Ideal Marketing Company Blog

What lessons can be learnt by business owners from the events at terminal 5? 

Implementing a major change in your business can be a daunting time, and rightly so.  A lot more than your hopes for the future are pinned on it. The reputation of your business is also often at its mercy. 

There are some key steps that you can take, particularly where any kind of technological change is concerned, to stop this kind of disaster occurring.  

1. planning is the glue that will hold everything together. Think carefully about how things are going to work and allow time to make sure everyone’s plans are going to be effective. It’s impossible to think of everything but too much change surfacing later on due to bad planning will cripple your project. 

2. make sure you know the real story about how things are going. People don’t like giving bad news so no-one will want to tell you if it’s not looking good for your launch date. Often, it becomes exactly like the story of the emporer’s new clothes. You need to find a way to get to the truth, by showing them you really want to know what’s going on, won’t sack them if you hear bad news, and are prepared to do something about it. Also, try and find a key informer in the team, who you trust to give you the scoop, and keep in touch with them. 

3. use your team. Between them, they will have a lot of experience and knowledge, so put it to the best use by listening to what they have to say. If they think something might be wrong, you should pay attention and not ignore it, because they’re probably right. 

4. good project management is the key, so find yourself an effective and creative project manager. Someone who will get their hands dirty and work with the team to sort things out when issues come up, not just collate everyone else’s actual effort and report it back to you once a week. And don’t believe them if they tell you they’ve brought every project they’ve done in on time and to budget, because general opinion is that over 95% of all business change projects have gone over on both, so they won’t be telling you the truth, and that’s a bad start to the arrangement. Better to find out what they did when things went wrong, and what strategies they employ to get back on track. 

5. make sure you have a regular meeting with the key team members to review progress and any major risks and issues. Try and create an atmosphere of straight talk only, because that will help you get to the bottom of what problems might hold you back. 

6. equally, nothing can kill a project quicker than poor communication. Get an effective communications strategy in place early on, so that information can flow around the project team, and to you and your management team and back, with ease. As with everything, if everyone knows what they’re doing and why, you’ll have a greater chance of success. 

7. in these days of business reliance on computers, don’t forget that most business process changes mean you will need IT system changes, and vice versa. They go hand in hand and you need to ensure that they are dealt with as a concerted effort. If they don’t work together succesfully, your project will be doomed to failure. 

8. don’t set dates too aggressively. Most things usually takes longer than we expect them to and your project won’t be any different, so leave yourself some contingency to fix your unexpected issues – somewhere between 20 and 30 percent is normally a good place to start. 

Equally, costs normally over run, because all those unexpected things will cost more, so allow plenty of contingency in your budget. 

9. a key part to any change project is controlled and thorough testing.  changes to your processes and your systems need to be put through their paces at all the various points along the way, and by various people at each stage. Don’t skimp on testing because it is essential to understanding whether your changes are going to work, and what unanticipated issues there are hiding away.  Your business people should be involved in their own phase of testing, called User Acceptance Testing or UAT, where they confirm that the system and business processes are fit for purpose. 

To get the maximum benefit, testing must be done in a controlled way (i.e. like a scientific experiment, with controlled inputs and pre-determined outputs). A lot of people say they are testing when they are just ‘trying it out’, which simply can’t prove it will work in all the key scenarios for your business.  

Also, you must make sure that, as well as testing parts of your process and system changes in isolation, they are also going to be tested altogether, in an end-to-end way. That’s often when the really important and surprising results come out. 

So check the testing strategy carefully to confirm that the testing is going to be controlled and thorough. 

10. Once problems have been found in testing, make sure you and your senior business people are involved in making decisions on which ones need to be fixed and which could be ‘lived with’. Research suggests that it can cost up to 20 times more to fix problems after launch than if you fix them during the development process, so you need to think carefully before putting things off. Equally, having too many workarounds can really hamper a business, and won’t help you sell the benefits of the change to your staff, suppliers or customers. 

11. when you get right up against your launch date, have a thorough review of the situation. Get everyone in a room, tell them you want straight talk only, and find out if the project is ready or not. Get to the truth and pay attention to any concerns people have. 

If it doesn’t sound like everything is ready, then put it off. But not for a week – nothing can be done in a week. Put it off for at least a month, longer if necessary. If it’s not ready, don’t be tempted to rush it in and ‘see what happens’. Headlines are made out of those decisions, when it all comes crashing down, and it won’t be good PR for you. People won’t forget it easily, either, because anything negative sticks in people’s minds. 

12. don’t cut corners and compromise on quality. The best things take time and money to get right. If you skimp, you’ll get what you paid for, and you’ll simply pay the price later on sorting it out. 

13. allow for extra support cover when your project launches, as there will be problems. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Put procedures in place that will help you identify, analyse and fix problems as soon as possible. And don’t be shy about admitting you might have some teething problems to your customers. They’ll appreciate your honesty and give you some leaway. But, if you keep them in the dark, they’ll be spitting blood if things go bad for them. 

14. contract staff are great – we use them all the time. But don’t rely on them too heavily for your project. They’ll disappear when it’s all over, and the knowledge of what went on and why will disappear with them, so keep a healthy balance of permanent staff on the team – a 60/40 split in favour of your own people is the minimum I would recommend.

Thanks to Derrick Cameron, MD od Eximium (www.eximium.net) for this article

Eat a frog – Brian Tracy explains that the best way to start the day is to eat the biggest, ugliest frog (i.e. the most unappealing task) first. That way, everything else you do all day will seem better in comparison. Look at the project you have to do, see which bit you keep putting off and make a point of not doing ANYTHING tomorrow until you have completed this part of the project. This will give you huge momentum and make the rest of the task progress far more quickly.

Penalties – decide what needs to be done as a first stage and if you don’t complete, commit to doing something that you really hate as a punishment for not completing in time.

Tell yourself that it doesn’t matter much what the result looks/sounds like – perfection is overrated and can come later if required. Many people are paralysed by fear before they start something, because they are worried that the final result won’t be all they hoped it would be. Oscar Wilde once said that if a job is worth doing, it’s worth doing badly. Don’t fret over creating perfection. Things are rarely perfect.

Meditate. What is the problem that is causing the mental blockage? Write it down, write down what you want to achieve and meditate on the solution. Don’t worry about it – trust yourself to provide the best solution and it will come to you!

Visualise the benefits – what will you have when you have finished that you don’t have now, and how will that make you feel? What will you feel like if it never happens? If you are not bothered either way, question whether you should even be doing this in the first place. If not doing it makes you feel terrible and doing it makes you feel wonderful, use this as a motivator when things get tough. Think big. Imagine what this project could lead to – the money it could generate or the employment opportunities it could create.

One of the reasons that you have not started may be a lack of knowledge or lack of confidence. One of the best ways to gain knowledge quickly is to ask a friend, colleague or acquaintance who knows about this area. Failing that, have a look on the internet or visit the library. Whatever you need to find out, there will be somebody who has already done the research. Why spend time re-creating information that already exists?

Do you like being challenged? Would you like the opportunity for your team to demonstrate its ability and raise money for deserving local charities? Do you really think you have what it takes to be the best out of 100 leading companies and organisations in Leicestershire? If so you are up for the Vantis Corporate Challenge.

Vantis plc the leading business advisory, tax and accountancy group is throwing down the gauntlet to 100 leading businesses in Leicestershire.

Here’s the deal…

Vanitis will provide you with a crisp £50 note. Your challenge is to raise as much money as possible from the £50 over a period of three months (the only rule being it must be done ethically and legally!). All the money raised will be donated to two local charities: Rainbows Children’s Hospice and LOROS to help them in their efforts to achieve a difficult fund target.

In a similar challenge in the North West, the 100 companies managed to raise many tens of thousands of pounds for local charities, a feat that would be great to replicate for our chosen causes.

The challenge is now live and will finish on Sunday 8 June 2008. Throughout the challenge, Vantis business experts and the charity fundraisers will be on call to offer support, help and guidance should it be needed. We are hoping that not only will this raise much-needed funds for two very worthy causes but it will also generate positive PR for your company regionally and encourage excellent teamwork amongst those working on your company’s business idea. Perhaps you have a bright spark in your company and you didn’t even know it!

The challenge will end with the prestige awards dinner on Friday 13 June at the Walkers Stadium to which all participants will be invited to attend to celebrate their efforts and at which the winners will be announced.

For full details, click here http://www.vantisplc.com/Vantis/Locations/Leicester/VantisCorporateChallenge2008.htm

The Ideal Marketing Company is up for the challenge – are you?

How many people are involved in your project? The more people, the more complicated and therefore the more likely it will get delayed. This is particularly true when people are not clear about their specific responsibilities. If you are going to involve other people (and delegation is a great way to get things moving) make certain that they know exactly what is required of them.

Watch this great advert that is currently showing in London.  It was brought to my attention on the brilliant Seth Godin’s blog.

http://www.dothetest.co.uk/

How many areas of your business or marketing could you apply that idea to? It’s all very well keeping your eye on the ball, but sometimes it means you miss the bigger picture.