Management Matters

[Plum]

This forum has a healthy mix of age-groups, professionals, and experience levels in industry, various industries.

I'd like to kick off this thread where you can discuss issues related to management of projects, people and processes.

What are the issues that bug you in relation to how you, your company, your projects, your processes are being managed?

You can even use this to post your rants on your current manager - who knows, there might be someone out here who can help you handle situations better viz a viz your manager.

Always remember that among other things, managing your manager is the most important career-building tool you can have.

As a manager, it is of interest to me to know typical problems employees face viz a viz typical management initiatives and perspective.

I currently dont have an idea of how I will get this thread going but wanted to just kick start it and see what people have to say.

Especially looking forward to the thoughts of the man who has had n companies and m managers - Maddy!
Shoot and we'll figure how we can make this thread focussed and useful

[pavalamani pragasam]

Yes, management is an art, a skill that has to be diligently cultivated , maintained and upgraded! :) Inside the family or outside in the wide world of daily contact. Tact is the key word for success. Also assessment of people's temperaments, capabilities, weaknesses and stregnths.

[pavalamani pragasam]

contd
That is, a fair knowledge of human psychology- male and female: both are completely different in their logic, behaviour and reactions- is a must.

Tackling a tricky manager above or a truant subordinate below in an office can be equated to tackling in-laws, spouses and children for women at home. Also neighbours, friends and relatives are to be included in the list.

It is a tight-rope walk most of the time and acrobatic precision, timing and training is necessary.

A broad perspective and an open mind can be very helpful. It is important to ooze confidence and cheer all around to keep afloat!
A fairness and frankness in our dealings is highly desirable. A good manager needs to be a good confidant with a good listening ear. This will smoothen things a lot and prevent many a crisis.

Great discretion is needed in touching sensitive matters. It is good to know and respect what is sacred, vital and prestigious for those with whom we move.

Good manners are to be adhered to when interacting with both seniors and juniors. It is a mark of refinement and wisdom. It paves the way to winning also.

It is essential to know when to speak and when to be silent, when to interfere and when to ignore.

Keeping one's cool is imperative in the midst of tempestuous situations. That is the masterly method to handle anything. Flying off the handle is easy, to shout at anybody, to spew words of unthinking venom can never solve anything. But a poised approach will. This will be acquired with perseverance and a will to become a master/manager.

Being at the helm of affairs is not an easy joke. It requires utmost patience and prudence. Choose bouquets instead of brickbats. A pat on the shoulder, a warm handshake and a word of sincere appreciation will take you miles on wings while rubbing a person on the wrong side will not help you to budge an inch.

Open or hinted threats to those around us is a barbaric method of achieving our ends. And unreliable too! Respect for oneself and others is a nugget of assets desired for possession.

Learn to forgive and forget. It is human to err. By being generous generally most frictions are avoided. Do unto others as you would be done by. This also indicates one's ability to empathise, to be able to put oneself in another's shoes. Visualising the problems of other persons helps in the long run to solve them or even prevent them.

Being born as the eldest of 3 sisters, married into a family of 4 children as the eldest daughter-in-law, having brought up 2 sons and 1 daughter, getting them all married, mingling with new-found extended families, watching with pride the growing of 6 grandchildren-5 grandsons and one granddaughter- has mellowed me considerably and have proved to me strongly what are the right requirements to be a good 'manager'. :noteeth:

Hope I've not exceeded my space! :D

[PARAMASHIVAN]

Plum

when you say management, are you talking about 'Project Management' or Managing People ?

[sathya_1979]

Plum, thanks for opening the thread on the topic which I like very much.

Question: How do you manage rating system among peers? Let me elaborate.

Organizations have goals for different levels and functions. These are generally aligned with Business Goals of the Business Unit or the Organization as the whole.

If there are N number of associates at same level in a large project, how to rate them OBJECTIVELY?

In general, the rating systems will have 4-5 grades - Poor, Average, Good, Outstanding with KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) or KRAs (Key Result Areas) which are similar to SLAs that a vendor and client agrees.

Example - 1: 2 Associates at same designation performed equally well.
The Deliverable Quality is on Par with Project SLA
Time and Effort Variance is within agreed limits
Both of them handle various modules, independently. Also, they take care of couple of other project activities like Status Reports, Overall Project Plan etc
At Org / Business Unit Level, both of them have helped by conducting interviews, trainings, supporting Quality Audits for other projects etc.

Now, the question is how do we rank-order them?
For a small team, yes we can identify significant difference and justification by couple of other factors like initiatives, supporting BD activities etc.

I faced the problem when handling a large team (varying sizes across projects 35-55) when a large resource pool is from same designation / band. It would be a tough task to rank-order them and match their rating with the bell-curve of the organization.

Even if 10 associates have the same rating, how do we order them to identify who is the top performer in the 10. This is very vital for merit increase, promotions etc, as at the ORG level, we need to take this list sorted with justifications for merit increase / promotions.

Your suggestions / inputs.

[Plum]

That is an awesome question Sathya. Needs a deliberated response. In brief, the thumb rule I keep for myself is dont look upon ratings, merit increase as "justice to be done". There are a lot of factors like criticality of the individual as of now, potential for satisfaction and steaming ahead if given the right increase , ability to scale up for future as per current projection of organisation needs in near fuiture , ability to positively influence peers and juniors and many more - all of these, as you can see, subjective to a large extent, and therefore prone to the odd error or two - nevertheless, I find it a good guide to deciding on first among equals.

[P_R]

Gut reactions.

a) Having more than 4-5 people directly reporting to a person confounds it.

A manager ought to spend about 10% of the time managing his people, talking to them, discussing goals, immediate priorities on a frequent basis. This becomes impossibel if one has to manage more than a handful of people.

So making sub-teams, point persons (quasi-managers whose judgements you can rely on, atleast to some extent) is quite crucial.

These subdivisions will naturally based on differences in organizational function (the differences may be very subtle between subteams but so be it).

They can be set periodic quantifiable goals which will be a mix - some overall organizational goals, some specific to the teams, some common only to members of that sub teams.

In setting these we need to be aware these are but quantifiable manifestations of what we want to achieve. So retain flexibility while drafting them to permit changes to reflect changes in ground situation.

For instance, it is almost always the case that client will want something delivered on date X. But going forward (after you've set targets for your team) to change the date and what he wants to get by then.

Needless to say external evaluation based goals (i.e. evaluation of team's performance as a whole by the client) can be a chunk of the goals itself.

Make the goals, weights for the goals transparent and publish them upfront (start of the project, start of the quarter etc.) so everyone knows what they are chasing.

Lastly, all said and done about biases, the satisfaction of the sub-team manager about his reportee, is a good indicator of performance given the fundamental amorphopus nature of tasks involved (dedication, flexibility, cooperation etc.)

Don't bother asking these parameters to be separated out. The evaluator is only confused trying to tease them apart as they overlap heavilty. Let him evaluate overall usefulness.

Those evaluation allow you to adjust the overall achievement levels of the employee in a subteam as you see fit. The evaluations of a subteam lead only internally affect the relative performance of all employees under him. So, you do not have organizational comparability issues.

The core problem here is, how do you know every subteam across the organization has 'equally' tough targets based on clutch of goals you have set for them.

The honest answer is, that's the way the cookie crumbles. You can never perfectly design that and you have to at some point use your best judgment.

Sure, even after all that, you are going to have the odd disgruntled employee. But atleast you have made significant parts of the process transparents and shown he has gears he can control by himself or cooperating with corresponding subteams (errors, % of releases without bugs, # days of delay, % of releases without process skips etc.)

[pavalamani pragasam]

Thanks to Plum! Gave me the topic when I was looking for one to write a blog on!
http://cms.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Blogs&sd=Blog&BlogID=438

[sakaLAKALAKAlaa Vallavar]

If this topic also includes personal finance management, then this very popular article - பணம் செய்ய விரும்பு (http://www.tamilpaper.net/?p=1918)

[Vivasaayi]

That is an awesome question Sathya. Needs a deliberated response. In brief, the thumb rule I keep for myself is dont look upon ratings, merit increase as "justice to be done". There are a lot of factors like criticality of the individual as of now, potential for satisfaction and steaming ahead if given the right increase , ability to scale up for future as per current projection of organisation needs in near fuiture , ability to positively influence peers and juniors and many more - all of these, as you can see, subjective to a large extent, and therefore prone to the odd error or two - nevertheless, I find it a good guide to deciding on first among equals.

Most of your factors are based on the importance of a particular resource in the future. Thats clever. But ignoring the work he has done in past and considering just about the impact he is going to have on the team in future...is sort of unethical..isnt it?

He might have done a fantastic job for a year , working as an important resource- but for the future business goals he might not be an important resource and you feel the team could do well without him..how would you rate him?

[Vivasaayi]

One more point on Plum's criteria,

considering the criticality of the resource as a major factor could also backfire..right?- it might incite the employee to become more important to the project - but he may not be interested in giving proper transitions to his juniors.

IMHO Giving less importance to his criticality of a resource will work as he/she is well aware that this is the project that is comfortable to them.Giving extra benifits to the those resources may cause un necessary friction in the team.

But giving credits and imporantce to committed resources is better than giving importance to critical resources..

committed resources ought be the critical resources apdingradhu vera vishayam.but its not the vice versa

[A point of view from a kadai nilai oozhiyan. Sorry if Im Silly]

[sathya_1979]

One more point on Plum's criteria,

considering the criticality of the resource as a major factor could also backfire..right?- it might incite the employee to become more important to the project - but he may not be interested in giving proper transitions to his juniors.

IMHO Giving less importance to his criticality of a resource will work as he/she is well aware that this is the project that is comfortable to them.Giving extra benifits to the those resources may cause un necessary friction in the team.

But giving credits and imporantce to committed resources is better than giving importance to critical resources..

committed resources ought be the critical resources apdingradhu vera vishayam.but its not the vice versa

[A point of view from a kadai nilai oozhiyan. Sorry if Im Silly]Makes perfect sense :) Appraisal season starting :shaking:

[sathya_1979]

The worst thing abt a team is creation of dependencies. If soembody is absent for 2-3 days, work should not get stuck. But, resources who feel insecure about competition have this tendency of not providing proper KT to others. A good manager should ensure that dependency on a person is minimal and there is an efficient 2nd line to take over, when required.

[SoftSword]

:shock:
indha managers threadku poattiya naangalum oru resources thread thodangurom...

[chevy]

This forum has a healthy mix of age-groups, professionals, and experience levels in industry, various industries.

I'd like to kick off this thread where you can discuss issues related to management of projects, people and processes.

What are the issues that bug you in relation to how you, your company, your projects, your processes are being managed?

You can even use this to post your rants on your current manager - who knows, there might be someone out here who can help you handle situations better viz a viz your manager.

Always remember that among other things, managing your manager is the most important career-building tool you can have.

As a manager, it is of interest to me to know typical problems employees face viz a viz typical management initiatives and perspective.

I currently dont have an idea of how I will get this thread going but wanted to just kick start it and see what people have to say.

Especially looking forward to the thoughts of the man who has had n companies and m managers - Maddy!
Shoot and we'll figure how we can make this thread focussed and useful


How about under recognition???
and why are people who under perform still allowed to be in an organization and why are they recognized for mere bootlicking?

[chevy]

as in bootlicking their bosses.