Hack
Hack: MCTube within the organization
by Madhusudan Rao - AVP - Delivery at Mahindra Satyam
July 18, 2010 at 11:49pmContribution Summary
Summary
MCTube (Management for Crisis - Tube) will be an ideal tool for Managers to understand crisis projects and the various attempts made by Managers to bring back projects to Green. Typically, organizations try to document the learnings at the end of the project (as a post-mortem). What happens then is that very fine nuances of the issues faced or the solutions deployed are forgotten or missed out.
Instead, have a practice (not process) to post daily videos of the project status - it can be an interview of the project team members, customer feedbacks or just an update of the project by the Project Manager. The viewers can then respond by giving their suggestions to improve the project status.
Instead, have a practice (not process) to post daily videos of the project status - it can be an interview of the project team members, customer feedbacks or just an update of the project by the Project Manager. The viewers can then respond by giving their suggestions to improve the project status.
Moonshot(s)
Problem
- Real-time Training to upcoming Project Managers is always a challenge
- Project Post-mortems are tiresome to read through - the huge data might be an issue to go through (or) finer details might be missed out
Solution
A picture is worth a thousand words. What is a video worth? Video has 24 frames per second on an average. Imagine how much information can be conveyed by a video. A Video Management System (on the lines of Youtube) should be started for only Management cadre (of course, it can be a channel on an already existing **tube internally).
Every manager worth his salt, agrees that the maximum he has learned on a project has always been the one that failed or was in crisis. The learnings that can be gathered from such projects are huge.
Now, marry the two - ManageTube and Crisis projects. What do you get? MCTube. What will it contain? Other than videos of interviews of Project Managers and regular updates, it will contain regular (if not daily) episodes of the current Crisis Projects in the organization.
All projects identified thus, will be under focus. There will be dedicated 'reporters' (obviously from outside the project) to report what is going on in the project. They will interview the key project team members, speak to other veterans in the organization asking for their opinions, have discussions on how to solve specific issues in the project, etc. Polls can be conducted based on content shown in the Tube. This will induce a sense of community with all Managers in the organization. The Managers Community will have a much closer binding when one sees the struggles others (of same ilk) go through.
Every manager worth his salt, agrees that the maximum he has learned on a project has always been the one that failed or was in crisis. The learnings that can be gathered from such projects are huge.
Now, marry the two - ManageTube and Crisis projects. What do you get? MCTube. What will it contain? Other than videos of interviews of Project Managers and regular updates, it will contain regular (if not daily) episodes of the current Crisis Projects in the organization.
All projects identified thus, will be under focus. There will be dedicated 'reporters' (obviously from outside the project) to report what is going on in the project. They will interview the key project team members, speak to other veterans in the organization asking for their opinions, have discussions on how to solve specific issues in the project, etc. Polls can be conducted based on content shown in the Tube. This will induce a sense of community with all Managers in the organization. The Managers Community will have a much closer binding when one sees the struggles others (of same ilk) go through.
Practical Impact
MCTube will help in many ways
- Best practices, Lessons Learnt from earlier projects will be easier to access
- Feedback from other Managers will be instant
- As they say, War always brings together men with different perspectives. Similarly, seeing the struggles on a project will bring the Managers together
- Gives the project team also higher visibility - they will no longer have the feeling of being associated with a crisis project and feel depressed
Challenges
Practical challenges that this will induce, include
- Resistance of project teams to share their information. Why share the bad news? They have to be guided and mentored by their Leaders on the benefits of such a solution
- Project Teams will not feel bold enough to share. Incentivization needs to be structured properly.
- The Channel will have to be monitored continuously to discourage spam or irrational behavior. Strict action to be taken for offenders.
First Steps
Implement this for one project in the organization and then expand it for the others based on the feedback.
Care also should be taken for setting up the 'crew' who will 'shoot' this project story - creative minds should be considered for taking up this task.
Senior Management should push this to their reportees so that it can be expanded further.
Care also should be taken for setting up the 'crew' who will 'shoot' this project story - creative minds should be considered for taking up this task.
Senior Management should push this to their reportees so that it can be expanded further.
Helpful Materials
Documents:
- No documents at this time
Images:
- No images at this time
Videos:
- No videos at this time
Comments
Vegard Iglebæk
July 22, 2010 at 3:00amGood idea and creative thinking!
However, I'd modify the idea in order to steer clear of organisational resistance.
1. Photos instead of video: It's easier to convince people to take a snapshot than making videoes. Everyone can take a photo with their cell phone. Video tends to mess things up, they're time consuming and requires sound.
2. Make it easy: Whatever you do, make sure to make it fool proof.
Matt Shlosberg
July 22, 2010 at 7:56amMadhusudan -
This is an interesting idea. I have two questions:
1. How would you motivate employees or other managers to watch these videos?
2. Videos would definitely provide valuable lessons to viewers. But every video would have to be followed up with a "so what?" exercise. In other words, you watch a video with lessons learned but you may not necessarily know how to apply these lessons in your work. You may need some sort of a way to coach viewers or reinforce this learned information. How do you think this can be achieved?
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Madhusudan Rao
July 22, 2010 at 10:24amThanks Matt. To answer your questions:
a) Motivating employees or other managers to watch the videos. This will happen if they see that they are actually learning from the videos. If you get Senior Management Commitment and have them participate in the videos initially, the participation will increase. Adding it as an appropriate KPI will also help.
b) The 'So What' exercise is an interesting point. Yes, very much required to compile the thoughts and then abstract them to the other Managers.
As mentioned in my hack, the first few months, the MCTube should be run by a dedicated staff who will take care of both the points you mentioned. They will also help in video-tagging so that search becomes easier.