Matrix Vs traditional organization

TRADITIONAL

MATRIX

High cross-unit coordination (from command-and-control structure) Eyes up to management Low unit autonomy Control through the hierarchy Control comes down from top ("higher center of gravity") Management focus: control Functional measurements first Career success via the functional ladder Poor use of employee expertise and initiative Follow the rules People hold positions Cross-unit cooperation is unnatural and secondary Creates standard solutions

High cross-unit coordination (from effective linkages and relationships) Eyes right to the client High unit autonomy Control through process Control pushed down closer to client ("lower center of gravity") Management focus: create value and build skills Client value first Career success via increasing skills Success based on employee expertise and initiative Create new rules People utilize skills Cross-unit cooperation is normal Creates customized solutions

Networking

In this changing and demand world, building and managing good network in your organization and outside your network are essentials.  Some ideas tips an traps:

ideas :

• Contacting each other just to "stay in touch" and keeping the lines of communications open
• Actively listening to each other to gain a better understanding of multiple points of view
• Resolving differences without having winners and losers
• Using power and influence for mutual benefit
• Keeping commitments made to one another
• Sharing resources and ideas
• Investing time to get to know one another's nonworker interests
• Recognizing contributions made by others

Tips

• Use "we", versus "I".
• Close the loop. Don't forget to share the results of your liaison activity. Bring information back to the group.
• Keep notes, agreements, progress reports, measurements, etc., in a publicly accessible forum. Information should flow both upward and downward.

Traps

• Following your personal agenda. Remember the objective is to meet the larger organizational goals. Check your personal or team agendas against those of the organization to make sure they are consistent.
• Breaking the rules you don't like. You may give permission to your team to ignore the boundaries, but remember, you will be held accountable.
• Spending too much time looking for others to remove barriers. At times, it is better to blaze a new path with your own team resources.

Success mantra for working with offshore teams

1.      Plan in advance

2.      Daily meeting & follow up emails

3.      Team rooms for collaboration  

4.      Know the culture

5.      Be transparent and get them involved in decisions

6.      Know team strengths and weakness

7.      Team building and motivation

8.      Add enough management at offshore layer

9.      Estimations & project management – build enough contingency

10.  Constructive Feedback & Protect your team

Goals

Goals are tricky especially if you are working on multiple projects and with multiple managers across year. some Do and Don't :

1. Your goals should be project independent; it is common mistake to just think about the current project and setup some goals for entire year. By year end you may end up in landing in different project altogether and the goals you agreed in the beginning of the project may not be relevant at all
2. I believe in “promise less and deliver more” (attainable), Don't over-promise to manager (they already now how to extract max out of you J ) . Have reality check before you agree on starched goals
3. If you are changing the project during the course of year, ensure to have written feedback from current PM and get copied your new PM, If you are going work multiple project for same manager ensure get the project assessment for end of every project 
4. Always good to have another pair of eyes to review the goals, if you have a mentor ( in fact you should) take his inputs.
5. Time will fly, ensure you have at least one monthly meeting with your people manager , this is important especially  if you both are working in different locations/projects.
6. Be specific and clear in writing the goals, add as many as details and spend some good amount of time in reviewing before submit/agree. each goal should have some time lines associated , of course keep good buffer while agreeing on target dates
7. Goal sheet should be live document ( relevant)  , it is not easy to predict everything in the beginning of the year  when ever you change some things ensure to get agreement from your manager and update the tool.
8. In summary  Ensure your goals are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely)  :) 

More to follow…

First day in onsite trip

International Travel became  frequent these times. On business or on training or to work, many people travel.

Things are different from country to country.  This is for people traveling to US on short/long assignments

Here are some tips

• Plan your transit properly and reach office early,   check what are the usual office timings  ,ex in US are 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
• Dress properly – good to wear jacket  ,this depends on location ,or how your organization sets dress code  or what business domain you are working in , Banking etc tends to be formal ,where as retail/entertainment domains go more of casual
• Plan your day in advance and use your  coffee/lunch meeting effectively to get more informal info
• Meet and Greet people.. Some good common topics to initiate discussion are weather, jetlog , team, travel, kids school  ..etc.  Its good to local football teams etc. so if you don't have knowledge  ,don't worry.
• Some of Indian names are not easy to pronounce for others , good to identify your self with a short name
• Speak clearly and slowly .

Most importantly plan your journey over weekends ,so that you can reach at least by Sunday  and get some rest .

Tips to conduct a effective meetings

Tips to conduct a productive meetings

Sending invite

• Send meeting invite at least couple of days in advance
• Ensure have proper subject line in the meeting invite – most of the executives will not have time to open the invite
• Publish full Agenda in the meeting  invite
• Ensure publish bridge/conference number along with team room details. This is important esp. if you are working in a global team

Before meeting

•       Go to the meeting room 5- 10 minutes earlier to avoid last minute surprises
•       Switch on computer and projector and have presentation with Agenda slide ready and projects before meeting starts
•       If you going to use white board – write agenda topics in advance and , if possible write presenter/speaker name next to each agenda topic

During meeting

•       Give a quick roll call for the benefit of people who joined over the phone
•       Keep a tab on time; ensure important topics of the meeting get priority. If some topics required more discussion you can always schedule a separate call
•    Don't hesitate to suggest to take topic offline if you feel that topics getting diverted.
•       Last  4 or 5 minutes summarize the discussion and action items
•       Ensure every one gets their opportunity to express their ideas ,but time box this
•       Ensure people on phone get connected with the topic

After meeting

• .      Ensure to publish Meeting minutes with action items and ETA
•       Write up a summary email and copy important stakeholders 

Managing global teams - GDC

Tips for managing global ( international)  teams

1. Meetings

•     Don’t expect that every one on the phone understands and gets 100% of the conversations, ensure to send MOM/follow-up email and clearly articulate the actions items in the email

2. Daily scrum meeting with offshore account managers
• Until things stabilize it is strongly recommended to have daily 10-15mins Scrum/touch bases calls (both at the beginning and end of the work day ) with your counter part in Global team
• Ensure to have a tracker/spread sheet to track all action items divide actions items to high/medium and low priority.
3. Working hours
• Create a overlap plan for work hours.
• Most of the  teams (i worked with) works from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM ,I observed that some times team is  ready to extend their business hours if situation demands. But use this option sparingly
• also make sure that extra time /effort put is properly compensated like giving a comp-off etc
4. R& R and SOD
• Remember your offshore team sits 10000 miles away from you, more time you invest in getting the clarity ownership/R&R sooner you can stabilize the account.
• Create good R&R for all levels in your account
5. Team structure
• Some global teams (like India teams) are more tend to follow the hierarchy , ensure you get better understanding on reporting structure  and thoroughly follow it
• Also build relations ships with one level above your counterparts
• Ensure you have that you have proper management layer at your offshore team – it is not easy to manage and provide guidance each individual from onsite
• If your solution permits add GDC based managers in your onsite team
6. Initial setup
• Get your offshore counter part ASAP
• Give free hand in building his/her own team  – this will help him in a. feeling the ownership b. Get best resources. At the same time be involved in overall resource planning and see all the staffing needs are addressed or not
• Plan for one/ two trips to  offshore to  meet them in person and spend some time with team
7. Team room , this is good tool not only to have project related info but also to have some team events, photos, face book ..etc
8. Governance model
• Ensure to build a good governance model for controlling the overall account management.
• Maintain the transparency in account governance
• Do proper stakeholder mapping and ensure to embed offshore team correctly and accurately with client’s team
• Have your offshore team to handle monthly governance/steering committee  calls with client team , this will help them get first hand information on client’s expectations/pain points
• Some times your offshore counter part required guidance as they don’t involve in all client’s meeting, don’t hesitate to give guidance/direction to them
• If possible involve offshore  in sales/solutions phase itself

Organization Culture vs People

Most people complain that once organizations become large ,they are more into institution mode than innovation mode. Process ,restrictions  ,limitations etc rules the day to day operations . Flexibility of a start up  is lost. I agree to some extent on that. But i think the bigger your org gets ,its important to get streamlined process. Innovation should be in org's culture.  Organization Culture is grown by its people, so if people are leaned towards innovation ,then limitations will not become hurdles . organization Culture is the one that attracts and retains people with similar outlook. Every firm has its own and this not location completely dependent . So it all comes to hiring great people. The way your firm operates / takes decisions  has lot to do with culture.

Process

Most of the issues or hurdles we face in organization is due to the fact that there is no streamlined process.
some of you may disagree and say -its because of process' ,no its not because of process but because of a ill fitted process. how to create a proper process?


1.Picture the desired state:  whats the desired state?it good to do brainstorming with important few stakeholders.

2.list different types of stakeholder that have to use this process.this is important. like if as per your process if  updates are posted on internal wiki. if you have stakeholders out side of your network then it may not be a good idea. so listing all involved parties will help in coming up a proper process

3. assign accountability/responsibility at each process step .Assign who will be responsible for that process step.or point of contacts or roles.

4.Tools: whats are the needed tools for making that process successful. do you have the necessary tools. try to make use of automation if possible. Keeping it simple will be good.

5.Refine: try to refine the process.check if there are any unnecessary steps etc. improvise and refine.

6.educate: educating and creating awareness of new process is most important for its success.