Tag Archives: Achievement

How Do You Manage Major Projects? Seven Points

Situation: A company conducts both engineering feasibility studies and development projects. These are high budget projects and must be managed diligently to prevent cost overruns. What have others done to assure that projects are planned and managed to budget? How do you manage major projects?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • What is the structure of most contracted projects?
    • Most projects are fixed price. They come from feasibility studies which are essentially “marketing” for future sales. Typical terms are 30% up front, with the other 30/30/10 upon achievement of milestones and completion of the project.
  • Get complete buy-in from the customer as part of the initial negotiation.
  • Stay ahead of expenses by billing in time to maintain positive cash flow from the projects.
  • Structure pricing so that custom work is profitable if the project mix is 50/50 custom vs. standard work.
  • Push-back if the customer wants to reduce project cost up-front.
  • Carefully document work papers – above what is required by the contract. Get buy-in for this in advance, during the initial negotiation.
  • Once the feasibility study is completed, revise the scope and deliverables of the work agreement based on findings from the study.
  • Separate the “concept” phase from the execution phase and charge a premium for the concept work.
    • Position this as a value to the customer.

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How Do You Boost Team Morale? Ten Suggestions

Situation: A CEO is concerned because he anticipates an increase in stress within his team – from handling clients who are anxious about the economy on the downside to a potentially overwhelming number of new clients to manage as people start to reinvest in growth as the economy improves. How do you boost team morale?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Help team members to prepare for additional pressure:
    • Communicate with them as a team, and individually as necessary, about what the company anticipates to be the new challenge. Do this with a positive tone.
    • Be open with the team about the realities that they may face, and have the team work together during weekly meetings to develop solutions that will help to reduce the pressure as it builds.
    • Make stressors positive. Bringing on new clients is wonderful for the firm, will increase profitability and the opportunity for profit sharing.
  • What have others done to successfully maintain employee morale and increase productivity?
    • Reward programs for people who learn new processes or develop new skills. The real reward isn’t the cash, but recognition by the CEO, who makes a big deal about the reward.
    • Monthly or quarterly drawings for a cash price. Employees can increase their odds of winning because the number of tickets that an individual has in the hat is driven by accomplishments against criteria set each period.
    • Monthly barbeque lunch for the whole company. This promotes camaraderie, and encourages people to talk to one another about things other than business.
    • Project-based bonuses – tied to individual contribution.
    • Spot bonus or gift cards – allowing employees to recognize each other’s’ contributions.
    • Post individual “win” achievements on a bulletin board in the break room. This injects fun competition into day-to-day work.
  • Develop a list similar to the suggestions, above, and ask employees what type of recognition and pressure relievers they would like to see – bring them into the decision.

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How Do You Improve Your Time Management Skills? Four Recommendations

Situation: A CEO is finding that reduction in staff over the last two years combined with expansion of business have left her in a quandary trying to manage too much. While the prospects of bring in new staff are improving, she wants to improve her time management skills to support company growth. How do you improve your time management skills?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • Delegation and communication around delegation is about “monkey” management – getting the monkeys off you back and onto the backs of others. In addition, it’s about not letting others put inappropriate monkeys on your back.
  • Think about the difference between:
    • Empowerment versus involving yourself in all aspects of the business.
    • Empowerment is more effective and frees up time to focus on new opportunities and growth.
    • Involving yourself everywhere quickly leads to a time crunch and is less effective.
  • Set quarterly goals for yourself, just as you set quarterly goals for the company. This drives achievement and growth. It helps you to:
    • Clarify your role – where you should be focusing your time, and to
    • Let go.
  • Think of your staff as your customers. Like customers, the more you give and recognize them, the more they love you. Effectively, this is serving your staff just as you serve customers. This is called Servant Leadership and builds both empowered employees and great employee loyalty.

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Is the Glass Half-full or Half-empty? Five Recommendations

Situation: The CEO of a product and service company has seen her company struggle for several years. While the overall market has turned around, her company has not. She is tired of barely staying afloat and not making the kind of money that she a decade ago. Is the glass half-full or half-empty?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • What keeps you from hitting the numbers? Creating a forecast, budget and objectives allows you to establish a reward system for meeting and exceeding objectives. Once there is an upside, then not hitting the numbers means that a manager misses the upside and the financial rewards that accompany this achievement. This is often consequence enough, particularly if others are hitting their numbers and getting performance bonuses.
  • The glass is half-full. The past few years have been difficult. Review what the company accomplished during an extended recession. Look at how the company fares versus local competitors. Review positive changes that have been made and take credit for these. This will provide energy to move forward.
  • Given the company’s successes, sit down with the management and show them what the company has accomplished. Celebrate. Use this opportunity to set goals for next year. A good place to start is to set a bottom line profitability objective before taxes.
  • To be a great manager requires more than just a revenue and profitability target. People rally around a vision and a culture that they aspire to and want to enjoy. The role of the leader is to create this vision and culture. Do this, and revenue and profitability will take care of themselves.
  • Two more thoughts on whether the glass is half full or half empty to check your bearings:
    • What is your passion? If you love what you’re doing, what else would you do?
    • If you were doing something else, would you be making more money or enjoying more success?

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Are Negative Incentives Effective? Four Perspectives

Situation: A company has been struggling to meet objectives. Financials aren’t completed on schedule, limiting the ability of the CEO to manage by the numbers. Milestones are behind schedule. The CEO was advised to consider stringent measures, including financial penalties, to force compliance to performance goals. In your experience, are negative incentives effective?

Advice from the CEOs:

  • There are at least three potential roots of this problem. Have your hired people who lack the skills to perform their functions? Is there a clear plan and set of priorities in place? Or are you as the CEO being consistent in your demands of the team? You need all three to meet your objectives.
  • Be sure to set SMART objectives: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound. In addition, make sure that everyone understands how their performance impacts not only the plans of the company, but their salary and benefits as an employee. Be sure that everyone has the resources to complete what is expected of them.
  • Be careful if you are considering financial penalties, and negative incentives.
    • Many studies have shown that positive reinforcement is more effective than negative reinforcement.
    • If an employee is chronically behind on deliverables, ask what is happening and why they are not getting the job done.
    • If the response is not satisfactory, and performance doesn’t improve, you are better off terminating the employee than using negative incentives.
  • Often the question is not one of motivation but one of focus. Focus has to start at the top, and has to be maintained through departmental and team leadership. Make sure that there is proper training in setting and monitoring achievement of objectives throughout your leadership team. It helps if everyone clearly understands what the company is trying to achieve.

Key Words: Objectives, Achievement, Failure, Schedule, Manage, Numbers, Penalties, Compliance, Positive, Negative, Incentive, SMART, Resources, Achievable, Motivation, Focus, Training, Great Game of Business, Jack Stack, Understand

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