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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Emerging Market Ranking Informs Offshoring Decisions
| If you are involved in outsourcing/offshoring, how much do you know about which countries provide the most return for the investment? PricewarehouseCoopers has for the first time created a report that ranks countries in risk-adjusted returns. So here’s a partial list for you, How do they rank for risk-adjusted returns in the services sector?
Really, think it out. Which do you think is the top-ranked country? Which is the lowest ranked country on PricewarehouseCoopers’ list? It matters if even if you are using a company that has made investments in these countries. You want to know if they have made good location decisions or bad location decisions for one thing.
The correct answer is…they are already correctly ranked! I chose these from the top twenty list created by PricewarehouseCoopers. They are ranked respectively 1, 9, 14, and 18. Surprised? Then make sure you are up-to-date on your emerging market research before you make any important offshoring decisions. |
Posted on: February 29, 2008 01:21 PM
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Overworked Employees - Not Your Worst Problem
| In my last post, the problem of having workers who have too little to do was described as a worse problem than those who feel they are overworked. How can that be, adding the fact that there are fewer bored workers than overworked workers? In the Sirota study, workers who felt they were overworked were indeed frustrated, but they felt about the same at workers who have “about the right amount of work” when it came to
These are all important factors to getting employees in performing at the top of their game. That’s what you want! It’s the bored workers who report low agreement on these factors. The bored workers, then, cannot attain that top commitment and performance. They might not even work hard to solve their problems.
I hear you thinking, “So my whining overworked project workforce is not that big a deal!” Well, I wouldn’t go that far. You need to deal with that problem. What we learn from the study is that you should identify and resolve the issues with the underworked (bored) workers first. |
Posted on: February 24, 2008 09:36 AM
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Surprising Question Reveals Project Problems
| Being a project manager is easier if you are able to spot potential workforce performance trouble before it begins. The answer to a surprising question can help you identify potential negative consequences.
Which of the following is worse for your project?
Interesting question, isn’t it? Turns out that a recent study by Sirota showed one of these criteria tells you which workers are probably involved in work that is a bad fit or where the process is poorly designed. Your project would suffer if either one of these situations existed. Those in jobs with bad fit or poor design have far lower job satisfaction, sense of accomplishment and pride in their employers compared to all other workers. They innovate less. They do not perform well and can bring their coworkers and team down with them.
Look for boredom – that is, workers reporting "too little work” – as your signal that negative consequences are likely from bad job fit and/or poorly defined work processes. You may have thought those who feel “overworked” are the ones that signal the major problem for a project. Not exactly, but more on that in my next post. |
Posted on: February 22, 2008 09:52 AM
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Start Your Coaching Intervention Right
| OK, following up from the last post…you can’t boil the worker in oil and you can’t “take over” responsibility for the task without wasting your time. So what should you do?
Be clear about the outcome you desire or what you are trying to improve. Then see what the worker needs to get it done. Unless you do this, no matter what you do will make the situation worse.
In our case of the intermediate deliverable, for example, you would make sure the worker knows that you need the template for the deliverable completed such that each section has all major points covered, using well-organized paragraphs were appropriate. You would explain that it will be reviewed by you first in preparation for submission to stakeholders, who will look on it to gauge their trust inn your team. You expect to make only minor corrections in the limited deliverable review time you have. You would make it clear that the draft document is due to you by noon of the specified date.
Now that you have the scope and quality defined pretty well, you would ask what additional help or guidance the worker needs. Aha! The worker requests an examplar document that was used previously. You can supply that! The worker wants to be able to request assistance in a particularly difficult portion of the template. You have just the expert in mind.
Look at the advantages of this method:
That's the wasy to start out a coaching intervention. |
Posted on: February 18, 2008 09:31 PM
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