Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label collaboration. Show all posts

Friday, 20 December 2013

Top 10 Business & Management Guides for 2013


2013 was a successful and busy year, with many publications based on applied research and live implementations. High satisfaction levels were achieved for all our client engagements, with projects in Europe, The Balkans and North America. The most popular business and management guides were as follows:-

Strategic Business Development Papers

  • Entering New & International markets with Advantage

This practical guide enables the management team identify the opportunities available, select the target market, assess and assure readiness to enter the new market and prepare & execute a Go-2-Market Plan. The framework is designed to reduce risk and ensure successful new market entry.


For advice and services (Business Development Services)

  • Scaling Capability Assessment & Growth  Strategy

The model presented can be applied to help leaders understand the capability of their business to scale and to identify those areas and actions that can enable both greater and faster scaling of the business. The model is applicable to all venture types whether public or private sector.


For advice and service (Strategy services)

  • Beyond the business plan towards Agile entrepreneurship

This paper was presented at several International Conferences on Entrepreneurship during the year and it introduces a more dynamic and flexible model of entrepreneurship that goes beyond the traditional static and sequential traditional business plan centric model. It is aligned with latest thinking on experimental entrepreneurship and provides a detailed roadmap for entrepreneurs.

Request full paper (Agile Entrepreneurship)

For advice and services (Strategy Services)

  • 10 Tips for setting Sales Targets & 10 Tips for Sales Commission Plans

One of the most popular downloads this year, this paper looks at how to get Sales targets right for you and your Sales Resources, while designing in a realistic variable incentive that motivates the team and individuals to achieve their goals with the right type of business to build value.

Link for full paper (Sales Targets & Commissions)

For advice and services (Business development services)

 New & Enhanced Management Practice

  • Improve SMART goals & objectives (SMART2)

During our engagements with organisations and subsequent research we identified that individuals needed further guides to set really strong goals and objectives and, though SMART is a great starting point we worked to refined and strengthen the SMART guide and deployed SMART2 (Squared), where each letter has two related important terms for setting strong objectives.

Link for full paper (SMART2)

For advice and services (Management Services)

  • Creating change management with advantage

Is change something that is disruptive in your organisation or something that is embraced in the culture? Organisations exist in a dynamic and complex environment and those organisations that embrace and manage change effectively are the most successful. This paper looks at latest research and thinking. It provides a model of assessing the change capability for an organisation that enables more effective and successful change outcomes because “One size does not fit all”.

Link for full paper (Change Management Advantage)

For advice and services (Management Services)

  • The Business Advantage Model™ (BAM™)

There are 6 distinct phases for a business from the initial business idea to attaining successful maturity with a growing value that can be realised through the year on year returns to stakeholders or through some form of sale or equity release transaction. However the nature of the phases for a business and within each phase will differ depending on its context. The start-up, scaling and changing of a business is a complex management and leadership challenge. The BAM™ provides a roadmap for leaders and teams to manage this complexity in an agile manner so that you do “The right things, The right way, at the right time” covering every aspect of a business and its management.

Link for full paper (The BAM™)

For advice and services (Strategic Management Services)

Business Technology

  • Social Business & Collaboration

Most organisations have by now identified that they must engage in new ways of working and doing business that are more socially centric. The availability of social media and collaboration platforms are a catalyst for these changes. So what are the pitfalls and critical success factors for effective social business that really impact outcomes. This paper looks at both of these and provides a 6 step roadmap to introduce social collaboration which aligns OD with technology.

Link for full paper (Social Business & Collaboration)

For advice and services (Business technology services)

  • The Business Value of IT Maturity Frameworks

There are many different IT frameworks available for both proprietary and open sources, but how do I select the right one for my business and how do I ensure I achieve an ROI from the chosen Framework. How do I make sure the commitment to a specific Framework whether it be ITIL, CMMI, COBIT, IT-CMF etc. will impact the business overall. This paper looks at the options and learning from the application of IT Frameworks.

Link for full Paper (Value of IT Frameworks)

For advice and services (Business technology services)

 

 

Wednesday, 17 August 2011

Top 5 Pitfalls for Collaboration Programs and Platforms

Why deployment of social collaboration platforms may not gain sufficient traction?
(& what can be done to maximise engagement and outcomes?)
The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with some tools and techniques which will accelerate their organisations performance, towards the leadership position in their space, enabling significant changes in how people work and collaborate. In addition to ensure that investment in social collaboration platforms gains maximum traction and avoids the major pitfalls. Underpinning the approach is recognition that collaboration and collaboration maturity are complex human behaviours and, that deployment of social connection platforms to release an organisations talent will not deliver unless they are underpinned by very high levels of organisation maturity and learning. There has been a general recognition in business that there is a strong Organisation Development (OD) element to accelerating collaboration , however there is a tendency to be  driven by the simple definition of collaboration behaviours such as “it’s about trust, sharing of goals and communications” and using SNA measurements as indicators. The reality is there are 20 core OD dynamics that influence collaboration maturity and outcomes, and in the paper we introduce a simple diagnostic to measure these so that personal, organisation and platform development can be aligned for maximum traction.
Top Five Pitfalls for deployment
1.        Failure to sufficiently recognise that we are enabling a change in how people work together and as such the deployment of collaboration strategies and platforms is an important organisation development activity.
2.        Failure to recognise that collaboration is a human activity and human system activity; it’s about people, their style, their behaviours, their motivations and their incentives.
3.        Deployment of social media collaboration platforms are often treated as an IT or System upgrade projects rather than core business change initiatives.
4.        Failure to create an explicit and strong connection to the business case, goals and KPI’s of the business in the eyes of the stakeholders.
5.        The absence of a suitable framework to deploy a collaboration strategy and attain the target ROI.
Though there are many other pitfalls they are generally covered if we adopt a collaboration strategy that addresses the top five pitfalls. So we can say that the critical success factors for successful deployment of a collaboration strategy and platform are as follows:-
1.        Establish the business case for collaboration up front and identify how the organisation will demonstrate that performance meets or exceeds the business case.
2.        Define the collaboration OD strategy across the business that connects the business case with individual and organisation development plans.
3.        Measure the collaboration maturity across the organisation; it becomes the base-line for selecting and deploying the level and type of interventions and actions that will allow maximum traction for new ways of working and the platform.
4.        Integrate the social media collaboration platform Adopt an overall collaboration Framework/Methodology to pull together the components of the collaboration strategy and allows the stakeholders to engage and influence.
5.        project into the overall strategic OD program. Aligning the enablement of features and functions with the other interventions that reflect the level of organisation and individual learning.

The Global Institute for advanced organisation learning “collaboration framework“(collaborationIP™)
The CollaborationIP™ Methodology
CollaborationIP™ Methodology Components
The overall methodology is a roadmap and a set of tools, processes, templates and guides designed to successfully guide an organisation through the process of strategic change towards creating a leadership zone position where the collaboration maturity is creating sustainable strategic and operational leadership. Each Domain has the appropriate tools for an organisation. Let us now review each core domain. Built into the framework and methods are best practice collaboration techniques for the organisations leadership to design and execute the program. So in-build will be leadership by example and learning from the leaders.
CIP™-Business
Objective: - To enable key stakeholders to identify the key business drivers and performance metrics that accelerating collaboration capability is designed to impact, and prepare a business case and a set of business controls to ensure during and on completion of a collaboration program that intended outcomes can be achieved within the investment scope approved.
Approach Recommended: - Workshop & Templates
This domain has three key deliverables:-
·         The Business Case for Collaboration
·         The collaboration KPI Integration Map
·         Collaboration Program Metric process
CIP™-Facilitation
Objective: - To identify CSF’s & Risks for the overall program and confirm stakeholder commitment, governance and support for all aspects of the program and related investment.
Approach Recommended: - Workshop & Templates
This domain has three key deliverables:-
·         The program vision & Goals
·         The core governance & facilitation structure
·         Program Role definitions
CIP™-Diagnosis
Objective: - To scientifically diagnose the level of collaboration maturity within the organisation to enable program interventions to be designed at an appropriate and sustainable learning level. In additional to maintain alignment on the 3 core programs (Personal, Organisation & Platform).
Approach Recommended: - On-Line
This domain has three key deliverables:-
·         Collaboration Diagnostic Plan
·         Collaboration Maturity Diagnostic report (Actual level, steps for next level)
·         Collaboration Maturity Dashboard
CIP™-Strategy
Objective: - Using the findings from the Diagnosis phase the key stakeholders can now refine the overall strategy so that relevant execution-able and integrated programs and metrics can be executed.
Approach Recommended: - Workshop & Templates
This domain has one key deliverable:-
·         Collaboration Program and Project Statement
CIP™-Programs (Personal, Organisation, Platform)
Objective:- create the plan, process, tools, KPI’s  and teams for each of the three key streams and kick off the integrated programs:-
Approach Recommended: - Workshop & Templates
This domain has the following deliverables: - (Normally adopting the organisations standard PM methods)
·         Project Plans and Milestones
·         Reports and metrics
CIP™- Progress
Objective:- Integrated into the model and referenced above is the need to ensure stakeholders can see progress and connect their actions and behaviours to accelerating collaboration maturity at all levels in the business this will include:-
·         Business KPI’s
·         Operational KPI’s
·         Collaboration KPI’s and Social Network analysis
·         Maturity and cultural indicator

Approach Recommended: - PMO & Templates






















Tuesday, 5 July 2011

Collaboration Maturity & Collaboration Platforms

How do we release talent within & across organisations (Collaboration)?
With the advent of social media and collaboration platforms, the tools available to leaders and managers have become sophisticated and powerful.  However the ability of organisations to effectively deploy and realise the potential of these new tools can be hampered by the culture, structure and processes within the organisation.
To compete or even to survive many knowledge based organisations need to accelerate innovation, creativity, knowledge sharing /re use and productivity. Increasing the productive engagement of stakeholders whether it be within and organisation or with external stakeholders leveraging the available tools requires a change in how we work.
The purpose of a collaboration platform is:-
a)      Speeding up Responsiveness
b)      Facilitating Innovation
c)       Enhancing Learning
d)      Growing the competence mass of the organization
e)      Increasing the capacity and speed of organizational intelligence
f)       Improving Involvement and Sharing Responsibility
Primary areas for organisation consideration are:-
b)      Enterprise 2.0 - Inside the organization to improve:
a)      efficiency and productivity
c)       B2C 2.0 - Connecting with customers/stakeholders to improve
a)      profitability and customer satisfaction


Organisations are fundamentally human systems made up of people, communities and teams and therefore are the core to any change to accelerate overall performance. Managers and Leaders when designing interventions whether Organisation development or Introducing change such as new technology often omit to take into account the organisation maturity and behavioural capacity of the individuals and teams within.
Why is organisation Development a key component to collaboration?
Because getting the most from the product is as much a people/organizational issue as a technical issue -
¡  Collaboration is an interpersonal activity & should be introduced & managed accordingly – otherwise, it will fail
¡  It is the most complex form of organizational activity and needs an O-D & Change-Management approach
¡  It has the greatest capacity for organizational transformation of any O-D intervention
¡  It can be truly systemic in scope – from customer to production and all stakeholders, functions, etc.
n  “The system is the product”
¡  Systemic Collaboration offers Organizational Advantage, which is best achieved through an Organization-Development approach
¡  Organizational Effectiveness improves performance, retention and sustainable growth

The power and features  of new technologies (Collaborative Platforms, such as Lotus Connections, MS SharePoint, Facebook, Mindtouch etc.) facilitate knowledge creation and re use. The ability to create communities, facilitate rapid identification of a person, expertise or information, make the process of innovation and collaboration be time and location independent can really accelerate the performance and creativity of an organisation.
Deploying these new platforms is not just an IT project and regardless of how mature and effective your IT management processes are, you may fail to leverage the benefits if you do not consider the organisation development factors.
COLLABORATIVE TECHNOLOGY + COLLABORATION MATURITY = COLLABORATIVE PLATFORM
The level of collaborative maturity differs from organisation to organisation, so how do we measure it, in order that our program to roll out a collaborative platform may include appropriate OD interventions, whether they are education, awareness, structure, coaching, facilitation etc. Most Models out there such as CMMi or ISO are descriptive and require a significant commitment, they are not based on the fundamental principles of human systems and human behaviour (And related psychology), they do not consider how humans and organisations learn and change.
However we now have a simple scientific model that allows prompt and effective measurement of the collaboration maturity in an organisation so that any project/program to accelerate innovation, productivity and knowledge sharing leveraging collaboration platform(s) can have the OD interventions and components built into the program.
The Collaboration Maturity Model
n  THE PROBLEM for optimising Collaboration has been identified: it IS getting people to use it, i.e. TRACTION
n  The Model was  DESIGNED with one thing in mind – TO GAIN TRACTION for interventions
n  It does this by measuring the level of organizational functioning so that it can be raised across the board to the required level to optimise collaboration
n  No other framework exists to cater for both organizational diagnosis and intervention guidance
The model is underpinned by human science research and the primary inputs to the model are based on on-line questionnaires that can be completed by participants within 20 minutes.
The outputs of the Model are 1. A report on the maturity level in your organisation on all key dimensions of collaboration, and recommended OD interventions to support your overall collaboration business program.  2. A visual dashboard of the maturity on all dimensions of collaboration maturity.
























As well as providing guidance on the OD elements of a program, it also provides a benchmark that can be conducted periodically to ensure the interventions and ant platform program are having the desired effect and ensure the correct timing for further/future OD interventions as an organisation drives towards the Leadership Zone.
How does it fit in the deployment of a collaboration platform?
1.       Business decision to improve collaboration
2.       Business goals and business case for program
a.       Financial, Creativity, Productivity..etc.
b.      New Products/services , cycle times, lead times
c.       Maturity dimensions
3.       Measure collaborative Maturity
a.       On Line questionnaire & reports
b.      Small number of interviews/workshops
c.       Confirm threshold has been reached (Research to date suggests an organisation must be in or entering the learning zone before any platform investment is made)
d.      Design interventions
4.       Create Platform roll out program and project plan
5.       Execute plan
6.       Measure KPI’s and maturity to ensure benefits are being realised.
A Key consideration
To achieve the overall objectives , these new techniques for working as individuals and teams must become central to the leadership and management culture and require on-going support and facilitation. (More on this in the future)