I focus more on learning than on teaching.
I believe it is my responsibility to learn.
The organizations I work for may help me:
a) by telling me what I need to learn to be more valuable.
b) by creating an environment that makes learning easier for me.
c) by allowing access to organizational knowledge (people and documents).
But at the end of the day, like I said ...
It is my responsibility to learn.
Fungus
Showing posts with label skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label skills. Show all posts
Friday, April 2, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
360°
Mine is a sad experience ... I have never seen a 360° evaluation process that works as advertised.
To be more precise: I have never seen a 360° evaluation process that can be clearly tied to a lasting improvement in customer satisfaction.
The Emperor, they say, has new clothes.
Fungus
To be more precise: I have never seen a 360° evaluation process that can be clearly tied to a lasting improvement in customer satisfaction.
The Emperor, they say, has new clothes.
Fungus
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
FTE
Before getting into FTEs (Full Time Equivalents), you need to:
1. Know your goal.
2. Prepare a hierarchical map of the work packages you will need to achieve your goal (WBS).
3. Detail the lower level work packages, until you have tasks that can be accomplished by one individual in a week or so.
4. Estimate the number of hours for each role that you will need in a day (or week or month).
Then you can calculate the man-hours per day (or FTEs) that you will need.
It works both for continuous processes and for projects.
As you and your team develop skills, the required FTEs decrease, or the total work performed increases.
Of course this is only a practical, but rough approach. Real people have a heart, and perform different than mathematical FTEs.
Fungus
1. Know your goal.
2. Prepare a hierarchical map of the work packages you will need to achieve your goal (WBS).
3. Detail the lower level work packages, until you have tasks that can be accomplished by one individual in a week or so.
4. Estimate the number of hours for each role that you will need in a day (or week or month).
Then you can calculate the man-hours per day (or FTEs) that you will need.
It works both for continuous processes and for projects.
As you and your team develop skills, the required FTEs decrease, or the total work performed increases.
Of course this is only a practical, but rough approach. Real people have a heart, and perform different than mathematical FTEs.
Fungus
Monday, June 15, 2009
Fitness
Some people want to find an exact match for an ill defined job. That's a problem, but not a new one.
The classic recruiting process is based on the assumption that recruiting can be done by a junior clerk who does not understand the organization's vision, mission and objectives, and may not even care either.
That kind of HR specialist wants to have it easy, and he uses a process that is based on the complete description of the job that has to be done. Emphasis on complete.
By complete job description, I mean a form filled with the kind of data that Frederick Winslow Taylor used to work with: How many steps are there from coal pile to loading platform? Does the job require lifting heavy boxes from the floor? Is the job holder under frequent stressful situations?
Remember Charlot in Modern Times? You get the picture.
He'll be proud to know that he's looking for a square peg to fit a square hole.
Happily, there are other HR specialists who understand that jobs are not round or square holes anymore and people are not pre-shaped pegs. They still need to know if you fit the culture and the task at hand, but more than anything, they want to know if you are ready to learn new tricks and how can you add value.
Fungus
The classic recruiting process is based on the assumption that recruiting can be done by a junior clerk who does not understand the organization's vision, mission and objectives, and may not even care either.
That kind of HR specialist wants to have it easy, and he uses a process that is based on the complete description of the job that has to be done. Emphasis on complete.
By complete job description, I mean a form filled with the kind of data that Frederick Winslow Taylor used to work with: How many steps are there from coal pile to loading platform? Does the job require lifting heavy boxes from the floor? Is the job holder under frequent stressful situations?
Remember Charlot in Modern Times? You get the picture.
He'll be proud to know that he's looking for a square peg to fit a square hole.
Happily, there are other HR specialists who understand that jobs are not round or square holes anymore and people are not pre-shaped pegs. They still need to know if you fit the culture and the task at hand, but more than anything, they want to know if you are ready to learn new tricks and how can you add value.
Fungus
Monday, February 23, 2009
Soft skills
The most important "soft skills" are those skills that we need to understand and manage:
- Superordinate goals,
- Style,
- Staff and
- Skills.
You may notice similarities between these levers and the eight quality principles described by ISO 9000
- Superordinate goals: Leadership
- Style: System approach to management
- Staff: Involvement of people
- Skills: Process approach & Continual improvement
A little story: Thirty years ago, McKinsey & Co. researched why the Japanese organizations were more successful than their American counterparts. McKinsey developed a business framework, which describes seven factors or levers that a manager can use.
It seems that American managers only understood and used three of the seven levers, while Japanese managers leveraged all seven factors, including four "soft" factors that westerners usually considered unimportant.
The 3 hard "S" are Strategy, Structure, and Systems.
The 4 soft "S" are Superordinate goals, Style, Staff and Skills.
(See Pascale & Athos ref in the link below)
In an effort to make soft things seem hard, and thus, understandable and manageable, western authors started compiling ever longer lists of the components and variations of those culturally bound, intangible and elusive factors.
A friend of mine says that companies value soft skills.
I don't agree.
I think they don't even understand the concept behind soft skills.
They say they do, because it is fashionable, and as with the Emperor's New Clothes, nobody dares to admit that they have spent their training budgets in a concept so volatile that they don't grasp.
Fungus
Follow this link to The Art of Japanese Management
- Superordinate goals,
- Style,
- Staff and
- Skills.
You may notice similarities between these levers and the eight quality principles described by ISO 9000
- Superordinate goals: Leadership
- Style: System approach to management
- Staff: Involvement of people
- Skills: Process approach & Continual improvement
A little story: Thirty years ago, McKinsey & Co. researched why the Japanese organizations were more successful than their American counterparts. McKinsey developed a business framework, which describes seven factors or levers that a manager can use.
It seems that American managers only understood and used three of the seven levers, while Japanese managers leveraged all seven factors, including four "soft" factors that westerners usually considered unimportant.
The 3 hard "S" are Strategy, Structure, and Systems.
The 4 soft "S" are Superordinate goals, Style, Staff and Skills.
(See Pascale & Athos ref in the link below)
In an effort to make soft things seem hard, and thus, understandable and manageable, western authors started compiling ever longer lists of the components and variations of those culturally bound, intangible and elusive factors.
A friend of mine says that companies value soft skills.
I don't agree.
I think they don't even understand the concept behind soft skills.
They say they do, because it is fashionable, and as with the Emperor's New Clothes, nobody dares to admit that they have spent their training budgets in a concept so volatile that they don't grasp.
Fungus
Follow this link to The Art of Japanese Management
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