might this impact our organisation in the future, and what can we do about it?

3. Calm

Scenario planning allows options to be really evaluated, and decisions to be taken before a situation actually occurs. In the face of a crisis, organisational and individual biases can cloud could good judgement, speed of response can overlook better options and fear and blame can impact relationships. It creates the time for a ‘plan for a plan’. Scenario planning offers no certainties, but gives the opportunity to identify indicators: “If we start to see X happening, then person Y will do Z”.

(Yes, some people supposedly thrive under pressure and enjoy adrenaline fuelled situations, but this is not business agility.)

4. Competitive advantage

If we are considering the future and preparing for it while others are not, this gives us a clear advantage. We will be able to respond rather than react, move more quickly and demonstrate our organisational agility.

Common Traps of Scenario Planning

1. ‘Waste of time’

Because many, perhaps most, of the scenarios won’t actually happen, investing time in thinking about them may seem like a waste of time and effort. This may prevent a full range of scenarios from being effectively developed and discussed.

Most people have enough to worry about in their ‘day job’, and do not want to go exploring for further problems. This is narrow thinking and prevents business agility.

2. ‘Lack of imagination’

Some people cannot imagine a different world, and others can imagine it but are embarrassed to describe it. Many organisations do ‘financial planning’ by using a small number of variables (costs, predicated growth etc.) and model best, worst and most likely scenarios. This is safe thinking, and is unlikely to lead to any major breakthrough in organisation

3. ‘Overwhelmed’

It would be relatively easy for even a small group to come up with dozens of plausible scenarios, and generate hundreds of potential actions in just a few hours. Generating the scenarios, then narrowing them down to a manageable number is part of the processes. The discussion about the potential scenarios is often more valuable than identifying every possible future.

4. ‘File in the draw’

If no action is taken as a result of the scenario planning, then the value of the exercise will not be realised. ‘Action’ could range from agreeing options or decisions that will be made in certain situations to making significant changes in strategy or operations as a result of the information the exercise has revealed.

Conclusion

Organisations which can adapt will survive and thrive. The ability to adapt quickly is about giving people the time and space to consider how to respond to a range of scenarios, most of which will not come to pass. But for the ones that do – we ‘ll be ready. For the scenarios we didn’t see coming, our organisations will be more able to adapt because we recognise that the tomorrow cannot be extrapolated from today.

Reference:

Scenario Planning, Woody Wade, 2012

Forget SMART, Aim 4A Goal!

Written by Christina Lovelock on May 28, 2020. Posted in Articles. 1 Comment on Forget SMART, Aim 4A Goal!

The SMART acronym is considered best practice for objective setting, yet somehow objectives which are ‘made SMART’ become uninspiring and unintelligible.

We are told that individual, team and organisational objectives need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/ Relevant, Timebound). For the most part, goals and objectives should be something we set because we want to achieve them, but when we cryptically re-word, strip back to the specifics, take out the inspiration by dialling down to realistic and attach an (often) arbitrary deadline, they seem to lose their appeal.

How can we create goals we are actually inspired to work towards? By simplifying the processes and asking ourselves good questions.

Aim 4A Goal

4A is Achieve/Avoid/ Action Analysis. By creating an engaging table or diagram we can frame a goal that motivates us, identify what we need to be aware on pursuit of that goal and identify the next steps towards achieving it. Notice that is next steps, not every step. It is impossible to predict the future, but we can usually identify the activities which are a step in the right direction of the goal, even if we cannot yet see every move we will need to make.

Here are some of the questions to help to understand the goal and how to get there.

Achieve

It’s difficult to work out what your goals are, it may need some dedicated time and a few false starts to get to the real goal(s).

what do you want to do?
when do you want to do it by?
why?

It’s ok to aim big, it can be broken down into steps, many of which you might not know yet. It’s also fine to have a very narrow scope, that can be achieved through a very small number of actions. The key is to be sufficiently motivated to do the actions!

Avoid

Most things can be achieved, with enough time and attention, but at what cost? In the pursuit of goals we must consider the things which might distract us, and also the things we are unwilling to compromise on to achieve the goal.

what are the potential pit-falls?
what might get in the way?
what might be the unwanted impacts (on myself and others)?
what do I need to ensure I don’t neglect, in pursuit of this goal?
what risks am I unwilling to take?
what behaviours am I unwilling to engage in?
who might prevent it? (be honest).

Just as important as planning the things we will do, is to identify the things we will have to give up or are unwilling to do.

Action:

Actions need to be tailored to address the goal, and avoid the issues identified. If we don’t highlight the things we want to avoid, we may take the wrong actions.

what can I do right now that moves me closer to my goal?
who can help or advise me?

For every action we take, we can ask “Is this contributing to my goal?” If not, we may still choose to do it, but consciously rather than inadvertently. Add actions to the list as they become apparent, and the next best step to take.

Example Goal

Achieve: Speak at a conference or event in the next 12 months.

Avoid: Excessive travel costs, impact on my project work.

Actions: Identify local events, find out submission process and deadline, develop sessions ideas at weekends.

When these actions are complete, identify the next steps which move towards the goal.

Decision making

Achieve/Avoid/ Action Analysis (4A) is also incredibly useful as a decision making framework. It helps keep everyone on track – “what are we trying to accomplish with the outcome of this decision?”, “what impacts don’t we want”, “what possible actions achieve the outcome and avoid the impacts?”. Often group decision making is difficult because people are not trying to achieve the same thing from the decision. Using 4A give the opportunity to build consensus on what we are working towards, address concerns via the ‘avoid’ list and jointly agree the actions which best hold the ‘achieve’ and ‘avoid’ elements in balance.

Example Decision: “Shall we reduce the training budget to save money?”

Achieve: Cost savings of X in this financial year

Avoid: Impacting staff morale, having people who do not know how to do their job, impacting customer service.

Actions: Investigate online delivery options, prioritise the training needs, defer some of the training, use train-the-trainer approach.

Conclusion

SMART has had its chance, and it wasn’t helping. Set goals that inspire and motivate you, work out what you need to avoid in the pursuit of those goals, then develop a plan to achieve them.

We also need to accept that we may need to change our goals. We may decide we don’t want to achieve what we once thought was important. Don’t work towards something you no longer want, just because you wrote it down or told a few people. In that case, Aim 4A New Goal, work out what that looks like, what you need to avoid, and what next step you can take.