Archive for the ‘Management’ Category

7 Traits of the Highly Productive People!

Tuesday, December 20th, 2011

http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/7-things-highly-productive-people-do.html

I can thankfully say, that of the I do at least 1 of these naturally, although with the issue of a shinny new Crackberry from work, I do still get email notifications that after 2 weeks I’ve learnt to ignore. I’ve always found email to be a distraction and the only people who reply and react to it straight away are too busy to really commit and deliver on the tasks (not always true but a general observation).

  1. Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks
  2. Stop multi-tasking
  3. Be militant about eliminating distractions
  4. Schedule your email
  5. Use the phone
  6. Work on your own agenda
  7. Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals

After reading this article, things I’m going to change:

a) Breakdown tasks into bite size deliverable tasks.

b) after each task take a break, breath of fresh air, then hammer on with the next task.

c) focus on goals, by explaining to people, I’ll deal with there distractions after this task. –> Well that will be the most difficult, lets face, if an issue arises you need to be able to address it straight away.

In regards to (c), my previous priorities were always guided by the number of users effected by the problem, the higher the number, the more important it would appear on my list.

I’m going to have to come back and review how well it all works, so news, so updates in a month or so. Let me know your thoughts, or if any other changes are worthy of trying.

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Is ‘Process’ a business discipline, or an IT discipline?

Monday, December 19th, 2011

I’ve just read this article on a post on linkedin. If you’re interested, you can see it here.

The idea doesn’t suprise me in the slightest. Software and Systems at management levels is about leadership, direction and setting goals and managing deliverables – I’d go as far to say a powerful word like VISION.

It is a massive advantage to have a history and understanding of technology. But if you manage and employ experts in the functions you need, you as a leader should be able to get the most out of them, and empower them to manage, function and work with you to make those relationships with the rest of the business.

Having worked with transformation managers who weren’t “IT people”, thier skills and knowledge of the business enabled our IT focus to concentrate on delivery. He fought battles that the IS Director didn’t want to det involved with.

Software is simply the embodyment of a businesses processes, how it works is down to the engineers who deliver it. But the need and the benefit for it, in very few cases appears to come simply from IT lead change. Its normally financial, the need to reduce cost or customer focused in the need to deliver faster, quicker and better than before.

Infrastructure IT changes are slightly different – as they enable the business, and they’ll certainly be IT lead. Software and Processes however, I’d take a business focused individual every time, and if they’ve got a foot in each camp. They’re worth every penny you end up paying them.

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