Training needs
Here is a typical project scenario...
Project development is done. Your policy and claims systems are fully configured, tested and are nearing deployment. The Client Organization has spent lots of money in developing the system. The Early business testing event that was sponsored for the end users, business users, agents, adjusters etc made them feel comfortable with the application and its features.
Their feedback so far -
- System looks good, why would i need training?
- I know what i need and how to get there in the System.
- I will look for training needs as and when i require.
- I don't think its worth the time and money to train other people especially after receiving good feedback from this focus business testing group.
These and some other similar responses is what we hear when we talk to busines users about training.
Of course, this is not the case everywhere, some users know the system better than others, some know all the quirks and work aorunds that exist in the system,but overall, somewhere at the bottom of their heart this is the common feeling with most of the business users.
There are some organizations who are fully and completely aware of the importance of training needs.
Training Advantages
Why do we need to get trained on the system
Similar understanding
When the project implementation team lays out the project roadmap, it plans for requirements, design, development, testing and implementation phases. It is equally important to have a training milestone in place, with the objective that all users are on the same page wrt system usage, understanding the attributes and functional quirks.
Change Management
Training forms a very important component of change management. It helps cultivate the importance of the implementation at the grass root levels and helps bring a feeling of oneness within the organization by addressing the issues, problems faced and the solutions proposed therein.
Benefit bottomline costs
Last and most important, Project success is dependant by the success of the implementation and the use of the application thereafter.
If the system implementation involves improvements to the business process and operational activities then training will help increase this awareness, bring a common understanding of the whole process.
It will also help strengthen and highlight the executive direction and perspective behind the implementation.
Training will thus improve the overall efficiency of the end users. This definitely will help to improve your bottomline benefits.
Training Objectives
What do we wish to attain from the training. The Objectives should be clear. Some examples
- It should address the training needs and issues faced by each and every user per the job functions.
To absorb and implement the functionality useful for your day to day operations (e.g. corresponding using System activities/dairies/notes rather than communicating via other time consuming and disconnect methods like hard copies, emails - which are outside the system)
- Make sure that the training is scalable in terms of the organization size
.
- Ensure the trained colleagues understand and propagate the platform and application features to their peers and try to answer their queries. If a question cannot be answered by them, let it be directed to members of the training cell or to the right personnel
Plan and prepare
There is no one size fit all solution here. For example, for a policy implementation you will need separate training modules for customer service, operations, underwriters, managers and supervisors so that each group can perform their job functions efficiently and effectively.
Along with having a separate training module, the training should be such that it meets requirements for candidates for all levels of understanding. e.g.
- Some users may not know the difference between backspace key on the computer vs the delete key
- Some users may understand bits and pieces of the application functionality, but not end to end
- Some users may be used to navigating through, by having worked on similar such applications in their prior jobs or past life
- Some users may just not want to change from System A to System B - reluctance to change
Hence there is a big component of change management that goes hand in hand with training
Before preparing your training material have one on one sessions with each groups of users as identified above and understand their specific training needs and requirements. Come up with a script that actually answers their questions.
The training sessions once done should be followed by a brief Q&A or if it is online have an assessment at the end to make sure the general understanding and the average grasp of training by the audience.
Training Methods
The various training options can be
Online training
This is an online computer based training. It serves as a self paced learning module where the trainee will study the application features as and how they find time and at their own pace and speed.
Hands on or classroom training with a fixed schedule
This is an instructor based training where people will sit and gain hands on experience of the module with instuctor guidance.
Learning using training material
This is also a self paced training where training material is shared with the attendees. This includes material explaining the system and usually followed by step by step screenshots.
Training on the job
i.e. Having the person work as a shadow or apprentice/intern and gets mentored or guided by a senior member on the job. The trainee will face real life scenarios and will use the application to work those.
Make sure you as the training lead or instructor has done a dry run using a sufficient number of people and ironed out all the difficulties and issues present. After all the planning, prepare a proper training schedule, have a concise and clear agenda and propagate it to the attendees as required.
Organizations can benefit by having a well planned training scheduled. Resources who get trained using the methods identified above, not only help themselves by making their jobs easier, faster and error free, inturn they also help improve the organization bottomline who has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in developing the system
So in all to ensure that your project actually hits a homerun after implementation, it is necessary to have a proper training module near the end of the project.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
IT Understanding by Business
What is Technology?
The dictionary meaning of Technology is "Applying skills and knowledge towards use of Tools and Techniques to serve a purpose". In the Insurance domain, IT Technology is the use of Computers and its associated tools and techniques so as to solve a business issue or serve a business purpose.
Let's say an organization goes for the latest and greatest Policy and Claims administration system investing millions of dollars to phase out their rigid and inflexible legacy Policy administration application. They have hired tens, if not hundreds of IT workers who must work with business and try to get the job done by understanding the business objectives and painpoints and resolve them by using the IT solutions based on the functionality supported by the product and use of their own years of experience.
IT side of Business and its Advantages
To achieve this and similar objectives, it is very important for business to be aware and be abreast of the IT world, to understand the IT jargon that goes on today. Parallely IT also has to understand the business processes, their jargons and painpoints and try to bridge the gap that exists between the two so as to make the job easier.
But the focus for this post is the Business side understanding of IT - Why do we need it? and how do we culminate it?
There are a lot of technology areas that are closely associated with business and having a fair understanding definitely helps and makes your job easier as a Business analyst. For e.g. in the Insurance world, understanding XMLs for sending data across applications, configuring policy, claims and billing applications for user administration, organizational setup, permissions and access, rating rules configuration etc are all areas that are closely associated to the day to day working of the business folks. Lots of Policy, Claims, CRM applications nowadays have a business rules configuration engine which will allow business users to setup business rules without the intervention of Technical group and will thus save cost and time to rollout. The output will also be of a better quality due to the involvement of business who will ensure all day to day and boundary scenarios are well tested.
Knowledge of IT would definitely give business users a good perspective on how things progress from requirements to design to development to testing before making it to the floors. They would be able to better understand the estimates provided by development, cross question and correct the estimates to more real world numbers.
Sometime business people get intimidated and lost in the technical jargon. So it definitely helps to know the tech talk so both Technical and business folks are on the same page. Business definitely stands to gain if they understand the nuances of the functional and technical features of the application along with knowing the tools of usage just as IT would gain if it understands the day to day business process of the applications they work on.
Business should be and nowadays is getting more and more technology savvy. The Gap between Technology and Business is reducing.faster than an ice cream cone in a hot afternoon. There exists a set of business SMEs who not only understand their busines but also the Technology aspect to an extent, but they may not get the whole picture due to various reasons,
1> Not enough technical inclination
- There is a set of business users who have got so used to their own way of doing things that they do not want to change. For example - Some people are so used to use to the abacus for doing calculations that they do not want to switch over to using the latest calculator. Agreed, Abacus has its advantages, but certainly calculator gives you more features and does it faster and with rapid scalability and flexibility.
For e.g. Calculating Rates and premium in an excel though worked as a solution in the old ages, in the new world we have application features that will do the calculations for you or using a desk calendar for policy premium, insured letter reminders rather than using the latest automatic activity and diary reminders that the applications provide out of the box.
2> Know as you go attitude
- I will learn about it when i get there. Procastination is another reason that many smart and intelligent business people do not use their knowledge in understanding IT which otherwise would serve as a great benefit, not just to that individual but also to the organization as a whole.
3> "Who needs this" attitude
- Mr. know-it-all attitude is another detrimental roadbock that delineates project progress faster than you can imagine.
Why does business need to understand IT?
1> Improve solution efficiency
- To efficiently and colaboratively work on Projects. It is necessary for IT and business to understand each other and make sure information does not get lost in translation. e.g. Business says, "Customer service should have the latest billing and payments information so that they can effectively communicate with customers"
Now business has to know and understand
- If financials are stored in the same "Policy & Claims System" or are retrieved from a different system altogether
- Is a realtime integration possible between the financial system and customer portal
- If not, is a nightly batch an option? How long? when does the process run?
- What information is available in the financial system so the type of information to be retrieved can be designed and developed.
- Last but not the least, design and develop a solution that is technically feasible, scalable, flexible and is intuitive to customers, business and the end operations teams alike.
2> Save costs and improve quality of output
- Business involvement in Technology will save lots of back and forth communications and confusions, unnecessary meetings between IT and business.
This will also improve the final quality of output due to the clear requirements and also final real scenario and boundary testing done by business
3> Functionality
- The more business understands about technology, the easier they will be able to put their ideas across and inturn will be able to develop and suggest solutions that are more closer to the real needs and are also technically feasible.
4> Advance knowldege
- Doing all of the above will not help the project and overall organization, but will also help and develop your individual skillsets and improve and expand your area of knowledge. Thus it will help you be more competitive and assist in reaching your career goals
How to achieve this?
1> Explore and understand Technology and business
- Read articles related to technology and business. Be curious, try and understand the daily happenings in the IT world.
- Explore applications
The applications that you work on, spend sometime to understand the fine points, nuances, the small functional quirks that they provide and try to build on that. This will help you not only understand the application's current capabilities but will also help you improvise on them so you can build a better product.
2> Ask Questions
- Ask questions when something is not clear or does not make sense why it is happening. Find a mentor who has a role similar to yours or is from the IT domain. So he/she can explain and resolve your doubts.
3> Training
- Finally training, nothing beats getting trained on the system that will be your source of "if not bread and butter then Jam and Honey"
- If possible, undergo training where you can learn all about Business analyst responsibilities and profile, What does it take to be a successful BA and a technologist?
4> Organization Culture
- IT understanding of business depends strongly upon on the organization culture, the methodologies that are followed for executing a project. How much intearaction and collboration exists between IT and business departments.
- Organizations should also focus on mentoring business folks and having something like a buddy system in place so business and IT work in an aligned fashion.
Doing all this is definitely beneficial to the organization and will help build a stronger and a knowledgable workforce who will help curb the overall organization costs and help in successful project implementations.
The dictionary meaning of Technology is "Applying skills and knowledge towards use of Tools and Techniques to serve a purpose". In the Insurance domain, IT Technology is the use of Computers and its associated tools and techniques so as to solve a business issue or serve a business purpose.
Let's say an organization goes for the latest and greatest Policy and Claims administration system investing millions of dollars to phase out their rigid and inflexible legacy Policy administration application. They have hired tens, if not hundreds of IT workers who must work with business and try to get the job done by understanding the business objectives and painpoints and resolve them by using the IT solutions based on the functionality supported by the product and use of their own years of experience.
IT side of Business and its Advantages
To achieve this and similar objectives, it is very important for business to be aware and be abreast of the IT world, to understand the IT jargon that goes on today. Parallely IT also has to understand the business processes, their jargons and painpoints and try to bridge the gap that exists between the two so as to make the job easier.
But the focus for this post is the Business side understanding of IT - Why do we need it? and how do we culminate it?
There are a lot of technology areas that are closely associated with business and having a fair understanding definitely helps and makes your job easier as a Business analyst. For e.g. in the Insurance world, understanding XMLs for sending data across applications, configuring policy, claims and billing applications for user administration, organizational setup, permissions and access, rating rules configuration etc are all areas that are closely associated to the day to day working of the business folks. Lots of Policy, Claims, CRM applications nowadays have a business rules configuration engine which will allow business users to setup business rules without the intervention of Technical group and will thus save cost and time to rollout. The output will also be of a better quality due to the involvement of business who will ensure all day to day and boundary scenarios are well tested.
Knowledge of IT would definitely give business users a good perspective on how things progress from requirements to design to development to testing before making it to the floors. They would be able to better understand the estimates provided by development, cross question and correct the estimates to more real world numbers.
Sometime business people get intimidated and lost in the technical jargon. So it definitely helps to know the tech talk so both Technical and business folks are on the same page. Business definitely stands to gain if they understand the nuances of the functional and technical features of the application along with knowing the tools of usage just as IT would gain if it understands the day to day business process of the applications they work on.
Business should be and nowadays is getting more and more technology savvy. The Gap between Technology and Business is reducing.faster than an ice cream cone in a hot afternoon. There exists a set of business SMEs who not only understand their busines but also the Technology aspect to an extent, but they may not get the whole picture due to various reasons,
1> Not enough technical inclination
- There is a set of business users who have got so used to their own way of doing things that they do not want to change. For example - Some people are so used to use to the abacus for doing calculations that they do not want to switch over to using the latest calculator. Agreed, Abacus has its advantages, but certainly calculator gives you more features and does it faster and with rapid scalability and flexibility.
For e.g. Calculating Rates and premium in an excel though worked as a solution in the old ages, in the new world we have application features that will do the calculations for you or using a desk calendar for policy premium, insured letter reminders rather than using the latest automatic activity and diary reminders that the applications provide out of the box.
2> Know as you go attitude
- I will learn about it when i get there. Procastination is another reason that many smart and intelligent business people do not use their knowledge in understanding IT which otherwise would serve as a great benefit, not just to that individual but also to the organization as a whole.
3> "Who needs this" attitude
- Mr. know-it-all attitude is another detrimental roadbock that delineates project progress faster than you can imagine.
Why does business need to understand IT?
1> Improve solution efficiency
- To efficiently and colaboratively work on Projects. It is necessary for IT and business to understand each other and make sure information does not get lost in translation. e.g. Business says, "Customer service should have the latest billing and payments information so that they can effectively communicate with customers"
Now business has to know and understand
- If financials are stored in the same "Policy & Claims System" or are retrieved from a different system altogether
- Is a realtime integration possible between the financial system and customer portal
- If not, is a nightly batch an option? How long? when does the process run?
- What information is available in the financial system so the type of information to be retrieved can be designed and developed.
- Last but not the least, design and develop a solution that is technically feasible, scalable, flexible and is intuitive to customers, business and the end operations teams alike.
2> Save costs and improve quality of output
- Business involvement in Technology will save lots of back and forth communications and confusions, unnecessary meetings between IT and business.
This will also improve the final quality of output due to the clear requirements and also final real scenario and boundary testing done by business
3> Functionality
- The more business understands about technology, the easier they will be able to put their ideas across and inturn will be able to develop and suggest solutions that are more closer to the real needs and are also technically feasible.
4> Advance knowldege
- Doing all of the above will not help the project and overall organization, but will also help and develop your individual skillsets and improve and expand your area of knowledge. Thus it will help you be more competitive and assist in reaching your career goals
How to achieve this?
1> Explore and understand Technology and business
- Read articles related to technology and business. Be curious, try and understand the daily happenings in the IT world.
- Explore applications
The applications that you work on, spend sometime to understand the fine points, nuances, the small functional quirks that they provide and try to build on that. This will help you not only understand the application's current capabilities but will also help you improvise on them so you can build a better product.
2> Ask Questions
- Ask questions when something is not clear or does not make sense why it is happening. Find a mentor who has a role similar to yours or is from the IT domain. So he/she can explain and resolve your doubts.
3> Training
- Finally training, nothing beats getting trained on the system that will be your source of "if not bread and butter then Jam and Honey"
- If possible, undergo training where you can learn all about Business analyst responsibilities and profile, What does it take to be a successful BA and a technologist?
4> Organization Culture
- IT understanding of business depends strongly upon on the organization culture, the methodologies that are followed for executing a project. How much intearaction and collboration exists between IT and business departments.
- Organizations should also focus on mentoring business folks and having something like a buddy system in place so business and IT work in an aligned fashion.
Doing all this is definitely beneficial to the organization and will help build a stronger and a knowledgable workforce who will help curb the overall organization costs and help in successful project implementations.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Clean Data - Policy and Claims Systems
This post is a slight deviation from our usual Project Management topics. Many of the projects that i have been are severely haunted by data issues.
Data is the heart and soul of any business. Everyone needs data that is clean, consistent, reliable and secured. Quality and Utility of data improves as and how we add volumes of proper and relevant information.
Insurance carriers like any other industry are often plagued with bad, inconsistent or non reliable data which may have happened due to various factors like application shortcomings, poor system and/or data model design, End user competence levels, user application knowhow etc.
What exactly is Bad data?
Data which is not normalized, inconsistent and thus non reliable is bad data. To give you a simple example, Same information can be represented in multitude of ways e.g. Contacts information stored in the system can be saved based on individual user's preferences.
e.g. Doctor identifier can be stored in system as "Doctor", "Dr", "Dr.", "Doc" etc. So if we need to run a report on all doctors in Systems or if we need to convert this data, we need some logic to handle care this inconsistency.
This is just one example of a potential data issue. There are multitude of other cases that are party to this bad data issue.
Why do we need good data?
Like we said earlier, an application is a bare body skeleton without data. Data is used for various purposes by insurance organizations for e.g.
- First and foremost Policy, Billing and Claims processing
- Customer service
- Internal Organizational and statistical analysis
- Risk analysis
- Predictive analytics
- Reporting to 3rd party agencies
- State and federal regulatory and compliance reporting
- Sending data across systems to interchange information e.g ISO, DMV etc
Impacts
Impacts of bad quality data are
1> Coverage Denial
Insureds may be incorrectly denied coverage, if policy number, date of loss, cancellation, reinstatement, renewal, coverage etc data is incorrectly entered or not entered when it should (No Mandatory checks in the System)
2> Incorrect Reporting
Incorrect data may cause claims to be incorrectly reported to 3rd party agencies which may lead to potential issues for the insureds and the carrier alike.
3> Claims Leakage
Claims may get incorrectly paid if policy, claims data is incorrect leading to leakage
4> Operational Efficiency
Severely impacts the organizational efficiency of Intake and operations groups e.g Claims System forces Intake to capture claims story as long winded notes rather than structured data. Consequently when Customer service or executive Management when references this claim file has to read through pages of data to get a gist of the claim or even report some status to the customer.
5> Functional Impacts
Data logic errors, poor system designs and incorrectly written business rules can cause problems for eg today's claims and policy systems use address standardizations or postal address lookups based on the address data entered in the system. If there is no uniformity in the city, street, zip entered throughout the system, then good luck with doing a proximity search when looking for a company prefered low cost Auto Bodyshop within 5 miles of your home location.
6> Third Party Impacts
There have been cases where an insured's policy was not recognized by DMV and have caused insured problems when he was stopped during a routine traffic check.
7> Statistical Impacts
Internal actuary and management level executives do a business health check and future policy rate predictions to be competitive based on the Loss ratios, premiums, outstanding payments etc. Sometimes incorrect or poorly designed data structure prevent this. This impacts the organizational data quality and process effectiveness.
8> Conversion Issues
When an old application is retired and data is moved to a new and better system, bad data is the worst possible issue that development and business Team have to tackle. In this case, each scenario has to be correctly identified and workaround have to be reached and agreed in order for the data conversion to proceed.
Handling data Issues
All these and other such problems are surely avoidable or can be solved if steps are taken to resolve the issues identified.
The first and foremost thing that has to happen in this case is proper and effective investment in the area of technology, leverage business knowledge and expertise and finally effective data management to reach the end goal.
Usage of the ACORD Data Model
Many of the companies who go for system transformation or remodeling do so because
- Many who move away from legacy system need to understand the power and importance of good data. For this it is important to have a consistent and a normalized Claims, policy and billing data structure. There is a generic data structure that is proposed by ACORD
It makes more sense to effectively leverage new technology for data interchange, data setup and storage e.g buying a leading top of the market claims system rather than investing in legacy system short term fixes that offer no long term gains, are fairly costly and therefore a bad investment.
Make sure you have your key stakeholders involvement. Their go ahead, business vision and knowhow is extremely important to guarantee success in your project ventures.
Data is the heart and soul of any business. Everyone needs data that is clean, consistent, reliable and secured. Quality and Utility of data improves as and how we add volumes of proper and relevant information.
Insurance carriers like any other industry are often plagued with bad, inconsistent or non reliable data which may have happened due to various factors like application shortcomings, poor system and/or data model design, End user competence levels, user application knowhow etc.
What exactly is Bad data?
Data which is not normalized, inconsistent and thus non reliable is bad data. To give you a simple example, Same information can be represented in multitude of ways e.g. Contacts information stored in the system can be saved based on individual user's preferences.
e.g. Doctor identifier can be stored in system as "Doctor", "Dr", "Dr.", "Doc" etc. So if we need to run a report on all doctors in Systems or if we need to convert this data, we need some logic to handle care this inconsistency.
This is just one example of a potential data issue. There are multitude of other cases that are party to this bad data issue.
Why do we need good data?
Like we said earlier, an application is a bare body skeleton without data. Data is used for various purposes by insurance organizations for e.g.
- First and foremost Policy, Billing and Claims processing
- Customer service
- Internal Organizational and statistical analysis
- Risk analysis
- Predictive analytics
- Reporting to 3rd party agencies
- State and federal regulatory and compliance reporting
- Sending data across systems to interchange information e.g ISO, DMV etc
Impacts
Impacts of bad quality data are
1> Coverage Denial
Insureds may be incorrectly denied coverage, if policy number, date of loss, cancellation, reinstatement, renewal, coverage etc data is incorrectly entered or not entered when it should (No Mandatory checks in the System)
2> Incorrect Reporting
Incorrect data may cause claims to be incorrectly reported to 3rd party agencies which may lead to potential issues for the insureds and the carrier alike.
3> Claims Leakage
Claims may get incorrectly paid if policy, claims data is incorrect leading to leakage
4> Operational Efficiency
Severely impacts the organizational efficiency of Intake and operations groups e.g Claims System forces Intake to capture claims story as long winded notes rather than structured data. Consequently when Customer service or executive Management when references this claim file has to read through pages of data to get a gist of the claim or even report some status to the customer.
5> Functional Impacts
Data logic errors, poor system designs and incorrectly written business rules can cause problems for eg today's claims and policy systems use address standardizations or postal address lookups based on the address data entered in the system. If there is no uniformity in the city, street, zip entered throughout the system, then good luck with doing a proximity search when looking for a company prefered low cost Auto Bodyshop within 5 miles of your home location.
6> Third Party Impacts
There have been cases where an insured's policy was not recognized by DMV and have caused insured problems when he was stopped during a routine traffic check.
7> Statistical Impacts
Internal actuary and management level executives do a business health check and future policy rate predictions to be competitive based on the Loss ratios, premiums, outstanding payments etc. Sometimes incorrect or poorly designed data structure prevent this. This impacts the organizational data quality and process effectiveness.
8> Conversion Issues
When an old application is retired and data is moved to a new and better system, bad data is the worst possible issue that development and business Team have to tackle. In this case, each scenario has to be correctly identified and workaround have to be reached and agreed in order for the data conversion to proceed.
Handling data Issues
All these and other such problems are surely avoidable or can be solved if steps are taken to resolve the issues identified.
The first and foremost thing that has to happen in this case is proper and effective investment in the area of technology, leverage business knowledge and expertise and finally effective data management to reach the end goal.
Usage of the ACORD Data Model
Many of the companies who go for system transformation or remodeling do so because
- Many who move away from legacy system need to understand the power and importance of good data. For this it is important to have a consistent and a normalized Claims, policy and billing data structure. There is a generic data structure that is proposed by ACORD
It makes more sense to effectively leverage new technology for data interchange, data setup and storage e.g buying a leading top of the market claims system rather than investing in legacy system short term fixes that offer no long term gains, are fairly costly and therefore a bad investment.
Make sure you have your key stakeholders involvement. Their go ahead, business vision and knowhow is extremely important to guarantee success in your project ventures.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Project Management - Best Practices
What is the need for Best practices in any line or discipline of work? We can always continue to do things the way we have been doing and not look for ways to excel, simplify and innovate. But do you think this approach will take you far and guarantee long term success...i think not...For this reason we have to follow some best practices in what we do....
Best practices are a step towards project success and away from failures....There are a multitude of reasons why projects may fail. Following are the 5 key areas that are the root cause of any project failure - Customer satisfaction, Project scope, costs, Project resources and Time allocation.
There are certain finer points that differentiate a Good project Manager from...well, a Project Manager. Whether you are a first time Project Manager or someone who lives and breathes projects 24 hours a day, it is always beneficial to be a part of that distinct group.
Again, these are some ideas that i have found useful based on my past experiences. You may have your own set of principles that you can follow. But the bottom line here is, have some underlying guidelines that will succinctly identify you from the other bees in a swarm.
Plan and prepare
They say you should never stop learning. Learning, inquisitiveness, curiosity is what distinguishes a successful person from others.
Before starting out on a project learn what you can about the project. Make sure you have a good enough background on the Company, department and the Project in general. Identify the key stakeholders, their view points and ideas - Hold meetings to do this. Some organizations have a predefined project execution and management methodology they want you to follow. In some cases, you have the flexibility to decide on what methodology suits best.
All this will not only help you in managing your Project, but will also help develop more confidence.
Just the right documentation
As you progress, you will find that all projects are not created equal. There may be some projects, organizations where it makes sense and is probably the organization culture to have truck loads of documentation which ultimately no one reads or if someone needs some information, rather than sifting through the whole lot of information and wasting time, is better off asking someone who already worked on this project or perhaps pave his/her own way.
Other projects may prefer less documentation due to reasons like - Project relevance, Management methodology, project scope, timelines etc
So identify the documentation needs based on your project and follow them as the case may be.
Communication
Communication is the key for project execution. A Project Manager who is a hands on person and does not focus on Communication is surely destined for failure. You definitely have to hone, sharpen and continuously develop your communication skills. Have all channels of communication open - Phone, email, face-to-face. Communicate top down, bottom up, sideways when on a project.
Importantly focus on your "soft skills", this is the area which which has the potential to build or break your career as a Project Manager.
- Have a pre determined and defined communication protocol set and make sure you follow it.
- Have regular meetings with stakeholders and all other parties involved in the project.
- Have regular Team meetings to get as much feedback from them as possible. Understand their concerns, bottlenecks, help to remove any obstacles in their path.
- Discuss one on one with customers on a regular basis to gauge their satisfaction level. Is there anything you think we can do better? Is there something that you feel needs to be changed? Do you have confidence in our delivery approach etc?
- Have one on one meetings with your executives, understand their concerns and perpectives on project progress and delivery on a regular basis.
- Reporting more to senior management is better than reporting less.
Regular updating your project plans, risk and issues plan
A good project manager never shies away from risk and issue management. It is an ongoing activity throughout the life of the project. Keep your eyes and ears open for risks associated to your project cost, schedule, scope, resources and quality.
Work on and assign your day to day issues to your team members, track and manage the status by frequent reporting. Work with the Team to help them resolve the issues. Update your risk, communication and project plan on a regular basis.
These are just some of the obvious things that are important in managing a project. Following these will make you more confident in leading and executing your project. All this does not guarantee a project's success but will atleast give you enough confidence that you have covered your bases.
I am sure you must be having a lot more tricks up your sleeve based on your own experiences that ensure your project successes.
Best practices are a step towards project success and away from failures....There are a multitude of reasons why projects may fail. Following are the 5 key areas that are the root cause of any project failure - Customer satisfaction, Project scope, costs, Project resources and Time allocation.
There are certain finer points that differentiate a Good project Manager from...well, a Project Manager. Whether you are a first time Project Manager or someone who lives and breathes projects 24 hours a day, it is always beneficial to be a part of that distinct group.
Again, these are some ideas that i have found useful based on my past experiences. You may have your own set of principles that you can follow. But the bottom line here is, have some underlying guidelines that will succinctly identify you from the other bees in a swarm.
Plan and prepare
They say you should never stop learning. Learning, inquisitiveness, curiosity is what distinguishes a successful person from others.
Before starting out on a project learn what you can about the project. Make sure you have a good enough background on the Company, department and the Project in general. Identify the key stakeholders, their view points and ideas - Hold meetings to do this. Some organizations have a predefined project execution and management methodology they want you to follow. In some cases, you have the flexibility to decide on what methodology suits best.
All this will not only help you in managing your Project, but will also help develop more confidence.
Just the right documentation
As you progress, you will find that all projects are not created equal. There may be some projects, organizations where it makes sense and is probably the organization culture to have truck loads of documentation which ultimately no one reads or if someone needs some information, rather than sifting through the whole lot of information and wasting time, is better off asking someone who already worked on this project or perhaps pave his/her own way.
Other projects may prefer less documentation due to reasons like - Project relevance, Management methodology, project scope, timelines etc
So identify the documentation needs based on your project and follow them as the case may be.
Communication
Communication is the key for project execution. A Project Manager who is a hands on person and does not focus on Communication is surely destined for failure. You definitely have to hone, sharpen and continuously develop your communication skills. Have all channels of communication open - Phone, email, face-to-face. Communicate top down, bottom up, sideways when on a project.
Importantly focus on your "soft skills", this is the area which which has the potential to build or break your career as a Project Manager.
- Have a pre determined and defined communication protocol set and make sure you follow it.
- Have regular meetings with stakeholders and all other parties involved in the project.
- Have regular Team meetings to get as much feedback from them as possible. Understand their concerns, bottlenecks, help to remove any obstacles in their path.
- Discuss one on one with customers on a regular basis to gauge their satisfaction level. Is there anything you think we can do better? Is there something that you feel needs to be changed? Do you have confidence in our delivery approach etc?
- Have one on one meetings with your executives, understand their concerns and perpectives on project progress and delivery on a regular basis.
- Reporting more to senior management is better than reporting less.
Regular updating your project plans, risk and issues plan
A good project manager never shies away from risk and issue management. It is an ongoing activity throughout the life of the project. Keep your eyes and ears open for risks associated to your project cost, schedule, scope, resources and quality.
Work on and assign your day to day issues to your team members, track and manage the status by frequent reporting. Work with the Team to help them resolve the issues. Update your risk, communication and project plan on a regular basis.
These are just some of the obvious things that are important in managing a project. Following these will make you more confident in leading and executing your project. All this does not guarantee a project's success but will atleast give you enough confidence that you have covered your bases.
I am sure you must be having a lot more tricks up your sleeve based on your own experiences that ensure your project successes.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Organizational Change Management - Policy and Claims Systems replacement
They say about habits - When you take "H" out of a habit, "a bit" remains,
If then take "A" out, still "bit" remains,
If you then take "B" out, still "it" remains - habits are hardwired.
If you teach a person to do something a certain way, no matter what are the repercussions, he will continue to do things the old way. I have seen this happen at several of my claims system implementations where people were asked (say), not to follow a long winded process to input claims, rather use the structured application process for this which was quick and easy, but people were hesitant to do that for multiple reasons. This brings us to our topic for today - "Change" and "Change Management".
Insurance Transformation projects (or any large projects for that matter) as such are pretty complex, with lots of factors in play such as - multiple systems to integrate, legacy data dependencies and statutory requirements and restrictions, business and competitive pressures etc. For all the Policy and Claims transformation projects that i have been, there is always and will be a need for change management.
For a multi million dollar project, involving hundreds of people, impacting hundreds even thousands of people in the insurance organizations, you cannot afford to ignore change, you have to make sure this change happens effectively and smoothly throughout the organization.
What is Change Management?
Change management is simply transitioning from current state to future state and addressing the problems that come along the way. The most important aspect in change management in 'Awareness'. This one factor changes the game altogether, An aware and trained organization accepts and adapts to change more easily than one that is not. Change Management is not just user training, but it also requires changing and shaping user attitudes and perceptions towards the change overall. Change Management begins from the time you start your project planning. First you have to identify the correct stakeholders, their roles in the organizations, how they can help shape and translate the change throughout the organization, followed by training needs, pilot roll out, issue resolution etc all goes hand in hand.
There are some factors that should definitely be considered for Change Management.
Perform a Organizational readiness study
Study the overall organizational perception towards the change, are they people open to change?, are they defensive?, subdued? not concerned?, worried? etc. Have a plan to address each of these areas by either one on one sessions or having regular meetings and get togethers to sort doubts. Remember it is very important that you have the buy in from your people on the change and they are not just 'sold' on the change..
Stakeholder study
As i mentioned earlier, after identifying individual stakeholders, perform an individual stakeholder study so as to understand their viewpoints and then produce a focused training material. There should be a detailed issue resolution process spelled out for the pre deployment and post deployment stage.
Develop your own change leaders
Executive and higher Managment cannot reach each and every person in the organization to explain the need to change. The organization has to identify, develop and nurture the right change torch bearers. I say, the 'right ones' because the change champion has to be very clear on what is changing and why. How is it going to benefit the organization in the long run.
These ideas have to be translated to all levels in organization, so that all involved are engaged and are a part of the whole change movement.
If they see any concerns, they should try to address those and if they cannot, bring it out to the top management.
Highlight the organizational directive
It is not enough for you as a project manager to provide your version of the change, but you have to focus on the overall organization objective and group direction. For instance in the Insurance world, organization direction is not to use the old excel sheets method to calcuate the reserve estimates or calculating policy rates, but use the application reserve setup, rating worksheets etc. Do not use notes to capture the claims history, but use the data fields and elements to create and develop the claim file story.
Visual Training, Support and Learning
Sometimes as i mentioned above, it becomes very important to visually depict a particular paradigm shift (like showing the 200 MPH bullet train to travel from point 'A' to point 'B' rather than using the 70 MPH subway or in my world, using the highly structured and organized new policy and claims administration systems vs the old rigid legacy system with only notepad functionality).
Plan, plan and plan
Each organization has different dynamics at play in terms of different organizational structures, different executive priorities and politics. So this means you need a unique plan for your organization. A plan that is well though of, has bench marking and change tracking templates, regular communication meetings and bulletin board updates scheduled, undergoing a few levels of pilot testings and dry run implementations definitely helps.
Organizations that down play or underestimate the importance of change management, do so just because there is not enough awareness of the Change Management factors or the impending implications if it is not implemented or implemented incorrectly. It is the job of the C Level executives, Project Managers, Business executives to make sure that any implementation has minimal disruptions during the change imlementations and the change leaders are there to support the end user needs. The business is happy with the change and ultimately realise the application really does help them do their jobs better.
If then take "A" out, still "bit" remains,
If you then take "B" out, still "it" remains - habits are hardwired.
If you teach a person to do something a certain way, no matter what are the repercussions, he will continue to do things the old way. I have seen this happen at several of my claims system implementations where people were asked (say), not to follow a long winded process to input claims, rather use the structured application process for this which was quick and easy, but people were hesitant to do that for multiple reasons. This brings us to our topic for today - "Change" and "Change Management".
Insurance Transformation projects (or any large projects for that matter) as such are pretty complex, with lots of factors in play such as - multiple systems to integrate, legacy data dependencies and statutory requirements and restrictions, business and competitive pressures etc. For all the Policy and Claims transformation projects that i have been, there is always and will be a need for change management.
For a multi million dollar project, involving hundreds of people, impacting hundreds even thousands of people in the insurance organizations, you cannot afford to ignore change, you have to make sure this change happens effectively and smoothly throughout the organization.
What is Change Management?
Change management is simply transitioning from current state to future state and addressing the problems that come along the way. The most important aspect in change management in 'Awareness'. This one factor changes the game altogether, An aware and trained organization accepts and adapts to change more easily than one that is not. Change Management is not just user training, but it also requires changing and shaping user attitudes and perceptions towards the change overall. Change Management begins from the time you start your project planning. First you have to identify the correct stakeholders, their roles in the organizations, how they can help shape and translate the change throughout the organization, followed by training needs, pilot roll out, issue resolution etc all goes hand in hand.
There are some factors that should definitely be considered for Change Management.
Perform a Organizational readiness study
Study the overall organizational perception towards the change, are they people open to change?, are they defensive?, subdued? not concerned?, worried? etc. Have a plan to address each of these areas by either one on one sessions or having regular meetings and get togethers to sort doubts. Remember it is very important that you have the buy in from your people on the change and they are not just 'sold' on the change..
Stakeholder study
As i mentioned earlier, after identifying individual stakeholders, perform an individual stakeholder study so as to understand their viewpoints and then produce a focused training material. There should be a detailed issue resolution process spelled out for the pre deployment and post deployment stage.
Develop your own change leaders
Executive and higher Managment cannot reach each and every person in the organization to explain the need to change. The organization has to identify, develop and nurture the right change torch bearers. I say, the 'right ones' because the change champion has to be very clear on what is changing and why. How is it going to benefit the organization in the long run.
These ideas have to be translated to all levels in organization, so that all involved are engaged and are a part of the whole change movement.
If they see any concerns, they should try to address those and if they cannot, bring it out to the top management.
Highlight the organizational directive
It is not enough for you as a project manager to provide your version of the change, but you have to focus on the overall organization objective and group direction. For instance in the Insurance world, organization direction is not to use the old excel sheets method to calcuate the reserve estimates or calculating policy rates, but use the application reserve setup, rating worksheets etc. Do not use notes to capture the claims history, but use the data fields and elements to create and develop the claim file story.
Visual Training, Support and Learning
Sometimes as i mentioned above, it becomes very important to visually depict a particular paradigm shift (like showing the 200 MPH bullet train to travel from point 'A' to point 'B' rather than using the 70 MPH subway or in my world, using the highly structured and organized new policy and claims administration systems vs the old rigid legacy system with only notepad functionality).
Plan, plan and plan
Each organization has different dynamics at play in terms of different organizational structures, different executive priorities and politics. So this means you need a unique plan for your organization. A plan that is well though of, has bench marking and change tracking templates, regular communication meetings and bulletin board updates scheduled, undergoing a few levels of pilot testings and dry run implementations definitely helps.
Organizations that down play or underestimate the importance of change management, do so just because there is not enough awareness of the Change Management factors or the impending implications if it is not implemented or implemented incorrectly. It is the job of the C Level executives, Project Managers, Business executives to make sure that any implementation has minimal disruptions during the change imlementations and the change leaders are there to support the end user needs. The business is happy with the change and ultimately realise the application really does help them do their jobs better.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Remote Project Management
We all know that Project success is dependant upon constant communication, interactions and coordinations between all parties so that project is successfully executed and all risks and issues are identified and therefore addressed, mitigated in a timely and correct manner.
Project Manager is one of the most integral part of a project who can make all the difference between a project success and failure based on his constant Team interactions, coordinations and negotiation skills.
Project Manager taken out of the loop even for a few days, leave alone working remotely, can cause lots of issues and problems. Client communications, risks identification, coordination activities everything will get impacted.He is like an orchestra conductor who makes sure that musicians play the right music according to the plan and the orchestra is conducted harmoniously and synchronously.
I have been on projects where i had to manage my Teams remotely i.e. the project was being executed from multiple geographies - Development was from India. The Business users were in the mid west and i was on the east coast. So how is all this possible if the project manager or the Teams involved are not co-located?
First of all, why would anyone want to manage a project remotely. There are numerous advantages of doing so.
1> Cost effectiveness
- In today's world most organizations are focusing on cost budgeting, resource optimizations and operational efficiencies, while also maintaining the organizational business level needs
.
2> More flexibility
- In terms of work hours, resource schedules and timings. Resources when working remotely have more control over their time and schedules and are therefore more efficient.
3> More Effective
- By using well proven communication tools and techniques for project coordination, reporting and follow ups etc
Here are a few logical and proactive steps that will ensure your project is a success even though you are working remotely. This can be achieved by following 4 simple guidelines
1> Communication Plan
Have a clearly defined laid out weekly, monthly communication plan for stakeholder, team meetings. Have the Agenda clearly defined for these meeting so time is not wasted in going through unnecessary details.
- Communication, communication, communication...this point cannot be stressed enough. When the project manager is remote, it is all the more necessary for the Team to be in sync and on the same page with the PM on every aspect and detail of the project. This can be achieved by having regular frequency meetings with the Team.
2> Remote access tools
Make sure you make use of remote sharing tools, voice and video conferencing facilities where applicable and possible.
- There are a lot of tools available in the market today that can help you manage a project remotely and successfully. Tools like Video conferencing, Remote desktop sharing etc helps you have face to face conversations, share desktop sessions with Teams and have meaningful and productive interactions.
3> Meeting Frequency
Increase the frequency of communication with your team. Plan more get togethers and Team outings. Increase frequency of your customer calls
- Being remote makes it all the more important to maintain and develop a healthy team rapport. For this, i will suggest, have frequent site visits to meet the teams, have lunches, outings together with the Team. The Team should not look at the project manager as a daily 9 PM - Channel 7 News broadcaster, but a project facilitator, Team Leader and motivator.
4> Management Reporting
Increase the frequency of your executive management reporting
- Make no mistake here, out of sight is not out of mind, especially for the project sponsors and the C Level executives who are paying for the project. Make sure you have regular detailed and elaborate reporting. Let them know, build their confidence that even though you are remote you are aware and on top of things and issues.
All these steps will ensure not only project success but will also fetch you the brownie points of being an effective and proactive leader who can confidently get the job done remotely or not.
Project Manager is one of the most integral part of a project who can make all the difference between a project success and failure based on his constant Team interactions, coordinations and negotiation skills.
Project Manager taken out of the loop even for a few days, leave alone working remotely, can cause lots of issues and problems. Client communications, risks identification, coordination activities everything will get impacted.He is like an orchestra conductor who makes sure that musicians play the right music according to the plan and the orchestra is conducted harmoniously and synchronously.
I have been on projects where i had to manage my Teams remotely i.e. the project was being executed from multiple geographies - Development was from India. The Business users were in the mid west and i was on the east coast. So how is all this possible if the project manager or the Teams involved are not co-located?
First of all, why would anyone want to manage a project remotely. There are numerous advantages of doing so.
1> Cost effectiveness
- In today's world most organizations are focusing on cost budgeting, resource optimizations and operational efficiencies, while also maintaining the organizational business level needs
.
2> More flexibility
- In terms of work hours, resource schedules and timings. Resources when working remotely have more control over their time and schedules and are therefore more efficient.
3> More Effective
- By using well proven communication tools and techniques for project coordination, reporting and follow ups etc
Here are a few logical and proactive steps that will ensure your project is a success even though you are working remotely. This can be achieved by following 4 simple guidelines
1> Communication Plan
Have a clearly defined laid out weekly, monthly communication plan for stakeholder, team meetings. Have the Agenda clearly defined for these meeting so time is not wasted in going through unnecessary details.
- Communication, communication, communication...this point cannot be stressed enough. When the project manager is remote, it is all the more necessary for the Team to be in sync and on the same page with the PM on every aspect and detail of the project. This can be achieved by having regular frequency meetings with the Team.
2> Remote access tools
Make sure you make use of remote sharing tools, voice and video conferencing facilities where applicable and possible.
- There are a lot of tools available in the market today that can help you manage a project remotely and successfully. Tools like Video conferencing, Remote desktop sharing etc helps you have face to face conversations, share desktop sessions with Teams and have meaningful and productive interactions.
3> Meeting Frequency
Increase the frequency of communication with your team. Plan more get togethers and Team outings. Increase frequency of your customer calls
- Being remote makes it all the more important to maintain and develop a healthy team rapport. For this, i will suggest, have frequent site visits to meet the teams, have lunches, outings together with the Team. The Team should not look at the project manager as a daily 9 PM - Channel 7 News broadcaster, but a project facilitator, Team Leader and motivator.
4> Management Reporting
Increase the frequency of your executive management reporting
- Make no mistake here, out of sight is not out of mind, especially for the project sponsors and the C Level executives who are paying for the project. Make sure you have regular detailed and elaborate reporting. Let them know, build their confidence that even though you are remote you are aware and on top of things and issues.
All these steps will ensure not only project success but will also fetch you the brownie points of being an effective and proactive leader who can confidently get the job done remotely or not.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Why are we getting Project Management certifications
First of all, let me say that i am a strong supporter of Project Management certification.
In my past 16-17 years of project experience, i have seen numerous people go for some or the other form of project management certification (PMP or Prince2 etc) for all the wrong reasons.
Lots of people are looking for the quick and dirty way just to get certified.
There are some people i have come across, who did not want as much to invest in buying the PMBOK (Project Management guide used for PMI's PMP certification)
Then there are those who will only attend a 2 day seminar or a crash course with the sole objective of getting certified and not wanting to actually study and understand what is Project Management all about. (Hopefully the concepts and ideas they gather in the 2 day seminars stay with them throughout their career and they apply the concepts to the projects that they execute).
There are lots of organizations that enforce and encourage certification from their Teams. This is a good practice as this will mould you as a good PM, show you the industry best practices and also help build the organization culture which will definitely lead to better quality and more successful projects (If all Managers are certified and everone follows the same Project Management methodology and practice).
All this makes me think, why do people go for the certification....
Advantages of getting certified
1> Gives you a 360 degree view of Project Management as a practice and how it is used in the overall industry (and other industries), atleast if you are a new comer and do not have enough industry exposure or so far, are only exposed to the Project Management practice silo in your department.
2> Introduces the industry terminologies of Project Management.
3> Provides access to various Templates, tools and techniques, processes that are used in Industry for project execution and management.
4> Introduces and exposes you to a wide spectum of tasks/activities that may be executed in different industry or maybe large budget projects to which you have had no exposures so far.
5> Last but not the least, teaches you that every project is unique. Not matter what your experience and background or skillsets you posess you are bound to come up with scenarios that are unique to your environment and to tackle those you need to be equipped with a PMP toolkit.
Based on points above, Certification definitely enhances and helps your thought process when you are on a project, guides you to the various process areas that you should be thinking all throughout that will help move your project to success, teaches you about risk management, procumement managment and communication management type of activities which you may have not enough exposure.
Wrong reasons to get a Project Management certification
1> Pay increase
- If the individual does not have the inclination to Project Management as a practice, does not value the importance then the certification may lead to some monetary gain in the short term, but will not help you in the long run if the principles learned are not practiced diligently.
2> Career move - Industry recognized certification - so helps me get a better job.
- Some people use PM certification as a success ladder or a career growth opportunity, seeing the certification on my resume, the next recruiter will offer me a better job and better pay package. There is nothing untoward with this in this thought, only make sure you use the knowledge that you have gained in your future job profile just as you have used it on your resume.
3> Everyone else is doing it
- There are definitely some, who go for the certification only because my next door milkman got it....In this case, don't waste your time in getting certified, if you feel it is not a right choice for you.
For those who are seriously interested, i will suggest find a mentor who can guide you about the certification. The internet is a vast resource, gain as much information as you can about the certification, delve on the pros and cons and then take an informed decision. This will benefit not only you, but also the organization where you work.
All in all, i will say, experience and credentials go hand in hand. Having the right cred is important, but nothing like backing it up with your years of experience. For instance, no certification is going to teach you how to excel in Problem solving, People Management, Communications, negotiations, Leadership skills etc. They will provide you with the right tools which you have to nurture and practice and excel in your right......Wish you all new PM certification aspirants all the best
In my past 16-17 years of project experience, i have seen numerous people go for some or the other form of project management certification (PMP or Prince2 etc) for all the wrong reasons.
Lots of people are looking for the quick and dirty way just to get certified.
There are some people i have come across, who did not want as much to invest in buying the PMBOK (Project Management guide used for PMI's PMP certification)
Then there are those who will only attend a 2 day seminar or a crash course with the sole objective of getting certified and not wanting to actually study and understand what is Project Management all about. (Hopefully the concepts and ideas they gather in the 2 day seminars stay with them throughout their career and they apply the concepts to the projects that they execute).
There are lots of organizations that enforce and encourage certification from their Teams. This is a good practice as this will mould you as a good PM, show you the industry best practices and also help build the organization culture which will definitely lead to better quality and more successful projects (If all Managers are certified and everone follows the same Project Management methodology and practice).
All this makes me think, why do people go for the certification....
Advantages of getting certified
1> Gives you a 360 degree view of Project Management as a practice and how it is used in the overall industry (and other industries), atleast if you are a new comer and do not have enough industry exposure or so far, are only exposed to the Project Management practice silo in your department.
2> Introduces the industry terminologies of Project Management.
3> Provides access to various Templates, tools and techniques, processes that are used in Industry for project execution and management.
4> Introduces and exposes you to a wide spectum of tasks/activities that may be executed in different industry or maybe large budget projects to which you have had no exposures so far.
5> Last but not the least, teaches you that every project is unique. Not matter what your experience and background or skillsets you posess you are bound to come up with scenarios that are unique to your environment and to tackle those you need to be equipped with a PMP toolkit.
Based on points above, Certification definitely enhances and helps your thought process when you are on a project, guides you to the various process areas that you should be thinking all throughout that will help move your project to success, teaches you about risk management, procumement managment and communication management type of activities which you may have not enough exposure.
Wrong reasons to get a Project Management certification
1> Pay increase
- If the individual does not have the inclination to Project Management as a practice, does not value the importance then the certification may lead to some monetary gain in the short term, but will not help you in the long run if the principles learned are not practiced diligently.
2> Career move - Industry recognized certification - so helps me get a better job.
- Some people use PM certification as a success ladder or a career growth opportunity, seeing the certification on my resume, the next recruiter will offer me a better job and better pay package. There is nothing untoward with this in this thought, only make sure you use the knowledge that you have gained in your future job profile just as you have used it on your resume.
3> Everyone else is doing it
- There are definitely some, who go for the certification only because my next door milkman got it....In this case, don't waste your time in getting certified, if you feel it is not a right choice for you.
For those who are seriously interested, i will suggest find a mentor who can guide you about the certification. The internet is a vast resource, gain as much information as you can about the certification, delve on the pros and cons and then take an informed decision. This will benefit not only you, but also the organization where you work.
All in all, i will say, experience and credentials go hand in hand. Having the right cred is important, but nothing like backing it up with your years of experience. For instance, no certification is going to teach you how to excel in Problem solving, People Management, Communications, negotiations, Leadership skills etc. They will provide you with the right tools which you have to nurture and practice and excel in your right......Wish you all new PM certification aspirants all the best
Monday, June 6, 2011
Business Transformation
In Today's economy lots of Organizations, especially in the financial sector have an increased focus on their internal IT spend and leveraging their business processes and lesser focus on improving the external business aspect.
This has lead to a lot of Enterprise level business transformation projects. Essentially these initiatives are more or less related to identifying duplicate and/or redundant business processes, eliminating them or making use of latest technology tools to achieve organizational efficiencies.
In general, most Financial organizations (Insurance, banking etc) are a little slow to adapting such enterprise wide changes due to strict regulatory and compliance policies and their sheer organizational size, resource count that would be required to execute the changes and the overall Organization culture.
They get into transformation projects due to sheer Market competition pressures, regulatory requirements, directional change in executive management or changes in labor market etc.
What is Business Transformation?
The primary purpose or objective of any business is to provide and add 'value' to their customers in return of the price paid. 'Value' is measured in terms of financial gains or commodity, service provided etc. In order to provide more or better 'value', organizations strive to improve, build upon or modify their processes etc so as to attain their objectives. Especially in the current economy, many business and Industry vertical C-Level executives have shifted their attention to business transformation activities.
One of the best Transformation examples, i have seen in today's marketplace is the innovation giant - Apple. The way the company has transformed itself from the early MAC days into today's world leaders leading the tablet revolution.
Transformation Enablers:
Business Transformation is more related to aligning the Process, people, culture and Technology towards the company goals and objectives. These are the most important business enablers.
for e.g. In the Claims department of an insurance organization, there is a predefined workflow process by which the claims intake occurs. The organization takes in claims information by Fax, email, phone, mail etc and then it is directed to the system of record either as a file upload, manual load etc followed by rendering this information to the Customer service representatives online, so they can interact with customer efficiently, all this plays a very important role in the decision of whether a transformation in the process workflow is required or not.
All this determines the total amount of time taken to input, process the information right from intake to providing information to customers via the customer service portal.
Business transformation is a modern day technique sought by organizations to think about their business processes and outcomes so they can improve on their customer relations, customer service, improve upon operating efficiencies and essentially cut down on costs. The reason why organizations need a business transformation or an overhaul can be manifold.
For Instance, for large organizations, Processes are preset to meet business needs, this gets complemented by organizational culture, external factors like statutory policies, rules set by governing bodies also come into play and before the organization knows it each business unit, department has its own set of processes which are tuned and tweaked over time to run the business. No one has looked at the organization or enterprise level viewpoint and this ultimately leads to lots of inefficiencies mainly due to overall inefficient workflow processes, slower customer outcome.
To add to this, to stay competitive in today's marketplace and to better meet their customer needs, meet the regulatory requirements organizations have to improve on their efficiencies.
A Business Transformation project would essentially involve the following steps,
Objectives and Roadmap
Develop a high level roadmap right from understanding the business needs and objectives at the executive level. This helps define the overall financial objective, the organizational change management expectations from this initiative. Involvement of Top level executives is a very important factor for the success for any Transformation initiative.
The key transformation agents for any initiative are the Top CEOs, CIOs, Stakeholder like Business SMEs, Project Sponsors etc.
Feasibility
High level Feasibility study and planning
- This involves a feasibility study wrt resources, Technology, budget etc
Strategy Definition
Understand current state and future state of the process
- Which may lead to Process realignment or altogether process changes
Layout the goals as quantifiable and tangible statements as to what this initiative is suppsed to achieve. e.g.
- Financial goals - e.g. Increase the Net revenues at the end of next 2 years by 20%
- Customer service - e.g. Reduce Customer service operational time per customer from 15 mins to 7 mins with the same or better quality of service
- Change Management - e.g. Layout a 3 month plan to migrate the changes throughout the organization to all departments involved.
- Align organization metrics and KPIs with the Roadmap
Execution and Control
- The esential parts in any project are its execution and control strategies which ensure regular monitoring and data analysis.
This has lead to a lot of Enterprise level business transformation projects. Essentially these initiatives are more or less related to identifying duplicate and/or redundant business processes, eliminating them or making use of latest technology tools to achieve organizational efficiencies.
In general, most Financial organizations (Insurance, banking etc) are a little slow to adapting such enterprise wide changes due to strict regulatory and compliance policies and their sheer organizational size, resource count that would be required to execute the changes and the overall Organization culture.
They get into transformation projects due to sheer Market competition pressures, regulatory requirements, directional change in executive management or changes in labor market etc.
What is Business Transformation?
The primary purpose or objective of any business is to provide and add 'value' to their customers in return of the price paid. 'Value' is measured in terms of financial gains or commodity, service provided etc. In order to provide more or better 'value', organizations strive to improve, build upon or modify their processes etc so as to attain their objectives. Especially in the current economy, many business and Industry vertical C-Level executives have shifted their attention to business transformation activities.
One of the best Transformation examples, i have seen in today's marketplace is the innovation giant - Apple. The way the company has transformed itself from the early MAC days into today's world leaders leading the tablet revolution.
Transformation Enablers:
Business Transformation is more related to aligning the Process, people, culture and Technology towards the company goals and objectives. These are the most important business enablers.
for e.g. In the Claims department of an insurance organization, there is a predefined workflow process by which the claims intake occurs. The organization takes in claims information by Fax, email, phone, mail etc and then it is directed to the system of record either as a file upload, manual load etc followed by rendering this information to the Customer service representatives online, so they can interact with customer efficiently, all this plays a very important role in the decision of whether a transformation in the process workflow is required or not.
All this determines the total amount of time taken to input, process the information right from intake to providing information to customers via the customer service portal.
Business transformation is a modern day technique sought by organizations to think about their business processes and outcomes so they can improve on their customer relations, customer service, improve upon operating efficiencies and essentially cut down on costs. The reason why organizations need a business transformation or an overhaul can be manifold.
For Instance, for large organizations, Processes are preset to meet business needs, this gets complemented by organizational culture, external factors like statutory policies, rules set by governing bodies also come into play and before the organization knows it each business unit, department has its own set of processes which are tuned and tweaked over time to run the business. No one has looked at the organization or enterprise level viewpoint and this ultimately leads to lots of inefficiencies mainly due to overall inefficient workflow processes, slower customer outcome.
To add to this, to stay competitive in today's marketplace and to better meet their customer needs, meet the regulatory requirements organizations have to improve on their efficiencies.
A Business Transformation project would essentially involve the following steps,
Objectives and Roadmap
Develop a high level roadmap right from understanding the business needs and objectives at the executive level. This helps define the overall financial objective, the organizational change management expectations from this initiative. Involvement of Top level executives is a very important factor for the success for any Transformation initiative.
The key transformation agents for any initiative are the Top CEOs, CIOs, Stakeholder like Business SMEs, Project Sponsors etc.
Feasibility
High level Feasibility study and planning
- This involves a feasibility study wrt resources, Technology, budget etc
Strategy Definition
Understand current state and future state of the process
- Which may lead to Process realignment or altogether process changes
Layout the goals as quantifiable and tangible statements as to what this initiative is suppsed to achieve. e.g.
- Financial goals - e.g. Increase the Net revenues at the end of next 2 years by 20%
- Customer service - e.g. Reduce Customer service operational time per customer from 15 mins to 7 mins with the same or better quality of service
- Change Management - e.g. Layout a 3 month plan to migrate the changes throughout the organization to all departments involved.
- Align organization metrics and KPIs with the Roadmap
Execution and Control
- The esential parts in any project are its execution and control strategies which ensure regular monitoring and data analysis.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Project Manager as a Business Analyst
Project Manager and Business Analyst roles both require unique skillsets and are definitely unique specializations. The well balanced combination of the two is a key contributor towards any project success.
Sometimes there is a need for the same person to assume both the roles. When Project Managers assume the role of a Business Analyst (One of the reasons for this may be a small budget project), there are a lot of factors that come into play due to this.
In all these years working in the Insurance IT Industry, i have seen numerous Projects suffer when the role to person matching is not perfect.
Reasons:
As mentioned above some projects may or may not have the luxury of a separate role for a Business Analyst. This may be due to varying reasons based on,
1> Overall Project scope
2> Project Budget allocated
3> Available resource knowledge base
4> Most importantly, no clear understanding of the difference between these 2 roles by the stakeholders and sponsors
When the Project Manager assumes the role of a Business Analyst, there are some things he has to keep in mind to ensure success in the role. This BA role essentially fits quite snugly in the Project Manager's domain due to the fact that both the roles require managing client expectations and having clear and concise client interactions. One role is focused towards successfully gathering project business requirements (Business Analyst) and the other geared towards entire project success (Project Manager).
Common factors:
The skillsets that are common for both Project Management and Business analysis are,
1> First and foremost is Communication skills
2> Understanding the entire the project lifecycle
3> Strong Stakeholder Management skills
Specific skills:
Skillsets that are specific to the Business Analyst role are,
1> Strong business process background
2> Understanding of Business analysis as a work function wrt gathering, analyzing and documenting requirements
3> Understanding people management wrt Business Analysis
Certain things to be kept in mind by the project manager when assuming the role of a Business analyst.
Success Factors:
1> Being completely aware of the business processes
For the Project Manager to be successful as a Business Analyst, he has to understand the business overall, the business process flow, the business value chain. Without the knowledge of these process areas, the Project Manager will not be able to meet the expectations for the BA role.
You usually acquire this knowledge by working for a number of years in the Industry.
For example: In my case, being in the Insurance IT domain, interacting with Business people for over 12 years now, gives exposure to all areas of Insurance business processes like Policy, Billing and Claims etc.
Along with this, having a Project Management exposure is a definite plus, as it gives you the overall 360 degree view of the entire project gamut and thus helps streamline your thinking process.
2> Complete awareness of the Stakeholders expectations from the project.
Since both project Manager and BA role both deal with stakeholders, there is a big difference between the 2 roles. One role is more concerned with the overall Project success by meeting stakeholder expectations (PM role), whereas the other role (BA) is more concerned with the business process expectations that must be fulfilled on completion of the project.
You have to be constantly interacting with the Stakeholders so that you understand their expectations, pain points etc
3> Ensure the Business SMEs and End Users are aligned and aware of the project goals and objectives, the high level executive direction outlined for the project.
As mentioned above, since business stakeholders, Subject Matter Experts, End Users may be aware of a specific area of project objective (i.e. Project will help in enhancing and executing XYZ business process in a shorter time frame and efficient manner), but it helps them to be aware of overall project objectives (e.g. Project will help achieve XYZ functionality more efficiently based on the requirements gathered in next 2 weeks and developed over the next 6 weeks duration for a certain cost and resource outlined)
4> Project Business documentation expectations
Project Manager may be aware of the overall Business Analyst Role expectations from the delivery perspective, he has to be able to create Functional requirements documents, Gap documents, Use cases, UI specifications etc documentation as the case may be.
5> Help Quality and Testing Team in their analysis and Q&A
Business Analyst along with the business stakeholders also has to be cognizant of the other members playing specific roles attributing to project success e.g. Quality Analysis Team, Process Management Team, Testing and infrastructure Teams.
Also last but not the least, Business analysts have to be somewhat of a Techo functional experts meaning along with understanding the Business aspects of the project, they also have to understand the technical dependencies, implications, risks posed by certain requirements and thereby come up with possible solutions alternatives. Business analysts are essentially bridges between the End business users and development Teams. They understand and gather the business requirements and translate and transform them to Specifications, use cases and functional requirement documentations which will make it easy for the technical developers to follow and design and code accordingly. These documentation will then also be used by the Testing and Quality Team so they can base their Test Cases and Test scenarios off them.
So in essence, Project Manager is more concerned or related to the big picture and the totality to complete the project, while a Business Analyst is more closer to the requirement understanding, gathering and documenting tasks. Both the roles have certain commonalities and some differences, but it certainly helps in the project success, if the 2 roles have a good background of the other role and its expectations.
If the same person fill in for both the roles, the necessary and required skillset to guarantee the project success would be balanced combination of Project Management, Business knowledge, Technical background of the development platform used etc.
Sometimes there is a need for the same person to assume both the roles. When Project Managers assume the role of a Business Analyst (One of the reasons for this may be a small budget project), there are a lot of factors that come into play due to this.
In all these years working in the Insurance IT Industry, i have seen numerous Projects suffer when the role to person matching is not perfect.
Reasons:
As mentioned above some projects may or may not have the luxury of a separate role for a Business Analyst. This may be due to varying reasons based on,
1> Overall Project scope
2> Project Budget allocated
3> Available resource knowledge base
4> Most importantly, no clear understanding of the difference between these 2 roles by the stakeholders and sponsors
When the Project Manager assumes the role of a Business Analyst, there are some things he has to keep in mind to ensure success in the role. This BA role essentially fits quite snugly in the Project Manager's domain due to the fact that both the roles require managing client expectations and having clear and concise client interactions. One role is focused towards successfully gathering project business requirements (Business Analyst) and the other geared towards entire project success (Project Manager).
Common factors:
The skillsets that are common for both Project Management and Business analysis are,
1> First and foremost is Communication skills
2> Understanding the entire the project lifecycle
3> Strong Stakeholder Management skills
Specific skills:
Skillsets that are specific to the Business Analyst role are,
1> Strong business process background
2> Understanding of Business analysis as a work function wrt gathering, analyzing and documenting requirements
3> Understanding people management wrt Business Analysis
Certain things to be kept in mind by the project manager when assuming the role of a Business analyst.
Success Factors:
1> Being completely aware of the business processes
For the Project Manager to be successful as a Business Analyst, he has to understand the business overall, the business process flow, the business value chain. Without the knowledge of these process areas, the Project Manager will not be able to meet the expectations for the BA role.
You usually acquire this knowledge by working for a number of years in the Industry.
For example: In my case, being in the Insurance IT domain, interacting with Business people for over 12 years now, gives exposure to all areas of Insurance business processes like Policy, Billing and Claims etc.
Along with this, having a Project Management exposure is a definite plus, as it gives you the overall 360 degree view of the entire project gamut and thus helps streamline your thinking process.
2> Complete awareness of the Stakeholders expectations from the project.
Since both project Manager and BA role both deal with stakeholders, there is a big difference between the 2 roles. One role is more concerned with the overall Project success by meeting stakeholder expectations (PM role), whereas the other role (BA) is more concerned with the business process expectations that must be fulfilled on completion of the project.
You have to be constantly interacting with the Stakeholders so that you understand their expectations, pain points etc
3> Ensure the Business SMEs and End Users are aligned and aware of the project goals and objectives, the high level executive direction outlined for the project.
As mentioned above, since business stakeholders, Subject Matter Experts, End Users may be aware of a specific area of project objective (i.e. Project will help in enhancing and executing XYZ business process in a shorter time frame and efficient manner), but it helps them to be aware of overall project objectives (e.g. Project will help achieve XYZ functionality more efficiently based on the requirements gathered in next 2 weeks and developed over the next 6 weeks duration for a certain cost and resource outlined)
4> Project Business documentation expectations
Project Manager may be aware of the overall Business Analyst Role expectations from the delivery perspective, he has to be able to create Functional requirements documents, Gap documents, Use cases, UI specifications etc documentation as the case may be.
5> Help Quality and Testing Team in their analysis and Q&A
Business Analyst along with the business stakeholders also has to be cognizant of the other members playing specific roles attributing to project success e.g. Quality Analysis Team, Process Management Team, Testing and infrastructure Teams.
Also last but not the least, Business analysts have to be somewhat of a Techo functional experts meaning along with understanding the Business aspects of the project, they also have to understand the technical dependencies, implications, risks posed by certain requirements and thereby come up with possible solutions alternatives. Business analysts are essentially bridges between the End business users and development Teams. They understand and gather the business requirements and translate and transform them to Specifications, use cases and functional requirement documentations which will make it easy for the technical developers to follow and design and code accordingly. These documentation will then also be used by the Testing and Quality Team so they can base their Test Cases and Test scenarios off them.
So in essence, Project Manager is more concerned or related to the big picture and the totality to complete the project, while a Business Analyst is more closer to the requirement understanding, gathering and documenting tasks. Both the roles have certain commonalities and some differences, but it certainly helps in the project success, if the 2 roles have a good background of the other role and its expectations.
If the same person fill in for both the roles, the necessary and required skillset to guarantee the project success would be balanced combination of Project Management, Business knowledge, Technical background of the development platform used etc.
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