All Categories - Juma Vera

Program/Project Stakeholder Management Plan- Why is it important? What should it contain?

8/29/2018

Stakeholders are individuals (or teams) that are directly or indirectly impacted by the work being conducted by the project team. These could be groups that will either be using, managing or maintaining the product or process after it is handed off (delivered) by the project team.

It is always advisable to have a properly formulated and documented Stakeholder Management plan which is properly circulated within the team to ensure that it is well-understood, accepted and executed by the relevant team participants. This becomes particularly crucial for large programs or projects that have high visibility within the organization.

An effective Program /Project Stakeholder Management plan should include and address the following five aspects:

Identification of stakeholders- it is important to identify all the stakeholders for your program or project.
Analysis of their needs, expectations and influences- one can utilize the power and interest quadrant system of analysis to understand and assign stakeholder interest.
Develop appropriate strategies and communication plan to work with the stakeholders in the four interest categories.
Develop a plan to address any conflict of interest situation if (and when) it is to arise between stakeholder groups.
Develop of log of stakeholder issues and complaints (particularly for large, highly visible or ‘not welcome’ projects) and indicate clear resolution steps that have been taken by the program/project team to address and mitigate them. Keeping a separate stakeholder issue and complaint log provides clear indication of importance being given to the stakeholders- that their voice is important and is not being diluted by being mixed with the general program/project issues register.

Having a detailed Program/Project Stakeholder Management plan shows preparedness of the program/project team to appropriately engage various levels of stakeholder interests. It helps to address leadership angst, particularly towards highly visible or complex programs/projects.

Sandhya U Bhat MSc, CSSMBB, CSSE has developed several new (under patent filing) and enhanced existing strategic methodologies to improve technology and human capital utilization, produce greater ROI on investments and streamline service delivery. She is an acclaimed author, speaker, a sought after thought leader and an avid world traveler.

#StakeholderEngagement #ProgramManagement #ProjectManagement #StakeholderInterestDiagram #SandhyaBhat

Developing a Lean Culture

8/7/2018

Organizations which follow Lean principles of continuous improvement in their daily workings are called "Lean" organizations. They have a culture of Continuous Improvement that utilizes efficient processes with reduced (ideally zero) waste.

Lean organizations understand the importance of increasing customer value and because of this, focus their effort towards continuously enhancing customer satisfaction. Companies with a Lean culture help their workforce to move in the same desired direction of meeting corporate goals and vision by moving forward in an efficient and organized manner.

Here are three steps that you can take towards developing a Lean organizational culture...

Develop a Continuous Learning Culture- Train your workforce to have the best skills and competencies to do their job. Then inculcate in them the spirit of Continuous Learning, so that your employees are always enhancing themselves with the latest knowledge in their field and bringing back that value to your organization.
Maintain Open & Clear Communication Channels- It is important for your people to know that their voice is heard without any bias or fear of repercussion. Provide clear mechanisms for receiving feedback from your workforce. Communicate any subsequent action-steps that were taken to incorporate suggestions and resolve issues.
Encourage Efficient and Engaged Way of Working- Recognize and reward employees that show active engagement in the organization's vision and growth. Create a workforce culture where suggestions and feedback are welcomed, and efficient ways of working are immediately recognized and commended.

Implementing Lean principles is only the start of an organization's continuous improvement journey. Developing and maintaining a Lean culture is very crucial for sustaining the implemented efficient processes. A Lean workplace culture will encourage your employees to continuously augment customer value with minimal waste/cost, which in turn will increase profits and enhance the organization's bottom-line.

Sandhya U Bhat MSc, CSSMBB, CSSE has developed several new (under patent filing) and enhanced existing strategic methodologies to improve technology and human capital utilization, produce greater ROI on investments and streamline service delivery. She is an acclaimed author, speaker, a sought after thought leader and an avid world traveler.

#LeanOrganization #LeanCulture #LeanSixSigma #BusinessExcellence #SandhyaBhat

For Professional Advancement, Which Social media is Best Suited for What…

7/31/2018

There are many social media platforms. For individual professionals, it gets difficult to manage their exposure across multiple avenues and so it is important to choose specific platforms and then create a meaningful social media marketing strategy. Here is a list of six of the most popular social media platforms along with their best exposure benefits. Depending on your individual needs you can focus on couple of these to get started…

LinkedIn:Linked In is most suited for professional and business networking- right from typical 'white collared' to artistic and expressive professions. Associated Slide-Share allows one to easily showcase work examples.

Twitter:Twitter is best if you are looking to engage your audience in a conversation. Great for sharing information, asking or answering questions or soliciting opinions. It is also very helpful for publicizing links to published content like on your blog or company website.

Instagram:
Instagram in great for brand promotion. A picture paints 1000 words and if you have images that convey your message then Instagram allows you to reach wider audience (currently second only to Facebook) with your photos and videos.

Pinterest:
Pin-boards allow you to showcase visually impressive content and plays a crucial role in brand promotion. Particularly effective for content targeting women. Pins need to provide standalone value, so that followers will be willing to re-pin and save.

Facebook:
Facebook is one of the best social media platforms for Businesses to market their products. When it comes to individual professional advancement, it can be quite helpful for media and other creative professionals. Anyone can have a professional page on Facebook to showcase their work and by using unique marketing ideas, one could create a good buzz and obtain widespread exposure.

YouTube:
Similar to Facebook, YouTube is great for creative, media and other professionals to showcase their work and directly reach their target audience. Many video creators indicate that they generate revenue not only from direct sales but also from consulting engagements and other opportunities from extensive exposure.

#SocialMediaMarketing #ProfessionalAdvancement #SocialMediaBranding #SandhyaUBhat #SocialMediaStrategy

What is a Lean Organization?

7/20/2018

Lean is a collection of practices, tools and methodologies which help to improve process efficiency by focusing on delivering increased customer value by maximizing efficiency and reducing waste.

Lean principles can be applied to every functional area of an organization. It can be implemented in a bottom-up or a top-down approach. Because of this, Lean principles become a philosophy which pervades across the various divisions and departments by becoming part of an organization's core work-culture.

Organizations which follow these Lean principles of continuous improvement in their daily workings are called "Lean" organizations. Since Lean involves creating an efficient work environment, it is important that the workforce feels empowered and believe their suggestions/ ideas/ opinions will be heard irrespective of their level within the organization. Because of this Lean helps in enhancing Organizational Effectiveness.

Lean organizations understand the importance of increasing customer value and because of this, focus their main processes towards continuously enhancing customer satisfaction.

The final objective of a Lean Organization is to be able to provide maximum benefits and value to their customer by utilizing efficient processes that have reduced (ideally zero) waste.

Sandhya U Bhat MSc, CSSMBB, CSSE has developed several new (under patent filing) and enhanced existing strategic methodologies to improve technology and human capital utilization, produce greater ROI on investments and streamline service delivery. She is an acclaimed author, speaker, a sought after thought leader and an avid world traveler.

#LeanOrganization #LeanSixSigma #BusinessExcellence #SandhyaUBhat #ContinuousImprovement

What is Technology Utilization?

7/17/2018

In today's time- when everyone is very conscious of their departmental budgets and want to stretch their dollars for more value, utilizing technology is the best way to see immediate and tangible results.

By not properly utilizing their existing technology, organizations loose tens of millions of dollars a year!

Very often companies pay millions of dollars in license fees, but don't completely utilize the technology they have purchased! At other times, they obtain multiple applications with similar features! This increases their IT Operations costs and they miss opportunities to incorporate automation in their processes by not utilizing (thru unawareness) their existing systems and technologies.

There are three steps that every organization can take to ensure that they are utilizing their current technology to the "bare minimum" efficiency! Further rationalization and process architecture will allow for true and comprehensive technology utilization.

Ensure Correct License Count & fees- Make sure that you know the user count and are paying accurate license fees. Check to see if you can negotiate a better plan with the application vendor/s.
Remove Application “Duplicates”- Conduct a simple Application Rationalization check to ensure that you have ONLY ONE application providing specific set of business functionalities. Even though you are not paying additional license fees, duplicate applications still add to IT Operations- support and training overhead costs.
Know your User- Have a clear policy for requesting non-standard Business applications. Put controls in place to check and ensure that a user truly needs the requested application to conduct their work duties. Many a times this can easily be accomplished by having their supervisor approve their application request.

Detailed application rationalization along with technology-process gaps identified by conducting process architecture workshops will provide further avenues to comprehensively utilize current existing technology within the organization.

Technology Utilization not only helps with immediate cost savings as reduced license fees and IT Operations costs, but it also allows for streamlining and automating relevant processes that help by reducing/eliminating costs that arise from human error. Comprehensive Technology Utilization ultimately helps with providing efficient business services and increasing customer satisfaction.

Sandhya U Bhat MSc, CSSMBB, CSSE has developed several new (under patent filing) and enhanced existing strategic methodologies to improve technology and human capital utilization, produce greater ROI on investments and streamline service delivery. She is an acclaimed author, speaker, a sought after thought leader and an avid world traveler.

#TechnologyUtilization #SaveMoney #ReduceTechnologyCosts #SandhyaUBhat #RisingTechnologyCosts

Becoming a Winning Leader

7/9/2018

Now-a-days when most people think of success, they think of constant striving and outrunning everyone else to become a “winner”! Even in team sports, where one needs to have complete support of the entire team we see those who incessantly work to ensure that maximum spotlight is on them.

It is great to be a “winner” and be appreciated for being No. 1. But most interactions at work and in personal life involve group of people and when we have a true team mind-set it makes others trust our work, our motives and then they provide us unchallenged support. This in turn helps us to arrive at the top not just as an individual but as a team.

Being a leader, is not a ‘race’. It is more like a marathon… we need to think of not just immediate profits but long term positive growth and success.

We need to have a far-sighted vision and a very accepting and including mind-set. When we continue to do the right things with the right attitude then sooner or later we will be recognized and shine thru- to obtain that recognition that most of us want and crave- even leaders.

When you lead with vision and strategy, when your actions exemplify your command and when you have a sympathetic and empathetic way of appreciating and engaging your people, you are bound to be a winning leader- someone who inspires his team, his organization to not just be the best that they can be- but to continuously strive to better their previous best!

Keep these points in mind as you start to build your career towards becoming a leader- a winning leader.

Sandhya U Bhat MSc, CSSMBB, CSSE has developed several new (under patent filing) and enhanced existing strategic methodologies to improve technology and human capital utilization, produce greater ROI on investments and streamline service delivery. She is an acclaimed author, speaker, a sought after thought leader and an avid world traveler.

#LeadershipCoaching #LeadershipTraining #BecomingaLeader #CareerAdvancement #SandhyaBhat

Happy July 4th...

7/4/2018

Wishing all my American friends and colleagues (past and present) a wonderful July 4th!!

#July42018 #HappyJuly4th #CelebratingFreedom #SandhyaBhat

Building an Effective Organization: How to have an Engaged Workforce?

7/3/2018

In today’s day and age where people think of corporations as ‘cold entities’ only interested in increasing their bottom-line, it is important for organizations to improve their effectiveness by utilizing their biggest assets- their human capital, thru optimal engagement. Ultimately, it is the people within an organization that allow for products to be made and services to be delivered. Improving Organizational Effectiveness is not an option when a company truly wants to be successful in their financial worth and a leader in their industry.

… and having an engaged workforce is extremely key to enhanced Organizational Effectiveness. Here are five ways by which an organization can empower its employees and make them feel more engaged and valued:

1. Clear Corporate Vision:When you have a clear corporate vision, then employees know where and how they will be contributing to the grand action-plan. This in turn will help to make your employees feel a sense of meaning and purpose in their daily work activities and also about their role within the organization and their work-team.

2. Challenge them to Evolve & Grow:Make it a point to provide clear career and personal development plans to your employees. This will not only allow them to evolve and grow in their own right but seeing how much the organization values their growth and progress will make them feel more engaged in their work activities and overall organizational success.

3. Show Trust with Guidance ‘vs’ Management: When employees feel that they are being ‘managed’ it can have an adverse effect on their productivity. They will not feel trusted and will not feel comfortable to express their ideas and feedback. Instead when employees are provided mentoring and guidelines to do their job, they will feel appreciated for their core competencies and be more open to molding themselves to organizational and team needs.

4. Allow for Flexible Work Times: This may not be possible for all industries or job categories, but as much as possible provide employees with flexible work times. When employees are provided with flexible working times, they will be able to better balance their work and personal commitments. This in turn will reduce their stress levels and help them to be more strategic (instead of tactical) and engaged in their work activities. Ultimately this will reflect as increased overall productivity.

5. Provide Positive Feedback with Accolades and Negative Feedback with Constructive Criticism: Positive feedback in terms of accolades, rewards and awards goes a long way in making an employee feel valued in their organization. This in turn reinforces their commitment not just to the organizational goals and vision, but also their work team and projects at hand. By the same token when an employee has not met their performance expectations or their goals, provide them with constructive criticism along with concrete tangible actions that they can take to improve and develop. Such a healthy feedback cycle will make the employee feel engaged and valued within the organization.

There are many ways in which an organization can empower and engage their workforce. These five points above are a great way to start mobilizing an effective human capital vitalization strategy for your organization.

#OrganizationalEffectiveness #HumanResources #HumanCapitalManagement #HumanCapitalUtilization #SandhyaBhat

Sandhya U Bhat MSc, CSSMBB, CSSE has developed several new (under patent filing) and enhanced existing strategic methodologies to improve technology and human capital utilization, produce greater ROI on investments and streamline service delivery. She is an acclaimed author, speaker, a sought after thought leader and an avid world traveler.

Happy Canada Day!!

7/1/2018

Wishing everyone a wonderful Happy Canada Day... Celebrating freedom and liberty...

#CanadaDay2018 #SandhyaBhat

Thought for the week...

6/24/2018

Every day we read of research findings that indicate how we stop being productive when we work over 'certain number of hours' in a week. But that applies to people who do a 'job'. For the people who love their work, it is their passion and work is fun. This is the secret why entrepreneurs, top successful athletes seem to be "working" all the time- but they are always vibrant and effective!

Something to think about as we start out a new week. Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead...

#InspiringQuotations #SandhyaUBhat #QuotesbyConfucius #LoveyourWork #ThoughtfortheWeek