Quality Assurance, or QA, is often given short shrift in a software development organization, especially when budgets are tight. When debating the software development budget at one of my software companies, the CEO finally asked, "Well, do you really want to hire a QA guy, or a programmer to add features to the software?" It was a tough choice. I decided to hire the programmer because we had a huge list of features to implement. And we could not afford to implement a QA process without hiring More..

Dont Sweat the Small Stuff with Your Credit Policy

Do you know how many customers you have that are past due right now? How many bad checks are sitting on your desk that you don't know what to do with? How many dunning letters do you send out a month? How would you like to answer those questions with none, or very few? In a new book, "Become the Squeaky Wheel," Michelle Dunn, explains and outlines some easy procedures you can use to erase bad debt, and prevent it in the future. "One thing that is often overlooked is how to prevent future credi More..

How Businesses Can Stop Wallowing in Bad Debt and Prevent It in the Future

"Become the Squeaky Wheel", a new book just published, explains that getting customers involves more than advertising. Michelle Dunn presents examples of credit procedures and policies to help creditors or business owners collect bad debt and prevent it in the future. "One of the best things you can do is implementing a credit policy or have each new customer fill out a credit application," says Michelle Dunn. "A credit application will protect you and let your customers know you mean business. More..

Basic Management Skills

Recent studies have shown that industrial supervisors are working at less than 60 % of their potential. Basic management skills training is guaranteed to change all this and at such little cost Manager in context Most of my adult life has been spent working as a supervisor or manager on industrial projects throughout the world. As the years passed I have become more and more convinced that the supervisor is the most critical of all roles in industry. The supervisor controls the key organizatio More..

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Growing Profits is Easy!

Everyone involved in running a business from the smallest start-up to a major corporate dreams about how to achieve sustained profitable growth. I'm a great believer that business is simple - it's only us human beings that make it complex. If you simplify business, and that is best done in my experience by "getting up in the helicopter" and looking at the big picture, it is remarkable how much you can see! I recently researched CEOs and I asked them one question: "What is the biggest challenge More..

Take Control of Your Paper in 3 Easy Steps

Do you have piles of paper on your desk. Many do and don't know how to deal with them. They have no working system to deal with the day to day influx of paper, email, magazines and other information. Worse yet, after a while that pile on your desk gets moved to the top of the file cabinet. And the pile on the file cabinet gets moved to the window sill. Pretty soon you have piles of paper all over your office. Are you or someone you know in this situation? That's how my office used to look back More..

Discover the Astonishing Power of Words Today!

Picture all the people you know who are dynamic, successful and self-confident. The ones who are the stars of every gathering. The people who are witty, intelligent and entertaining. The scintillating personalities who can be relied upon to light up every occasion. These super confident people are never tongue-tied, never shy, never afraid to express an opinion. You will never see them cowering in their seats too shy to express their views or sitting quietly in a corner while others are making More..

Is Your Business A Dysfunctional Family?

The other day I brought my mother into an appliance store to purchase a television. By the time we left with her new television, she was completely disgusted. Unlike most of us, she comes from an older generation that actually expects salespeople and store employees to think of customers as valued visitors that represent their primary source of income. I wish that I could say that the store we visited was the exception, however, it was more the rule. From the time we entered the store, we notic More..

Which ITIL Process Should We Implement First?q

The following question is usually debated a lot amongst IT managers. "With which process should we start when implementing ITIL?" Everybody has their own views, but here are my takes on it. Some consultants sat that one must start with Service Level Management. Theoretically, it would be the perfect option, but how are you going to negotiate SLA's on your MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) if you are not measuring your MTTR through Incident management. This way you will get an idea of your capabilities More..

Action Learning: Its More Than OJT

For centuries companies have used on-the-job training (OJT). OJT works because it follows much of what we know about adult learning theory. For example, we know: 1. Adults learn best when new learning can be applied immediately. 2. Much of classroom "learning" is lost because it does not transfer back to the job. Action learning is a two-part method to maximize learning and productivity by maximizing OJT. Action learning involves teams of organizational members working on real organizationa More..

IT Expenditure - Why Businesses Spend Huge Amounts on Ineffective IT Investments

Another IT White Elephant! It seems that almost every day we read in the newspapers about another hideously over budget IT project that doesn't achieve its expected benefits. The ones we read about are usually major multi-million pound projects in the public sector, however this is only the tip of the iceberg. Many more projects achieve similar results in the private sector, in organisations large and small. These may be anything from the purchase of a new off-the-shelf accounting package for More..

Know the Source of Business

One of the first questions we ask a prospect or new client is, "How did you get the business you have so far?" Some can answer exactly. Others aren't as certain. When we begin our first discussions with a new client, our preferred modusoperandi is to set up a program that allows us to talk to their customers who willgive us a comprehensive view of our client's business. If we can't talk to customersright away and find out why they selected our client and what the experience hasbeen, we must rel More..

The Cheapest, Forget It !

Wouldn't it be great if we got get the cheapest price on everything. I know I wouldn't want it. Would you? Do you strive to get the cheapest automoblie? The cheapest mobile home to live in? The cheapest place to eat? Rather than look for the cheapest we tend to look for value for our money. We know we all work hard for our money and would like to be compensated if we are to give it up. The first thing a buyer should look for is if he's comparing apples with apples. Any person who's been to Chin More..

Manage Your Time - Save Your Business.

If you work from home, chances are you already know that you're really pulling "double duty". You probably work on your business while doing the laundry, corralling the kids, or fixing dinner... and let's not forget all the phone calls from family and friends expecting you to run errands or just "go out" for an afternoon of fun. One of the hardest parts of running a home business is separating your work from your family and social life. Here are six proven ways to keep your home life running sm More..

Sending Documents Through Email? Dont Get Burned by Metadata!

During a recent seminar I gave located in the suburbs of Philadelphia, I discussed something called, "metadata". When I asked whether anyone ever heard of metadata, I was confronted with blank stares. This is exactly why I decided to write here about what it is and how it can impact your company. Metadata is information that exists in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Metadata is simply "data about data", and your electronic documents probably contain lots of it. Metadata describes d More..

Jack Welch--Success Is Getting Back Up on the Horse

A few months ago I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with Jack Welch, past CEO of GE. A fantastic opportunity. Some of the things he said about who they hire and what they are looking for in managers sort of hit home with what I am telling clients, and what I am telling my teen leadership group (our Rising Stars program). The Best Managers Aren't Perfect But They Keep Getting Back on the Horse Jack Welch--"We look for people that are not perfect. People that have made mistakes, but k More..

Are You A B.O.S.S. -- Boisterous, Omnipotent, Self Indulgent, Sociopath

Boisterous, Omnipotent, Self- indulgent Sociopath. Avoid the B.O.S.S. syndrome with five leadership principles that translate academic leadership theory to real world, 21st century application. There are many academic theories published on leadership. Some of these theories include: Participative Leadership Patricia McLagan & Christo Nel state that, "leadership is about breaking new ground, going beyond the known and creating the future." They talk about new governance requiring effective More..

HRM: Contributing to Well-being or Ill-being at Work?

If you were to take the people out of an organisation you would be left with some stock and machinery that would be of little value, and possibly some property. It is the people that make an organisation function, so having the people functioning to the best of their ability must surely be best for an organisation. Yet much of what is undertaken in the field of HRM actually serves to detract from people functioning at their best. Evidence from studies of wellbeing in the workplace reveal some in More..

Avoid These Seven Deadly Dangers Of Outsourcing

Here are seven dangers of outsourcing your software development. They become deadly if your career or entire company depends on the timely release of your software. Danger #1- Ignoring Outsourcing It may seem safer to ignore outsourcing and stick with what has worked well in the past -- hire employee programmers and work with them directly to get your software developed. There are situations where concerns about intellectual property or security make this the only choice. But if you do not have More..

An Original Perspective on Waging Conflict as a Way to Promote and Restore Self-dignity

Conflict is a fact of life for all of us, but too many painful consequences are generated by avoiding or managing it in the wrong way. When we deal with everybody else day after day in any capacity as leaders or team managers, is inevitable that we will be personally confronted with conflict. Our jobs, our reputation and our own satisfaction level are contingent upon knowing a basic principle to understand interpersonal conflict. If you are a leader, you need to learn and apply this principle in More..

Employee Retention: Its a Changing Game

As a management consultant, I have seen some poorly conceived retention policies at otherwise well-run companies. The philosophies underlying these policies lack some basic knowledge of two things: 1. human nature, and 2. the changing world around us Human Nature Let's start with human nature. The practice of management requires an understanding of how people work. Successful managers can be forgiven if they do not know how a particular machine works, or how to debit and credit the general l More..

Are You Cascading Your Strategy, or Fragmenting It?

INTRODUCTION The typical approach executive teams use to cascade, or roll out, their strategic direction is to produce a clear set of goals, objectives, critical success factors or a scorecard and then get each departmental or functional manager to take this on board and customize it for their part of the organisation. The trouble then begins? A TYPICAL APPROACH: EACH DEPARTMENT ADOPTS OR ADAPTS A VERSION OF THE CORPORATE STRATEGY The first phase of most organisational planning processes is t More..

Are You Measuring Something Meaningful?

Avoiding inert measures that anaesthetise your performance management. INTRODUCTION You sit before the monthly report, which might be an inch or so thick, and you contemplate whether it's the best use of your time to paw through the pages to check if there's anything useful in there for you. Past experience tells you that the report is full of many measures graphed in all their splendor, but virtually none of them pique your interest, help you make the decisions you barely have time to give en More..

Outsourcing Quiz: Cheap Vs. Good

Someone can say, 'Why do you oppose this?' So I'd like to prevent such attacks and tell that this article is dedicated mainly to the issue if it's worth to look for the cheapest solution. Software and web development market is overwhelmed nowadays. Hence, as soon as there is a possibility to get something for nothing the usual approach in search for developers is a choice of the lowest price. The logic is understandable enough, 'Why should I pay $1000 for this bit of software if I can find some More..

The Email Trap

If you sit at a computer for most of the day, it's tempting to constantly check your email to see what's new. But that's a time management disaster if you're trying to make progress in your business. Resist the temptation. Here are some tips to help you get that time eating monster under control. - Turn off email notification (like the beep or pop up screen). It's just like a ringing phone that demands to be answered. Even in the instant world that exists today, email can wait. - Establish a s More..

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Train Me -- But Follow Through

My mechanic has me trained. When I take my car in for an oil change, he places a sticker in the upper left hand corner of my windshield to remind me what date and mileage I should have my next maintenance completed. But every once in a while, he forgets to put the sticker on the window. Then I have to remember the date and mileage details. It's a good thing to train your customers and clients and it can help you pump up your bottom line. But if you choose that route, it's important to follow th More..

You Cant Afford the Luxury of Disengaged Employees

In today's business environment with increases in staff reductions and rapidly changing roles and responsibilities, it is crucial that all of your team members be fully engaged in the tasks at hand. According to a Gallup survey, 350 billion dollars are lost each year in American companies due to disengaged employees. How then do you minimize the impact of this costly problem within your organization? Below are key strategies to help you grow your people toward peak performance and enable you to More..

Controlling Your Cash Flow

Introduction Are you looking for a way to gain control of your personal finances and implement a budget that will get you back on the road to financial success? Great! And remember there is no better time to start than now. Like anything in life, before you can become financially stable you must understand the fundamentals of personal finance. Gaining control of your personal finances does not have to be hard, in fact some even find the road back to financial stability both challenging and sati More..

Why Do Managers Create Low Morale? Or Does My Bum Look Big In This?

Why do managers create low morale as a product of their management and what can we do about it? The answer to the initial question is easy. We all know what managers do to the workforce that causes the workforce to feel the way they do about their jobs. The managers never listen to the workforce, they never give the workforce any respect, they don't value the workforce and they spend their time "managing" by telling people what to do. The much harder question is "What can we do about it?" I More..

How to Dodge Distribution Difficulties

It happened again. I ran into an old friend while registering for the World Masters Games last month and as we were catching up, she complemented me on a necklace I was wearing. When I told her I bought it in South Africa on my last trip there, she exclaimed, "You have to start importing these. You'd make a fortune!" The Great Import Plan This is a refrain I've heard over and over again and while there is some truth in it, you can make money being an importer, there is a certain amount of naiv More..

Travel the World - for Free!

I have been very fortunate to travel to several countries of the world while on business - countries I may have never visited on a holiday. There are pros and cons to working/doing business in a foreign country vs. visiting as a tourist but I have found it to be very rewarding. I have made many friends, been invited into many colleagues' homes to meet their families, dined on local specialties, and seen all the local attractions (I've been to the Giza pyramids three times - see photo on the righ More..

Romford Accountants: Accountancy Firm Roles and Responsibilities

If you own or operate a business in the UK, especially in Romford, then you know how time consuming it is to not only run your business but to also make sure all of your financial bases are covered. I want to help you understand some of the common roles and responsibilities a Romford based accountant / accountancy firm may face in a given day. Good accountants / accountancy firms will provide advisory services in addition to crunching numbers. They can help you choose the most optimal business More..

Quality Improvement is Free

The point of a quality improvement program should not only be to improve aproduct or the delivery of healthcare but it should also be to save time and money by reducing or eliminating waste or errors. For example, a doctor or nurse practitioner writes a prescription. We wouldn't deliver some of the best quality pills along with a few randomly chosen pills and we wouldn't completely incorrectly fill the prescription. To do either could create serious consequences. Rather, we want to only deliver More..

Corporate Governance for Business Owners

It is clear that good Corporate Governance is in the best interests of shareholders of public companies, but how can it benefit shareholders of private companies and other business owners? Will a good system of corporate governance increase the bottom line? One of the elements of a good system of corporate governance is ensuring that the role, and the boards' expectations, of management are understood. Separation Separation of the board and management is often lacking when it comes to small More..

Is Busyness Affecting Your Business?

I'm too busy; I'd love to but I'm very busy; I'll get round to that when I'm not so busy. How often have you said any of those phrases? How many times a week do you hear someone else say those phrases? They're very common and busyness seems to have become a way of life for many people. I've just finished writing my first ebook called Take Control of Your Time and when I was doing some research two of the most common problems people said they faced were too many priorities and too busy to plan More..

Lower the Bar

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." Ralph Waldo Emerson I'm so excited. I got a cool new power point template with orange and yellow flames. It's not too much (well, maybe it is), but I don't care. I like it. So I transferred my regular presentation to the new template. I got some mesmerizing slide transitions like Jim Edwards used (spinning boxes and such that the audience at Big Seminar were oohing and aahing about). My handouts were ready to go. Then I find out -- they do More..

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