пятница, 9 ноября 2018 г.
вторник, 4 сентября 2018 г.
How Agile Is Transforming the Way Business Is Done
The concept of agility as a way to organize a business has been gaining popularity across the corporate world, after emerging from long-standing collaborative practices cultivated by software development teams.
In agile project management, groups set short-term goals and continually produce deliverables, incorporate user feedback, and react to changing priorities as they develop larger products. Businesses are following those tenets, too.
HR is expected to play a vital role as employers in numerous industries adopt these lean, flexible, decentralized practices.
What Is Agile?
"Agility refers to the ability of organizations to respond to change with speed," said Sanjiv Augustine, co-founder and CEO of Herndon, Va.-based "agile" training firm LitheSpeed. "In the past few years, business units have begun adopting agile across the entire value stream of business functions—legal, marketing, sales and HR."
ING, the Dutch banking giant, initiated a makeover in 2015 from a traditional organizational structure to the kind of agile model embraced by major digital pioneers like Google and Spotify. Thousands of headquarters employees had to reapply for jobs and shift into "squads," "tribes" and "chapters."
Becoming agile means shifting from "a siloed, hierarchical organization to a flatter, adaptive one," Augustine said.
Leaders will "work more closely with their employees and customers on small, collaborative teams to deliver value in a more iterative and incremental fashion," said Augustine, author ofManaging Agile Projects (Prentice Hall, 2005).
"That is, solutions are developed collaboratively and progressively with close customer interaction. Employees are thrilled to have their work count for something and find greater meaning and purpose in their lives, due to closer bonding with their peers and clearer contributions to their organizations," he said.
While there's no one universally accepted definition of agile organization, the SD Learning Consortium—a group of large, agile-embracing companies including Ericsson, Fidelity Investments, Barclays and Microsoft—met in 2016 to try to characterize it. They defined the four main themes of agile:
- Delighting customers.
- Descaling work.
- Enterprisewide agility.
- Nurturing culture.
Accenture has defined agility as "a company's ability to anticipate, sense and respond to volatility in markets in ways that create competitive advantage" or, in Accenture's shorthand, "Agility = adaptability + speed + execution."
Agile at Work
Rather than depend on a few high-level decision-makers to rigidly control activities, agile companies rely on their entire workforce to nimbly respond to change, Accenture noted in 2015.
Agile teams need a "product owner" empowered to make decisions about scope, timing and budget without having to consult a steering group or governing body, the Boston Consulting Group says, adding that two or three people may assume the role in more complex companies.
A 2016 Harvard Business Review article described agile methods as a group of values, practices and principles representing a "radical alternative to command-and-control-style management." It reported that some companies had reallocated 25 percent or more of leaders' time from "functional silos" to agile, multidisciplinary teams.
Department leaders at Mission Bell Winery, for example, joined an agile executive team that prioritized company initiatives based on value and collaboration opportunities, according to the article, which noted that National Public Radio, John Deere, Saab and GE also had adopted agile methods.
Consulting firm Scaled Agile Inc. says 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies have adopted its Scaled Agile Framework training and certification program.
New Role for HR
HR will need to take on new roles and responsibilities as companies seek to become more agile, and this will require HR to reshape its own structure and operations to promote flexibility, according to Scaled Agile.
HR professionals will need to foster worker mobility, help discover unknown talent, help to build "an adaptive, ethical and empowered culture," emphasize quick skills development, and redesign work to allow "on-the-fly problem-solving and experimentation and less conformance to rigidly prescribed job tasks," the firm said.
"HR organizations of the future will have to reinvent themselves—and the HR and talent management practices they support—to drive agility in their organization. Those that fail to do so may put their organizations at risk of obsolescence," Accenture said.
HR can support agile environments by hiring the appropriate people, using performance reviews that don't kill collaboration and implementing work policies that lend proper flexibility, said LitheSpeed co-founder Arlen Bankston.
Bankston recently laid out several principles for organizational agility, including the concepts of choosing self-managing groups over hierarchy and wholeness over work focus alone—that is, supporting employees' well-being, motivation and growth through "organic, human work environments, flexible hours, workspaces, tools, approaches and connection to a resonating purpose."
Keith Johnstone, head of marketing for Peak Sales Recruiting, recommends that HR teams:
• Work with C-suite executives to empower middle managers and front-line leaders to build small, dexterous, talented, cross-functional teams with decision-making autonomy.
• Transform internally at scale. Johnstone cited a McKinsey report on ING's "agile transformation," which said the changes led to better time to market, employee engagement and productivity. After headquarters employees reapplied for jobs, 40 percent wound up with different positions in the firm. The selection process was weighted more for culture and mindset than for experience or knowledge, according to McKinsey. ING executives said the financial institution lost a lot of people who had good knowledge but lacked the right mindset, and many older employees adapted more quickly and readily than younger counterparts.
• Hire versatile "change agents" with fresh ideas and thinking who won't rely on doing things the way they've always been done. "For agile to become an organizational practice, HR leaders first need to get buy-in from the C-suite. If there isn't support from the top, the promise of increased productivity and efficiency won't be realized. Second, they need to educate front-line managers on the benefits of the approach and its core principles," Johnstone said.
"Third, they need to make agile part of the onboarding program for new hires. This not only highlights to new employees that agile is a core organizational practice, but it ensures new team members have the skills and mindset necessary to execute," Johnstone said.
Dinah Wisenberg Brin is a freelance writer covering workplace issues, entrepreneurship, small business, health care, personal finance and logistics from Philadelphia.
Mission & Vision Statements: What is the difference between mission, vision and values statements?
Each statement may be part of the strategic planning process but have a different objective. These statements may be written for organizations or for individual departments.
A mission statement is a concise explanation of the organization's reason for existence. It describes the organization's purpose and its overall intention. The mission statement supports the vision and serves to communicate purpose and direction to employees, customers, vendors and other stakeholders. See SHRM's Company Mission Statement Examples for a variety of samples. Questions to consider when drafting mission statements could include:
- What is our organization's purpose?
- Why does our organization exist?
A vision statement looks forward and creates a mental image of the ideal state that the organization wishes to achieve. It is inspirational and aspirational and should challenge employees. Questions to consider when drafting vision statements might include:
- What problem are we seeking to solve?
- Where are we headed?
- If we achieved all strategic goals, what would we look like 10 years from now?
A values statement lists the core principles that guide and direct the organization and its culture. In a values-led organization, the values create a moral compass for the organization and its employees. It guides decision-making and establishes a standard against which actions can be assessed. These core values are an internalized framework that is shared and acted on by leadership. When drafting values statements, questions to consider might include:
- What values are unique to our organization?
- What values should guide the operations of our company?
- What conduct should our employees uphold?
In conjunction with a values statement, a code of ethics puts those values into practice. It outlines the procedures in place to ensure the organization's values are upheld. Questions to consider when creating codes of ethics might include:
- What are common ethical issues in our industry?
- What should someone do if he or she sees a violation of our values?
Management cannot create a new values statement or ethics code and expect immediate change. For an organization to have an effective values statement, it must fully embrace its values and ethics at all levels of the company and use them daily to guide its attitudes, actions and decision-making. Refer to What does it mean to be a values-based organization? for more information.
понедельник, 20 августа 2018 г.
Structured Problem Solving Process
From my practice when we faced a challenging situation at work than we used Ed Muzio's approach. It has 7 steps of problem solving. The first step is definition. Definition asks the question what is the problem really. Until you that you can't go any further. The second step is data collection. Data collection answers questions what is going on. Step three is cause analysis. This answers questions why what's going on here. Step four is solution planning. That is a lot of work. This can take quite some time to plant a solution well and to implement it. It's worth the effort. Step five is evaluation of efforts. The question here is did it work. Is our solution work or we are still not done. Step six is standartization. The idea of standartization is we have gone through a lot of work to get the solution. Let's see how widely we can use it in the organization. Step 7 is evaluation of whole process. The idea here is to learn something based on the work we have done.
Batkhuyag Naigal, Ph.D.
How To Use Structured Problem Solving
If everything worked smoothly in your work, there would be no need to keep you on the payroll. Even if you did stay, your daily work would quickly become boring. Facing new challenges prompts us to grow and develop new skills. To use an athletic analogy, you don’t build endurance until you push yourself to work harder. This multi-step process is a proven method to get work through challenging problems.
When Should I Use Structured Problem Solving?
It is important to use the right tool for the task at hand. This is a powerful method that takes some time to plan and use. As a result, it only makes sense to use it on medium or large problems. If you are facing a minor computer glitch, simply restarting your computer will solve 95% of such problems. If you are facing a problem with a multi-million dollar project, this process makes sense to use. Finally, this process is useful to apply when you are facing an unfamiliar or frustrating problem.
Why Should I Use Structured Problem Solving?
Using a disciplined problem solving metod is useful in several circumstances. Consider using this process when are facing a situation that meets some or all of the criteria below:
- New Problems. If you face a new problem that initially baffles you and defies solution, look into using a structured process to address the situation.
- Stressful Problems. Certain problems – such as those involving weak skills or difficult people – trigger stress feelings. Emotion does help in motivating you to act. Unfortunately, emotion does not tend to generate specific solutions.
- High Risk Problem. High risk problems have the potential to cause significant damage to your organization and career if you do not take action.
- Priority Impact. If a given problem directly undermines your ability to achieve success on a priority goal, then it makes sense to apply some additional resources on solving the problem.
Ultimately, you will have to use your professional judgement to decide whether and how to apply this scenario. If you are just getting started with this process, I suggest using it on a small problem first. That way, you can build confidence in using the strategy.
The 6 Step Process For Problem Solving
Use these steps in sequential order to gain the best results in solving complex and important problems.
Step 1: Identify the problem
At this stage, you are defining the scope of the problem you have to solve. Points to consider at this stage include: problem origin (if known), problem impact (e.g. on customers, on staff or reputation) and timeline to solve the problem.
Example: “Three important vendors for next week’s conference have failed to meet several milestones defined by the contract. Vendor non-performance will result in conference attendee complaints and reputational damage.”
Note: the time factor is important to consider because it influences how much time you can dedicate to thinking through the problem. In extreme conditions, you may run through this entire process in less than an hour.
2. Structure the problem
Putting the problem into a clear structure for analysis is one of the great insights that consultants and MBA graduates bring to their work. What does it mean to structure a problem? It means identifying the important issues.
Example: Vendor non-performance in this case has the following points. First, there is a contract aspect to the problem. Second, there is a problem relating to our oversight and monitoring over the vendor. Third, this problem has an impact to the attendee experience.
Popular structures to use include Porter’s five forces model, connecting the problem to company goals or connecting the problem to a balanced scorecard.
3. Develop solutions
According to research by Chip and Dan Heath in their book “Decisive,” most managers develop only two solutions: “Do x or do not do X.” It will come as no surprise that this approach rarely delivers success. Binary choices tend to have a 50% or greater failure rate. On the other hand, fifty solutions is probably too many to handle especially if you are working through a problem solving process on your own.
The Solution Sweet Spot: developing three to five solutions is usually enough according to business consultant and author Michael Bungay Stanier.
To return to our vendor scenario, here are five solutions one might consider:
- Hire a new vendor to deliver.
- Enforce contract penalties for non-performance.
- Escalate the issue to a higher level (e.g. your executive calls the executive at the vendor) to discuss the situation.
- Implement new milestones with daily status reporting.
- Cancel the event if there is no way to produce a quality outcome according to schedule.
4. Select a solution to the problem
With a list of possible solutions on the table, it is now time to decide. If you face a personal problem or one that only impacts your work, choosing the option that strikes you as best is enough. In other situations, use a scoring process.
In our conference example, your decision criteria could be: cost, quality and reputation. Writing up a few notes to explain your decision is helpful if you need to convince something else to support your decision.
Example: I recommend hiring another vendor to complete the printing because we have a list of three backup vendors and the additional cost is within our planned budget.
Note: For large scale problem solving, you may have to follow an organizational template or policy if your solution requires a large amount of money.
5. Implement a solution
In this step, you put the solution into action. Implementation may become a project of its own. In that case, you have a full toolkit of project management tools and processes to call on.
Tip: If you are solving a novel problem, stay humble about your solution. It may not work or there may be a better way.
6. Monitor for success
Monitoring the solution and situation is a key step to ensure the problem is truly solved. Failing to follow up – especially if you have assigned the task to someone else – is a recipe for disaster. Monitoring is also important because problems are sometimes symptom of a deeper problem.
Tip: Increase the quantity and frequency of reporting when you are working through an important problem. In the conference example, you may ask for daily progress reports if the conference is ten days away.
Further Resources For Problem Solving
Consultants, authors and other professionals have done great work in creating tools and methods for business problem solving. In this section, you will find a few resources to continue your problem solving education.
McKinsey & Company Case Interviews. The global consulting firm provides business cases and other resources to assist job applicants seeking a role at the firm. Take a look at the practice problem solving tests to refine your skills.
CasePlace.org. Created by The Aspen Institute Business and Society Program, Case Place is a rich resource of case studies on a variety of organizations. Of special note: users can find cases by business discipline such as accounting, law and operations.
Are You Solving the Right Problem?. This Harvard Business Review article points out that problems vary in value. You may face several problems on any given day – choosing the right problem to work through matters.
https://goo.gl/YJnXPT
воскресенье, 19 августа 2018 г.
среда, 8 августа 2018 г.
The Importance of Conversion Rate Optimization in 2018
After spending so much time on getting your website right, you’re probably noticing a steady stream of traffic each day. The problem is, none of your visitors are purchasing anything or doing the things you want them to do, but they keep churning in, so what’s going wrong?
Conversion rate can be summed up as the amount of visitors landing on your website that complete a particular action. E.g. purchase an item, click a button, sign up to a newsletter, etc. Depending on your type of business, your conversion rate will be different. If you own an eCommerce company, your end goal will be to convert website visitors to purchasing something from your store.
There’s no doubt that conversion rate optimization is a tricky concept to get your head around, which is why we’ve put together a list of interesting facts, statistics, and tips to help increase your website’s conversion rates.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
Conversion rates are used within companies and marketing teams to determine the effectiveness of their websites and eCommerce stores. Conversion rates are key in predicting growth but aren’t always easy to achieve.
- Globally, 3.63% of conversion rates to add-to-basket or to cart are performed on a desktop computer
- Only 1.25% are using a smartphone when converting
- In the UK, 5.15% are using a desktop computer, whereas 2.52% are using their mobile phone, around 50% difference
- 20.2% of mobile phone users confirmed they had security concerns when purchasing online using a smartphone
- 19.3% said they found navigating an online store from their mobile phone too difficult
- 4.29% average order conversion rate was obtained through email, proving to be the highest converting channel
- Only 1.81% convert via social media, however, more than 80% of users are browsing social media sites on their smartphone
- Content marketing is the most popular marketing technique in 2018, with 20% of marketers choosing this as their most effective marketing activity
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) and big data are the second most effective marketing techniques with 14% of marketers
eCommerce
Unfortunately conversion doesn’t just happen, depending on your target market, you need to optimise for it. For eCommerce businesses, your main focus will be converting visitors on your website to sales. Other conversion rates could include items added to cart, items added to wish lists, email subscribers, and social media sharing.
- eCommerce businesses can expect an average shopper conversion of around 2.95% worldwide
- The most popular product sold on the internet, based on conversion rate, is electronics with a conversion rate of around 23%
- Just over 50% of internet users search for product or service related videos before visiting or purchasing from an online store
- eCommerce shoppers who view video content are nearly 2 times more likely to purchase than those who haven’t viewed a video
- 64.6% of internet users will click on Google ads when they are searching for an item to buy online
- 34% of online retail purchases occur on mobile and smart devices
Lead Generation
Customer journeys are no longer as simple as they used to be, with the boom of mobile phones, tablets, and smart devices. Where it used to be a case that companies could cast a generic net over their target audience, marketing strategies have adapted and taken on a more nurturing form.
- 93% of B2B companies rely on content marketing to generate more leads compared to other marketing methods
- 96% of website visitors aren’t ready to buy, but can be converted with a solid strategy
- In the B2B market, 68% of companies take the opportunity to use landing pages in order to generate leads
- For the B2B companies, those who generate blog posts more than 11 times per month can obtain 4 times the amount of leads as those blogging only 4 times per month
Conversion Rate Tips
- Create a sense of urgency: Did you know that creating a sense of urgency around your call to action (CTA) buttons can result in higher conversions? A case study showed a 3.5% conversion rate increased to 10% after the introduction of a countdown timer.
- Live chat: Customers in 2018 are impatient; we want information and we want it now. Studies have shown that adding a live chat feature to a company website can increase sign ups by 31%.
- Relevant headline: When visiting your websites, customers are going to notice your site’s headline before anything else, so what you write must be engaging and relevant. A company called Movexa added a single word to their headline, improving conversion rates by 89.97%.
- Trust and awards: Whether your company is receiving great reviews from trust pilot, has a food health and safety certificate, or has won an award, it’s important to show this off. A case study showed after adding a ‘guarantee’ badge to their website, they experienced a 32% increase in conversions.
- Free returns: As a consumer, we put our trust in sellers and suppliers to provide us with the right goods and services. However, sometimes we aren’t satisfied with what we’ve received and want to return it. What better way to get your customer to convert than to offer free returns? 82% of study respondents said they would purchase an item if it offered a free returns policy.
- Videos: Video has become the king of content, attracting a wider range of consumers to purchase from providers who offer video tutorials, brand stories, and more. A case study showed that the introduction of a video on their website’s landing page increased their leads by 16.4%.
References:
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