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Search for ‘project management tools’ on the internet and your results will contain a variety of software that enables businesses to manage their projects better. Essentially, they offer collaborative scheduling and task management functions, a definite improvement over the Excel spreadsheets project managers used in the past. But don’t be deceived – managing the schedule is only one piece of the entire project management puzzle. Without all the right pieces, your project may end up on life support.

iSeek’s Project Management Playbook (iPMPlaybook©) is a repository of templates designed to standardize project documentation regardless of project size, type, or scope. The templates are based on industry best practices and are aligned with the Project Management Institute (PMI). At the core of these project documents are the following:

1. The Project Charter

Many of us have great ideas for ways to improve what we see and do in our workplaces. Suppose you work for a fresh meal delivery service and realize that several of the small packets of ingredients that are supplied with meals are impossible to open without scissors. After pondering this dilemma for a while, you come up with a novel approach to the little packet problem and present a business case to your company’s leadership. What happens next?

You had the great idea, but now the company needs to translate your idea into a formal project, communicate the project’s features to stakeholders, and provide a record of key information for future reference. The Project Charter is a formal document that captures the project purpose, objectives, key requirements, scope, and deliverables along with many other attributes. The iPMPlaybook© has not only a full charter template, but also a condensed version of the template which is a great fit for smaller projects.

2.The Stakeholder/Project Team Register

Picture yourself in the dugout in your first pro baseball game and not knowing who your coach is or what the responsibilities of the manager are. If the other members of the team are also in the dark, chaos will undoubtedly reign. Understanding the roles and responsibilities of each person on the team is essential to successful teamwork. Much like a baseball team, a project team also must have clearly defined roles to be effective.

The definition of a project stakeholder is broad, easily including the project manager, project team members, senior executives, department managers and users, not to mention external stakeholders like customers and vendors. The iPMPlaybook© allows you to capture the names, define the project roles and record other pertinent information so no one is left in the dark about who does what.

3.The DRACI Log

Have you spent time in a major metropolitan city outside of the US? Perhaps Madrid or Paris? If you have, you’ve probably noticed small, specialty food stores on every block:  fruit and vegetable markets, butcher shops, and cheese stands. It’s great fun to do as the locals do and visit each little shop to buy just what you need for a lunchtime picnic. However, after returning to the office and juggling a myriad of details for a project in flight with a looming deadline, you recognize that a supermarket mindset is far more efficient for a project manager.  Although the term, ‘one stop shopping’, is a bit overused, let’s use it one more time and talk about an excellent project management tool that will stock all the information you need to keep your project on track.

The DRACI Log makes the need for maintaining separate decision, risk, action item, change request and issue registers obsolete.  It combines details about items in each category into one useful list. The DRACI Log will calculate risk severity, maintain the most current information on the status of change requests, capture the possible impact of issues on the project, and more.

4.The Closure Checklist

Imagine you make a delicious dinner, then settle in to watch a show on your favorite streaming service when you remember that you haven’t washed the dishes. You decide you’ll get to them later, which is really not a problem until you wake up the next morning and face a sink full of plates and pans crusted over with last night’s Pasta Bolognese. It doesn’t look quite as delicious by the light of day as it did the previous night.

Closure is more important than you might think. The iPMPlaybook© Closure Checklist provides a means for ensuring that closure activities associated with the project are fully completed on a timely basis and valuable project information is not lost. The checklist records key tasks to address at the end of a project. And this checklist, like all the iPMPlaybook© templates, is editable, so you can add tasks that have relevance to your project or business.

In addition to the templates mentioned above, the iPMPlaybook© provides users with other templates considered ‘must haves’ by most project managers.

These include

• Initiative Request Form
• Business Requirements Document (BRD)
• Communication Plan
• Project Budget
• Execution Plan for technology projects
• Deliverable Acceptance Form

All templates are easy to use and customizable.  For more information about the iPMPlaybook©, contact us today at info@iseeksolutionsinc.com. To learn more about iSeek’s services and resources, visit our website, subscribe to our blog or follow us on LinkedIn.

For many of us, the COVID-19 pandemic will become a “snapshot in time”, meaning we’ll always remember where we were when… your state government issued the mandatory quarantine; the Senate passed the $2 trillion CARES Act; summer arrived and the quarantine continued; vacations, birthdays, weddings and holiday events were canceled; the US reached the grim death toll of more than 500,000 Americans.  For a lot of people, where we were was “at home”!  Even now – a year later – there has still been no return to what we once knew as “normal”.

No doubt it’s been difficult, and a lot of other adjectives! Yet we’re still here, forging ahead and creating a “new normal” that, in many ways, has the potential to be better than the old “normal”.  Plato, philosopher and artist, famously wrote, “our need will be the real creator” which was molded over time into the English proverb, ‘Necessity is the mother of invention‘. That proverb is probably truer today than ever. Necessity has brought about a change of attitude and technologies that allows many more of us to work from home, avoiding sometimes lengthy commutes and allowing us to spend more time together with our families. We have seen more empathy in our nation, with more people reaching out to and helping friends and neighbors in need.  Charitable contributions to churches, non-profits, and other agencies for the purpose of supporting the needy in our communities have not diminished despite the economic hardships experienced by countless. In many cases, charitable contributions have actually increased!  We are making changes, out of necessity, that is enabling us to be more “human”, without significantly diminishing our nation’s efficiency or effectiveness!

For many of us, another “snapshot in time” this last year was the brutal, unjust police killing of George Floyd and the ensuing civil unrest. While the majority of Americans were, and are, horrified by George Floyd’s killing, we can be encouraged by the nation’s many responses to this and similar events over the last year.  People from all races and walks of life came together with purpose and determination demanding the eradication of racial injustices, inequality and systemic racism, and because of this there is real hope that, this time, we will see a lasting, positive change to human relations in our country!

We have faced major challenges this last year resulting in significant changes in our personal and business lives.  As Americans, we have done what we always do in the face of challenge: we have adapted and continue to find ways to overcome!

“We are all navigating the new normal together. As we lock arms virtually and try to help one another in ways we can, our vast world suddenly feels a little smaller and more connected. And for that, we are grateful.”

Michael Dell – CEO of Dell

Have your business and your employees adapted optimally to the new environment we find ourselves in? Clearly, business as usual is no longer an option. Analyzing lessons learned, assessing current state and envisioning future state are essential to determining whether your business requires a strategic pivot, operations overhaul, or change in workplace culture. iSeek’s proven organization alignment techniques will guide and support the arduous process of assessing the impacts your business faced during these unparalleled times, analyzing operational performance, and measuring the overall health of your business. Our in-depth approach discovers cost savings opportunities, uncovers revenue potential, and exposes operational inefficiencies. Custom solutions are crafted to capitalize on newly-discovered opportunities for growth and improvement.

Visit the resources page of our website to learn more about our proven tools and techniques. Then, contact us to begin developing or optimizing strategies for success in the “new normal”.

One lucky day, entrepreneur Ken Hakuta received a toy, a gift for his son, from his family in Japan.  When thrown against a wall, the 8-legged toy, soon to be named the “Wacky Wall Walker”, scrambled down the wall instead of falling off of it.  After Hakuta’s family played with it for hours, he realized that the tiny toy presented a great marketing and financial opportunity for him.  Little did he know how successful his rubbery octopus would become.

In fact, the Wacky Wall Walker became one of the best-selling fad toys of the 1980s.  Its appeal extended to other markets including television (NBC produced a Christmas special based on the toy) and breakfast cereal (Kellogg’s inserted them into cereal boxes).  In the wake of his fad’s popularity, Hakuta created and hosted a TV show for child entrepreneurs and authored a book entitled, How to Create a Fad and Make a Million Dollars, in which he candidly shared his experiences marketing the Wacky Wall Walker.

A popular Hakuta quote reads, “People will try to tell you that all the great opportunities have been snapped up.  In reality, the world changes every second, blowing new opportunities in every direction, including yours.”  The problem with business opportunities is not that they don’t exist; it is that they don’t necessarily fall into our laps.  We have to be open and actively pursue them.  Here are ten ideas for finding the next great opportunity that awaits your business.

1. Seek out opportunities. Discover opportunities or create them yourself.  Be open to finding a gift in your mailbox and recognizing its potential.
2. Talk to your customers. Fill product and service gaps noted by your clients and customers.
3. Brainstorm with your team. Tap their creative juices to stimulate unique and innovative ideas.
4. Solve a problem. Pinpoint unique solutions for existing challenges.
5. Be cognizant of new technologies. Consider business opportunities that may result from technological advancements.
6. Evaluate your competitors. Determine what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong.  Identify and learn from their competitive advantages.
7. Take advantage of market booms, even if they may be short-lived. Weigh the potential short- vs long-term gains.
8. Note pricing movements. Exploit potential increases in market segment when the price of a product or service falls.
9. Identify gaps in your market for certain products and services. Consider moving into other markets as well.
10. Analyze industry trends. Take advantage of emerging opportunities in your industry.

iSeek Solutions offers many Resources that facilitate identification of “opportunities”. Here are highlights of a few of our resources:

Strategic Plan Development Workshop (iSPD Workshop©) examines your organization’s strategic mission, goals and objectives to help you gauge the value of opportunities that come your way. The strategic planning process produces fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organization is, who it serves, what it does, and why it does it, with a focus on the future.

Business Health Check (iBHC©) provides a big picture view of your business, a synopsis of where you stand in meeting the goals and objectives set during the strategic planning process. You’ll gain basic knowledge of the overall performance, opportunities for improvements, employee health, end-user experience, and organization culture, engagement and alignment

Business Performance Assessment (iBPA©) is another way of measuring the actual performance of your business against pre-determined goals and objectives. The performance assessment evaluates the organization’s addressable spend, organization alignment and human capital to identify opportunities to save costs, increase revenues – perhaps through new revenue streams, and enhance operational efficiency and effectiveness.

Whether you’re pursuing new opportunities or improving the health and performance of existing opportunities, we can help! Contact us today at info@iseeksolutionsinc.com.

Information on Ken Hakuta and Wacky Wall Walker came from: Wikipedia

The start of a new year generally inspires us to set new goals, resolutions, and pull out our checklist containing those routine tasks we conduct every year. For many of us, that checklist includes a wellness check or a physical health exam.

In a blog from Pomona Valley Health Centers, the writer states, “A generation ago, people used to see their doctor only when they were sick or dying. Today, preventative health care is becoming commonplace as people become more educated and empowered about their own health…

Regular check-ups can help find potential health issues before they become a problem. When you see your doctor regularly, they are able to detect health conditions or diseases early. Early detection gives you the best chance for getting the right treatment quickly, avoiding any complications. By getting the correct health services, screenings, and treatment you are taking important steps toward living a longer, healthier life.”

A business health check serves much the same purpose as a physical health check. Both are able to detect health conditions early and provide the best chance for getting the right treatment quickly to mitigate or decrease adverse complications. A business health check, like a physical health exam, should be conducted regularly, no less than annually. A health check ensures the business is tracking towards its goals. It delivers insight into the overall performance of your business, uncovers opportunities for improvements, measures employee health and the end-user experience, and assesses the organization’s culture, engagement and alignment. It’s an opportunity to make course corrections, mitigate or exploit risks or market changes or take advantage of new and innovative solutions.

Let’s associate the benefits of a physical health check with a health check of your business so you better comprehend the significance.

“A healthy business is as important as a healthy body; it will bring growth and prosperity to all its stakeholders.”

As you begin the new year, stop and take the pulse of your business by performing a business health check. Examine your business from a fresh perspective to see what’s working and what’s not. iSeek experts can guide your team through the phases of our customized Business Health Check iBHC©, which will result in greater insight into the strengths and weaknesses of your business and yield broad solutions on what to do to reach your target level of health. Learn more about the Business Health Check iBHC© by visiting the resources page of our website or contact us directly at   info@iseeksolutionsinc.com to get started.

 Early detection of unhealthy conditions could be the difference between the life or death of your business!

Strategic planning is the process of looking ahead according to Eric Vo, a writer for The Hartford.  The strategic planning process involves a business, large or small, envisioning the success they’d like to have in the future and setting goals to get there. It’s not enough to just think about the future. Organizations should go about the process of developing a plan on how they will be successful by first determining which method they will use.  Regardless of the method employed, there are five key components that every strategic plan should include: the vision, mission, goals & objectives, action plans and a review process.  These components are the basic pieces that should be developed by an organization. The most important of the five steps is the vision. Some organizations create a vision for the company that is impossible to reach; This is a mistake.  A vision should be created and established as a realistic path to a future goal that is attainable in a set amount of time.

According to VP of Product at ProjectManagement.com, Stephanie Ray:

<A vision>…. states the current and future objectives of an organization. The vision statement is intended as a guide to help the organization make decisions that align with its philosophy and declared set of goals. It can be thought of as a roadmap to where the company wants to be within a certain timeframe. A vision statement is not only used in business, as nonprofits and governmental offices also use them to set goals.

A Vision for the Future

A famous quote from the Bible says, “with no vision, the people perish”.  How true!  In business, we could say it in these words: “Without a thoughtful determination of what the organization should be doing and where it should be going, it will not be successful.”

A vision may be crafted by the leadership within an organization, but it should be massaged by employees.  Why?  Because the employees carry out the execution of the strategic plan goals and objectives that employ the vision.  Without buy-in and participation from employees, a vision will fail to be effective.

Visioning Exercises

To get thoughtful interaction amongst leadership and employees, outside consultation may be beneficial in helping to lead productive exercises that culminate in consensus and shared understanding about what the goals and objectives of the organization should be.  A visioning exercise is a thought-provoking way to generate positive ideas about the future of the organization and what it will take to make it successful. Hari Srinivas, a leader at the Global Development Research Center, created a useful guide called “How to Conduct a Visioning Exercise”. See the full instructions on how to implement this exercise by clicking here.

The first step in your organization’s journey of developing a strategic plan is to create a vision. iSeek experts can guide you through the visioning and strategic plan development process. Contact us at info@iseeksolutionsinc.com to start your journey.

Are you familiar with the reality show, “The Amazing Race”? On the show, teams embark on a journey. At every destination, each team must compete in a series of challenges, some mental and some physical, and only when the tasks are completed will they learn of their next location. Teams who are the farthest behind will gradually be eliminated as the contest progresses, with the first team to arrive at the final destination winning the contest. The journey of “The Amazing Race” is a lot like life, personal and business. The goal is to finish while successfully completing a series of tasks along the way.

The takeaway from this analogy is, it’s not good enough to finish the race but fail to complete the tasks along the way. And, it’s not good enough to complete all the tasks, but not finish the race. Finishing first after having satisfactorily completed all tasks is a whole ‘nother level, but it’s the goal.

Unlike “The Amazing Race”, in life, we often have the luxury of identifying potential challenges, assessing the effects each might have on our ability to meet our goals, then finding ways to mitigate the impact. Too, we often have the ability to adapt to, improvise around and overcome an unplanned event that has negatively impacted our goals.

In business, that process is called a Business Impact Analysis or Assessment (BIA). The BIA focuses on events that disrupt or impede a business’s ability to operate normally. The Business Continuity Institute, a professional organization focused on helping companies prepare for emergencies, says in its good practice guidelines that there are four main types of BIA:

• Initial BIA: This is a high-level analysis that serves as a framework for more detailed BIAs.
• Product and Service BIA: This identifies a business’s most important products and services and the impacts they would face.
• Process BIA: This analysis identifies the processes or workflows that are needed to deliver the most important products and services.
• Activity BIA: This identifies the activities that deliver the most urgent products and services.

Paul Kirvan, a fellow at the Business Continuity Institute, says that past events are the best source of information about what impact a disruption would have.

2020 has left us no shortage of unplanned events that have negatively impacted business operations in one or more ways. It’s safe to say, every business (mom & pop, small, large and enterprise) would benefit from an impact assessment. Perhaps the results from a BIA are strategies that catapult the business from surviving to thriving or the pivot roadmap or data-driven input to the annual business continuity or strategic plan update. Regardless, every business is, or should be, developing mitigation, pivoting, sustainability, growth or exit strategies.

iSeek Solutions, through our management consulting services, empowers businesses to meet their goals. So, of course, we facilitate Business Impact Assessments. Our Assessment often entails thorough assessments of one, multiple or all of these areas: business processes, technology platforms and infrastructure, human capital and organizational structure.

The goals of every business are akin to those of “The Amazing Race”. Contact us today to assist your business in assessing the impacting events of the past and developing mitigation strategies for the future. To learn more about us, check out our website, subscribe to our blog, or follow us on LinkedIn!

There are thousands of books, articles and literature that speak to exemplary principles in leadership.  In fact, you can find over 90,000 books on Amazon if you did a search on the broad subject of “leadership”.  The best sellers list includes favorites like The Five Dysfunctions of a Leader by Patrick Lencioni and Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek – indeed classics for anyone looking to enhance their leadership acumen.  Interestingly enough, only 2% of these leadership books focus on the blending of “leadership” and “crisis”. One may ask, “Is the relationship between leaders and the crises they face not a tangible subject of those who educate, pontificate and write?”  The small percentage of books on crises that we can find that focus on the “principles” of good leadership demonstrates the need for much more research and development on leadership in the state of crisis.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have already seen over 10,000 books written on the subject of this crisis.  Of these books, we have seen some emphasis on the principles of good leadership as a critical component in resolving the crisis.  But not nearly enough.  As leadership guru John Maxwell posited in his book The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.…but knowing how to lead is only half the battle”.  In order to prepare leaders for the current and future epidemics of our era, more focus is needed on developing leaders in a state of crisis.

In Part I of Leadership in a State of Crisis we asked, “Is leadership an essential component in resolving a crisis?”. We answered the question by highlighting several examples where exceptional leadership created a shared agenda of listening and acting on a social contract.

A social contract is a commensurate exchange between a leader and a team established by a relationship that is linked together through human touch. In the midst of uncertainty, a social contract can capture the loyalty of employees, consumers and investors.  Be it government, corporate or private entities in crisis, leaders are called to approach difficult circumstances with an innate or trained mindset capable of navigating uncertain situations with emotional intelligence.

While leading in a state of crisis, there are 3 key features of leadership that must come naturally or be part of a leader’s professional development plan: The power to influence; The ability to make an impact; and The capacity to imagine positive change.

The power to influence. John Maxwell says, “Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less”.  In order to move a person, team or organization from their current state to where you want them to be, you must “influence” them. The academic approach to influencing others uses the art of persuasion which is a method of constructing thoughtful arguments.  A layman’s approach is to identify shared goals, then work to find commonalities that can be achieved together. According to leadership researcher Nathalie Drouin, transformational leaders are good at focusing on goals that are shared by everyone.  In a crisis, leadership is about influencing the emotions of the team to achieve a shared goal.

The ability to make an impact. Leadership coach Michael Dale wrote his doctoral dissertation on The Effect of Servant Leadership on Technology Project Outcomes.  He researched 10 leadership attributes and measured their impact on successful project outcomes.  As a result of surveying project leaders from around the world, the data indicated that positive outcomes were significantly impacted when leaders were committed to helping their team to grow. Growth can be defined as the achievement of personal and professional development goals ascertained by team members. Significant impact is what former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani referred to as the social contract developed during the tragedy that occurred on September 9, 2011.  During this crisis there was an exchange of shared goals between the leader and the team that ensured everyone would be successful. Leaders in a state of crisis can manage people during difficult circumstances by focusing on making a positive impact in their personal and professional lives.

The capacity to imagine positive change. Leaders imagine positive change when they’re capable of clearly communicating in words and behavior. Extraordinary leaders engage the team to imagine and construct well-thought out ideas that are not ignored but recognized and considered.  Leadership expert J. M. Burns says that imagination can run rampant in a positive and productive way when both the leader and team members wield power equally. In a state of crisis where good leadership is essential, a thoughtful and considerate imagination that is open to impromptu ideas and adjustments from the team has the power to produce positive change.

At iSeek, we believe that an investment in Professional Development for Leaders, regardless of the type, reaps numerous benefits for your organization. Professional Development positions your organization to create effective leaders with enhanced skills and greater insight to guide their teams through crises.

iSeek’s Learning & Professional Development professionals are educated and certified in industry-leading leadership curriculums. We facilitate bootcamps for those preparing to sit for the Project Management Professional (PMP®) and Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP®) certification exams offered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). Additionally, we provide training to enhance leadership skills. Our leadership series is based on the teachings of transformational leaders such as David Cottrell, best-selling author of the Monday Morning series and John Maxwell, a world-renowned leadership expert.

Visit our website to learn more about iSeek’s Learning and Professional Development program offerings including ways to upskill your leadership team’s acumen to prepare for a state of crisis. Subscribe to our blog or follow us on LinkedIn to be one of the first to know when new Resources and Insights are available. To create or customize a program offering to meet your organization’s Learning and Professional Development needs, you may contact us directly at info@iseeksolutionsinc.com.