Productivity - ITM Platform | Projects Programs Portfolio

The word productivity has never been as fashionable as it is today and it becomes extremely important when it comes to fierce competition in a market with so many competitors.

But, contrary to what many people think, productivity is not only related to producing larger quantities of products or serving more customers. Productivity today involves efficiency and, in order to achieve it, it is necessary to invest in technological innovations to guarantee the quality of the service and products, optimizing the processes. It is the well-known of doing more, with less and without losing quality. An arduous task, but perfectly achievable if the correct resources were used.

Workflow

Even before you set goals to increase productivity, you need to know the real working conditions of the company, your workflow, to identify the most overburdened, time-lagging, and employee sectors, and to find bottlenecks in the production process.

Workflow is the sequence of the work process, the process by which each recent activity must go through to get to a conclusion. This process may involve several people and sectors of the same company and, therefore, it is extremely important to establish rules and to create automation mechanisms for tasks that allow time saving and avoid reworking. The leaner the workflow, the better its efficiency.

There are a few ways to assess whether your company's workflow is efficient or not. In order to do so, you can use some simple indicators that will alert you if they start to roll back.

Compare what was planned with what was carried out - If the company can accomplish more than 75% of what was planned, the workflow can be considered efficient;
Measure the number of hours dedicated to each activity - It is possible to find out the ideal time to perform each task and to identify possibilities to reduce the time without losing quality;
Measure rework - can be caused by several factors, but the consequences will always have an impact on productivity. You must identify the reason for the mistakes and adjust the processes to reduce the company’s rework.

There are many tips and techniques that help increase your company's productivity so let's talk about some of them.

Pomodoro Technique

This technique is based on the idea of dividing workflow into small blocks (of 25 minutes, called “pomodoros”) that allow to increase concentration and to give more agility to the brain. The first step in applying this technique is to create a list with pending tasks. You need to use a timer, or alarm clock, set on 25 minutes. Choose one of the tasks from the list and work during the 25 minutes marked on the timer without any interruption (no social networks or messages on the phone). When the alarm rings, stop and take a 5-minute break in which you are told to stand up, walk a little, and have a glass of water, for example. After the 5-minute break, take up work for another pomodoro (25 minutes). And every four pomodoros take a longer break, about 30 minutes, before returning to work. After you finish a task from your list, mark it as “done”.

This technique is interesting to ensure focus on work or study, but mainly can be used as a planning tool, because over time you will be able to identify how many pomodoros you spend to perform a certain task and so you can better plan your use of time.

It is also possible to make adaptations to the method, but it is necessary to maintain the main idea that is the total focus on a single activity during a period and to make intervals between the pomodoros.

Project Management System

Project management is essential for the expansion of the productive capacity of the company and with its use there will be more focus and control in the services offered to clients. Good project management software allows the creation of task lists in an effortless way and the possibility of managing them demonstrates the progress of projects so that all those involved on them can follow and verify their commitment and that of their work team. In addition, it performs task-time measurements, compares planned and performed activities, and provides an up-to-date schedule for managing the company's human resources. The project manager will monitor the project stages and monitor their progress, managing costs, deadlines and difficulties presented by the team. The project management system greatly helps companies keep up-to-date schedules and deliver quality services with more organization and productivity.

ERP Management System

It is a tool that helps companies a lot in business management, being a great differential for small and medium enterprises in overcoming the challenges and obstacles of everyday life. The ERP system allows the complete integration of company activities essential for its proper functioning as stock control, sales system, invoice issuance, tax payments and cash flow control. The business management system still gathers all the information about the company and generates reports on its current and future situation helping the managers in the important decisions.

By following these tips your company will be able to increase productivity and profitability while maintaining the quality of services and products offered. Do not waste time and put these ideas into practice.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

Companies usually underestimate the scale of change that is necessary when implementing a new corporate technology or when changing the type of customer or type of product or service.

Despite of the difficulties that a new system of change may entail, attention is usually focused on finding new corporate technologies or hiring the best suppliers. These aspects are important, but they are not enough to ensure that change happens in the practical behavior of our teams.

See what ITM Platform can do to transform your project management processes

Change management is a global system that implies complex interactions. It must affect not only technologies or suppliers, but the whole organization. Comprehensive influence starts with the individual change of each of the employees. These changes are summed up later and they produce interactions to achieve global changes.

However, producing this change is tough, especially at the initial steps.

Imagine a dedicated and motivated employee who has been working for the company for the last 20 years. As a result of his information and his long working experience, he knows exactly how all the mechanisms of the company work and how to achieve the things he needs and wants in his job. He is a good worker, even though he is using methodologies that may be suboptimal under current circumstances.

In order to accept and carry out changes correctly, this worker needs to take into account the influence model. In other words:

Training about how to carry out change, before starting to implement it and during the process.
Specific attention to the particular situation: it is very likely that change managers find themselves with objective obstacles to the daily operational implementation. The worker might need some tools to combine quality job criteria with new ways of doing things. Leaving him alone in this aspect will create strong friction.
It is necessary that the worker maintains his motivation Properly justifying change processes is essential.
Human support. It is important to accompany transitions through support teams not only engaged in technical issues, but also human, which will prevent the worker from developing fear of or disengagement from change.

However, even if change happens under the best conditions, it is common for companies to experience a small decrease in productivity and efficiency while adapting to new circumstances. Many recognized sources refer to this as the “valley of despair”. This valley’s duration and depth are correlated with time and difficulties experimented by workers in order to adapt to new work methodologies.

Traditionally, companies’ position towards this valley was simply letting time pass by, waiting for the storm to pass and believing that problems, in the end, would be solved.

Currently, change management implies an active response to those problems. It has been proved that organizational change management gets to minimize the duration and depth of this valley, using an appropriate communication that enables the education and entertainment of the staff.

Furthermore, it has been also proved that it can be a way of saving money. Investing a certain amount of resources on helping companies to prepare their employees for changes minimizes the negative impacts these changes may mean for their work and the productivity of the company, thus achieving a significant direct economic saving, since the depth and duration of the "valley of despair" is reduced. On the other hand, an earlier productivity rise is achieved when implementing new working technologies faster, bringing an increase of the company’s profits.

When you consider carrying out a new change on the working system of your company, we advise you to take into account these five principles:

Alienation of leaders with the project

Business team leaders tend to focus all their attention on “what” is needed to be completed within the project or what is the final product, without paying much attention to the “why” and the “how”. Nevertheless, these questions are the pillars of change management.

Many business leaders think that changes in organization management happen automatically. It is as simple as defining change for workers to adopt it. However, experience shows this doesn’t happen this way. Organizational change management methodologies are a set of techniques that have proven their effectiveness in implementing change in a company.

Invest on organizational change management

These new methods allow efficient change implementation. Investing on them will bring a quicker adaptation to the new systems and improve employee satisfaction, contributing to the productivity of the company.

Counting on specific organizational change management technologies and a specialized team will reach a more efficient implementation of changes.

It is a very profitable investment if you are willing to implement the change in your company.

Boost employees’ implication

Employees’ implication is crucial. Not only because they are the ones using those new technologies at their jobs day by day, but because they are the best teacher for the rest of the staff. Getting workers involved and trained in the new work systems will allow the rest to be motivated and learn much better, as they will have the support they need within an arm's reach.

Create knowledge transfer systems

Doing something for the first time is difficult, but repeating it with the experience and support of others is an entirely different thing – and a much less daunting one.

Take into account that there are many barriers for the knowledge transfer between projects and internally towards every team project. Knowing how to recognize them in time will help you design effective knowledge transfer policies.

Leave written proof of all change processes. Let the experience acquired by few train others.

Keep on reading about change management on our blog:

How to cope with resistance to change in your organization

Change management: what we do or what we are

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

The professional training industry has experienced several game changing trends in the last decade. Until the arrival of the internet, in-company training used to be conducted face to face by consultants with pedagogic methods that resembled very closely what happens in a classroom. In spite of team exercises and group-focused sessions, trainers and coaches were the authority and the source of wisdom, knowledge and expertise.

What has changed in professional training?

Currently, most of the average training courses have been replaced with online experiences because they are cheaper to produce for vendors and take less time off employees’ schedules. An HR officer will always consider the benefits of letting their staff take a course at their own pace, rather than disrupting the daily operations of an entire group to put them together in a room, sit tightly and listen to somebody talk.

The perception has changed radically: if you need to absorb knowledge or just check a formal training requirement, online self-paced courses do the job and are only half as boring as ordinary face-to-face training. Moreover, they can be better tailored to what each learner needs.

Not all changes are for good: very often, online training is poorly designed and based on the very same rudiments of repetition and passive learning. Education guru Roger Schank and founder of Schank Academy is quite right when he points out that the principles of learning by doing are being ignored by most online education providers.

Roger Schank dixit: “Learning happens when someone wants to learn, not when someone wants to teach”

But the new ecosystem will never go back. Nowadays, if you want to justify spending thousands of dollars in offline training, there really needs to be a rationale behind it. You need to deliver outstanding learning experiences that are memorable, that change people’s perspectives and that will have an impact on how learners apply their experience to their job.

Training in project management

Project management has followed the same trend. There are a lot of formal requirements, particularly towards certifications, that can be met with dull courses. But everybody knows that learning the PMBOK by heart won’t turn you magically into a certified project manager: you still need the thousands of hours of practice. And even with that kind of experience, running projects -not to say a project management office- remains challenging for the smartest minds.

The job can be so daunting, even for experienced folks, that additional training is common. It can never harm. In fact, bringing a good coach to the office can be a great way of shedding light on unsurfaced problems or perceptions that might not be obvious to all… perhaps because there are power dynamics silencing some opinions, or simply because nobody ever has a full image of what everyone is doing.

So how does an extraordinary, memorable experience in project management training look like?

A good example is the trend of gamification, also called serious games. Serious games are designed with a purpose, rather than for sheer entertainment.

A great example is to teach the complexities and elaborate dynamics of SCRUM with LEGO simulations, a model developed by Alexey Krivitsky.

Krivitsky isn’t alone in the usage of building blocks to represent and simulate work environments. The importance of LEGO as a driver of serious games is such that the method LEGO Seriousplay has been registered. In this process, participants build their own model responding to the mentor’s questions.

It’s a great way of probing deeper and deeper into participant’s mental models and perceptions, thus helping surface unconscious conflicts in beliefs or priorities between members of a same team. When these differences became apparent, it’s much easier to talk them through and come up with creative solutions.

In fact, LEGO Seriousplay has been used to help project teams with memorable kickoff meetings where members can share, discuss, use metaphors , elaborate and negotiate using the mediation of the built model.

Teaching project management through serious games is a trend in and of itself, with specific research devoted to generating guidelines and extending its practice, or quite accomplished and entertaining online games like shark word or Unlock.

A scene of the project management game Unlock

It’s a brave world out there, but project management professionals have plenty of resources at their fingertips, including the possibility of using ITM Platform to teach project management through real world practice with a cutting-edge tool.

It’s what our educational partners, including many leading institutions, are already doing. Universidad de Barcelona, Monterrey’s Technological Institute and the leading technological university in Brasil are simulating PMOs with ITM Platform, so their students strengthen their core project management capabilities:

Coordinate project work
Align project results with business strategies
Keep everyone in synch
Obtain live data of project progress
Collaborate on a shared environment in real time
Distribute responsibilities according to differentiated roles

Feel free to browse our educational partner page if you’re interested, or inquire about the possibilities of an in-company course with ITM Platform with an email at info@itmplatform.com

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

Even though we all have seen Kanban boards, many of the principles that stand out this methodology are often overlooked when in practice.

If you are working in software development, in a technological environment or in a start-up, it is very likely that sometime you have used a Kanban board to visualize which tasks are still pending, which ones are in progress and which ones are already finished.

This is the Kanban MVP: three columns, three stages: to do, in progress, recently completed.

ITM Platform’s personal board sums up the pending work with Kanban.

This simplicity has been, in some way, a blessing, because boards have become hugely popular. However, in a way it has also doomed them – many people either use them or criticize them without knowing in detail the characteristics of this method.

For example, Kanban’s usefulness for managing work that doesn’t fit into any project is commonly ignored.

This makes Kanban an excellent tool accessory to manage a portfolio of projects, in which change demand also includes isolated tasks for which there is no formal coordinator or project manager.

Nevertheless, very few portfolio tools include Kanban among their characteristics; and very few online Kanban versions feature portfolio management.

If you fancy having both things, ITM Platform is on the of the few suppliers that can satisfy you.

Link your Kanban projects with a unified portfolio with ITM Platform.

Kanban vs agile vs SCRUM

In the software development world, it is common to consider that SCRUM is the best agile methodology, if not the only one. However, each methodology has its pros and cons. If you want to have a look at the main differences, here you have a helpful article.

SCRUM, for example, is only used for software projects and, in that field, it replaces traditional waterfall design methods in a much more efficient manner.

However, outside that field, SCRUM becomes very fragile, not to say useless. For example, it cannot be applied to design processes of new products that lack programming elements.

On the other hand, besides being used extensively in development (often mixed with SCRUM methodologies), Kanban has proved its utility in contexts where most of the work volume is operational. The classic example is industrial manufacturing, such as the Toyota factories where this method was invented. But the design of new goods and services of any industry can benefit from its structure.

The 3 principles of Kanban:

Visualize everything that is happening at any given moment. Each element and its stage can be seen within the context of all scheduled work, regardless of whether it’s a project or operational work.
Set caps for work in progress (WIP)There should be a maximum number of tasks that can be managed at the same time, and the visual boundaries of the board help us perceive that limitation. For example, if a quality control unit can manage a maximum of 5 batches, it shouldn’t accept the 6th one until it has one empty spot for it. This might not be very intuitive, but WIP limitation consists, precisely, on visualising bottlenecks in order to prioritise work in those areas and gather the resources required to solve them.
Improves work quantity. As soon as a task is finished, another one from the backlog is started. In order to do that, it is essential that the backlog be correctly managed, prioritised and categorised.

When should Kanban be used?

There are 4 situations in which Kanban should be used:

In operative environments where priorities change very often
When changes in requirements can be introduced any time
When work units are isolated tasks
When the incremental optimization of an already existing process is pursued.

What are Kanban’s advantages?

Maximum transparency
Continuous worflow
Equating the team’s capacity with the ongoing work
Focus on the duration of the cycle (how long it takes a task to go from backlog to be completed)
It allows assigning different WIP maximums to the consecutive stages and redirecting the work to improve the delivery time.

For example, regarding this last point, it’s very normal to have 4 stages within a programming team: To Do, In progress, Code Review and Finished. Allocating a maximum of 2 tasks to Code Review means that In Progress cannot take over more tasks right away. Therefore, programmers must spend some time checking code, a very unrewarding task that is often relegated. Thanks to this, we can avoid the bottleneck of having all the code written, but pending from review.

When teamwork and immediate communication are added to the board, benefits are crystal clear.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

Subject matter experts are highly sought after by project managers and project teams to provide unique expertise for solving a problem or meeting a technology challenge.

They often act as key advisers because of their deep understanding of a certain topic. This may be an area of knowledge, a process, a system, software or a piece of equipment. The unique perspective of a subject matter expert can inform content within the project, or the execution of the project itself.

The subject matter expert balancing act

A project’s subject matter expert will have spent a lot of time developing their specialisation. Either they’ve worked in a role that has allowed them to gain understanding of the system or topic, or they’ve studied extensively in the area. Inside your company this might be software specialists, technicians or engineers. Outside your company this might be lawyers, accountants or local government representatives.

Integrate your Subject Matter Experts with your ITM Platform environment

So what value does a subject matter expert provide?

Their input can often change the scope and direction of a project. They may have an understanding of systems or processes that will alter the approach the team is taking, or they may be able to provide an understanding around limitations of a piece of equipment. Without the specialised knowledge and expertise of the subject matter expert, it could be difficult to know what you are working with.

Where could this be a risk?

It’s important to be aware that your subject matter expert has invested a lot of time working in their speciality area. Whether they are aware of it or not, they have probably formed some strong opinions on it.

For example, a subject matter expert may have specialist knowledge about a certain system your company uses. However, they may be unsure of how this system interacts with newer software, apps or social media sites, and how they can be utilised together to improve the customer experience.

Similarly, while a subject matter expert may know a lot about a specific product, they could be unfamiliar with your audience itself. This would make it difficult for them to understand how the product will be used by this customer demographic.

The takeaway message from this is that if you’re working with a subject matter expert, consider how their potential bias weighs up against the value of the knowledge they’re providing. It’s a balancing act. Don’t take everything they say as the whole truth, but remember that they have unique insights to offer, which can contribute to your project.

Strategies for dealing with potential subject matter expert bias

Here are a few things to keep in mind if you’re working with a subject matter expert:

1. Stay aware of potential biases

Keep in mind that while you’re dealing with an expert, their particular views on the subject matter may not take into account the relative position of this knowledge in your project. Their research and knowledge should complement that of other experts on the team.

Any bias could also result in the objective of your project being skewed. Don’t allow this to override the purpose and outcome of the project.

2. Have research proofed before it is implemented

While it’s tempting to have subject matter experts heavily involved in the entirety of a project due to their superior knowledge and expertise, it’s a good idea to leave them out of the implementation process if possible. This allows someone else to look over their research and identify any potential bias before it is implemented for the project.

3. Have a number of subject matter experts working together

Another good idea is to engage several subject matter experts to work on the project together. It’s even better if they come from completely different backgrounds, as they will have different opinions. This will mean that several people’s input comes together to produce the final product and the opportunity for individual bias is lessened.

While it may not be possible (or affordable) to find two or three subject matter experts, at least have your expert work closely with other members in the team who can apply their own knowledge and perspective to the project.

Managing subject matter experts and stakeholders is a big part of what a project manager does day-to-day: oftentimes, the most crucial aspects of projects are related to leadership, communication and engagement problems.

One of the best ways you can learn more about how to work with subject matter experts is by completing a project management course online. Southern Cross University offers an online Master of Project Management course, designed to develop your critical thinking and leadership skills.

This article was produced by Southern Cross University in collaboration with ITM Platform.

Receive the latest blogs directly into your inbox

Managing a portfolio of innovative projects incurs many difficulties, such as the establishment of a culture of continuous evaluation in order to validate the hypothesis, or the difficult collaboration of multidisciplinary teams with no prior experience to rely on. For those who lead the innovation strategy, the biggest challenge is to have a tool that allows distinguishing the relative importance of each project in order to prioritize its implementation.

As the ratio between innovative ideas and projects reaching the final stage is very low, it is especially important to ensure that the highest value projects are approved. It is worth noting: innovation projects are very inefficient. It is necessary to spend time and money on research until you get an idea that is really worth pursuing. But that does not mean that you do not have to control how much time and money you spend, or what activities.

That is why this type of portfolio usually follows a lean philosophy: it starts from a hypothesis or idea that must pass through successive phases of refinement and validation.

Thus, before the existence of a project in the execution phase, there is the proto-project: first the idea or hypothesis, then the MVP, which requires pivot points. When the starting hypothesis is not endorsed by actual experience, or only partially, the proto-project can be reoriented in the light of what has been learned.

As pivoting generates additional costs in the search for commercial and technical viability, innovative proposals must be constantly evaluated to consider which ones should have room to generate inefficiencies and additional costs until a sound foundation is found - and which are discarded so that the investment is sustainable.

Innovation and corporate values

Innovation projects in large corporations are usually characterized by responding to a vision that goes beyond the business, also pointing to values such as Corporate Social Responsibility, environmental sustainability or the consolidation of one's own innovative culture.

For example, BBVA has an ambitious innovation strategy centered on Big Data. As the ultimate goal is to better understand the behavior of customers to provide better services, efforts are directed towards knowledge creation. With important ramifications: the key professional is no longer the traditional financier, but the data scientist, who "dominates statistics, knows how to program and also understands the business". The various initiatives that emerge from BBVA's Big Data strategy struggle for finite (though abundant) resources, which is why Marco Bressan has decided to concentrate on the centralization of information to begin with.

Start prioritizing your portfolio of innovative projects with ITM Platform

On the other hand, the means that any corporation has to materialize an innovation strategy is its portfolio of projects. In order for the portfolio of projects to have sufficient bearing, portfolio management must be the explicit responsibility of a corporate unit, often the management committee itself.

In the case of General Electric (GE), verticals include aviation and transportation, but they extend to materials as diverse as software, health services and water.

A sample of the diversity in GE's innovative portfolio

Unfortunately, as innovative projects are often completely unpublished and very different from each other, it is often difficult to know which projects are to be given preferential treatment. Is it more important that the project produces a social return or contributes to the modernization of the technological infrastructure?

Given the difficulty of comparing two innovative projects and knowing which will bring greater value to the company, it is crucial to have a criteria for making complex choices objectively.

Complex decisions are often subjective

A complex choice is one in which the alternatives are weighted based on more than one quality, so that there is no optimal alternative that surpasses the rest.

For example, several factors are taken into account when choosing an internet service provider: price, quality of customer service, the speed of the line and the reputation of the company. Usually the more economical services offer lower speeds, while more established brands often offer improved after-sales services. The decision is never obvious.

Complex choices are made daily. Often, as is the case with internet providers, the final decision is usually subjective, because whoever decides does not have the necessary time or tools to decide which option gives the maximum value. This hasty dimension of the decision allows competitors to appeal to the consumers' emotions and win with arguments less related to the service itself.

However, it is obvious that whoever leads the innovation program of a corporation can not be carried away with emotion. You will have to give reasons for your decisions, rely on data and get the push and commitment of many teams, who often work in remote locations.

Complex corporate decisions:

Portfolio prioritization with AHP

Without a technique or method to compare between the different value criteria, each choice between projects is difficult, equivalent to the choice between ethical values, such as freedom and equality.

Although there are dozens of prioritization methodologies for product requirements, there are not many alternatives in the world of project management.

The most convenient method for responding to complex choices representing the alternatives between innovative projects is AHP, an acronym for Analytical Hierarchy Process.

In short, AHP is advisable because:

It helps build consensus around how to implement the innovative portfolio strategy
It is linked by definition to the criteria, values and business objectives
Shorten the political discussions
Increase the commitment with the decisions taken, since all the criteria of the corporation are represented in the right measure.

This technique allows for comparing, in a table format, the relative importance of each criterion or objective.

The resulting table does not hierarchize in absolute terms. That is to say: it does not classify the objectives from more to less important, since that is an oversimplification. On the contrary, it allows us to attend to fundamental nuances when it comes to assessing the diversity of value propositions delivered by innovative projects.

For example, in the case of an innovative portfolio one could compare the importance of the following objectives:

Improving innovative culture
Increase market share in digital services
Modernize the technological infrastructure

Let us now imagine that the management committee of a corporation devotes a meeting to compare these objectives and discuss which is more important for the strategy comparing them in pairs. The conclusion would be something like the following table:

Although matrices can be done by hand or in Excel, it is convenient to have software that allows calculation and is integrated with the project management itself, such as ITM Platform.

Thus, not only is there a system that helps to perform the analysis, but its results are registered and connected with the evaluation of the projects themselves.

By linking each project to the objectives and criteria it supports, ITM Platform indicates which projects contribute the most value and should start sooner.

Of course, the work of evaluating the proposals will remain a difficult art, as well as the elaboration of innovative proposals, with all the market prospecting exercises, identification of tendencies and uncertainty for the future.

But there is a basis in the management of the information that must be demandable. The facilitated prioritization that we have explained in this article has the great advantage of generating consensus and supporting informed, renegotiable and easy to communicate decisions.