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Why You Should Rethink Succession Planning
| When you think of your IT organization, do you think of a rigorous succession planning program? Probably not, because there are a couple of other priorities on a weekly basis, generally associated with being forced to do too much with too few resources.
Time to rethink priorities. Succession planning is not just planning how to replace senior executives, the old school strategy. Today succession planning is a program used to be prepared to replace any manager to minimize disruption to the organization – and the projects and workers within it.
But there’s more! Because succession planning employs training, mentoring and job rotation to prepare replacements, the highest performing managers are motivated to stay in the first place. Career paths arise from their intranet coffins and come alive! Evberyone is motivated to improve their skills. The organization even reduces the loss of intellectual capital from retiring experts.
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Posted on: March 18, 2008 10:45 PM
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Policy Rebirth & Project Activation
| In my last post, I used HR-related examples for situations that need an effective policy, but they are not the only types of policies relevant to the success of your project. There are purchasing policies, security policies, internet acceptable use policies, even ITIL and CMMI policies.
Whatever policies exist, the organization must make sure adherence to the policies can be monitored and enforced. What’s supposed to happen is that you define a policy, then deploy it so that it will stick. There has to be clear support from organizational leadership throughout the distribution, and, as described in the last post, worker and manager training. That makes the policies easier for managers to monitor and enforce the policies.
OK, let’s say, by an unfortunate turn of events, that kind of deployment has not happened in your organization. Too few know about the policies that govern the IT organization. How do you fix it before it interferes with your project?
The assessment mentioned in the last post is still valid, but you have to do more. When getting stakeholder support in the initial weeks of the project, get their support on policies. Get this documented in communications sent out during project Activation. You may have to plan on supplementary policy training for the entire workforce. A little awareness training with stakeholder support will go a long way. |
Posted on: March 17, 2008 10:00 PM
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Policy Shelfware & Your Training Plan
| How do you know when your IT policies are ineffective? According to this article, one way to know is that the only evidence of their existence is their presence on a shelf or on an intranet site somewhere. This is altogether too common.
It is a major problem especially when managers are expected to handle dicey situations where interactions are necessary with individuals or groups. Consider managers handling these situations in your project:
There are so many regulatory and legal problems with policies that are supported with inadequate communication and training, especially when it is managers who are not trained in what to monitor and enforce. How ironic, because the policy was likely created to improve performance and reduce risk and costs in the first place.
Short-term solution? When creating your project training plan, asses your managers’ knowledge of key policies. |
Posted on: March 12, 2008 10:00 PM
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Universal Tactics For Workforce Engagement? Not on This Planet
| It would be easy to get your workforce at peak performance if you could follow a single set of simple steps or launch a specific intervention. But you can’t. There aren’t any obvious steps or interventions you can perform.
A study by Mercer proves this. Workers in different countries had different preferences for factors that would make them feel vested in their employer’s success and exceed stated job requirements. For example, feeling respected was rated high in the US and UK, but rated much lower Japan.
It’s interesting to see what the strongest drivers of engagement are in different countries:
No matter where your workforce is located, find the specific factors that drive engagement and manage those factors – so your workforce makes your job easy. |
Posted on: March 07, 2008 10:03 AM
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Three Drivers of Competitive Advantage
| Do your justifications have the ability to blast C-level execs right out of their shoes? If not, you may be unaware of the proper explosive points to emphasize. The consulting accountants at PricewaterhouseCoopers have been wearing down their pencils and burning up their spreadsheets to collect information to help you. Well, maybe not you personally.
In any case, they have identified the top three drivers of competitive advantage for business leaders. One or all of these just has to be top of mind for your C-level executives, so your justifications should include information that clearly describes how your proposed project will support these drivers. The drivers listed by most leaders surveyed by PricewaterhouseCoopers are:
You may work in an organization where it is not clear what the goals of executives are this month. It’s nothing to fret about if you use the top three drivers above. When you incorporate these in your project justification, submit it and stand back to avoid the odd flying shoe.
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Posted on: March 04, 2008 11:02 PM
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