Tag Archives: time management

03-Planning the work of a team, work plans

Not enough time in the day… or week or year

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A few weeks ago my manager said “I love your inclination to take on a new projects and your willingness to move your schedule around”. I thought that was great… till she continued on to say “what we need to figure out is how I help you get it all done in time”… ending with “once I get something from you I do know it will be good work”.

Yes! You probably noticed that I had just been sandwiched. While I would have have preferred a more direct feedback method, I do agree with her remarks. I need to get better at managing my projects so I can more consistently deliver on time. To be completely transparent, this is not the first, second or 100th time I have heard that. It’s time to do something about it…which based on past efforts isn’t going to be easy.

Now that I’ve identified the issue at hand, I need to go gather data, analyze it and come up with a solution (sound familiar?). I decided to start by speaking with people I had worked with in the past to get more feedback. I’m sorry to say they all said the same un-helpful thing “Omry, that’s just who you are…”, only strengthening my thoughts on how hard making this change is going to be. I continued by comparing my project management style to others doing similar work. I noticed the expected… they all have project lists, they all have clear due dates/schedules set for each project and they all get their projects in on time. I may not be great at it but I do have lists and schedules, I just apparently have trouble sticking to them. I needed to search more and decided to turn to my trusted searching tool “Google”. I searched and searched through what seemed to be hundreds of pages… till I came to a page called “50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily”. 50 was a bit much, especially for someone who already can’t find time for everything, but a few tricks caught my attention:

 

Ubiquitous Capture: Everything needs to be documented! Whether I have an idea for a project or think of something that needs to get done, it needs to be written down. At first this sounded like a lot of work, but because I can do this on my phone and don’t have to care about grammar, it only takes a few seconds and I can jot things down anywhere I go.

 

80/20 by 50-30-20: This is a combination of two tricks. The first is the realization that 80% of results come from 20% of the work and therefore I should spend my time accordingly. The second is that in my project prioritization I should take my own life/career goals in mind. Spend 50% of time on tasks that will have the largest impact on my career, 30% of time on the tasks that advance my middle term career and 20% on everything else.

 

Do your worst: I shouldn’t expect perfection in every task on the first run. I can always go back to improving it later. Put pen to paper and start a project to see where it goes. The end result will only reveal itself after I have started the process. In simpler words, Stop Procrastinating.

More tricks for getting things done: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/50-tricks-to-get-things-done-faster-better-and-more-easily.html

05-Creating & constructing good solutions, 99-Applying business intelligence, business databases, creativity methods

The ‘Right’ Strategy For Business Intelligence?

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Companies often look for templates or real world examples when it is time to bring a business intelligence system online. While they try to mimic a company similar to theirs, each organization is faced with their own respective needs and challenges. One commonality does exist in most roll outs as the strategy standard; involving end users and thinking big but starting small. This article discusses the best implementation strategy that is shared among companies.

Involving the users allows there to be early buy in from many members of the organization and it promotes the benefits immediately.  With many ideas flowing about, the implementation team is well prepared to deliver the best system. Additionally, pilot programs to test this system in are critical. Mass roll outs without the proper testing can lead to various issues and each department usually has its own pace to adopt these technologies.

Timelines allow for organized planning but its really the end user acclimating to the new system and providing feedback which will determine how long this implementation can take.  Does anyone have any other advice that may complement this over arching advice?

03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, work plans

Managing Your Time Effectively

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We all know how difficult it can be juggling school, our jobs, friends, family and goodness knows what else. Sometimes it seems like we’re burning the candles on both ends, and we just can’t seem to catch up no matter WHAT we do. It’s so easy to get distracted, especially with all the electronic devices filling up our lives, whether it’s the TV or your smartphone.

I’ve often observed this with managers and co-workers as well. They get so caught up with the little things,  it can be difficult to stay on track.  Projects then get pushed back, things pile up — and then they end up spending 12-14 hours a day working 6 days a week. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg talks about trying to balance family and work in her book “Lean In”.  When she first became an executive at Google, She said she constantly felt worried about missing something – if she was at home with her family, she was concerned about things at the office, and vice versa.  So she implemented a pretty similar policy outlined in Michael McKeown’s article The No. 1 Time Management Mistake. She cut out the non-essentials — whether that was extra meetings, phone calls, etc. She kept strict office hours, but made herself available, if needed, on her BlackBerry. She prioritized to-do list every day — and her employees soon followed. Soon, her team was completing projects more efficiently – and in less time.

I think these lessons are especially key for us as students and future managers. Learning how to focus on the essentials and eliminating distractions will help our stress levels and our work flow. And having effective time management seems particularly essential in this shortened summer semester! So how do you make time for school, work and your personal life?