I really don’t like shopping, but unfortunately, I like having stuff, so I end up doing it sometimes, when I can’t outsource it to someone else. The other day was one of those days. I went into the Apple store to buy a phone charger. I sighed as I walked through the door into probably a hundred employees and customers clustered all around the store. I went straight to the back in search of my charger and as soon as I picked it up a woman walked up to me and asked me if I had found what I needed.
I held up my phone and the charger and said, “Do these match?”
She said, “Yes, would you like to purchase it?”
“Sure”, I said.
“OK, I can do it right here. Cash or Credit?”
“Credit.” I held out my Mastercard.
With her tripped out iPhone, she scanned the teeny box and swiped my card. “Receipt printed or emailed?”
“Emailed”, I said with a smile. I was liking this so far.
“breytspraak@yahoo.com?”
“Yes…”
“You are all set. Thanks!”
I was done?!? I put the charger in my purse and walked out triumphantly. That was AWESOME! Imagine how happy IT organizations would make their organizations if they rethought processes like that? They need to re-engineer their internal organizations in how they do everything from provisioning, approving projects, gathering requirements and more. They need to lead their organizations in rethinking how they get work done, how they interact with customers. That would build some serious respect.
I’m not dreading going back to the Apple store now. I actually think I might enjoy the experience. If only swimsuit shopping had been so enjoyable…
Monday, February 22, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Social Networking's Impact on Organizational Structures
The Economist recently did a special report on social networking. It is thoughtful and comprehensive, but it could have been written a couple of years ago. I love the Economist, but their reports on IT tend to lag the times. As usual, I was a little disappointed. Anyway, not my point…
The particular article in the series: Yammering away at the Office, got me to thinking a little about organizational structures and how social networks have the potential to really change the way we thinking about organizational design.
Historically, when doing organizational design, the dominant thinking is around the “HR reporting”, in which every employee reports to one manager who is ultimately responsible for that employee’s performance. With increasing complexity of organizations, we’ve added dotted line reporting, which basically means an employee has a second or third manager who is also responsible for some aspect of the employee’s performance, but the primary manager still retains primary control of that employee’s world. We now have matrix organizational designs, project based designs, and functional designs, all that may coexist with traditional HR reporting structure.
Over time, the HR reporting lines have lost power. Superstars can more easily circumvent the bureaucracy and poor performers are outed easier. Managers can more easily snag people for their special projects. In some companies, HR lines are only retained because HR systems require it, or to facilitate annual performance and compensation review processes. Yes, there are functions in an organization that require tight “HR management”, especially those that are more operational in nature. But over time, much of the operational work is being automated or outsourced, so more and more is project based. And project based work does not lend itself to traditional HR reporting lines. People are often working on a couple of projects at once (ideally not more than a couple though). Projects rarely last the entire year, so people need to be moved around often. And the people involved in each project are ideally picked each time, so teams are constantly forming with new people. And it goes even further. Knowledge is no longer segmented to specific functions in an organization. Whether it is a project or just a minor task, the best person or idea to move it forward is often in another area of the organization than HR reporting lines would lead us to believe.
So how is technology changing these reporting lines? The article says that “existing IT systems are geared towards reinforcing separate silos rather than building bridges between them”. I assume they are talking about all the standard systems we know across the organization that are set up to support specific functions with interfaces between them only where necessary. Many of these systems have tried to incorporate more collaboration but have had limited success.
True social networking technologies are driving or supporting (up for debate, probably both) the move towards more project based work and knowledge sharing across the organization. Microsoft’s SharePoint has been around a while and is so pervasive that most organizations immediately pop up a new site as a resolution to any problem or project. That has moved things forward a bit, but it is still mostly just to share documents despite the advanced features. It is taking social networking technologies, both external (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) and internal (Yammer, Newsgator’s Social Sites Enterprise) to really collaborate across reporting lines and geographies. As people are getting more comfortable with this type of communication in their external world, it is picking up steam in within the walls of the corporation. As the article points out, there are still objections to these technologies as productivity enhancers, but those objections are getting shot down quickly.
So now that technology can really support knowledge sharing and project collaboration, people are getting more comfortable with different ways of operating, and managers are accepting the value, how will reporting structures change? It is pretty clear that HR reporting lines will continue to lose power in most parts of the organization, but will we get to a point that they disappear entirely? I suspect that day is closer than we think. Organizations will flatten and spans of control will widen, with tens if not hundreds of people “reporting” into a general manager and working with a resource manager to prioritize their projects. People will work on a variety of projects and tasks for various managers, with a variety of project teams, pulling in knowledge experts from all around and outside the organization. And these technologies will help enable it all.
The particular article in the series: Yammering away at the Office, got me to thinking a little about organizational structures and how social networks have the potential to really change the way we thinking about organizational design.
Historically, when doing organizational design, the dominant thinking is around the “HR reporting”, in which every employee reports to one manager who is ultimately responsible for that employee’s performance. With increasing complexity of organizations, we’ve added dotted line reporting, which basically means an employee has a second or third manager who is also responsible for some aspect of the employee’s performance, but the primary manager still retains primary control of that employee’s world. We now have matrix organizational designs, project based designs, and functional designs, all that may coexist with traditional HR reporting structure.
Over time, the HR reporting lines have lost power. Superstars can more easily circumvent the bureaucracy and poor performers are outed easier. Managers can more easily snag people for their special projects. In some companies, HR lines are only retained because HR systems require it, or to facilitate annual performance and compensation review processes. Yes, there are functions in an organization that require tight “HR management”, especially those that are more operational in nature. But over time, much of the operational work is being automated or outsourced, so more and more is project based. And project based work does not lend itself to traditional HR reporting lines. People are often working on a couple of projects at once (ideally not more than a couple though). Projects rarely last the entire year, so people need to be moved around often. And the people involved in each project are ideally picked each time, so teams are constantly forming with new people. And it goes even further. Knowledge is no longer segmented to specific functions in an organization. Whether it is a project or just a minor task, the best person or idea to move it forward is often in another area of the organization than HR reporting lines would lead us to believe.
So how is technology changing these reporting lines? The article says that “existing IT systems are geared towards reinforcing separate silos rather than building bridges between them”. I assume they are talking about all the standard systems we know across the organization that are set up to support specific functions with interfaces between them only where necessary. Many of these systems have tried to incorporate more collaboration but have had limited success.
True social networking technologies are driving or supporting (up for debate, probably both) the move towards more project based work and knowledge sharing across the organization. Microsoft’s SharePoint has been around a while and is so pervasive that most organizations immediately pop up a new site as a resolution to any problem or project. That has moved things forward a bit, but it is still mostly just to share documents despite the advanced features. It is taking social networking technologies, both external (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) and internal (Yammer, Newsgator’s Social Sites Enterprise) to really collaborate across reporting lines and geographies. As people are getting more comfortable with this type of communication in their external world, it is picking up steam in within the walls of the corporation. As the article points out, there are still objections to these technologies as productivity enhancers, but those objections are getting shot down quickly.
So now that technology can really support knowledge sharing and project collaboration, people are getting more comfortable with different ways of operating, and managers are accepting the value, how will reporting structures change? It is pretty clear that HR reporting lines will continue to lose power in most parts of the organization, but will we get to a point that they disappear entirely? I suspect that day is closer than we think. Organizations will flatten and spans of control will widen, with tens if not hundreds of people “reporting” into a general manager and working with a resource manager to prioritize their projects. People will work on a variety of projects and tasks for various managers, with a variety of project teams, pulling in knowledge experts from all around and outside the organization. And these technologies will help enable it all.
Financial Planning in the Cloud: An Update
I am SO glad I listened to my "consultant". If you didn't read the previous post, this consultant, had I hired them, would have convinced me to give up on the processes I had used for years associated with Quicken. And I was very resistant. In fact, since my PC crashed last summer, I'd been trying to find some technology that exactly replicated what I used to do on my PC on my Mac. It actually seems kind of ridiculous now that I couldn't let go of my customized categories, just because that's how I'd thought about my expenses for years.
But I let it go. My hands were tied and I played Mint.com's game. And now I have all these great new features, partly because I simplified to their standards! I'm saving all kinds of time because it actually knows where to categorize 90% of my spending. And I love the simple interface and intuitive reports. Everything is finally in one place. I'm actually amazed that it can pull in all of my investments and show me how every individual stock is performing, with just a login and password to my investment site.
I think my financial planning saga is over. I can throw away that old PC and be happy sitting on my little cloud.
But I let it go. My hands were tied and I played Mint.com's game. And now I have all these great new features, partly because I simplified to their standards! I'm saving all kinds of time because it actually knows where to categorize 90% of my spending. And I love the simple interface and intuitive reports. Everything is finally in one place. I'm actually amazed that it can pull in all of my investments and show me how every individual stock is performing, with just a login and password to my investment site.
I think my financial planning saga is over. I can throw away that old PC and be happy sitting on my little cloud.
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Financial Planning in the Cloud
Ever since I lost my Quicken data on my PC, I’ve been searching for a viable financial planning alternative on my Mac. I started with Mint.com, a free financial planning tool in the “cloud”, which offers some fun new features like bill pay reminders and overspending email notices, but it is still a bit amateur compared to Quicken’s capabilities, especially in its ability to customize categories and run reports. So my financial advisor, who uses Fidelity as a custodian, suggested I try Fidelity’s Fullview product, another online tool that pulls data from a set of online accounts and allows for categorization and reporting of transactions. It did allow me to do some category customization, but the interface was not exactly what I liked. But then an entire billing cycle of one of my credit cards (at least 100 transactions) mysteriously disappeared after I’d gone through and categorized all of them. The help desk said they’d try to retrieve it but it would be a couple of weeks. I lost patience and trust and have since been exploring alternatives: going back to Mint.com and losing some flexibility, moving to something new like Money Guide Pro (another option to integrate investment performance reports with budgeting) or waiting for Quicken for the Mac to be released this month and seeing what it has to offer.
I spent an hour today looking at the alternatives and I’m more frustrated than ever. I admit, I’m still a little pissed about losing all of my PC Quicken data of 1996-2009, but more importantly, I just can’t let go of some of the basic functionality I came to know and love and some other functionality I think is reasonable to want…
Quicken for the PC did all these things, with the exception of #3. So it seems logical to me that I can find another program to run on my Mac or in the cloud to do the same. After fourteen years of basically the same functionality, I don’t see why I should have to change. And then I realized … I am the reason that systems in large companies can’t be killed off! I’m one of those “power users” who insist their processes are so effective they shouldn’t be changed by technology.
But what’s interesting is that in my investigation of Mint.com’s supposed missing feature, I realized through some discussion threads there is some reasoning for the standard categories: It makes it a lot easier for them to categorize transactions automatically and run comparison data with other users. Automatic categorization and ongoing benchmarking are arguably better features than category customization. Additionally, Mint.com also has a way to tag business expenses without using a separate category, which could make expense reporting and exclusion from spending analyses even easier. They don’t seem to have much on the investment front, but there really isn’t a reason those two systems have to be tied together. I can still see the full picture, even if I can’t get all the details of the activity within.
If I hired a consultant to come in and run a software selection for me, they would likely advise me to let go of my hangups and use the free product that is likely to make me happier in the long run. They would tell me that it won’t work exactly like I’m used to, but that by moving to something more standard on the cloud, I’m going to get better overall features in the long run. So, I’m going to swallow my own medicine and give Mint.com a try. If I just can’t take it, I’ll see what Quicken releases for the Mac… more soon.
I spent an hour today looking at the alternatives and I’m more frustrated than ever. I admit, I’m still a little pissed about losing all of my PC Quicken data of 1996-2009, but more importantly, I just can’t let go of some of the basic functionality I came to know and love and some other functionality I think is reasonable to want…
- I really want my customized categories back. Why? I’ve categorized expenses for the same way for the last fourteen years and I’d like the reporting to be consistent.
- I need an easy way to categorize my business expenses and run a report to generate my expense report. I have a process to categorize those expenses, report on them for my expense report and then exclude them from my spending reports.
- I want to follow my investments in the same place, ideally in a way that my financial advisor and I can review the progress together.
Quicken for the PC did all these things, with the exception of #3. So it seems logical to me that I can find another program to run on my Mac or in the cloud to do the same. After fourteen years of basically the same functionality, I don’t see why I should have to change. And then I realized … I am the reason that systems in large companies can’t be killed off! I’m one of those “power users” who insist their processes are so effective they shouldn’t be changed by technology.
But what’s interesting is that in my investigation of Mint.com’s supposed missing feature, I realized through some discussion threads there is some reasoning for the standard categories: It makes it a lot easier for them to categorize transactions automatically and run comparison data with other users. Automatic categorization and ongoing benchmarking are arguably better features than category customization. Additionally, Mint.com also has a way to tag business expenses without using a separate category, which could make expense reporting and exclusion from spending analyses even easier. They don’t seem to have much on the investment front, but there really isn’t a reason those two systems have to be tied together. I can still see the full picture, even if I can’t get all the details of the activity within.
If I hired a consultant to come in and run a software selection for me, they would likely advise me to let go of my hangups and use the free product that is likely to make me happier in the long run. They would tell me that it won’t work exactly like I’m used to, but that by moving to something more standard on the cloud, I’m going to get better overall features in the long run. So, I’m going to swallow my own medicine and give Mint.com a try. If I just can’t take it, I’ll see what Quicken releases for the Mac… more soon.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
What’s it about personality “tests” that some love and others hate?
“But I don’t wanna be put in a box!”, he exclaimed. “He” could have been a colleague, a client, a guy I’m dating … I’ve heard it from all of them. But yet these same people want to be understood, they want to be loved and respected for their unique attributes, they want to relate well with others. And personality instruments like Myers-Briggs, DISC and others help us understand each other and provide a safe language for speaking with each other about our differences.
Yes, I love this stuff – I’m happily distracted by a personality test any day over many other activities (granted, I also liked taking tests as a kid, so I realize I might be a bit of an anomaly). I just think it is so fascinating to get a glimpse into the way people perceive the world, process information, and make decisions, especially when it is so different than me. To understand that an extravert has to take everything out of his head and pick through it with someone else to figure out what he actually thinks, or that an introvert, when asked a question, must run away for a few days to her little getaway just to come back with a one word answer … that helps people relate. To get that some people need to take information in visually, some auditory, some kinesthetically, that helps people connect. To understand that some people are uncomfortable making final decisions and others will be ancy until the decision is made … that helps people work together. And those are just a few examples.
Every one of these tools is just an instrument to learn more about ourselves and help us relate to others who are different than us. Understanding our natural preferences helps us figure out where we need help and what we need to work on. So why are some people so anti personality tests? Unfortunately these instruments have gotten a bad rap because people get so caught up in the classifications that they attempt to draw very specific conclusions without realizing the nuances. It should be more about the conversation that it gets started. When we talk through our types and say “oh, that’s totally you!” or “that really resonates with me”, we can open up communication in a non-threatening way, acknowledging our differences and advising each other on how we can relate effectively. The week after my office went through one of these facilitations, one of the guys in my office who tested strong “F” (feeling, not thinking) in Myers-Briggs, stopped me mid conversation and said, “Lisa, remember, I’m an “F”, so I’m sensitive when you tell me this stuff!”, which isn’t exactly the meaning of “F” in Myers-Briggs, but it helped us have the conversation we needed to have in a much more effective way. And we got a good laugh out of it.
So I think everyone should stop taking all these tests so seriously and use them for what they are meant – helping us better understand ourselves and others to improve personal and professional relationships!
Yes, I love this stuff – I’m happily distracted by a personality test any day over many other activities (granted, I also liked taking tests as a kid, so I realize I might be a bit of an anomaly). I just think it is so fascinating to get a glimpse into the way people perceive the world, process information, and make decisions, especially when it is so different than me. To understand that an extravert has to take everything out of his head and pick through it with someone else to figure out what he actually thinks, or that an introvert, when asked a question, must run away for a few days to her little getaway just to come back with a one word answer … that helps people relate. To get that some people need to take information in visually, some auditory, some kinesthetically, that helps people connect. To understand that some people are uncomfortable making final decisions and others will be ancy until the decision is made … that helps people work together. And those are just a few examples.
Every one of these tools is just an instrument to learn more about ourselves and help us relate to others who are different than us. Understanding our natural preferences helps us figure out where we need help and what we need to work on. So why are some people so anti personality tests? Unfortunately these instruments have gotten a bad rap because people get so caught up in the classifications that they attempt to draw very specific conclusions without realizing the nuances. It should be more about the conversation that it gets started. When we talk through our types and say “oh, that’s totally you!” or “that really resonates with me”, we can open up communication in a non-threatening way, acknowledging our differences and advising each other on how we can relate effectively. The week after my office went through one of these facilitations, one of the guys in my office who tested strong “F” (feeling, not thinking) in Myers-Briggs, stopped me mid conversation and said, “Lisa, remember, I’m an “F”, so I’m sensitive when you tell me this stuff!”, which isn’t exactly the meaning of “F” in Myers-Briggs, but it helped us have the conversation we needed to have in a much more effective way. And we got a good laugh out of it.
So I think everyone should stop taking all these tests so seriously and use them for what they are meant – helping us better understand ourselves and others to improve personal and professional relationships!
Friday, January 29, 2010
IT job market seems to be improving
Just this week, I've had four people email me looking to fill IT related positions, mostly in consulting. Several have remarked that the market is getting tighter, it is harder to find good people now than last year. And I know fewer people looking. Based on what I hear from people, it feels as though the job market (at least in IT) has been steadily improving since December.
If you are looking for a job in the IT field in Denver or Dallas, feel free to email me what you are looking for and I'll let you know if you are a match for any of these opportunities. And no, I don't charge a fee, it is just your reward for reading my blog.
If you are looking for a job in the IT field in Denver or Dallas, feel free to email me what you are looking for and I'll let you know if you are a match for any of these opportunities. And no, I don't charge a fee, it is just your reward for reading my blog.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
HB1192 needs to be squashed
I’m not usually one to get very involved in local or state politics, but this proposed House Bill 1192 is an exception. If you haven’t heard about it, you can read more here. Basically, it is a huge new tax on software that will affect our technology community and every company employing workers in Colorado.
There are several complexities that make it even worse – it is retroactive, it is based on employee usage of software (even if they use a software program one hour a year), and they are planning to penalize companies who do not somehow hear about this required tax through an industry association or some other means. It is so clear that basing a tax like this on the number of employees in Colorado will reduce employers’ incentives to hire/ retain people in Colorado.
Hopefully this won’t pass because it is unconstitutional under TABOR to add a new tax without voter approval, but please voice your concern by calling state officials and spread the word. I just emailed each person on the appropriations committee - it only took five minutes. You can find out more information here on who to contact…
There are several complexities that make it even worse – it is retroactive, it is based on employee usage of software (even if they use a software program one hour a year), and they are planning to penalize companies who do not somehow hear about this required tax through an industry association or some other means. It is so clear that basing a tax like this on the number of employees in Colorado will reduce employers’ incentives to hire/ retain people in Colorado.
Hopefully this won’t pass because it is unconstitutional under TABOR to add a new tax without voter approval, but please voice your concern by calling state officials and spread the word. I just emailed each person on the appropriations committee - it only took five minutes. You can find out more information here on who to contact…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
