Why we need PLANNING?

Plans that lack practicality are seldom useful.

Come down to the field level, have a feel of the work, as is being done and then do your planning. After all, plans are meant to be implemented.

Too much of paper work and bureaucracy will only result in devising impractical plans.

An effective plan can let the organization to achieve its goals. But planning does not mean fulfilling the paper work only. Our planning should be based on strong input parameters with proven scientific method of analysis the given parameter to get proper planning in place to achieve the target goal.

We need to make sure our planning should fulfil following purposes:

1. Minimize risk and uncertainty
2. Gives direction in the line with preset goals and objectives
3. Help team to coordinate effectively
4. Reduces overlapping and wastage of efforts
5. Focuses on organizational goals and its functioning

We can do successful planning by following steps:

1. Establishing verifiable goals or set of goals to be achieved. It should be realistic, achievable, measurable, and it should be lined to defined timelines. 
2. Finding alternative courses of action. It should always content PLAN-B to safeguard be your defined planning from uncertain circumstances.
3. Evaluating and selecting a course of action.
4. Measuring and controlling the progress

I will discuss more of different planning verticals in PMP, Prince and 6 Sigma methodologies. 

Negative Rumour-Mongers!

Don’t believe rumours without checking them; herd instinct is no good.

Beware of rumour-mongers. Double check any statement of your peers or subordinates that defies your logic. Keep you people informed about the happening in your organization. If they are not kept fully informed, they resort to grapevine, which is a potential source for rumour. 

Successful rumour management may prevent this negative word of mouth propaganda (Liao, 2007). More disturbing for managers is that rumours will always be a part of a business environment and contrary to beliefs that rumours are only spread by word of mouth (as if that isn't difficult enough to handle), recent technological developments have expanded dramatically our ability to disseminate information. This is made obvious with the rise in frequency of rumours being spread by media outlets (Kimmel, 2004).

Unexpected and unexplained events can spark rumours among employees. If ignored by Human resources and the management team, rumours can take on a life of their own hurting productivity and morale (Mishra, 1990).

It's natural for employees to assume the worst. But there's an art to dealing with rumours and it involves timing: You must know when to act and when not to.

Four tips have been identified by The HR Specialist (2007) for managing rumours.

1. Take note of subtle changes in the atmosphere. When a usually bustling workplace becomes quiet and conversations halt when one walks into a room, beware. Dispel the mystery by asking employees directly "What's going on?" Listen and respond.

2. Announce upcoming changes, whenever possible. Unexplained surprises breed rumours. Whenever possible, keep employees informed of changes that could affect them. If employees cannot be told ahead of time, expect rumours to spread and preparations should be made to manage them.

Stay particularly alert in situations that breed uncertainty, but be equally candid about the type of information you can (and will) share. Refuse to indulge in the rumour.

3. Head off rumours at the pass. Establish a reputation for having an open and above-board style. If employees believe management will be straight with them, they will be more likely to come and ask for answers and less likely to indulge in speculation. Couple that with an open door that is truly open and 99 percent of the problems will be avoided.

If a big rumour brings work to a standstill, consider a meeting or a memo to bring everyone up to speed or to quash the rumour.

If there is a rumour about sale of the organization, bring employees together (maybe during an already-planned training event), so they all hear the same thing at the same time.

4. Tap into the grapevine. Managers should make sure they are never the last to know. They should fine tune their "radar" and question employees if they suspect that rumours might be developing. Rumours grow when information is scarce. If employees know they can trust you to keep them informed, they will have no need to invent answers themselves. This can be done by creating an internal company blog site where issues with the company are posted anonymously and other employees share their opinions.

Read more: http://www.ukessays.co.uk/essays/marketing/rumour-mongers.php

Setting Priorities!

Dwelling on finer points will make you miss the main thing.

Never waste your time on petty matters. Spend your time judiciously only on those areas that affect the organization as a whole, particularly those that affect profits. 

Whatever may be your style of management, it will be a failure if you fail to produce the desired result. Results speaks louder than techniques and you spend your time on trifles you won’t get the desired results if your dwell on trivial issues. 

Work by assigning priorities. Ignore trivial issues and concentrate on core issues. If you spend your time on trifles, you are sure to miss vitalities.

“Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.” – Johann Goethe

“The nicest thing about not planning time is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.”- Sir John Harvey Jones

Ineffective way : “I put urgent things first.”

Effective way: “I put important things first. Otherwise they will turn-to urgent and critical.”

The Time Matrix

A really good video for setting your priorities "Big Rocks” Scheduling, Timeless Truth from Stephen Covey: Put Your Big Rocks in First...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8705cHTKEgQ

Crisis Management-Plan B!

Presence of mind will be great use when there is no time for preparing great plans.

Respond to a CRISIS  quickly. There is no point in studying the problem in detail, analyzing the various options available to solve the problem, choosing the appropriate option, planning to solve the problem, etc. at the time of crisis. 

Crisis management is a good test to see how a manager reacts. In times of emergency, act fast. Emergency situations need quick decisions. Many great opportunities have been lost because of procrastination.  It requires more of non-programmed decision making. Be bold enough, act rationally and quickly at the same time. Opportunities missed once rarely reappear. 

Crisis Management is the process of responding to an event that might threaten the operations, staff, customers, reputation or the legal and financial status of an organisation. The aim is to minimise the damage. 

A good PLAN-B can safeguard the organization from bigger loss.

Be ready for contingency plan (Plan B) to respond the known risk/crisis.

Organisations prepare contingency plans in recognition of the fact that things do go wrong from time to time.

Contingency planning involves:

• Preparing for predictable and quantifiable crises
• Preparing for unexpected and unwelcome events

The aim is to minimise the impact of a foreseeable event and to plan for how the organisation will resume normal operations after the crisis.

Contingency plans:

1. Identifies alternative courses of action that can be taken if circumstances change with time
2. Details standby procedures to enable the continuation of essential activities and services during the period of the emergency
3. Includes programmes for improving the business in the longer term once the immediate situation has been resolved
4. Steps in drawing up a contingency plan
5. Recognise the need for contingency planning
6. Identify possible contingencies - all the possible adverse and crisis scenarios
7. Specify the likely consequences
8. Assess of the degree of risk to each eventuality
9. Determine risk strategy to prevent a crisis & to deal with a crisis should one occur
10. Draft the plan and identify responsibilities
11. Simulate crises and the operate of each plan

Useful links for Crisis Management

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_management

http://archive.adl.org/security/crisis%20management.pdf

Decision-making under uncertainty!

Take decisions diligently, calmly and without any haste.

Hasty decisions and belated decisions are both ruinous. Decision-making under uncertainty calls for more qualitative judgement than quantitative analysis. Decision-making  under uncertainty depends much upon the behavioural aspects of the manager. If the manager has the courage not to panic about the uncertainty of the situation and has acumen not to postpone or ignore or take an indifferent attitude to decision making, he is more likely to make rational decisions. 

Only a calm mind will help one make wise decisions that will leave little room for regret later.

A manager should choose his strategy accordingly to his wisdom about uncertainty of given environment and he may reach to these beliefs through a combination of reasoning and the knowledge of past behaviour. 

Please refer following link for some scientific ways to make wise decisions.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/14-123-microeconomic-theory-iii-spring-2010/lecture-notes/MIT14_123S10_notes03.pdf

Beware from Flattery!

Never succumb to flattery as most men do.

Be watchful and guard against flattery. It is so subtle that you will get carried away unless you are alert, after all every human being like being flattered. 

You must be able to distinguish between appreciation and flattery. While appreciation comes out of sincerity, flattery will have ulterior motives. 

Being a manager you should keep yourself away from the trap of flattery, because it may lead to unfavorable environment for truly hardworking team-members by favoring the one person based on his/her flattery behavior. At end of the day it spoils your image in team.  So beware from such team members.

You can accept the soothing words of praise from your subordinates with a ‘Thank you’. But, take extra care to ensure that you don’t allow any prejudices in your dealing with that person.  

Solution of a Problem?

Don’t rush to find solutions before knowing what the real problem is.

The first step in the decision-making process is to identify the real problem.

Inadequate, incomplete, incorrect understanding of problems will only lead to improper decisions. Quality decisions can be made only if the real problem is identified and its root cause studies.

Scientific Ways to find out real cause of a problem: 

Root cause analysis (RCA) is a method of problem solving that tries to identify the root causes of faults or problems that cause operating events.

RCA practice tries to solve problems by attempting to identify and correct the root causes of events, as opposed to simply addressing their symptoms. By focusing correction on root causes, problem recurrence can be prevented. RCFA (Root Cause Failure Analysis) recognizes that complete prevention of recurrence by one corrective action is not always possible.

RCA is typically used as a reactive method of identifying event(s) causes, revealing problems and solving them. Analysis is done after an event has occurred. Insights in RCA may make it useful as a preemptive method. In that event, RCA can be used to forecast or predict probable events even before they occur. While one follows the other, RCA is a completely separate process to Incident Management.

Ishikawa diagrams (also called fishbone diagrams, herringbone diagrams, cause-and-effect diagrams, or Fishikawa) are causal diagrams created by Kaoru Ishikawa (1968) that show the causes of a specific event. Common uses of the Ishikawa diagram are product design and quality defect prevention, to identify potential factors causing an overall effect. Each cause or reason for imperfection is a source of variation. Causes are usually grouped into major categories to identify these sources of variation. The categories typically include:

1. People: Anyone involved with the process
2. Methods: How the process is performed and the specific requirements for doing it, such as policies, procedures, rules, regulations and laws
3. Machines: Any equipment, computers, tools, etc. required to accomplish the job
4. Materials: Raw materials, parts, pens, paper, etc. used to produce the final product
5. Measurements: Data generated from the process that are used to evaluate its quality
6. Environment: The conditions, such as location, time, temperature, and culture in which the process operates

On the basis of listed causes, we can easily identify the majority of causes which causing to End Problem.

After that we can do PARETO Analysis to find key problematic area causing maximum problem.

Pareto analysis is a statistical technique in decision making that is used for selection of a limited number of tasks that produce significant overall effect. It uses the Pareto principle – the idea that by doing 20% of work, 80% of the advantage of doing the entire job can be generated. Or in terms of quality improvement, a large majority of problems (80%) are produced by a few key causes (20%).

Pareto analysis is a formal technique useful where many possible courses of action are competing for attention. In essence, the problem-solver estimates the benefit delivered by each action, then selects a number of the most effective actions that deliver a total benefit reasonably close to the maximal possible one.

Steps to identify the important causes using simple rote (20/80) Pareto analysis[2]

Step 1: Form an explicit table listing the causes and their frequency as a percentage.

Step 2: Arrange the rows in the decreasing order of importance of the causes (i.e., the most important cause first)

Step 3: Add a cumulative percentage column to the table

Step 4: Plot with causes on x- and cumulative percentage on y-axis

Step 5: Join the above points to form a curve

Step 6: Plot (on the same graph) a bar graph with causes on x- and percent frequency on y-axis

Step 7: Draw line at 80% on y-axis parallel to x-axis. Then drop the line at the point of intersection with the curve on x-axis. This point on the x-axis separates the important causes (on the left) and trivial causes (on the right)

Step 8: Explicitly review the chart to ensure that at least 80% of the causes are captured

Important References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cause_analysis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_analysis

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/nasa/root_cause_analysis.pdf