VoIP Surges Into The Mainstream

November 29, 2005

InformationWeek > VoIP Surges Into The Mainstream > VoIP Surges Into The Mainstream > January 10, 2005

Voice Over Internet Protocol can have significant advantages for businesses of all sizes. http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=18200936

The Most Successful Remodeling Business

The most successful remodeling business - QR: Editorial - Remodeling, Design, Planning, Contractors, Business

You have to imagine what the perfect company will look like in order to create it.

Help Clients Create a Positive Cash Flow

Monthly Checklist Series

A simple checklist of things that seem like common sense but often get lost when it comes to dealing with cash flow. Cash is the most important aspect of running a business on a daily basis. You should review your cash flow management processes regularly and communicate them with all employees who have an impact from the accounts receivable person to the project manager doing billings and processing changes to the field foreman and crew who are responsible for doing the punch lists, as-builts and other details that can hold up payment.

Charts Tell the Real Story

Charts Tell the Real Story

Charts can be an excellent way to demonstrate trends on spending, overhead, gross profit analysis, cash flow, etc.

Outsourcing To Romania

InformationWeek > Offshore Outsourcing > Move Over, India > November 14, 2005

Article outlines the lower cost of IT Outsourcing to Romania - personally I've had fantastic results using a Romanian company for some marketing and design work. They were very professional and about 25% the cost of local companies.

The funny thing was that we got almost 30 proposals for the work and out of the 5 companies we shortlisted based solely on quality of work three of them were based on Romania.

Outsourcing is definately something to be concerned about for American jobs but the solution is not short-term political actions. We need to learn how to utilize these worldwide resources efficiently if we want to succeed.

The short-term political actions are very easy to sell to those who are being put out of a job and make for fantastic stories when put together by someone like Michael Moore but look at the decline of unions as an example.

They spend all their member's money on short-term, mostly political actions which only make for a slow death rather than INVESTING this money back into their members, focusing on better training, increasing productivity and generally partnering with businesses to figure the best solutions out. This has been going on in construction for years - don't let the same thing happen in IT.

VoIP Learning Curve

InformationWeek > Voice-Over-IP > VoIP Gotchas > November 14, 2005

Excellent article detailing both the upside and downside of VoIP systems. Personally I've seen fantastic business results from the improved communication and lower costs of the VoIP systems but implementation is challenging and it doesn't always make financial sense.

Learn more about how technology can help contractors including a free assessment for Northern CA businesses.

Bidding Standards

InformationWeek > IT Outsourcing > Business Technology: Don't Drive Right Past GM's Latest Idea > November 21, 2005

The construction world knows all too well the challenges of comparing scopes at bid time. There is a lot of inefficiency in the process of subcontractors bidding to prime contractors and the prime trying to match all the scopes together to make a complete project.

With standards for bidding starting to emerge in the technical world for very large contracts you will start to see changes in the construction world within the next 5 years.

General contractors, owners and CM firms should have their eye out for new standards that will change the way scopes are put together and the bidding process is managed from the new 2004 CSI Master Format to the many online bid management modules for estimating software popping up everywhere.

Subcontractors should be watching these trends as well and learning how to align their estimating systems with the new formats and systems.

There is so much lost productivity in construction from the estimating process through the construction process just because of mis-matched formats and communication standards that change is a given. Companies will either be on the cutting edge poised to take advantage of these changes or will be left scrambling to catch up.

Talent - Performance & The Sweet Spot

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." - Peter Drucker

Keeping everyone on your team in the sweet spot of performance has to do with both leadership AND management.

Leadership is required to set the right team goals to begin with which will make it a lot easier to get people to align their personal goals with those of the team.

To truly gain a performance advantage every detail about this alignment process needs to be managed. Great companies like General Electric have very disciplined human resource programs that are focused on making this alignment happen.

The fourth element of this alignment is time - organizations, personal development, market forces and personal circumstances are all dynamic and it is unrealistic to think that everything will stay aligned.

What is important for building a strong organization is making sure that (1) the current alignment meets or exceeds the current needs of the business and (2) that you understand and plan for things to become out of alignment.

This is often very hard for the smaller, family owned business because their whole lives are wrapped up in the business and have been for quite some time, possibly even their whole lives. These owners and managers take it very personal when things become out of alignment; when good employees leave the company; when people don't seem to care as much as they do.

Let's dig a little deeper into this alignment starting with the Team Goals. Can you clearly articulate what you are building, where you are going, how you serve your customers, and how you see people fitting into your team? This is all about leadership - it is a lot easier to attract and retain good people for the right cause than if you appear to just be scrambling to make some money somehow.

The second thing you need to work on is getting to know your people; really know them. What do they do for fun? What is their family like? What are their personal goals? Career goals? When you start to understand these things about your team you will see where alignment may come together in the future or come apart and you can plan for it.

The third thing to look at is whether the proper skills are present. All the desire in the world won't make up for a lack of skills. This is something you can plan for with both internal and external training, possibly even including this in some type of rewards program.

Here's a typical example of the cycle of alignment and why it is important to understand the direction things are heading:

You are a company that requires a lot of travel and long hours from your foremen but you compensate them well for their efforts. You've got this great guy named Joe who has about 4 years of experience. He is single, doesn't own a home and is like a sponge when it comes to learning and really wants to become a foreman.

Through regular leadership reviews which are part of your management processes you recognize him as a "Strong Potential" and realize that while he doesn't have all the skills today the perfect alignment is coming so you make a plan for him to accelerate. You place him in a series of rotating positions with your best foremen and superintendents for the next 2 years.

Now you have "Perfect Alignment" and things are going great. Joe is out of town running job after job. He's loving life because he's learning a lot and has fun traveling. You couldn't ask for anything more.

After 4 years Joe meets someone back home over the Holiday's and they end up getting married. Another year goes by and they buy a home together and start planning for a family. Joe becomes increasingly tired of traveling and eventually leaves the company.

Was this a bad thing? Yes and no. If the management processes in the company did not pick this up on the radar and start planning for it then it is a very bad thing. If there is resentment on either Joe's side or the company's side then the situation wasn't handled well.

Could Joe's job have been salvaged? Possibly - if the company had a position opened up that didn't require the traveling AND Joe had been prepared with the skills required for the job. It is quite possible that the job could not have been saved. There may not have been another position open or Joe may not have had the skills to fill that position.

To avoid talent gaps in the company this problem should have been spotted years out and plans should have been underway to find and develop the next "Joe." To avoid resentment there should have been discussions early and often with Joe to clarify the changing of personal goals, what his plans were, how the company could help, etc.

As a manager you know these situations end poorly way too often.

Good companies have good leaders that do their best to work through these situations. GREAT companies have a very structure process in place to generate a "Talent Pipeline", to maintain alignment as long as possible and to help people make transitions both inside and outside the company.

Talent - Why Alignment Matters

November 25, 2005

A business is a system designed to serve a customer AND produce a profit. This is a very complicated system consisting of hundreds or even thousands of processes all designed to serve the customer and produce a profit. Managing all these processes are people - the talented people that make up your team.

Like an engine all parts have to be properly aligned or you will experience loss loss of horsepower, inefficiencies and possibly failure.

So, what do we mean by alignment - it quite simply means that for every person on your team you should be able to draw a clear line to the operational process they manage, the operational processes that support them, the systems that measure their performance and provide feedback, the customer they are serving and how that customer fits into your strategy.

Sounds simple enough - but in reality is very challenging.

Often compensation and reward systems don't reward the correct behavior.

Financial statements are prepared to meet basic tax requirements, not provide detailed feedback on a specific business process, team or customer.

Internal departments such as accounting, purchasing, equipment or deliveries become inwardly focused and lose sight of how they fit into the system; how to serve the customer and how to produce a profit. Focusing on a budget IS NOT the same as focusing on serving the customer and producing a profit.

How do you get things aligned?

Start by working to define everything your company does as a process. Take one small piece of the company at a time. If you do a few major processes per month you will achieve phenominal results in 1-2 years.

Now describe how every process ties into either serving the customer or producing a profit. Many processes are there for checks and balances - do a quick calculation of what the cost of the process is versus the downside of not checking. You will probably find that you can eliminate some processes all together.

Finally, assign one or more of your team members to manage each process. Set your compensation, reviews and rewards based on how well each employee manages these processes.

"Manage processes and lead people." - Michael Gerber

Make Excel and Instant Know-It-All

Make Excel an Instant Know-It-All

Pivot tables are an excellent way to analyze data dumped from just about any accounting system.

Under Pressure

InformationWeek > E-Business > Under Pressure > January 10, 2005

We depend on IT systems but they do still crash and most people blame the IT staff and are irritated without taking a step back and realizing that before technology there was no way to deal with these same problems and it cost a lot more.

Dust Off Those Creative Tools

Quality Digest Magazine

Creativity is getting lost and there are a lot of gains that can be made through creativity. Author's website is www.harrington-institute.com

Support Comes From The Outside

InformationWeek > ERP > Support Comes From The Outside > January 10, 2005

Discuss how and why outsourcing some of these functions especially in a small company can help performance and let you focus on what is really critical.

Involve Non-IT Peers In Long-Term Planning

InformationWeek > Long-Term IT Planning > Smart Advice: Involve Non-IT Peers In Long-Term IT Planning > January 10, 2005

While this article applies to IT technology it can also apply to other systems within your organization. As companies start to grow they tend to treat their departments like silos and there are a lot of inefficiencies and lost opportunities because of this.

Creating a Reliability Culture

Creating a Reliability Culture

Create a comparison between how a maintenance organization runs using metrics, prioritization, flow charts, etc. and how that can be applied to best practices in keeping a business running smooth. A business is really just one big machine with a lot of moving parts. How much time do you spend on preventative and proactive maintenance versus dealing with emergencies and catastrophic failures? Also has a good matrix for responsibilities that can be utilized elsewhere and made into a downloadable template.

Implementing a Successful Training Program

Implementing a Successful Training Program

Details about the shortage of skilled trade workers and some strategies to deal with it.

Construction Trades - A Good Career Choice

ContraCostaTimes.com | 11/23/2005 | Traditional trades face declining interest even as business booms

I just saw this article this morning and quite honestly it's one of thousands. What continues to bother me is that parents and educators are still ignoring the skiled trades as a viable career option.

When I was in school I was told that I'd never make anything of myself if I didn't go to college - luckily I followed my own guiding light and stuck with the electrical trade. Looking back I'm glad I did because of both the personal satisfaction I get from building things as well as the fantastic compensation that comes from being highly skilled in all elements of construction.

I think it is sad that more people don't open their eyes and realize that a journeyman trades person is just as skilled and just as valuable as a CPA, lawyer or other professional - here's what the difference is:

A skilled tradesperson applies their craft on-site and is therefore immune to most outsourcing. Have you been reading about what is happening in IT? A team of "Construction Workers" laid a fiber optic cable across the ocean and now we can get the same IT services performed for 10% or less in another country.

Thanks to those construction workers we can now ship anything electronic around the world instantly. Even small businesses can outsource using services such as eLance. I posted a project for computer programming and got over 40 bids for a $2,000 job. The bids started at $1 per hour! Spend some time looking around and you will see offshore CPA services, engineering, design, etc.

As a small business I've used these services often to keep costs down and I've got to say that the quality is excellent - on the other hand when my HVAC unit went out a couple of winters ago I still had to pay $150 per hour for a HVAC service call and the guy couldn't show up until 7PM because he was too busy.

If you are in the trades you understand this intimately - if you are one of the parents or educators who associates construction with digging a ditch you should re-think your position. Imagine the future when many of the "white collar jobs" you think you are preparing people for either get replaced by a computer and database or shipped across the ocean to lower-income areas. Remember that there are still billions of people around the world who can live on a couple of US Dollars per day - and many of them can be trained to do those programming, design, analysis and engineering jobs.

Whether you agree with this or not it is a reality and is not likely to change.

If you keep hanging on to the past and telling people they will fail if they go into the skilled-trades or other service industries you are the ones actually creating the failure of a generation.

Recruiting - Leave No Stone Unturned

HousingZone.com - Leave No Stone Unturned

Excellent roundtable discussion about how to find quality employees. Succeeding in the talent game today requires some innovation - if you think that running an ad in the classified's is a strategy you are missing out on a world of other recruiting possibilities. Some notable ideas.

1. School Career Days/Intern Programs: These people are very motivated - they have already made an investment in themselves and are looking to put those new skills to work. The problem - if an employer goes there for the first time they are unlikely to get noticed and will feel that this is a huge waste of time. The reality is that you will have to show consistency. Pick a school or program - define your position as a company clearly - define why you are the best choice to work for - show consistency by showing up to every event and presenting career advice to the students. If you are consistent you will start to see results after a few events.

2. Emplyee Referrals: Don't overlook this and you should reward this - give your employees a bonus for finding good people but make sure you don't pay until they have been on board for 90 days or so.

3. Recruiters: This article downplays recruiters and many people have had bad experience with recruiters. There are two things that lead to the negative image; the first is that there are a lot of bad recruiters out there who simply work as a middle person looking up potential "candidates" in the help wanted ads. The second is that many employers don't clearly define either the job or the search. To find success with a recruiter you should understand that you are goigng to be spending a lot of money to find someone very specific. Spend an appropriate amount of time defining the position, goals, your culture, how they fit with your company, etc. Now go interview a bunch of recruiters - ask them how they find candidates and how their research department is run. Good recruiters have teams of people who will draw a geographic area around your business and then start calling into those businesses to find the top talent. The recruiter will then screen these people before sending them to you for an interview. If this process is done right this can be a very powerful way to find top-level help.

4. Advertise Everywhere: You should make it clear on all your jobsites, all your vehicles and possibly even on your company shirts that you are always looking for the best talent. Keey your name in front of everyone all the time - sooner or later when someone is looking to make a change you want them to remember your company.

5. Smaller Companies: This article makes an excellent point about recruiting the smaller business owners who may be tired. I believe in designing a company structure to be entrepreneurial in structure from the strategy to the accounting system to the organizational chart so that these prior owners would fit right in.

Talent is a very important part of your business - you cannot grow without spending a lot of time developing a good "Talent Plan".

Learn more about organizational planning and alignment.

Basics of Branch Circuit Testing

Electrical Contracting Products - ECPZone.com | Publication

This article hasn't been posted online yet - will be posted in about 3 weeks.

It discusses the basics of testing branch circuits, how to find high-impedence problems that can lead to a fire and discusses how the Philadelphia Housing Development Corp. lowered the incident of in-wall house fires from blown-in insulation by requiring certain branch circuit tests.

Fantastic idea for service electrical contractors to market for older homes and joint marketing with insulation contractors.

Finding Hidden Profits

November 23, 2005

Acland Brierty…explained ? Blog Archive ? Cropping works for business and photos

This is one of the better analogies I've seen for describing why it's so important to focus just on the most profitable pieces of your business.

Personally I have a limited artistic eye so I would never be able to look at the bigger picture in this example and crop the right things out - many leaders of smaller and growing businesses are in the exact same category.

A lot of the problem stems from the fact that most accounting systems were setup to simply show the big picture and to help prepare taxes. This means that deciding where to crop is based more on art than science.

Before taking any drastic moves with a growing business you should work to integrate your accounting and operations so that you can clearly see the nuggets within your business that are worth nurturing, the cash cows that are worth milking and the dogs that need to be cropped; the ones that are making your performance simply average even though you have some fantastic nuggest and cash cows.

While this seems obvious it rarely is for many businesses. Very few growing companies even have regular financial statements, much less integrated accounting and operations that allow them this level of detail.

In short - I strongly agree with the cropping analogy and you should work to make it 90% science and 10% art.

Going it Alone - Software Consultant

Software Development>Career Center: Going It Alone

Software Development Magazine - December 2005

An article focused on making the shift from employee to independent contractor but from the perspective of someone in the software/IT business.

Glance - Web Conference Service

Glance - Glance - Instantly host a web demo, sales presentation, desktop sharing, application sharing, screen sharing

Saw this in Presentations Magazine and it looks like a great low-cost tool for meetings. Review for use in training sessions.