Once you build a great consulting process with the Six Sigma DMADV application, don’t stop there. John Weathington says you should use the DMAIC application to constantly improve your process.

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Last time, we talked about the importance of developing a consulting process, and I discussed a Six Sigma framework called DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify) to help you install it. It’s tremendous to go through a structured process like DMADV to build a quality consulting service; however, you shouldn’t stop there — honing your consulting practice should be an ongoing concern. As you improve, the more you’ll benefit from doing this business and, by extension, enjoy your life more.

Now we’ll look at the more popular and established Six Sigma application called DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control), which is the formula for improving any process. Like DMADV, DMAIC is a structured sequence that we’ll follow to improve our consulting process.

Five phases of improving a process

#1: Define
You need to re-evaluate your business goals and specifically define what you want your improvement effort to produce. In the DMADV process, you defined some critical outputs for your practice; are the outputs still the same? Maybe it’s time to make a shift from 80-hour weeks to 40-hour weeks. As your priorities change, so will your process.

This is also a good time to take inventory of your resources. Who will be able to support you in your improvement efforts? Make a detailed list, and put it in your improvement plan.

#2: Measure
You must clearly define how you’re going to measure success. In Six Sigma, each measurement (input and output) has an operational definition. These are clear descriptions of exactly what each measurement means. For instance, when does your lead follow-up after the process starts; is it when the lead comes in, or when you start working on it? If the elapsed time for the lead’s follow-up is important to you, this distinction is important.

You should also baseline the current performance of the consulting metrics you’re trying to improve. Pay careful attention to how you collect your measurements for your baseline; you’ll need to follow the same process when you measure your improvement.

#3: Analyze
This phase in DMAIC is very different from the analyze phase in DMADV. In DMADV, the main focus of this phase is brainstorming; in DMAIC, the main focus of this phase is problem solving.

You should objectively explore the causes of your inefficiencies. For instance, you may suspect that interruptions slow down your coding process; so, you could keep track of every time you’re interrupted, and compare that against how many lines of code you produce. Be consistent, systematic, and objective. Don’t be surprised if your results are out of sync with your suspicions; this is the power of the analyze phase. I’ve been in a multitude of situations where conventional wisdom didn’t hold up to objective data analysis. You may find that you thrive on interruptions, and your productivity actually increases with frequent interruptions — you never know until you measure.

Resist the urge to fix things in this stage — just continue to test theories until you’re comfortable with your root causes.

#4: Improve
This is where you make your transformation. With your problems clearly identified, start constructing new processes to improve your consulting service, and systematically test them in the real world. If interruptions were validated as a root cause based on your analysis, try coding early in the morning when it’s quiet, or schedule blocks of uninterrupted coding time in locations where you aren’t likely to be bothered.

Again, be systematic and purposeful. Take your measurements in the same way you baselined your performance, so you can accurately and objectively see your improvements. Once you feel comfortable with your improvements, move on to the final stage.

#5: Control
This phase ensures your improvement has legs. Sometimes you’ll run across false improvements due to the novelty of the situation; when the newness wears off, you’re back to the old performance. Six Sigma practitioners use something called a control chart, which tracks your critical metrics over time to ensure things are performing as they should. You don’t need anything fancy like this, but you should take measurements on a periodic basis to make sure your process improvements stick.

blogs.techrepublic.com.com/project-management/?p=1717

Imagine this, you work at a company that does not “believe” in project management; however, they do project management every day without realizing it. What should you do to help convince them the value of formalizing this process? Actually this is the situation I was in many years ago when I worked at an architecture engineering firm that did project after project and had over 30 people using the title “project manager” even though not a single person had the Project Management Institute’s PMP® credential. During this time, I was heavily involved in my local PMI chapter assisting the board and I worked in the Administrative group as an IT person. Obviously I had no formal training in engineering or architecture so trying to convince anyone that PMI and their principles had value was virtually impossible and YES, people even laughed at me. During this time in my career, I really didn’t know what I should specialize in and if you take a look at Microsoft’s website, I am sure you realize the enormous number of software packages and credentials that exist out there. Also, I was not really sure I wanted to specialize in server administration even though that was already 25% of my job. Due to some thoughts from my manager at the time (thanks Ken if you are reading this), he suggested I go for PMI’s PMP credential. He really thought that this would help the IT department internally to better manage projects. What a great idea!

Therefore, I was off to get my PMP and at the same time manage another complicated software upgrade. After 6 months of education and training and passing the exam, I was very excited to use all of my new found knowledge. I volunteered to one of the project managers at the company to work for free after hours to see if I could help them run their projects or at least assist on a schedule or cost basis. And would you believe I was turned down? Not just once but so many times I lost count. It really shocked me to discover not a single person outside of the IT department valued my credential or training and experience. So I decided to consult my associates at PMI for their thoughts.

As it turns out, the local PMI chapter schedules one monthly dinner meeting that included a panel discussion on the topic of enterprise project management (EPM). Some of the companies represented included Steelcase, Amway, and Spectrum Health. The number one question everyone wanted answered was “How do I get support for project management in my company?”. Below is a brief summary of what I learned:

• Don’t force feed PM from the top down.
• Show success on one project and share that success.
• Try only one PM “trick” at a time. Example – scope statement template.

Basically forcing project management for the enterprise will never work. You really have to get buy in. Over the years and working at several companies and consulting with many others, I see lots of problems with trying to convince people the power of project management. Here is a list of some things that tend to backfire when implementing enterprise project management:

• Having the president mandate “we will use pm”
• Hiring a PM Director to oversee all the existing PMs in the company when only the PM Director is certified
• Having training sessions on PM topics and noticing people only show up for the free food.
• Buying PM software and assuming just having it will make managing your projects better

What really does work and what I tried at the architecture engineering firm mentioned above was do a book exchange. You might think this is funny but what I did was ask a VP of the company (also an architect) to share with me a book on his profession so I could learn more about it and I shared one with him so he could learn more about PM. The book I shared was Winning in Business with Enterprise Project Management by Paul Dinsmore. I picked this book because it was easy to read and very convincing about the power of PM. What surprised the VP/architect and myself were some similar concepts between the professions and even some similar business theories were discussed. Also, the VP realized that he could really stand to learn more about PM. After this idea of mine, I actually unintentionally ended up getting a spokesperson in the company on PM and as it turns out, he was willing to try some of my PM processes and tools on his next project.

I realize the book I selected might not be the newest book in the profession, but here is what I liked aboutWinning in Business with Enterprise Project Management:

• A principle is listed on a page by itself before each chapter so later on you can find them easily.
• Very catchy chapter titles… “Cookbooks, Restaurants, and Enterprise Project Management and “Project Management, Elephants, and the NBA” .
• Any person with average business knowledge will be able to pick up the book and understand it.
• It introduces enterprise project management in a way that convinces people you must do it.

Since that time, the company has held study groups for PMP certification, they hold regular training sessions on project management for anyone who is interested, and the accounting department even reviews earned value on projects throughout the company. They also took away the “project management” title from numerous people. It took the company a very long time to realize that some people are better as the subject matter expert and some are better at overall project management. What a welcome surprise to see all of these changes over the years. Some of the benefits this company achieved from implementing enterprise project management are: better processes which reduce project learning curves; better understanding of how to manage deliverables and still meet the client’s needs; and finally more profitable projects (you can’t beat that).

The last few jobs I have had, people are always borrowing books off my desk. Anything by Dr. Harold Kerzner is always gone. I finally had to start keeping a log of “who has what”. So despite all the new trends in project management that you may be reading about, I would suggest you give the book exchange a try and see what happens in your company. To close, all I can say is no matter what you try to do and implement to get better success in PM, what really seems to work is “rumor mill talk” about project management.

www.allpm.com/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2317

Basecamp from 37signals is arguably the most popular project collaboration tool on the web. There are an untold number of web design and development shops whose designers instinctively reach for this project collaboration tool created by 37signals to help manage client projects for their own consulting practice.

Basecamp has many fans…
Being the brilliant marketers they are the folks at 37signals managed to establish a cult-like following for their offerings which include not only Basecamp and other monthly-fee based web apps but also the Ruby-on-Rails development framework on which Basecamp is based. Just search for “basecamphq” on Twitter and you’ll probably find many fervent fans of Basecamp recommending it to prospective new users.

…but others need more than Basecamp offers
There is also a large contingent who need online tools to manage their projects who feel Basecamp falls short. And if you found this via Google or another link then in all likelihood you are one of those people. 37signals has had an almost religiously held notion of “less software” which in many ways it is a brilliant philosophy but there is a need for moderation in all things. there are those who feel that it shouldn’t be viewed as a gospel and that there are times when more software is needed, case-in-point the constant customer refrain for GANTT charts to which 37signals responds [1] “No GANTT Charts in Basecamp.”

Basecamp Alternatives By Attribute
Chances are you are looking for an alternate to Basecamp with a specific feature or capability that Basecamp does not have. The following links each provide a list of Basecamp alternatives by one of its attributes such as open-source software you can host yourself, integrated customer-relationship management, those with a free-plan available and more:

Alphabetical List of Basecamp Alternatives
Alternately maybe you just want to scan the list below? If can also see this same list of project management tools along with a short description about each here.

24SevenOffice
5pm
@task
AceProject.com
activeCollab
Basecamp
Celoxis
Central Desktop
ClientSpot
Clocking IT
Comindwork
Copper Project
DeskAway
dotProject
Enterprise Project 2.0
Huddle
Intervals
Kiwi Manager
LiquidPlanner
Mentat
OfficeZilla
OnStage
phpCollab
PHProjekt
PipelineDeals
PlanDone
ProjectOffice.net
ProjectPier
ProjectPlace
ProjectSpaces
ProWorkflow.com
QFile
RailsCollab
Smartsheet.com
Streber
TeamEffect
Teamwork
TeamWork Live
Teamwork Project Manager
TrackerSuite.Net
Vertabase
Web Collab
WhoDoes
Wrike
Zoho Projects

pm-sherpa.com/features/basecamp-alternatives/

You need more than capacity and utilization metrics to demonstrate cloud computing’s ROI to the business. Consider these eight metrics to create a score card of your current and future business and IT needs relating to cloud computing.

1. The speed and rate of change – Cost reduction and cost of adoption /de-adoption is faster in the cloud. Cloud computing creates additional cost transformation benefits by reducing delays in decision costs by adopting pre-built services and a faster rate of transition to new capabilities. This is a common goal for business improvement programs that are lacking resources and skills and that are time sensitive.
2. Total cost of ownership optimization – Users can select, design configure and run infrastructure and applications that are best suited for business needs. Traditionally this has often been decoupled when IT projects are handed off to production services. In cloud computing environments these are joined up.
3. Rapid provisioning – Resources are scaled up and down to follow business activity as it expands and grows or is redirected. Provisioning time compression can go from weeks to hours.
4. Increased margin and cost control – Revenue growth and cost control opportunities allow companies to pursue new customers and markets for business growth and service improvement.
5. Dynamic usage – Elastic provisioning and service management targets real end users and real business needs for functionality as the scope of users and services evolve seeking new solutions.
6. Risk and compliance improvement – Cloud computing green capabilities can be leveraged through shared services.
7. Enhanced capacity utilization – IT avoids over-and under-provisioning of IT services to improve smarter business services.
8. Access to business skills and capability improvement – Cloud computing enables access to new skills and solutions through cloud sourcing on demand solutions.

An initiative from The Open Group has developed a set of key considerations for how to build and measure return on investment (ROI) for cloud computing initiatives from a business perspective. By examining the benefits cloud computing offers organizations and showing the potential return it can provide from the beginning, companies may find it easier to gain buy-in for cloud initiatives from the executive team, as well as the IT department.
Cloud computing has been described as a technological change brought about by the convergence of a number of new and existing technologies. The promise of cloud computing is identified primarily by the following key technical characteristics:

• The ability to create the illusion of infinite capacity performance is the same if scaled for one or one hundred or one thousand users with consistent service-level characteristics
• Abstraction of the infrastructure so applications are not locked into devices or locations.
• Pay-as-you-go usage of the IT service; you only pay for what you use, with no or minimal up-front investment costs. You typically just use the service through a connection and device.
• Service is on-demand and able to scale up and down with near instant availability. Typically, no forward planning forecast is required.
• Access to applications and information can be obtained from any access point.

But this is only half the story. These technical characteristics can also be found in many non-disruptive technology solutions. What sets the promise of cloud computing apart is that the rate of change, magnitude of cost reduction and specific technical performance impact that cloud computing can provide is not just incremental, but can give a five-to-ten times order of magnitude of improvement.

www.cio.com/article/595179/8_Ways_to_Measure_Cloud_ROI

Introducing a coordinated, vibrant social media effort into an organization depends on more than an “official” group creating content. Ideally multiple and varied people throughout an organization are functioning almost as beat reporters and sharing their individual perspectives on topics relevant to targeted audiences.

How do you get do-it-yourself (DIY) social media support from people already contending with more than full job responsibilities?

Here are 15 tactics you can use to pave the way for success in implementing your social media strategy:

• Develop a role description for what a social media team member does in your company.
• Provide realistic estimates of how much or how little time a team member will have to use to participate on the team.
• Develop and share a social media policy for your company.
• Create an internship and recruit a university student to participate in the effort.
• Ask people what their talents and areas of interest in social media are and give them appropriate assignments.
• Provide step-by-step instructions or basic guidelines to encourage new social media participants.
• Have more experienced social media practitioners mentor those just getting started.
• Develop your own wiki, blog, or social network community to post reference materials, FAQs, and other relevant information for the team.
• Offer some type of simple, fun give-away to team members to incent active participation.
• Provide a team list with contact information, areas of expertise and focus for each member, and who to call to report on successes and challenges.
• Offer in-person or webinar training on effectively using social media applications and your brand standards.
• Provide a thorough list of articles on how to excel at various aspects of social media.
• Share links to free webinars focused on social media how to’s.
• Brainstorm and share a list of suggested blog topics.
• Use an approach that allows participants to smoothly rotate on and off the social media team at reasonable intervals.

brainzooming.com/?p=3458