I found this article about the reasons why brainstorms fail the other day and it got me thinking. Parker Smith raises some very vaild points about this tool. When I trained to be a facilitator, brainstorming is about the first thing you learn and it’s probably the tool I have used the most over the years. People can get to grips with it easily, there’s no maths to do or consensus to reach so it’s pretty user friendly. (more…)
Sometimes it’s the small things that make the difference…..
Yesterday I was delivering a training course as a refresher to people who regularly organise meetings at a government organisation. As often happens in these situations there were complaints about the poor chairing of meetings, normally by those higher up the organisation.
It never ceases to amaze me how some senior managers forget the importance of all those little things that smooth the way with your team – saying hello in the morning, having a bit of a chat about the weekend, sometimes even fetching the coffees! In this case what was missing was a bit of time spent with the meeting organiser or minute taker and probably some preparation time.
It seems to be accepted in many organisations that by the time you reach a certain level you’ve picked up a range of skills, including how to effectively chair a meeting. As most people experience many times, this is not always the case! You are unusual if you’ve never sat in a meeting and thought “Why am I here? What’s the point of all this? I’ve got better things to do with my time!”
Meetings should be the life blood of an organisation, events where people learn from each other, decisions are made and new ideas aired and developed. But good meetings rely on several good habits – knowing the aims, good control from the chair, ensuring all the information is available and respecting each other. Get it wrong and you end up with frustrated, disillusioned staff and much wasted time and effort. None of this is easy as we’re dealing with that most unpredicatable commodity – the human being! However all is not lost, it’s possible to develop the necessary skills and set up a culture that fosters the required behavoiurs. Take an honest look at the behavours in your organisation and even at yourself and make a committment to improve the situation. Your whole organisation will thank you in the long run.
Do you agree with the generalisation that senior staff often chair meetings badly?
How can we sell the message that they may need to take a different approach to meetings?
There is no such thing as a data quality problem…
Over the last couple of days I have presented at a couple of conferences on the subject of Asset Information Management. When discussing with a delegate on Tuesday the nature of data quality problems, they asked:
Are data quality problems often user problems?
My immediate response was that all data quality problems are user/people problems. If we recognise this fact, then solving data quality problems involves solving people problems. (more…)
Are you a data quality ostrich?
I am frequently surprised when I encounter data quality ostriches i.e. organisations that put their heads in the sands of data and hope that all will be well.
If you have spent any time looking at the different facets of data quality, you should be aware that some of the key quality metrics are:
- Accuracy – Does data match the thing it represents
- Validity – Does data match your system and process rules
- Consistency – Does the same entity recorded in different systems have the same identifier
- Completeness – Do you have a full data set?
- Etc.
Probably the most important of these is accuracy, however, this can also be one of the harder (i.e. more expensive) areas to assess, for example in the transport and utilities sectors assets are widely distributed, may be buried and may have safety risks associated with visiting them. Therefore accuracy checking can be expensive.
Some large organisations have small teams assessing the completeness and validity of data using data profiling tools, but are avoiding doing data accuracy checking as it is seen as difficult (i.e. expensive). Yet these same organisations can be planning and implementing major system and process changes based on assumptions about data accuracy. Will they achieve the benefits of these plans if data accuracy is not as expected? Will they make expensive mistakes? Are they being a data quality ostrich? Are you a DQ ostrich??
The art of communication is dead….
It could be argued that the art of communication is dead – many people who are awash with emails, tweets, social networking messages would probably disagree. However, this deluge of communication is not always effective – some people appear to believe that because they have sent an email (or many emails), or updated a profile on a social networking site that this is effective communication.
Effective communication should result in one party conveying meaning to another party, so that they can understand the message and act upon it appropriately, if required.
If communication does not fulfil this requirement, why bother?
Rapid responses and forwarded emails to multiple recipients generally are not effective – the recipients may not know who should respond, “Reply to all” messages mean all parties to the mail can get deluged with responses, when they perhaps only should be aware of the last message in a debate.
Before email, we were reliant on snail mail, telephone and face-to-face conversations. The latter two gave immediate feedback about the communication and whether a message had been understood. The former took time, so people tended to take time to ensure that the meaning was correct. Don’t get me wrong, email is not a bad thing, however, thoughtless use of email can result in poor communication.
Before communicating, it is worth considering:
- What do you want to achieve from the communication? Action or information
- Do you want action or a response? If so, is it clear who should respond?
- What is the best medium for communication? (Sometimes the phone can be best!)
- Who needs to receive the communication? Restrict circulation as much as possible
- What is the “tone” of the communication? If you are angry or emotional, don’t communicate until you have calmed down
Happy communicating…
Approaches to data quality issues from suppliers
I recently came across two examples of how to handle poor quality supplier data, one good and one bad, in the same business unit of a large organisation.
The organisation concerned is reliant on contractors supplying accurate data for the work they have undertaken. Due to the complexity of data entries, in particular where different ‘layers’ of data interact, the likelihood of data error is high. Additionally, there are cost and safety implications if any one had to physically check the data, and that this same data has cost and possible long term safety implications if incorrect, it is essential that data supplied for input is correct.
One team member demonstrated a very poor approach when recieving data that they believed to be incorrect – they entered data into the system to represent what they thought the correct data should be! This is decidedly risky in that they may actually be making the error worse, by changing data supplied by the contractor they are taking over liability for the accuracy of the data and the contractor will tend to repeat the errors in future, as they know the data is likely to be checked. If the data had been entered as supplied, then this team member would have retained some liability for the data, as they knew it to be wrong, additionally, the contractor would have retained the majority of the liability.
A different team operated the correct process for addressing data that was supplied with errors – they rejected the batch of data stating that there were data errors, but did not state the nature of the errors. In this case the supplier would have to ensure they understood the data requirements in order to correct the data, which in turn would lead to better quality data in future.Additionally, the team recieving the data would not have picked up any liability for data errors.
The second approach takes less effort for less risk, whereas the first took more effort and assumed a lot of the risks – so why did they do it?
Basics before rocket science
A recent discussion with an associate regarding a large client proved interesting. The associate was suggesting that the adoption of data ontologies as a means to allow better sharing of data between systems. Whilst this is undoubtedly a sound suggestion, it should be reviewed based on the current state of data and process maturity within the organisation.
The previous day I had visited an outposted site as part of a larger data audit. At this site, due to technical issues, no-one had been able to access one of their key corporate systems for over a year! Whilst this did not stop them undertaking the safety aspects of their role, it did risk central teams being unable to make valid strategic planning decisions as the data they were using was therefore of questionable data quality.
Similarly, using ontologies as an enabler to link systems when you have not resolved key data quality problems risks devaluing and discrediting such an investment.
Moral of the story – only invest in cutting edge technologies when you are sure that your systems and data are fit for this purpose.
Stalking the corridors of power!
We recently had a last minute booking to deliver a training course for UKTI in London. A former colleague, Claire, who runs Catapult Consulting, had been working with Planet Training to develop a new course to get UKTI staff thinking about the meetings they run and how they could be improved. Unfortunately Claire was taken ill a few days before the course, having done all the hard preparation work. We were contacted and, as luck would have it, everything fell into place and we were able to provide a stand in for Claire.
Meetings are one of our “hobby horses”, so it was really useful listening to the experiences of UKTI staff who deal with international meetings and all the cross cultural issues they can raise. The course got some really good feedback and hopefully will run again in the future. All of us involved – Emma at Planet Training, poor Claire and ourselves – were relieved and smiling by the end of the day.
To me this incident highlights many good aspects of the business world – how people work together to support each other and how flexible they can be. Claire and Emma had done a good job in preparing the course has they had really listened to what the client wanted instead of just using an “off the shelf” course. UKTI were impressed with Planet Training because they had not let them down when they had hit a problem, the client informed us that she’d definitely recommend Planet Training in the future!
Although times may be hard it just shows that listening to your customers and giving a good service still stand you in good stead.
Making your business come alive
One of the team recently went to a Business Breakfast Club meeting run by Val Culley of Culley Lifford Hall Ltd (accountants) and an inventive approach was taken to the 5 minute “introduce your business” slot.
The speaker was Alison Wardle of Sole Inspiration who is a reflexologist and footreader. Alison brought her comfy looking treatment couch and with the help of a willing volunteer explained some of the principles of reflexology and footreading. Now I’m very reluctant to let anyone touch my feet but the demonstration did take some of the fear out of these procedures and it did really make the whole process come alive. Also, the great thing to see was how Alison’s passion for what she does came shining through. That sparkle in the eyes and excited committment can sell a business much better than any leaflet or 2 minute pitch.
So perhaps we should all think about novel ways to communicate our ideas, not just relying on the spoken or written word
Sometimes small changes can make all the difference
At a Business Boost seminar organised by SSCCI this morning and I was treated to a high octane presentation by John Sealy who describes himself as “The Courageous Marketeer”. John has around 27 years of experience of marketing and selling of which he shared just a small part with us. What was refreshing was that John talked about small changes we can make that can bring in enough new business to keep your business going. The changes he described were things such as making sure you have something printed on the back of your business card, getting testamonials that spell out the benefits your customer gained and looking at what additional products or services you can sell to exisiting customers. He also Tweets as well!
The great thing was, as I see when I go into businesses, change doesn’t have to be earth shattering to produce real benefits. Often, removing what can seem like trivial concerns can speed up a process and be very liberating. All I need to do now is put some of his ideas into practice!