Pearl Zhu's Blog, page 1441
April 18, 2015
Digging into the Agile Principle: What “Barely Sufficient” Means?
Principles are general rules and guidelines, intended to be enduring and seldom amended, that inform and support the way in which an organization sets about fulfilling its mission. Many organization are going through the agile shift from doing Agile to being agile, how do you dig through the twelve Agile principles and manage projects or even running business more effectively? For example, one of the Agile principles says: Agile requirements are barely sufficient, who decides what 'barely sufficient' means?
What is "barely sufficient"? "Barely sufficient" means to capture and record your requirements at just enough detail for the needs of those requirements for today's and tomorrow's. As with pretty much all other aspects of just about everything, the answer really is, "it depends." instead of asking who decides what barely sufficient is, ask what is a barely sufficient requirement. This is straightforward. A system behavioral related requirement is defined by its inputs and outputs. Definition of such essential for minimal yet quality requirements. If you're building something simple, where the code can be the documentation, then whatever the team decides is good enough to get to the design to inform the development. The team should decide whether the requirements have enough clarity to get the work done to an acceptable level, but it is not done in a box. Left to their own designs, developers often assume they understand more than they really do and end up building some really bad things.
There are a couple of perspective of “barely sufficient”: (1) It's best to do things just in time. And (2) It's best to adjust until what you're doing is just enough. Doing things just in time means they are done in time, but it also means that we know as much as we can know when we do them, and the opportunities for change between the time they are done and the time they are needed is minimized. So it would take some powerful arguments to override those motives. Doing just enough is minimizing waste. Doing any more would be waste. There are people who argue that it is better to do 'not quite enough' on the grounds that good feedback loops will tell you, in time, that you need more and at that point you can do more. However by the time you find you've done too much it's too late to do less. So feedback loop is important. You get feedback that tells you when you haven't done enough; if you're careful you get feedback telling you when you've done too much. From this, you get better next time at doing 'just enough' - or 'not quite enough' - depending on which you are aiming for.
Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential: It means that every team should find that sweet spot where they do the least amount of work to fully get what the requirement is. This will differ greatly from team to team because of factors of domain knowledge of both team and product owner, experience of team, effectiveness of the team, agile maturity and likely more. The challenge with agile requirements is when you need more than the code or transient user stories in order to manage your system capabilities for the long-term. There needs to be a boundary around the requirements with a well defined acceptance criteria. A good story has the following attributes: (1) Independent (2) Negotiable (3) Verifiable (4) Estimable (5) Small (6) Testable
Principles are those core decisions values, not value as in benefit, but values as in beliefs that shape behavior and define culture. All Agile principles help build the culture of change with three “I” - Interaction, Iteration and Improvement.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
What’s your Psychological Response to Changes?
Change is inevitable in any organization today, it’s not for its own sake, but for continuous improvement or even breakthrough. The change inertia is also a reality. From Change Management and talent management perspective: How the age and different emotions response to changes? Is change friction really getting bigger when one gets older? Or does lack of vision make people act old? Age or mindset, what’s the real obstacle to adapt to changes.
The industry study concludes it's not age that matters, but perspective: When people see that they have a future, they set out on adventures, create, and think. When they don't? They contract their world. That's the young (growth) mind vs. old (static) mindset. Keep in mind, the physical age and mental age is not always proportional; very possibly, the elder has an energetic mind, and the youth has an “older” mindset. It's not so much a stereotype as a research tested phenomenon. Perspective is informed by age in respect of experience of the potential pitfall of certain opportunities, but culture is also a big element of perspective.
There is a distinct relationship between a person's emotional state and small or expansive thinking: When people experience a state of anxiety or uncertainty, they tend to drift back to the comfort of small thinking and getting their minds around points of detail. When that anxiety is removed and they experience more certainty, they have the courage to think more expansively. But these ways of thinking can flip quite easily as if at the flick of a switch. So the challenge with change is to create emotional states that mean certainty for the individuals affected, and have it stick. Not easy, but not impossible.
There is so much psychology in openness to new ideas and perspectives: There is not a one size fits all approach to addressing the different psychological responses and thereby reducing anxiety, because there are different psychological perspectives. For example, there are those who think logically, others focus bigger picture, and others are a lot more emotional in their decision making. It takes slightly different approaches, timescales and skills to unlock the anxiety.
It is important to build a culture of change with “herd instinct.” Perhaps the big challenge for businesses is when change involves engaging with large numbers of people. That is where the 'herd instinct' can come in handy. That is, if you can adopt strategies and tactics that create groups of people open to change, then you can create an atmosphere which has people thinking "If we don't go with this change then may be we'll lose out". Thus, people feel they ought to follow everyone else, and slowly they become more used to, and thus more comfortable with what's happening.
It is all about perspective. What is more interesting is what drives people's perspective. Those lack of vision are either incentivized incorrectly to focus only on the short term; inexperienced outside of the small field in which they operate; too focused on their own self preservation; or have no energy or desire left to think longer term. In addition, we all have biases, and our biases, are so inherited from such a long evolutionary history, that it won't probably be possible, or even preferable to erase them or "design them away" with policies or interventions. However, awareness of them is important, many of our biases are apparent at the same time, sometime complementing each other and other times contradicts each other; so that we can reduce the harmful impact they might have, and leverage upon the beneficial. Make sure that when we make decisions, they are not based on opinions, but on a commonly understood starting points to make changes.People neither love nor hate "change." The differentiator is that people embrace change if they understand the value adding to them. It is people’s understanding and perspectives of the result of change that will shape one’s mind, trigger the positive psychology, and drive one to behave in one way or another. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
How does a Modern Leader Avoid being Overwhelmed
Change is inevitable in any organization today, it’s not for its own sake, but for continuous improvement and long term transformation. But the change inertia is also a reality. From Change Management and talent management perspective: How the age and different emotions response to changes? Is change friction really getting bigger when one gets older? Or does lack of vision make people act old? Age or mindset, what’s the real obstacle to adapt to changes.
The industry study concludes it's not age that matters, but perspective: When people see that they have a future, they set out on adventures, create, and think. When they don't? They contract their world. That's the young (growth) mind vs. old (static) mindset. Keep in mind, the physical age and mental age is not always proportional; very possibly, the elder has an energetic mind, and the youth has an “older” mindset. It's not so much a stereotype as a research tested phenomenon. Perspective is informed by age in respect of experience of the potential pitfall of certain opportunities, but culture is also a big element of perspective.
There is a distinct relationship between a person's emotional state and small or expansive thinking: When people experience a state of anxiety or uncertainty, they tend to drift back to the comfort of small thinking and getting their minds around points of detail. When that anxiety is removed and they experience more certainty, they have the courage to think more expansively. But these ways of thinking can flip quite easily as if at the flick of a switch. So the challenge with change is to create emotional states that mean certainty for the individuals affected, and have it stick. Not easy, but not impossible.
There is so much psychology in openness to new ideas and perspectives: There is not a one size fits all approach to addressing the different psychological responses and thereby reducing anxiety, because there are different psychological perspectives. For example, there are those who think logically, others focus bigger picture, and others are a lot more emotional in their decision making. It takes slightly different approaches, timescales and skills to unlock the anxiety.
It is important to build a culture of change with “herd instinct.” Perhaps the big challenge for businesses is when change involves engaging with large numbers of people. That is where the 'herd instinct' can come in handy. That is, if you can adopt strategies and tactics that create groups of people open to change, then you can create an atmosphere which has people thinking "If we don't go with this change then may be we'll lose out". Thus, people feel they ought to follow everyone else, and slowly they become more used to, and thus more comfortable with what's happening.
It is all about perspective. What is more interesting is what drives people's perspective. Those lack of vision are either incentivized incorrectly to focus only on the short term; inexperienced outside of the small field in which they operate; too focused on their own self preservation; or have no energy or desire left to think longer term. In addition, we all have biases, and our biases, are so inherited from such a long evolutionary history, that it won't probably be possible, or even preferable to erase them or "design them away" with policies or interventions. However, awareness of them is important, many of our biases are apparent at the same time, sometime complementing each other and other times contradicts each other; so that we can reduce the harmful impact they might have, and leverage upon the beneficial. Make sure that when we make decisions, they are not based on opinions, but on a commonly understood starting points to make changes.People neither love nor hate "change." The differentiator is that people embrace change if they understand the value adding to them. It is people’s understanding and perspectives of the result of change that will shape one’s mind, trigger the positive psychology, and drive one to behave in one way or another. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
April 17, 2015
What're UX competencies
UX is an important step in lifting digital maturity from functioning to firmness to delight.
User centered design or UX (User Experience) is based on a suitable standard and design principles which explain the why (the purpose of design), and rules (which explain the how). Although UX has been around for a while, it is still an emerging and developing field, many employers apparently don't understand it, and many UX professionals were not formally trained as such. UX competencies goes beyond a pretty interface, it includes following factors:
Empathy: UX is largely a user centered design approach, "empathy" is one of the key characteristics in defining a successful UX professional. In many cases, a design was done by an expert. It sure looks good, but it just does not allow the user to achieve his or her goal effectively, efficiently and with satisfaction, to say nothing of the organization's goals.
Process fluidity: Being good at visual design is not equal to being competent in UX; being proficient in UI coding or UI prototyping is not equal to being competent in UX. To define UX in terms of usability is also limited view. UX is an iterative and fluid process to leverage human factors in decision-making or workload. It has six areas of interest--User Research, Interaction Design, Information Architecture, Content Strategy, Visual Design, and Usability Testing.
Customer satisfaction: Customer Experience covers the entire experience of the customer. UX competency refers to "the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments." if you want it to mean, or could replace it with 'Pretty pictures' - and be happy with the definition - then you're not going to get the full benefit of what true UX can bring.
UX can make a big difference in digital transformation. Organizations with UX competencies and capable of properly implementing their digital transformation, will overwhelm traditional linear organizations, because they take better advantage of the information-based externalities inaccessible to older structures, a feat that will empower them to grow shockingly faster than their linear counterparts, and then accelerate from there, the interface designers design the interface to delight customers.
It's obviously difficult to showcase UX rather than UI as you're trying to show your process rather than a finished result. It does make sense to creating case studies for past projects which includes all the scruffy work, process and decisions along the way. And UX is an important step in lifting digital maturity from functioning to firmness to delight.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
User centered design or UX (User Experience) is based on a suitable standard and design principles which explain the why (the purpose of design), and rules (which explain the how). Although UX has been around for a while, it is still an emerging and developing field, many employers apparently don't understand it, and many UX professionals were not formally trained as such. UX competencies goes beyond a pretty interface, it includes following factors:
Empathy: UX is largely a user centered design approach, "empathy" is one of the key characteristics in defining a successful UX professional. In many cases, a design was done by an expert. It sure looks good, but it just does not allow the user to achieve his or her goal effectively, efficiently and with satisfaction, to say nothing of the organization's goals.
Process fluidity: Being good at visual design is not equal to being competent in UX; being proficient in UI coding or UI prototyping is not equal to being competent in UX. To define UX in terms of usability is also limited view. UX is an iterative and fluid process to leverage human factors in decision-making or workload. It has six areas of interest--User Research, Interaction Design, Information Architecture, Content Strategy, Visual Design, and Usability Testing.
Customer satisfaction: Customer Experience covers the entire experience of the customer. UX competency refers to "the effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction with which specified users achieve specified goals in particular environments." if you want it to mean, or could replace it with 'Pretty pictures' - and be happy with the definition - then you're not going to get the full benefit of what true UX can bring.
UX can make a big difference in digital transformation. Organizations with UX competencies and capable of properly implementing their digital transformation, will overwhelm traditional linear organizations, because they take better advantage of the information-based externalities inaccessible to older structures, a feat that will empower them to grow shockingly faster than their linear counterparts, and then accelerate from there, the interface designers design the interface to delight customers.It's obviously difficult to showcase UX rather than UI as you're trying to show your process rather than a finished result. It does make sense to creating case studies for past projects which includes all the scruffy work, process and decisions along the way. And UX is an important step in lifting digital maturity from functioning to firmness to delight.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
From a “Surviving CIO” to a Thriving CIO
Compared to traditional CIOs, digital CIOs have “multi-faceted personas.”
Compare to other CXO titles, CIO is considerably a newer role with only around three decades history. Due to the change nature of technology, CIOs and IT seem to be always at the hot seat to adapt to the change. What are the biggest mistakes that a CIO can make? How much technology knowledge does an effective CIO require? What’s the significant difference between a traditional CIO and a digital CIO? Or to put simply, how can CIOs shift mentality from a “surviving” mode to a “thriving” mode?
The main issue is the dynamic between running the IT utility and being strategic business partner. In most organizations, no matter how good a CIO is focusing on and influencing business innovation, if the IT operations does not run flawlessly, their reputation, influence and longevity within the organization will be impacted. Until organizations mentally and culturally separate the CIO role from IT operations, CIOs will be always undone by operational failures, either in their control or not, and CIOs are most of time in the “surviving” mentality. So, in a world where practically every aspect of nearly every business, as mundane and detached from IT either sales or accounting, is wholly dependent on IT to a high degree, the information trains have to run on time. For the CIO, that simply means being a proper "C-level" leader and and tactical manage to keep IT running flawlessly at the prevailing level of sophistication. Then you can get strategic. Be integral to business strategy on top of effective and efficient delivery of services. IT needs to be viewed as leading and integral to growth and transformation as well as digitization.
Learn the business; be the business and become the business. It starts with building strong and value-creating relationships with C-suites, between IT and vendors or suppliers; and build a strong team with a strong bench. Make IT more shared, integrated, flexible, reliable, and fast. Get engaged in the investment process prior to the decision already being made. Setup idea forums to engage the business and build business liaisons proactively to help shape the problem or opportunity before it becomes a project. This starts to build credibility outside of just managing the "run" side of things. Conduct presentations with management on new technology areas that have short term business impact to broaden their view of the team. Next step is to determine where best to create Centers of Excellence, either physical or virtual. that are aligned to business objectives. These become the planks where the CIO is the strategic leader and have longer term sustainability.
The word "information" is central to the digital IT: But "technology" is the operative part of "information technology." That leads to a CIO focusing on the technology part, rather than the information part of the definition. Now information is the lifeblood of organization, and all forward-thinking organizations declare they are in the information business. The information side of the IT description is a bit nebulous by the other favourite buzzword of the day: "big data." That gets closer to the role of the CIO though. Because if the CIO role is to survive and thrive for more than an on-demand term, the focus has to be on acquiring, managing, manipulating, teasing intelligence out of, and providing insight to the organization based on information that the the organization creates or acquires. Or simply, the CIO role needs to be elevated to the "information" part of the definition, or back to the basic as the title implies: "Chief Information Officer."
Measurement: Always attempt to identify areas in which measurable improvements can be realized, providing demonstrable value is essential, in some instances, these areas have been low-hanging fruit. What is often required, however, is participation from management across organizational or geographical boundaries, thinking outside of the box, the abandonment of territorial issues. if it is not in the purview of the CIO/IT, it should be the non-IT executive; sponsor or champion because the value comes from how the business changes what they do to take advantage of the information and technology management. Make measurement easy and enjoyable to monitor progress and outcome of initiatives. Demonstrating value is the first step, communicating that value publicly is just as important.
Every CIO is unique: How CIOs provide the appropriate leadership and how they convey to leverage IT for business value depends on CIOs' vision and leadership strength and style. Each of the senior managers has a different view of the job, what it will take to be successful, and how the goals are measured. When the top executive in management team has different views, there is no way to keep all of them satisfied. Every case is different. Every CIO is different and whatever the management team needs or wants at the time out of the CIO will also be different, and by type of business needs will be different. It’s weather you can be what is needed at the time and execute to those expectations.
Compared to traditional CIOs, digital CIOs have “multi-faceted personas,” they are both business strategist and digital visionary; customer advocate and talent master; process overseer and governance champion, and most importantly, they are the innovative leader to drive business’s digital transformation. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Compare to other CXO titles, CIO is considerably a newer role with only around three decades history. Due to the change nature of technology, CIOs and IT seem to be always at the hot seat to adapt to the change. What are the biggest mistakes that a CIO can make? How much technology knowledge does an effective CIO require? What’s the significant difference between a traditional CIO and a digital CIO? Or to put simply, how can CIOs shift mentality from a “surviving” mode to a “thriving” mode?
The main issue is the dynamic between running the IT utility and being strategic business partner. In most organizations, no matter how good a CIO is focusing on and influencing business innovation, if the IT operations does not run flawlessly, their reputation, influence and longevity within the organization will be impacted. Until organizations mentally and culturally separate the CIO role from IT operations, CIOs will be always undone by operational failures, either in their control or not, and CIOs are most of time in the “surviving” mentality. So, in a world where practically every aspect of nearly every business, as mundane and detached from IT either sales or accounting, is wholly dependent on IT to a high degree, the information trains have to run on time. For the CIO, that simply means being a proper "C-level" leader and and tactical manage to keep IT running flawlessly at the prevailing level of sophistication. Then you can get strategic. Be integral to business strategy on top of effective and efficient delivery of services. IT needs to be viewed as leading and integral to growth and transformation as well as digitization.
Learn the business; be the business and become the business. It starts with building strong and value-creating relationships with C-suites, between IT and vendors or suppliers; and build a strong team with a strong bench. Make IT more shared, integrated, flexible, reliable, and fast. Get engaged in the investment process prior to the decision already being made. Setup idea forums to engage the business and build business liaisons proactively to help shape the problem or opportunity before it becomes a project. This starts to build credibility outside of just managing the "run" side of things. Conduct presentations with management on new technology areas that have short term business impact to broaden their view of the team. Next step is to determine where best to create Centers of Excellence, either physical or virtual. that are aligned to business objectives. These become the planks where the CIO is the strategic leader and have longer term sustainability.
The word "information" is central to the digital IT: But "technology" is the operative part of "information technology." That leads to a CIO focusing on the technology part, rather than the information part of the definition. Now information is the lifeblood of organization, and all forward-thinking organizations declare they are in the information business. The information side of the IT description is a bit nebulous by the other favourite buzzword of the day: "big data." That gets closer to the role of the CIO though. Because if the CIO role is to survive and thrive for more than an on-demand term, the focus has to be on acquiring, managing, manipulating, teasing intelligence out of, and providing insight to the organization based on information that the the organization creates or acquires. Or simply, the CIO role needs to be elevated to the "information" part of the definition, or back to the basic as the title implies: "Chief Information Officer."
Measurement: Always attempt to identify areas in which measurable improvements can be realized, providing demonstrable value is essential, in some instances, these areas have been low-hanging fruit. What is often required, however, is participation from management across organizational or geographical boundaries, thinking outside of the box, the abandonment of territorial issues. if it is not in the purview of the CIO/IT, it should be the non-IT executive; sponsor or champion because the value comes from how the business changes what they do to take advantage of the information and technology management. Make measurement easy and enjoyable to monitor progress and outcome of initiatives. Demonstrating value is the first step, communicating that value publicly is just as important.Every CIO is unique: How CIOs provide the appropriate leadership and how they convey to leverage IT for business value depends on CIOs' vision and leadership strength and style. Each of the senior managers has a different view of the job, what it will take to be successful, and how the goals are measured. When the top executive in management team has different views, there is no way to keep all of them satisfied. Every case is different. Every CIO is different and whatever the management team needs or wants at the time out of the CIO will also be different, and by type of business needs will be different. It’s weather you can be what is needed at the time and execute to those expectations.
Compared to traditional CIOs, digital CIOs have “multi-faceted personas,” they are both business strategist and digital visionary; customer advocate and talent master; process overseer and governance champion, and most importantly, they are the innovative leader to drive business’s digital transformation. Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Is HR Really Slow in Adopting Analytics?
Leveraging analytics is an important approach to harden the “soft” culture and lift organizational maturity.
HR can contribute if they have the data analytics to show people trends, productivity, engagement metrics, costs-savings, etc. That also can help make the human capital aspect less volatile, more predictable, and less ambiguous for the business. However, many HR organizations are slow to adopt analytics because there is little understanding of analytics among HR managers who seem to think that the mean is everything. Staff who pushes analytics find themselves rebuffed time and time again. How to speed up HR for applying analytics to achieve business result more effectively?
It is important to build a high level analytics strategy: The lesson is to make sure that we take the managers on a journey and constantly demonstrate the benefits of statistical analysis for planning, measuring and monitoring organizational progress. Building such understanding is a tough call when the bottom line is the main consideration. In fact, technology and data are not barriers at all, a high-level analytics strategy with the right-level of sponsorship is what matters. The issue is less about HR knowing who to hire and if they access to the talent. It is about creating a value proposition for analytics folks to join HR (pull factors). The more is the awareness, the higher will be the take-up.
Buy in from your stakeholders is key - but that in itself isn't exclusively an HR issue; it’s an issue all analysts face. It’s important to work for a leadership team who are engaged and see analytics as a journey, not a destination. HR analytics is supposed to help line managers achieve the targets, because often line managers do not have sufficient faith that HR can help solve their analytics problems. In fact, in many organizations, line managers have little faith that HR can solve any problems beyond the transactional issues; basic data collected and not analyzed is futile; good low hanging fruit is attrition analysis; if you could establish a strong trend of attrition amongst a set of level that is crucial, you would get enough points for proposals to build your case for HR analytics.
There may be a chicken and egg dilemma. As long as HR metrics/analytics is seen as being a separate activity from HR functions and processes themselves, it’s difficult to have buy in or interest. And yet in the establishment and ongoing presence of HR analytics, a special group needs to be concerned and focused on making things happen. All HR management needs to see their corner of HR from an informational or analytical perspective. In other words, understand HR not just from a methodology standpoint- but understand it from data process viewpoint. What information is used as sources of input, what happens systematically during HR process to the information abstraction, and what sort of process information outputs occur. Unless HR managers live or breathe the informational part of the HR world, it’s difficult to get buy-in.
Overcome HR inertia: Although HR is the “steward” of the most invaluable asset of company - people, sometimes it is perhaps the root cause of culture inertia. If you want to get HR staff to buy in to analytics, you need to treat it like a cross country race. When the ground is clear and the view uncluttered, you can run flat out and get the quick wins, but other times the terrain makes you more cautious, but also more determined. You have one advantage over the runner though, you can determine the order of the terrain that you tackle. You can take the easy terrain first, the quick wins, and the less fit runners can keep up with the pace. Then, as the terrain gets harder, you provide more support to the teammates and complete each section together.
People are the only thing that differentiates any organization from another. If you take the premise that HR is the shepherd of culture (shared with leadership), then HR is in the greatest position to change culture. Leveraging analytics is an important approach to harden the “soft” culture and lift organizational maturity.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
HR can contribute if they have the data analytics to show people trends, productivity, engagement metrics, costs-savings, etc. That also can help make the human capital aspect less volatile, more predictable, and less ambiguous for the business. However, many HR organizations are slow to adopt analytics because there is little understanding of analytics among HR managers who seem to think that the mean is everything. Staff who pushes analytics find themselves rebuffed time and time again. How to speed up HR for applying analytics to achieve business result more effectively?
It is important to build a high level analytics strategy: The lesson is to make sure that we take the managers on a journey and constantly demonstrate the benefits of statistical analysis for planning, measuring and monitoring organizational progress. Building such understanding is a tough call when the bottom line is the main consideration. In fact, technology and data are not barriers at all, a high-level analytics strategy with the right-level of sponsorship is what matters. The issue is less about HR knowing who to hire and if they access to the talent. It is about creating a value proposition for analytics folks to join HR (pull factors). The more is the awareness, the higher will be the take-up.
Buy in from your stakeholders is key - but that in itself isn't exclusively an HR issue; it’s an issue all analysts face. It’s important to work for a leadership team who are engaged and see analytics as a journey, not a destination. HR analytics is supposed to help line managers achieve the targets, because often line managers do not have sufficient faith that HR can help solve their analytics problems. In fact, in many organizations, line managers have little faith that HR can solve any problems beyond the transactional issues; basic data collected and not analyzed is futile; good low hanging fruit is attrition analysis; if you could establish a strong trend of attrition amongst a set of level that is crucial, you would get enough points for proposals to build your case for HR analytics.
There may be a chicken and egg dilemma. As long as HR metrics/analytics is seen as being a separate activity from HR functions and processes themselves, it’s difficult to have buy in or interest. And yet in the establishment and ongoing presence of HR analytics, a special group needs to be concerned and focused on making things happen. All HR management needs to see their corner of HR from an informational or analytical perspective. In other words, understand HR not just from a methodology standpoint- but understand it from data process viewpoint. What information is used as sources of input, what happens systematically during HR process to the information abstraction, and what sort of process information outputs occur. Unless HR managers live or breathe the informational part of the HR world, it’s difficult to get buy-in.
Overcome HR inertia: Although HR is the “steward” of the most invaluable asset of company - people, sometimes it is perhaps the root cause of culture inertia. If you want to get HR staff to buy in to analytics, you need to treat it like a cross country race. When the ground is clear and the view uncluttered, you can run flat out and get the quick wins, but other times the terrain makes you more cautious, but also more determined. You have one advantage over the runner though, you can determine the order of the terrain that you tackle. You can take the easy terrain first, the quick wins, and the less fit runners can keep up with the pace. Then, as the terrain gets harder, you provide more support to the teammates and complete each section together.
People are the only thing that differentiates any organization from another. If you take the premise that HR is the shepherd of culture (shared with leadership), then HR is in the greatest position to change culture. Leveraging analytics is an important approach to harden the “soft” culture and lift organizational maturity.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
April 16, 2015
Scorecard as a Strategy Management Tool
The goals of applying scoreboard is to translate the vision and strategic planning into operational goals; communicate strategy and link it to individual performance.
The balanced scorecard (BSC) is a strategy performance management tool - a semi-standard structured report, supported by design methods and automation tools, that can be used by managers to keep track of the execution of activities by the staff within their control and to monitor the consequences arising from these actions.
Scorecards make the meaning of success tangible for your organization. Scorecards translate your strategy into concrete terms and help you track its implementation. Scorecards also reflect operational issues, they are developed in a way that specifically directs attention to your strategy and future direction. But the challenge is the practical application of this tool. Theoretically most managers know how it works, understand the application or the practicality of this management tool. We would appreciate a basic practical pictorial view of what the Scorecard should contain and address. Scorecards and dashboards must be aligned with strategies and KPIs. This sounds like a "no brainer," but, many scorecards fail miserably simply because they were designed in isolation, not taking into account corporate strategy, not identifying key stakeholders, introducing KPIs that can't be reported from the database, etc. Effective communication and the ability to build strong relationships are vital elements.
Scorecard helps you a lot when it is into execution mode, not on the paper mode. Success of strategy is not only based on how well you have planned, but how well it is executed. One of the strengths of the scorecard is that they enable practical use of the success factors and performance management concepts. It puts these key success enablers in the spotlight for all team members and unifies their efforts to achieve the common goals. Scorecards help greatly with prioritization. It is too easy to be swamped by report and dashboards. The scorecard allows you to focus on. Without scorecards, it will become like searching for a needle in the haystack. Scorecard definitely is a pointer, however, it is important to identify the performance in a constrained environment. So basically if your scorecard is able to decipher or consider the risk responses during the period then, it would point a progress more correctly. This rule applies to individual as well as organizational performance.
Make sure that the management of your scorecards does not become an industry in itself. Technology is supposed to be simplifying routine tasks not generating more! Where possible automate the loading of data from your organization's systems particularly for financial and operational data you will have, from which you can extract the relevant subset of information. You may not have your targets in these systems, but they can be loaded once or a few times a year, so you have them stored ready to compare with your actuals. When considering a scorecard, the main part of the challenge lies in building an adapted structure, in line with your objectives. Problems often come at this stage when too many measurement from the beginning are considered: often more than needed. And this proliferation of KPIs measurement will often prevent users comprehension because of too much distractive information, Then, getting a logical structure is a tough part to achieve and is not a one shot process. It is then better to start with a small structure that answers to your very first strategic questions and then make evolve the scorecard into a more complex, accurate and specific environment.
The goals of applying scoreboard is to translate the vision and strategic planning into operational goals; communicate strategy and link it to individual performance. It enables feedback and learning, and adjusting the strategy accordingly. Still, it’s just a tool, the means to the end, not the end.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
The balanced scorecard (BSC) is a strategy performance management tool - a semi-standard structured report, supported by design methods and automation tools, that can be used by managers to keep track of the execution of activities by the staff within their control and to monitor the consequences arising from these actions.
Scorecards make the meaning of success tangible for your organization. Scorecards translate your strategy into concrete terms and help you track its implementation. Scorecards also reflect operational issues, they are developed in a way that specifically directs attention to your strategy and future direction. But the challenge is the practical application of this tool. Theoretically most managers know how it works, understand the application or the practicality of this management tool. We would appreciate a basic practical pictorial view of what the Scorecard should contain and address. Scorecards and dashboards must be aligned with strategies and KPIs. This sounds like a "no brainer," but, many scorecards fail miserably simply because they were designed in isolation, not taking into account corporate strategy, not identifying key stakeholders, introducing KPIs that can't be reported from the database, etc. Effective communication and the ability to build strong relationships are vital elements.
Scorecard helps you a lot when it is into execution mode, not on the paper mode. Success of strategy is not only based on how well you have planned, but how well it is executed. One of the strengths of the scorecard is that they enable practical use of the success factors and performance management concepts. It puts these key success enablers in the spotlight for all team members and unifies their efforts to achieve the common goals. Scorecards help greatly with prioritization. It is too easy to be swamped by report and dashboards. The scorecard allows you to focus on. Without scorecards, it will become like searching for a needle in the haystack. Scorecard definitely is a pointer, however, it is important to identify the performance in a constrained environment. So basically if your scorecard is able to decipher or consider the risk responses during the period then, it would point a progress more correctly. This rule applies to individual as well as organizational performance.
Make sure that the management of your scorecards does not become an industry in itself. Technology is supposed to be simplifying routine tasks not generating more! Where possible automate the loading of data from your organization's systems particularly for financial and operational data you will have, from which you can extract the relevant subset of information. You may not have your targets in these systems, but they can be loaded once or a few times a year, so you have them stored ready to compare with your actuals. When considering a scorecard, the main part of the challenge lies in building an adapted structure, in line with your objectives. Problems often come at this stage when too many measurement from the beginning are considered: often more than needed. And this proliferation of KPIs measurement will often prevent users comprehension because of too much distractive information, Then, getting a logical structure is a tough part to achieve and is not a one shot process. It is then better to start with a small structure that answers to your very first strategic questions and then make evolve the scorecard into a more complex, accurate and specific environment.
The goals of applying scoreboard is to translate the vision and strategic planning into operational goals; communicate strategy and link it to individual performance. It enables feedback and learning, and adjusting the strategy accordingly. Still, it’s just a tool, the means to the end, not the end.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
People Centric Change Management
The purpose of people-centric Change Management is to build an ongoing change capability.
Digital is the age of people. The human element of change entails a people-centric approach to management style; thus, empowering the workforce to embrace change is a most effective, efficient and result-oriented management in organizations, but how to manage it in systematic way?
Change objectives depend on the human objective: Irrespective of whatever strategy is selected, all change objectives (business, technical, service, safety, performance) depend entirely on the human objective. Change is a continuum and once you accept that life will be a constant shift going on around us, then you are able to seek ways and means of adjusting your perspectives and those around you. The management system needs to be the alerts you put in place that act as tuning forks to enable you to view the timing, tempo and harmonies going on, or not.
Self awareness might be the first step to get involved into a change process. Sometimes people are not part of change because they feel like they don't need any transformation, and even the ones who recognize the importance or urgency of change, do not understand their own role, impact and most importantly, emotions involved on a change process. Self-awareness means the true recognition and total perception of the current state (environment, work place, etc.) as it is, one's role in that state and its impact, why and where that state needs to be changed, one's participation and the influence in others and the results expected.
It's important that you make your employees feel like they are a big part of the changes that need to be made. ONE sure fire way to make the change process more difficult is to have upper management come in with an "iron fist" and just change things. The employees’ input helps get to the point of change. Once the employees feel fully invested in the change and they see upper management is fully invested in the change, then the likelihood of the change being made more smoothly exist. It also makes it possible for everyone to be on the same page speaking the same language and fosters an atmosphere of accountability. Execution requires varying degrees of micro managing so that everyone as practical will understand the change, how their responsibilities are affected, and exactly how they will have a new impact in the process. This will help re-establish each person's comfort zone with greater acceptance in their new role.
There are two elements that are critical to bring in the human element in a change management program. These are fairness and communication. Fairness is an aspect that will be noticed and each team member both in the affected and the not affected will see that and accept change. Treat them same by treating them differently, change is about putting the right people at the right position to unleash their talent. The second element is communication, not just descriptive communication to articulate, but more about creative communication to inspire. Constant communication with team members is critical. The leadership team must push this agenda, but pull the resources to achieve it."Big WHY"-the purpose for the change- people will always support what they understand.Identifying the champions- you should know who the guys in your team who can/are running with it. Support them and motivate them. Be flexible- change will always involve failures as well as success. Reinforce success but don't punish failures. Remember change management is a gradual process.Culture of agility: Build a working environment that is conducive to change.
After the big WHY, following with “What” and “How” part of change: It is key allowing people to become invested in the change, otherwise it will not occur. The issue in reference to integrating the human element is in the ‘what’ and in the ‘how’ of the ‘allowing.’ To be part of the change process, people should be given an uncensored package of information, so they can make fully informed judgement about whether and how embarking the change program that was designed or in the process design. Managers must understand and accept the changes first so they can be believable communicators throughout the process. Lots of listening includes senior management being available, and if not then have a temporary change manager who is focused on the change process. Use change agents to reinforce and enthuse others. Have problem-solving forums for any issues that may be contentious, so that staff can have genuine input if possible. But the key step is to review the changes honestly so that in the future the trust will be greater.
People-centric CHANGE methodology is evident reinforcement and proof of "best practice" leadership and management. People can be resistant to change for several reasons namely for being taken out of their comfort zone and it should be unequivocally understood. Business will be more successful when they realize that one of their greatest strengths will be their change capability. That being said, it requires a plan and strategy as well and most importantly the execution. Well planned execution will greatly reduce and practically eliminate the fear of change that derails good or even great intentions.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Digital is the age of people. The human element of change entails a people-centric approach to management style; thus, empowering the workforce to embrace change is a most effective, efficient and result-oriented management in organizations, but how to manage it in systematic way?
Change objectives depend on the human objective: Irrespective of whatever strategy is selected, all change objectives (business, technical, service, safety, performance) depend entirely on the human objective. Change is a continuum and once you accept that life will be a constant shift going on around us, then you are able to seek ways and means of adjusting your perspectives and those around you. The management system needs to be the alerts you put in place that act as tuning forks to enable you to view the timing, tempo and harmonies going on, or not.
Self awareness might be the first step to get involved into a change process. Sometimes people are not part of change because they feel like they don't need any transformation, and even the ones who recognize the importance or urgency of change, do not understand their own role, impact and most importantly, emotions involved on a change process. Self-awareness means the true recognition and total perception of the current state (environment, work place, etc.) as it is, one's role in that state and its impact, why and where that state needs to be changed, one's participation and the influence in others and the results expected.
It's important that you make your employees feel like they are a big part of the changes that need to be made. ONE sure fire way to make the change process more difficult is to have upper management come in with an "iron fist" and just change things. The employees’ input helps get to the point of change. Once the employees feel fully invested in the change and they see upper management is fully invested in the change, then the likelihood of the change being made more smoothly exist. It also makes it possible for everyone to be on the same page speaking the same language and fosters an atmosphere of accountability. Execution requires varying degrees of micro managing so that everyone as practical will understand the change, how their responsibilities are affected, and exactly how they will have a new impact in the process. This will help re-establish each person's comfort zone with greater acceptance in their new role.
There are two elements that are critical to bring in the human element in a change management program. These are fairness and communication. Fairness is an aspect that will be noticed and each team member both in the affected and the not affected will see that and accept change. Treat them same by treating them differently, change is about putting the right people at the right position to unleash their talent. The second element is communication, not just descriptive communication to articulate, but more about creative communication to inspire. Constant communication with team members is critical. The leadership team must push this agenda, but pull the resources to achieve it."Big WHY"-the purpose for the change- people will always support what they understand.Identifying the champions- you should know who the guys in your team who can/are running with it. Support them and motivate them. Be flexible- change will always involve failures as well as success. Reinforce success but don't punish failures. Remember change management is a gradual process.Culture of agility: Build a working environment that is conducive to change.
After the big WHY, following with “What” and “How” part of change: It is key allowing people to become invested in the change, otherwise it will not occur. The issue in reference to integrating the human element is in the ‘what’ and in the ‘how’ of the ‘allowing.’ To be part of the change process, people should be given an uncensored package of information, so they can make fully informed judgement about whether and how embarking the change program that was designed or in the process design. Managers must understand and accept the changes first so they can be believable communicators throughout the process. Lots of listening includes senior management being available, and if not then have a temporary change manager who is focused on the change process. Use change agents to reinforce and enthuse others. Have problem-solving forums for any issues that may be contentious, so that staff can have genuine input if possible. But the key step is to review the changes honestly so that in the future the trust will be greater.
People-centric CHANGE methodology is evident reinforcement and proof of "best practice" leadership and management. People can be resistant to change for several reasons namely for being taken out of their comfort zone and it should be unequivocally understood. Business will be more successful when they realize that one of their greatest strengths will be their change capability. That being said, it requires a plan and strategy as well and most importantly the execution. Well planned execution will greatly reduce and practically eliminate the fear of change that derails good or even great intentions.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
What are the Key Factors to Shape a DIgital CIO
It's possible for a dynamic, driven CIO to build a professional image as a digital visionary and transformative business leader.
Due to the change nature of technology, CIO role also has to continue to adapt to the disruption, transform from an infrastructure manager to an innovative digital leader. What’re the big obstacles for such a role shift? Is it true that some companies are "buffering" the CIO from the business? Lack of confidence? Or a misconception of the role? Every coin has two sides, how should CIOs do to turn around the stereotypical perception as a “techie,” only, and rebuild the professional image as digital visionary and transformative business leader?
Senior leadership team needs to empower their CIO as strategist and change agent: The expansion of roles in many companies appears too often more of an attempt to buffer CIOs from the challenges of a business than actually strengthen a team. It's hard to push on a rope. If the board and senior leadership team doesn't value IT, it's no easy task to change their mind, they didn't know what IT could do for them until they were educated and showed them value. But if the willingness to listen isn't there, it's no fun to be a CIO. If the senior leadership team doesn't demonstrate an active involvement in IT, or even deny the CIO a 'seat at the table,' and allows business units to go off on 'rogue IT' projects... Why should they expect IT-driven innovation?
It's possible for a dynamic, driven CIO to drive the change in perception of IT in general and the CIO role in particular. Many firms see their incumbent CIO as the 'head techie' rather than a transformational executive who happens to be tech-savvy. This perception is largely the CIO's fault: if you talk about 'features' rather than 'benefits,' focus on IT efficiency rather than on business effectiveness, and don't invest in learning the business and then innovating. Why shouldn't you be seen as a techie? A CIO should indeed have the right vision and be able to communicate in business language and collaborate closely with the rest of the C-Suite, the bottom line to getting a seat at the proverbial C-level table simply comes down to CIO's first believing he/she deserves that place within the organization, then being able to articulate the value proposition in terms the business unit can understand.
Thinking big, start small: CIOs are at unique position to oversight business because IT is the information hub to orchestrate the whole business nowadays. However, thinking big doesn't always mean to manage the large heavy project portfolio and only hunt for breakthrough opportunities. It is important to have a holistic strategy and catch the critical opportunities for business innovation and digital transformation, but also not forget grabbing some low hanging fruits. The CIOs who identify small pivotal changes and start "fixing" them in the background, gradually over time making larger more complex changes tend to be the ones who can turn companies around. Of course this is not always recognized. Although whether it makes sense to look for a new opportunity where tech is valued varies. There's no one size fits all answer to that. It's definitely case by case. All the communication in the world won't influence the executive peer if there aren't results. That's why those pivotal changes are the basis for a compelling story…
As a leadership role, rather than just a IT manager, CIOs need to become a business strategist to have a seat at the big table; CIOs also should become the change agent to rejuvenate corporate culture by leveraging digital collaborative tools to enhance cross-functional collaboration; and most importantly, they are the vanguard and transformational leader to drive business’s digital transformation systematically.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Due to the change nature of technology, CIO role also has to continue to adapt to the disruption, transform from an infrastructure manager to an innovative digital leader. What’re the big obstacles for such a role shift? Is it true that some companies are "buffering" the CIO from the business? Lack of confidence? Or a misconception of the role? Every coin has two sides, how should CIOs do to turn around the stereotypical perception as a “techie,” only, and rebuild the professional image as digital visionary and transformative business leader?
Senior leadership team needs to empower their CIO as strategist and change agent: The expansion of roles in many companies appears too often more of an attempt to buffer CIOs from the challenges of a business than actually strengthen a team. It's hard to push on a rope. If the board and senior leadership team doesn't value IT, it's no easy task to change their mind, they didn't know what IT could do for them until they were educated and showed them value. But if the willingness to listen isn't there, it's no fun to be a CIO. If the senior leadership team doesn't demonstrate an active involvement in IT, or even deny the CIO a 'seat at the table,' and allows business units to go off on 'rogue IT' projects... Why should they expect IT-driven innovation?
It's possible for a dynamic, driven CIO to drive the change in perception of IT in general and the CIO role in particular. Many firms see their incumbent CIO as the 'head techie' rather than a transformational executive who happens to be tech-savvy. This perception is largely the CIO's fault: if you talk about 'features' rather than 'benefits,' focus on IT efficiency rather than on business effectiveness, and don't invest in learning the business and then innovating. Why shouldn't you be seen as a techie? A CIO should indeed have the right vision and be able to communicate in business language and collaborate closely with the rest of the C-Suite, the bottom line to getting a seat at the proverbial C-level table simply comes down to CIO's first believing he/she deserves that place within the organization, then being able to articulate the value proposition in terms the business unit can understand.
Thinking big, start small: CIOs are at unique position to oversight business because IT is the information hub to orchestrate the whole business nowadays. However, thinking big doesn't always mean to manage the large heavy project portfolio and only hunt for breakthrough opportunities. It is important to have a holistic strategy and catch the critical opportunities for business innovation and digital transformation, but also not forget grabbing some low hanging fruits. The CIOs who identify small pivotal changes and start "fixing" them in the background, gradually over time making larger more complex changes tend to be the ones who can turn companies around. Of course this is not always recognized. Although whether it makes sense to look for a new opportunity where tech is valued varies. There's no one size fits all answer to that. It's definitely case by case. All the communication in the world won't influence the executive peer if there aren't results. That's why those pivotal changes are the basis for a compelling story…
As a leadership role, rather than just a IT manager, CIOs need to become a business strategist to have a seat at the big table; CIOs also should become the change agent to rejuvenate corporate culture by leveraging digital collaborative tools to enhance cross-functional collaboration; and most importantly, they are the vanguard and transformational leader to drive business’s digital transformation systematically.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
April 15, 2015
Successful Leaders Operate beyond their Conscious Mind
It's all about the balance between conscious and subconscious, and to be able to manage them or let them flow.
Leadership is about future. The spirit of organization comes from top. Usually, the thoughts and mindset of leaders have a way of permeating to other people. This creates a positive culture that radiates outwards and influences how clients, suppliers and other stakeholders experience the organization. It can also overcome stagnation and boost growth and have other positive effects as well. So how does a successful leader think? Do they operate beyond the conscious mind?
Sometimes leaders act on "gut feel."Gut feel isn't a random loose arrow. It's an internalized knowledge that has developed through theoretical knowledge, practical experience and life experience that guides the gut feel, so that we intuitively know the right decision. Wisdom is also part of this, the integration of lessons, experience and knowledge and the will to apply it to the benefit of the stakeholders. The sentiment that the subconscious mind has a role to play in all that we do, including how we lead. However, it's important not to overthink these things as we can often mistake subconscious acts, gut instinct or intuition for what actually make decisions based on a whole lots of things; we've learned over many years on a conscious level that have changed the way and rate we respond to situations on a more subconscious level.
It's all about the balance between conscious and subconscious, and to be able to manage them or let them flow. Trust to your subconscious feelings, but the most difficult hurdle to overcome is to believe that they're the right one and that the balance is in the middle, as always! For example, is intuition and gut feeling solely located in the subconscious? Some would argue that intuition and gut feeling can arise from the conscious mind, but their formation is complex, nuanced and cannot be rationalized and articulated. This is being the case. The sentiment of trusting your intuition is spot on, but attempting to break it down into conscious, and unconscious etc., consistently leads to a perspectival minefield. Such breakdowns seem necessary, as people seem to be suspicious of a simple proposition such as trusting your intuition or gut feeling, even though most peoples experience lead to them feeling or knowing there is some rightness to it.
Integrating a profound leadership strategy must begin with the inner-self: When we dig deeper in ourselves the questions arise - Who am I? Why am I here? Where do my thoughts come from and so on. When we get some answers to these questions and get some clarity, it helps us in identifying our purpose, which instills action to serve the purpose and is perceived as leadership for our cause, and moving into embedding distinctive attitudes and behaviors around the norms. Many leaders operate well beyond their conscious mind. They have learned to trust their intuition, gut-feelings and operate well beyond their rational minds. They know it’s important to create positive mental pictures of what they want to achieve before they start. They make this picture as big as they can. In the end, you will become what you walk. Most importantly, if put it into practice on daily life and that you will continuously learn about who you are and what is the meaning and purpose in life. You connect with nature force that drives you forward-even if you can't see it.
Let us be who we are, what we exemplify and how we walk the talk. We must not live in fear of the world view. The good news is that it is possible to reprogram the parts that are stopping us from living a life that we truly came to live on this planet. The life's challenges and other priorities derails us at times from our true desire, but the key is to acknowledge it and get back to the core desire. That is the path to collaborative contribution and universal happiness that lasts much longer.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
Leadership is about future. The spirit of organization comes from top. Usually, the thoughts and mindset of leaders have a way of permeating to other people. This creates a positive culture that radiates outwards and influences how clients, suppliers and other stakeholders experience the organization. It can also overcome stagnation and boost growth and have other positive effects as well. So how does a successful leader think? Do they operate beyond the conscious mind?
Sometimes leaders act on "gut feel."Gut feel isn't a random loose arrow. It's an internalized knowledge that has developed through theoretical knowledge, practical experience and life experience that guides the gut feel, so that we intuitively know the right decision. Wisdom is also part of this, the integration of lessons, experience and knowledge and the will to apply it to the benefit of the stakeholders. The sentiment that the subconscious mind has a role to play in all that we do, including how we lead. However, it's important not to overthink these things as we can often mistake subconscious acts, gut instinct or intuition for what actually make decisions based on a whole lots of things; we've learned over many years on a conscious level that have changed the way and rate we respond to situations on a more subconscious level.
It's all about the balance between conscious and subconscious, and to be able to manage them or let them flow. Trust to your subconscious feelings, but the most difficult hurdle to overcome is to believe that they're the right one and that the balance is in the middle, as always! For example, is intuition and gut feeling solely located in the subconscious? Some would argue that intuition and gut feeling can arise from the conscious mind, but their formation is complex, nuanced and cannot be rationalized and articulated. This is being the case. The sentiment of trusting your intuition is spot on, but attempting to break it down into conscious, and unconscious etc., consistently leads to a perspectival minefield. Such breakdowns seem necessary, as people seem to be suspicious of a simple proposition such as trusting your intuition or gut feeling, even though most peoples experience lead to them feeling or knowing there is some rightness to it.
Integrating a profound leadership strategy must begin with the inner-self: When we dig deeper in ourselves the questions arise - Who am I? Why am I here? Where do my thoughts come from and so on. When we get some answers to these questions and get some clarity, it helps us in identifying our purpose, which instills action to serve the purpose and is perceived as leadership for our cause, and moving into embedding distinctive attitudes and behaviors around the norms. Many leaders operate well beyond their conscious mind. They have learned to trust their intuition, gut-feelings and operate well beyond their rational minds. They know it’s important to create positive mental pictures of what they want to achieve before they start. They make this picture as big as they can. In the end, you will become what you walk. Most importantly, if put it into practice on daily life and that you will continuously learn about who you are and what is the meaning and purpose in life. You connect with nature force that drives you forward-even if you can't see it.
Let us be who we are, what we exemplify and how we walk the talk. We must not live in fear of the world view. The good news is that it is possible to reprogram the parts that are stopping us from living a life that we truly came to live on this planet. The life's challenges and other priorities derails us at times from our true desire, but the key is to acknowledge it and get back to the core desire. That is the path to collaborative contribution and universal happiness that lasts much longer.
Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu
