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Here comes another question – how can we better learn from the experience we get? Eric Ries, already mentioned above, uses an efficient way to tackle problems. I am talking about root-cause analysis or “five whys.” Imagine that the problem you’ve faced has the same structure as a Russian doll. The “root cause” of it is hidden inside, and you have to remove several layers to get to it. Just as you take one doll out of another, you ask a question “Why did this happen?” five times. Each response takes you one layer deeper to the problem cause. The technique is quite easy, but when practiced regularly, it gives you a lot of great insights about what needs adjustment in your company. One of such insights is that there is always a process/human issue behind every technical one. For example, imagine that you increase the investment in advertising, but the return from it is not proportional. Why did that happen? It seems that the quality of leads dropped. Why did that happen? Because we didn’t have a quick feedback loop between the money put into advertising and the output from advertising that we get. Why didn’t we have that feedback loop? Because we didn’t know how to properly score leads. Why didn’t we properly score leads? Because no one did statistical data analysis. Why didn’t we mine the data? Because the process didn’t allocate time for someone to periodically mine the data. The next step of implementing root-cause analysis is to make a proportional investment to correct each level of the problem. It helps you to avoid both ignoring and over-reacting to a minor problem. In the case above, the decisions could be to allocate some time for data mining, to score the leads, to feed that data back to analytics, and to adjust advertising campaigns based on that. You address the problem on all levels with an incremental improvement. Every time you face a problem, you make an effort to improve the company at multiple levels with small steps. If the problem is more complex than you thought, it will keep occurring, and every time it reoccurs, you will make an incremental improvement, until it is finally solved. This way, you invest your time and money only into the part of your business that needs it the most. “Lean startups” are lean. You can see that this method combines learning and doing, continuously changing your company as you learn. This fits perfectly in the frame of continuous learning. To close, I also want to mention the importance of your own unique vision for the product. I don’t mean to suggest that the shortest way to success is to simply follow every customer’s request. Those requests will often pull the company in different directions, and you don’t want to be doing Brownian motion. This is where the art mixes with the science and produces brilliant results. What about your professional experience? How do you normally deal with failures in your business?
Today, no company can be immune to the current economic situation. So it is the time for many businesses to analyze their business model and risk profile. Economics experts join their voices stating that the best thing you can do to withstand the crisis is to improve your customer service and be attentive to customer needs. Terry Leahy, the head of TESCO, a British-based international grocery and general merchandising retail chain, noted in one of his recent interviews that staying close to customers is the key to surviving the current, difficult economic conditions. “We learned some lessons, and the message is simple – stay with your customers. Listen to your customers.” For project managers, it’s important that you treat your customers as stakeholders. John Mackey (CEO of Whole Foods) and Kip Tindell (CEO of The Container Store), who drove their companies with a constant growth over good and bad times, explain their take on stakeholders in this very interesting interview. It’s a must-read for executives in the current economic conditions. Lots of companies now will have a closer look at the opportunities offered by Web 2.0 tools. Online communities, blogs and social networks are great sources of information about your customers, their opinions and their needs. Corporate blogging has become a popular trend. Books are written about it. Blogs have become effective in allowing customers to speak to each other. There are hundreds of superb examples on the Web. Take the Starbucks Gossip blog, for example. It’s a powerful communication channel for the largest coffeehouse company in the world. Each post on Starbucks Gossip gets up to 200 comments. This is an endless source of hands-on information and valuable ideas from Starbucks lovers. Blogging is just one example. It’s important to be open to your customers, so in this respect, all means of communication are good -- blogs, forums, e-mail, phone, you name it. This will help you to lend an attentive ear to your customers’ voices and perceive their unmet needs. Companies that are not afraid to be open to their customers reap the rewards of customers’ trust. Yet another advantage is that they can implement ideas coming from their customers’ community to make the product or service better. The closest example to me is our project management software. We prioritize the development of Wrike’s new features, based on our users’ feedback and requests. Every voice counts, as we believe that a happy customer makes our business thrive. We can say that our customers help us improve the product, giving us tips on what direction of development to choose next. So listening to your customers is important for being able to survive in a harsh economic situation. But what’s even more important is being able to change your business based on your customer feedback and to do it quickly. Paying attention to your customers’ needs is the first step. The next one is being agile and adaptive to the changing requirements. Here’s where Project Management 2.0 practices and supporting tools can be of great help. Project Management 2.0, which is based on the vigor of collective intelligence and power of emergent structures, can help you incorporate customer feedback into your tactical plans much faster. First, a project blog, wiki or a project collaboration solution makes your project work more transparent for your clients. Having this insight into how you deliver the product or service your customers can introduce their ideas and thoughts on how it can be improved. Let’s say a customer leaves a comment on your blog or drops you an e-mail with a really brilliant idea that no one from your team had before. Still, it’s just an idea. Only you and people from you team know how to apply it to the project. This idea then can be input into your collaboration system, so that each member of your project team can develop this idea into something bigger and offer a way to incorporate this idea into your project. The project manager can then find the best way to fit the idea into the project development, so that it benefits all the stakeholders. The project then will be a result of the collective work of many minds. Emergent structures employed in the Project Management 2.0 applications will be the engine that makes this work possible. The whole process of incorporating customers’ feedback into the project development becomes much faster and easier. The company becomes truly agile and responsive. This means it will be more resistant to economic downturns. I would appreciate it if you could share your experience of fitting your clients’ feedback and requests into your project work. Have you used Web 2.0 and Project Management 2.0 tools for that? Please leave a comment below.
The post got over 220 comments and still counting! Some of you also pointed me to a few excellent resources that I didn’t mention in the general list. So in this post, I’d like to add another 11 blogs for project management innovators to my initial collection. 1. Instigator Blog is your destination if you are an entrepreneur or a software start-up CEO. The author, Ben Yoskovitz, writes on a variety of topics, but I especially liked his pieces on social media, start-up management and customer service. 2. pm411.org, written by Ron Holohan, is a great resource for the latest news on project management tools, tips, methodologies, etc. I’ve already mentioned in my previous post that what I personally enjoy about this site is how the author looks at the practical side of things and pays attention how the material he blogs about can be applied to real-life projects, including his own. 3. Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang is focused on defining and delivering user and community needs, business goals and technologies that help you develop successful Web programs. So this blog would be especially interesting for you if you are a Web-based software entrepreneur or work for a Web-based software start-up. You’ll hear about all kinds of useful things, like finding social CRM vendors, mobile blogging technologies and lots more. 4. I’m Not Actually a Geek is a blog written by Hutch Carpenter, a well-known evangelist of innovation and Enterprise 2.0. This is a not-to-be-missed resource for any innovator, as here you’ll find information on topics like how to accelerate innovation in your company or how to organize innovation management. There’s also plenty of interesting observations on the latest Enterprise 2.0 trends and technology. 5. How to Manage a Camel is about project management and recruitment. The blog features guest posts on a variety of project management topics, such as methodologies, soft skills, communication, etc. In addition, there are valuable pieces on how to build a successful project team and scale up your personal career in project management. 6. CottagePM.com is an unusual blog, as it mostly focuses on small-project environments. The author, Max Walker, MBA, PMP, is one of those project management professionals who have tried applying all the classic methodologies and techniques to his rather small projects, and it didn’t work. Max then paved his way to successful project completion by relying more on common thought processes. If this story sounds familiar, or if you also have to deal with smaller projects, rather than industrial megaprojects, than this blog is a must-read for you. By the way, if this is your case, I also recommend that you to take a look at my post “The Long Tail of Project Management.” 7. Torsten Koerting is a project management enthusiast who writes on all the things that interest him in life and how these things can be applied to project work. You’ll find Torsten’s fresh, creative thinking very helpful in your project management job. 8. ClearPM is your resource for in-depth knowledge for managing large IT and industrial projects, as well as good project management advice for dealing with less complex, smaller projects. The author, Brian Mossing, a seasoned project management professional with over 25 years of experience, tries to make project management clear and understandable for you. 9. Scope Crêpe is a blog by Rich Maltzman, PMP, and the founder of the "Fiddler on the Project." It represents the author’s unique point of view on different aspects of project management, as well as some project management trends. 10. Project — This rather simple name represents an interesting blog that can be your destination for how-to posts on the PMP certification exam, software project management, methodologies, as well as project management software reviews, all written to follow the four basic principles of the author: “be helpful,” “be interesting,” “be critical” and “be amusing.” 11. Reforming Project Management is your destination if you are unsatisfied with their present project management practices. If you feel that there’s a need for change, this blog will help you start your innovation journey. The resource is targeted at all project managers and people interested in this sphere, but it would be especially useful for design and construction professionals. It’s also a great place to get familiar with Lean Project Management. The list of the TOP 10 Blogs for Project Management Innovators is coming up! Stay tuned and don’t stop voting!
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