10 ways to improve a technology project’s success

April 3, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


There was a recent study published that claimed the top 500 companies lose $14 Billion annually due to failed technology projects. One of my consulting benefits is turning around failing projects to successful completion. Here are a few basic ways you can improve your results.

  1. Keep your goals in focus – Projects often fail due to a focus on items other than the goal. If your focus is on delivering in a certain time frame, other aspects of the project will be compromised to meet the time frame. Set goals that focus on milestones and results, rather than time lines. This doesn’t mean the project will be in perpetual development, but it will mean the project will be successful if it needs slightly more hours to reach the goal.
  2. Encourage feedback and brainstorming – A successful project is a collaboration. Solicit feedback, have debates about what is the best course of action.
  3. Be flexible – Assess the situation as the project progresses. If a problem arises during one way of implementing, consider alternative methods of reaching your goal.
  4. Give people a break – If your people have been working hard on the project, make sure they are encouraged to take a break to step out during the day, on weekends, or other times. Very few people do their best work non-stop.
  5. Encourage collaboration – It is easy to get so focused on one way of doing something that you miss a better way. Collaboration is a great way to get a fresh perspective to solve a problem. People should be allowed to work together to improve results.
  6. Communicate requirements – Discuss the overall objective of the project with team members and let them know how the project fits into the overall company. Knowing how the project contributes to the company improves the outcome more than working within a vacuum of information with no foundation or focus.
  7. Be realistic – A project will require time and money as inputs to be successful. Be realistic in your expectations for time and money.
  8. Don’t micromanage – Defer to employee expertise and ability to figure out the details of implementation. Micromanagement destroys the communication and collaboration you should encourage.
  9. Clear other requirements – If a project is critical, make sure your people can focus on the project without distractions from other projects. Make sure it is known that other projects are low priority.
  10. Facilitate resources – Provide Internet access, information, non-production test/dev systems, and other resources that are helpful to the project.

 


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    Results Mean Big Money for Business

    March 24, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


    There is often a focus on cost metrics in business. These are items such as hours, licensing costs, and equipment that are purchased as speculative expenses toward potential results. Results are often pushed to the background due to the natural tendency to focus on inputs and effort, instead of results and output in the early stages of a project.

    I take a different approach in my consulting. I focus on results, and facilitate reaching them. From improving small business, to improving large cap companies and government organization, the one common factor is that great results are paramount to the success of the business.

    For a small business example, a fledgling small business owner was interested in expanding into a market that required a multiple year requirement to become licensed. After discussing the issues, I developed a plan that enabled this business to expand 3 years earlier than otherwise possible. This resulted in the company capturing lucrative opportunities worth over $1M during these years that they would have missed out on, if they had followed their original plan.

    For a large cap company example, I helped them to improve their infrastructure and operations in a way that enabled them to become more effective and efficient. This resulted in their ability to sell a non-core portion of their business to another company for over $700M, reducing their costs, paying down debt, and increasing cash reserves while retaining their core operations.

    In government, I worked with the United States Postal Service to significantly improve their USPS.COM infrastructure, resulting in increased availability, increased capacity, additional services, and reduced ongoing operating costs.These improvements enabled USPS to market their online services heavily, resulting in sharp revenue increases that have exceeded $4.7M in daily revenue on their busiest days, and over $650M in annual revenue, while reducing overall operating costs.

    In each of these representative scenarios, the results made significant improvements to the company. The results were reached by applying my wide range of expertise and experience to effectively solve some of the most pressing needs of the company. I utilize value based compensation in my consulting practice which enables clients to attain their best results with an excellent return on their consulting investment, while providing equitable compensation for my assistance. When a company benefits from quicker turnaround and fewer consulting hours, such as the company who was able to enter their target market 3 years early, I help them attain that result. When a company requires guidance and advice to reach their goal, I facilitate that result. I work with the people and resources you have, to provide sustainable results that improves your company and our consulting relationship. My focus is on helping companies get the best results, taking their unique situation into account.

     

    This article was written by Doug Spencer, a technical and business consultant who helps companies utilize technology to improve business operations. Doug’s experience spans many industries, company sizes, and technologies.

    Doug helps companies to realize their potential by utilizing his experience to enhance client revenue and save costs. Doug can be reached via e-mail at forhire99@gmail.com, or on LinkedIN at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dougspencer.


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    Why do you buy a motorcycle, when you really need a minivan?

    March 21, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


    It happens all the time, people need an outcome that will improve their situation, then they buy something that isn’t going to deliver the results they need. The family who needs to travel with five children, but ends up with a new motorcycle in the garage, instead of the minivan they need. The company that needs results, then hires someone simply because they have a “low” hourly rate that is perceived as a good deal. This often ends up with a lot of unproductive effort, rather than results and added value.

    Rather that buying what you don’t need, why not consider buying what will provide you the most benefit? If you need improvements at your company, retain someone who help you get results, in your best interest, with a good return on your consulting investment. Gaining results might require you to consider options you haven’t previously. Don’t exclude someone, simply because they work in a way that doesn’t fit exactly what you’ve done previously. Many companies will pass up an effective consultant, employee, or implementer, simply because they require telecommuting, or a non-standard schedule. Others compare hourly rates, as if a particular hourly rate equates to a certain amount, or quality, of output of results. When you need results, buy results that provide the best value.


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    Is being #1 good enough?

    March 20, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


    You own and run the top company in your industry. What now? Can you rest easy, knowing your competition is not as good as your company? Is being #1 good enough? Not if you want to stay #1. To stay on top, your company needs to continually improve, adapt, and anticipate new opportunities and changing market conditions. You need to stay ahead of the competition, think creatively, and take action. Don’t just coast along hoping for the best. Even if you’re on the right path, you will get passed up, if you don’t keep moving forward.

    What you have done in the past builds reputation and experience. What you do next builds your future and value. Keep your focus on the future and your goals, doing what is needed to get there. When you need clarification, consult a trusted adviser to help guide you to the easiest path to your goal.

     


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    Plate spinning

    March 11, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


    Plate spinning is a performance where an expert performer attempts to spin multiple plates atop poles, utilizing the gyroscopic effect of the spinning to keep the plates stable. As the first plates begin to slow, the performer returns to them and get them spinning faster. It may be entertaining, but it doesn’t scale very easily. The world record stands at 108 simultaneous spinning plates, set in 1996.

    Plate spinning

    Plate spinning

    What if someone needed 150 plates spinning? This result would be nearly impossible for an individual performer to do alone. How can it be done?

    The performer can enlist uninitiated individuals to assist then mentor them to start and keep the plates spinning. The expert performer becomes a consultant mentor and advisor when they guide individuals. The result is that 1,000, 10,000, or any other number of simultaneous spinning plates can be realized. One expert performer enables protogees to deliver impressive results.

    This is similar to a method I utilize to facilitate results for clients. As a consultant, I mentor the client’s existing employees to enable them to deliver great results not easily attainable through other methods. Development of skills and knowledge which benefit the client company and employees well into their future is the benefit of this mentoring.

    Read more of this post


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    What makes you so special?

    March 9, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


    With nearly 7 billion people worldwide, and more than 310M in the United States, how do you distinguish yourself as an individual? An individual is a culmination of experiences, attributes, abilities, needs, successes, and failures that have got you to this point in life. Are you able to do something better than most people? Which adversities have you overcome, and how has that shaped your outlook? What have you done in the past? Can you identify how these experiences will enable you to provide value to new situations?

    Successful people consider ways to add value, rather than simply serve as a commodity. A commodity is interchangeable, cheap, and disposable. If you want to rise above that, you need to find what you do better than others, adapt it, and improve on it to become a standout and add value.There is only one person that can do exactly what you are capable of, and that person is you. Determine what makes you so special, develop a plan to use that ability to add value, and capitalize on it.

     

    This article is a bit of a stretch. I turn down plenty of projects offering well into 6 figures annually, due to adverse contract clauses such as non-competes or overreaching intellectual property ownership that company bureaucracy can’t get changed. I’ve done fine in this economy, working primarily telecommute and setting my own terms. Those I work with value results, treat me well, and are rewarded with great improvements.

    Employees should find ways to add value, rather than simply serve as a commodity. A commodity is interchangeable, cheap, and disposable. Find something you do better than others, and improve from there to become a standout.


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    Beating high fuel costs

    March 7, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


    With the price of gasoline now averaging over $3.50/gallon nationwide, many people are looking for ways to reduce the cost. The president is considering opening the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and other drastic measures, to keep gasoline flowing through your fuel injectors. Renewable energy has even been getting more coverage lately. With all this rhetoric, there is one area that has been surprisingly overlooked, that has the potential to drop fuel expenses immediately, and we can do it now.

    This answer is not hybrids, exotic hydrogen fuel cell, or battery powered vehicles. It is telecommuting. Just over 2% of workers consider their home to be their primary place of work. It is estimated that 40% of US workers hold jobs that could be done at home, which is approximately 50 million fewer automobiles driving on the roads each day. Considering an average commute is 32 miles round trip per day, with many people traveling far more than average, telecommuting could immediately cut over 72,000,000 gallons per day of fuel usage. In less than 1 year of telecommuting, around 206 days, it would conserve more gasoline than is held in the strategic petroleum reserve.

    The ability to telecommute is increasing as technology progresses. High speed internet, encryption, instant messenging, video conferencing, and telepresence robots make the remote working experience more effective. It is even feasible to get remote surgery, as shown in this video of a surgery performed from 4,000 miles away in 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2twLVL_jyP4


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    Expand your company’s potential

    March 6, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


    There is a famous quote, “Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled.” This recognizes the importance of varied experiences to comprehensive understanding of how to apply knowledge to a new situation and manifest the best results.

    Variety is critical to understanding, adapting, and creative problem solving. In fact, there is evidence that lack of variety can result in a type of mental blindness. Psychological studies during the 1970′s by M. P. Stryker, H. Sherk, A. G. Leventhal, and H. V. Hirsch found that if feline kittens were restricted to seeing only horizontal lines during their development, they lost the ability to recognize vertical objects, and vice versa. Considered in more general terms, there is potential for mental myopia from any narrow focus over a long period of time.

    A variety of experiences opens your mind to new ways of doing things. Unfortunately, many fields have been shifting toward being ever more specialized, where an individual works at being the best with an increasingly narrow focus. If your intent is to repeat one result over a long period of time, this approach works reasonably well. A limited focus still tends to result in overlooked improvement opportunities. You could be right next to an opportunity, yet not recognize it as such.

    As an example, paramedics have been using CPR for many years to help people who have suffered heart attacks. Heart surgeons have been focused on repairing heart problems. Even with all that specialized experience in treating heart attacks by trained professionals, I recently heard about a mother without medical experience discovered that using a toilet plunger improved CPR and helped her revive a man whose heart had stopped. This discovery has been developed into a device called CardioPump by Advanced Circulatory Systems. It is reported that the suction cup device may save millions of lives annually by being more effective than traditional CPR.

    There is much benefit possible by applying broad experience and a fresh perspective. What do you do when you need help exploring new opportunities? If you are normally focused on your specialties, you can retain someone with the experience and ability to guide improvements. A certain subset of consultants provides this type of broad experience. I happen to be one of them.

    In addition to travel, I have gained experiences by working with clients in hundreds of industries, each with unique needs. Every new experience has added to my overall understanding of how things work. I have more than 80,000 hours of diverse experience that I apply to gaining the best result.

    I work with motivated stakeholders to improve the condition of their company or project. I apply a wide range of experiences and skills to get results. I accomplish this through collaboration, mentoring, and guidance that provides measurable benefit. I’m very successful in this capacity. I charge for results, not for the time to get there.


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    An expert is someone who never stops learning

    March 3, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


    An expert isn’t the “know it all,” as is often portrayed. In fact, when you find someone who claims to know all about a subject, it’s often a sign that they have given up on improving their knowledge long ago, and now have no idea how little they actually know.

    An expert is someone who never stops learning. The person who says “I don’t know, but let’s try and see what we can learn” when faced with a new situation. The best experts learn from every project, every client, and every experience to add knowledge and resources that makes them more valuable on future projects. The ability to apply existing knowledge to a new situation, learn from it, and adapt is what makes an expert.

     


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    The problem with following horses

    February 27, 2011 by doug Leave a Comment


    There is a postulation that United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches was based on the width of an Imperial Roman chariot, which was set based on the width of two horse’s backsides. In more modern times, the solid rocket boosters of the Space Shuttle had their dimensions limited to facilitate rail shipping, though a larger design would have been preferable. The end result is that the Space Shuttle may well have been designed to a great extent because of the size of a horse’s behind.

    Much of what happens in business similarly occurs because “that’s how we’ve always done it” legacy procedure. This results in a type of myopia that results in incremental results and limited progress. Accepting and acting on “conventional wisdom” as fact, without consideration of alternatives, limits progress to the results you’ve received in the past.

    In contrast, breakthrough changes deliver geometric improvements that are enabled with fresh perspectives, creativity, and insight. Basically, doing things differently than they’ve been done, and being open to possibilities.

    A simple example of “that’s how we’ve always done it” is time based billing for services. There’s no particular correlation between an hourly fee and the value of the service provided. In fact, such methodology actually introduces a conflict of interest. The party supplying the service has a financial interest in increasing the number of hours billed and time to delivery, with no stake in the quality of the result.  The recipient conversely benefits from efficient, quality, accurate results in their best interests.

    Despite the disconnect between rate, value, and conflicts of interest, hourly billing remains common because at some point in history, a worker was able to complete a particular quantity of tasks in an hour, and hourly cost approximately reflected results. Many companies still follow the horses in this area, and the result often ends with them stepping into some messy situations. The focus is on hours, rather than reaching their goal. With that focus, they get the hours, and don’t necessarily attain the goal.

    Instead of hours as a benchmark, why not use goals, results, strategy, and ways to increase value? Typically, the client concern is that “we’ve always paid hourly fees. How will we know how much value you deliver?” After a bit of discussion and education, we come to agreement on goals and how to measure the value of the service. From there, it’s a matter of executing the plan to effect the result to deliver value.

    There are many more examples of this phenomena. While providing UNIX and Linux performance consulting, I find that many people consider a high load average value to be a problem. A few places were ready to replace hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, and devote thousands of hours in an effort to resolve performance problems that would not have been resolved with an equipment upgrade. I was able to save those clients time and money by working with them to resolve the problem using thoughtful improvement suggestions.

    The choice is yours: Do you want to keep following the horses, because that’s what has always been done, or do you consider the best ways to improve your business?

    This article was written by Doug Spencer, a technical and business consultant who helps companies utilize technology to improve business operations. Doug’s experience spans many industries, company sizes, and technologies.

    Doug helps companies to realize their potential by utilizing his experience to enhance client revenue and save costs. Doug can be reached via e-mail at forhire99@gmail.com, or on LinkedIN at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dougspencer.


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