Posts Tagged ‘Methodology’

Save time by making it easy for users to contribute

January 5, 2009

One of the advantages of my position at GroupSwim is I help lots of customers plan and roll-out their sites. I get to observe what works and what doesn’t work. I’ve noticed an easy strategy that helps people collaborate effectively – using very specific group names to guide people on where to post discussions, documents or wikis.

I know this sounds simple but it isn’t. For example, if I’m creating a collaboration site for a professional services project, I might use these groups:

  1. Project Management Meeting Notes
  2. Executive Interview Results
  3. Technical Infrastructure Issues
  4. Gruntmaster 2000 Training Documents

Instead of:

  1. Project Planning
  2. Technical
  3. Training

I see this over and over again where customers using specific groups like the first list see significantly higher volume and more value than those using groups like the second list. There is a psychological barrier that people need to overcome when using a collaboration tool like GroupSwim. It is so easy to fall back into the habits of using email or nothing at all. What I’m observing is if you are proscriptive in how you want employees or customers to collaborate, they will respond. I’m not saying limit their options. If they want to create additional groups and collaborate more, by all means turn them loose. However, when getting things started, the more specific you can be, the better results you will achieve.

The first list is a good example of internal collaboration; it is the same thing with external customer collaboration. One of our clients created an external community and the groups they use are very detailed. They don’t just go by products, but have different groups for specific modules. They also have groups for roles and technologies. What this does is make it very easy for users to see where they should post content. EVERYTHING we do to encourage collaboration should remove friction from the process. This is one very easy way to do it. It reminds me of a golf swing; if you set-up correctly over the ball with the proper grip and alignment, you have a higher probability of hitting a great shot. The same thing holds true for collaboration. If you structure your groups and tools correctly, you have a higher probability of achieving great results.

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Posted in CMC, Community, Methodology, Strategy | Leave a Comment »

“Getting Things Done” in the Enterprise

September 10, 2008

This is cross-posted with ReadWriteWeb where I will be occasionally writing on the Enterprise Channel.

I recently attended the Office 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. The highlight for me was the first session where Ismael Ghalimi interviewed David Allen, the author of “Getting Things Done.” The book and associated methodology highlight the need to capture and organize ideas and tasks in a structured way. The interesting question for me is how to make it work on an Enterprise or company level.

One theory of Getting Things Done (GTD) is that it is impossible to “really” concentrate on more than one thing at a time. Therefore, a system like GTD helps juggle the competing tasks to organize and prioritize them. As you can imagine, the bulk of the conversation centered on Office 2.0 type tools that can help facilitate this process. David is an avid user of Jott for example. He uses it to capture his thoughts while driving so he doesn’t force his brain to keep a running list. What struck me after listening to him in the keynote and subsequent panel is that the tools are actually the least important part of successfully getting things done. Practitioners of GTD in the Enteprise world probably use an infinite number of tool combinations including Outlook Tasks, Jott, iPhones, Text notes, Lotus Notes, etc.; you get the idea. What is fundamentally more important is the discipline and commitment to do it.

We all have different levels of both and our respective individual success will vary. What I find interesting is to figure out how to make a group practice GTD consistently. There is no silver bullet but the following factors need to be addressed:

  • Management commitment - There is no way that an entire group will practice GTD if the management team is not fully committed and emphasizes it every day. Managers (and team members) need to conduct meetings with GTD principles and plan work in the same way
  • Training - GTD is a clever methodology that leverages alot of common sense. However, if a group is going to adopt it and use it in the course of business, they need training. For no other reason, the need to speak the same language with each other is critical. For example, if I tell you I’m going to put that task in my One Week Action List, you better know what I mean
  • Incentives – People must have incentives to adopt this system in a consistent and lasting way. GTD could be baked into employee’s MBOs, team goals, public recognition opportunities, whatever. There has to be incentives and measurement for true adoption
  • Tools - As I mentioned earlier, the actual tools can vary widly. In the panel discussion I attended, there were several vendors (Enleiten, Mindjet, bllist) who utilize GTD concepts in their products and/or methodologies. There is even a GTD plug-in for FireFox. Whatever tool a company decides to use, they must use it consistently and ensure it fits into how people work. Otherwise, I guarantee it will fail

Does your company practice GTD? How does it work?

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Posted in Enterprise, Methodology, Random, Strategy, Trends | 2 Comments »

Tag-Based Workflow

June 18, 2008

The thought occurred to me that we could use tags in GroupSwim to manage workflow.  What I mean by this is use tags to dynamically assign work to users/groups/teams in a GroupSwim site and monitor them in real time.  I’m not talking about a structured, pre-defined workflow engine like applications such as a help desk might utilize.  However, using tags and discipline, you could accomplish similar tasks for planning or project work.  I would not recommend this for an operational system like supply chain or customer service, but it could work for less formal activities that may not have the kinds of dedicated systems the aforementioned functions have.  Furthermore, small businesses might not have anything so this kind of system might be better than nothing.

Here is how it could work:

  1. Define how you want the tags to work.  For example, you could use this system for managing issues for a project, for steps in planning a marketing campaign, and other less formal operations.  You should pre-determine status or other kinds of tags that apply to different work streams.  For example, you may want to add Open, Closed, Stalled, or whatever to issues as you post and discuss them so they can be tracked.  You could use a similar arrangement for other activities like NeedCustInfo or whatever.
  2. Have every user/team in the GroupSwim site you use add their Username, first_last name, or some other unique identifier as a tag they watch; they could also add tags for groups like ProjTeam or EmailCampaign3 and every person in this group should add that tag to their list as well.  In my case, I would add the tag JasonR to my watchlist to monitor it.
  3. Each activity should have a manager making sure things get assigned appropriately.  Then, if an issue or activity needs work, the manager or person responsible merely adds the tag of the person who should either work on it and/or monitor it.  As soon as a tag gets applied (JasonR in my case), the person would get an alert through email and/or RSS that there was something they needed to address.
  4. Each time a person finishes a task, they can add the tag for the next person or group that needs to work on it and they would be similarly alerted.  They can also delete the tag for themselves taking it out of their queue.
  5. Once an activity or operation was complete, the manager or designate could add the tag Complete or some other indication that things were resolved.

As you can see, this method would require some discipline.  It’s flexibility is both its strength and its weakness.  I intend to test this internally when the opportunity comes up.  Please let me know what you think and if I’m missing something.

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Posted in GroupSwim, Methodology | 2 Comments »

Effectively Managing a Community

April 28, 2008

This is a very interesting and tough topic.  Communities come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are internal, and some are external.  Some are business sponsored, and others are totally organic and rely on the users to keep things rolling.  I wanted to reference one of the best posts I’ve read on this issue.  Chris Brogan is a well known blogger and prolific writer.  Check out this post on managing a community.  It is the best I’ve read.

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Posted in Community, Enterprise, Methodology | Leave a Comment »