Enterprise Social Media - A powerful alternative to flooded mailboxes

Hello Readers,

Greetings!!!

In my recent conversation with one of our customers, an unusual request came up which triggered a very interesting discussion. Customer wanted us to assess the email culture in their teams and find out if engineers have to tendency to miss any important emails because of large number of incoming emails. According to the customer, most of their staff is getting hundreds of emails every day and obviously not every email is important for everyday work. The fear is, what if people get into the habit of ignoring emails and miss out something important.

After this discussion, the first thought which came into my mind was: “isn’t it a problem with every organization?” I think it is. Be it my current organization, previous employers or the customers I have worked with, I have not only faced this problem, but also ignorantly added to the problem.

So the question here is, is there a solution to this problem? If yes, then what would it be and how complicated it is? If no, what is the best way to ensure that no important emails remain un-noticed?

A precursor would be “how many of us would see this as a problem?” I am assuming that more than 50% of us would not see this as a problem. However, since our customers see this as a problem, then we must have a solution. That’s IT Service Industry for you. Yow know that’s how it goes!!! Pun Intended!

Alright so before we get into a possible solution, let’s define and measure the problem. In order to do that, we need to analyze the kind of emails we receive in a week and categorize them. There are three high level categories can be defined:

-          Category 1 - Actionable Emails

-          Category 2 - Work Related Information (CCs etc.)

-          Category 3 - General Information/Group Emails

Going further, we need to do some sampling on emails received last few weeks. (The sampling must be done during the usual work-month not in the holiday season). We need to categorize each email in one of the defined categories.

I targeted first and last week of a month do the sampling and then did the categorization exercise. Here are the results:

In a given week, only 30% of the emails I received are Actionable Email. Of the remaining, 40% (i.e. 30% of the total) are Work Related Information and rest are General Information/Group Email. I ran this test one more time and observed similar results.

Workweeks	Category 1	Category 2	Category 3
Week1(month start)	30%	30%	40%
Week2(month end)	35%	35%	30%
Week3(random sample)	28%	25%	47%
Week4(random sample)	36%	40%	24%
Week5(random sample)	30%	25%	45%

 

 I did this test with a colleague of mine and found similar results.

On the whole, the results were eye opening. Some of us might not be agreeing with these numbers and that’s perfectly alright because it depends upon multiple things like nature of work, job level, team size, organization culture etc. However, we can’t disagree with the fact that there are lot of emails all of us get on our official email IDs that have nothing to do with the work.

In the second phase of my study, I tried to analyze the Category 3 - General Information type of emails and understand what value they are bringing into my professional life. They only value I see in those emails is a little distraction which can keep us motivated at times. Examples are Announcements, Events, News, Blogs, Notifications and Advertisements etc.

A similar analysis was done on Category 2 emails that are Work Related Information emails. Surprisingly, in this category, 50% of the emails are just for my information where no action is expected from me currently or in future. The other 50% were intended to me so that I can prepare myself for possible future action.

Based on these studies, I was convinced that something must be done to those non-value adding email. The natural impulse was to find a way to stop the Category 3 emails and put some restrictions on Category 2 emails by encouraging people to “not to reply to all”. But when I saw category 2& 3 emails from the organizational perspective, I felt that there is a need for all these Category 2 & 3 emails.  However, I was certain that these emails don’t have a place the pile of all Category 1 emails.

Then I thought about LinkedIn & Facebook and the way we get all kind of information on this platforms which is related to our professional life but not directly to our job and I realized that social media can play a great role in cleaning up our mailboxes by providing right place to all those Category 2 & Category 3 emails. The beauty of social media platforms is that there is no pile on. When I want to, I can be actively contributing and otherwise I can just be a spectator. (TV is a lean-back medium, Internet is a lean-forward medium and social media can be both – Unknown)

So just imagine a LinkedIn or Facebook like platform within an organization. Anybody can post an update something s/he wants to share. S/he can decide the audiences. S/he can “tag” people who are closer to the information. For example:

And there can be many more. We all see these emails in our mailboxes but I strongly feel that social media platform is the appropriate place for them.

So have we found a solution here? Well let’s do a quick argument

By implementing a social media platform like LinkedIn or Facebook on company intranet, we can eliminate the big pile of Category 2 & 3 emails and convert them into “wall posts” or “updates”. This approach would not only eliminate the sizable amount of non-value adding data from the servers but also change our emailing habits.

Counter argument: Lot of organizations have already tried the in-house social media solutions and no benefits have been seen so far. Only few HR guys use this kind of stuff for some events etc. People are very comfortable with the emails because it still retains certain degree of responsibility. Social media on the other hand can make things more casual at work.

Both the arguments are right and certainly there is no best practice available in this space, which brings us to a very important point here. Social Media is successful only if it is being used extensively. Similarly to make the social media successful in an enterprise, we need to have a great behavioral change management strategy. The strategy should consider both top down and bottom up approach. A top down approach can be monitoring the mailing patterns, questioning people who are sending bulk emails to 30+ users at the same time etc. A bottom up approach can be training people, start using social media for Category 3 updates, do pilot runs etc.

It is needless to say that this kind of change is going to take time. And when I say time, I am not talking about days or weeks. I am talking about months and years. But I am quite optimistic that this change is going to survive. The reason is, the younger generation is social media savvy. I did not grow up with Facebook or LinkedIn. In my school and college days, the term social media did not exist. For us, the internet was all about mailing, chatting and browsing. On the other side, the younger generation is growing up with social media. It somehow relates to their way of thinking and dealing with day to day life. Therefore, having social media-like culture at work would be an easy sail for them.

The real behavioral change would be needed for people of my generation and elders (early thirties and beyond). For our generation, social media is mostly about entertainment and information. We need to upgrade ourselves and start smart utilization of social media at work. We need to detach ourselves from the habit of mail trails, reply to all etc. and get into social media style of workplace.

Finally, I would like to say that social media can play a great role in changing or upgrading our work culture (especially emailing habits) in positive manner. IT itself is evolving at a very high velocity and with the new trend of BYOD, an enterprise social media platform has certainly a long way to go.

 Happy Learning

Aditya

 

Transformation project debacle due to premature implementation roadmap – Real life example

In this blog, I have tried to analyze the disaster of Aam Admi Party (AAP) in the general elections from the lenses of consulting professionals.

Disclaimer: I am not involved with any political party actively or passively. I don’t have any political views about this country and I don’t support any political ideology. This blog is written for purely entertainment purpose.

When Aam Admi Party (AAP) won the Delhi assembly elections in Dec 2013 (in reality, they did not win but they won the hearts of people), all the a-political people like me got really excited. I could easily relate to the thoughts of the party leaders. Everything they said was coming directly from the heart of an average Indian. It wasn’t just Delhi, all the north India and major part of south India was happy about their success.

But what happened in last six months? Neither they were involved in any scams nor did they try to play sentimental politics. They fought the general elections on their principles. They did not join any other party. Still today the same average Indian doesn’t even bother about them. Nobody is interested in their debates and thoughts anymore. Entire social media is taking pot shots on them. They are not even being considered for a sympathy. For me, the only value I see in them is some daily dose of entertainment.

After doing wonders in Delhi assembly elections, they tried to do some great things in hurry burry and then abruptly stepped down and started preparing for general elections. Unlike Delhi elections where they had a clear agenda, a fresh appeal and right connect with people, in general elections they were completely directionless and unorganized. They fought from more than 450 seats and managed to pull up just around 1 crore votes. Most of their candidates lost miserably in the elections.

If I look at AAP’s journey as an outsider, it looks like a clear case of failed transformation project. Furthermore, the biggest mistake they made from the project management point of view was project execution without a roadmap. Here is my analysis:

AAP had a great idea to reduce defects from the system and improve efficiency. By looking at the magnitude of work and nature of the customer, I can classify this project as a major transformation project. They formed a team of experts. They created a blueprint which looked realistic. They were able to engage with the stakeholders at all levels. They created the need of their blueprint and therefore they were much ahead of their competition. Most of us were really excited to see their blueprint into the reality. They sold the blueprint to the people of this country and Delhi people gave them a chance to do a successful pilot run. Now the tough part starts.

1. They had no project execution roadmap for implementing the blueprint they sold to the customers.
2. After getting on-boarded, they started following their high level strategy to implement the blueprint but forgot to include exceptions and constrains.
3. They had no realistic timelines for executing each of the specified tasks in the blueprint. They did not prioritize the tasks and attempted to do all of them together
4. They failed to build a decision support system which could help them in evaluating every decision they took.
5. They did not realize the need of doing hypothetical testing and risk assessment of their major decisions. They arrived unprepared and started taking decisions abruptly
6. They oversold the blueprint to the people and failed to make it real. Eventually their pilot run failed.
7. They started discovering new constrains during the project execution and accounted them for their inability to deliver
8. After realizing their inability to deliver, they terminated the contract and left the customers in the dark

Finally, they spent a lot of time and money to justify their abrupt decisions and put blames on the competition

This was the end of Phase-1. In phase-2, instead of learning from their mistakes, they decided to go for bigger customers. Customers (people of this country) had seen their unsteadiness very closely and therefore they were not ready to take any chance this time. And the results is quite evident. AAP is out of the market and losing all the good resources every other day. Their brand value is decreasing sharply and they might not be getting another opportunity to revive it (at least in near future).

What they could have done (from the project execution point of view):

1.       First of all, they could have taken time to prepare a detailed roadmap of implementing the blueprint. Roadmap must be realistic considering constrains and exceptions.

2.       They did not have to do this roadmap preparation work before Delhi assembly elections. Rather, they could have easily bought the time to do it after making the government because customer was expecting some high quality work there

3.       Bigger customer base was closely watching them and everybody had the realization that end of the day it’s an initiative and a pilot project and some of the limitations or shortcoming wouldn’t have affected their success metrics

4.       They needed to prioritize their tasks specified in the blueprint and start the implementation. They could have asked for external help from retired bureaucrats and other experts to understand and manage the exceptions, constrains and practical challenges.

5.       They could show the improvement in Key Performance Indicators (derived from their blueprint) in 5-6 months’ timeframe and obviously people would have realized it too.

6.       They needed to focus on making the pilot run as successful as possible. They had an opportunity to change the business strategies of many competitors.

7.       They could clearly invalidate the claims of longtime incumbent vendors who claim to have best blueprint for the country.

8.       They were not supposed to show any eagerness in going for bigger customer base (general elections) without proving the worth of their blueprint

9.       They needed to focus on low hanging fruits (upcoming state elections like Haryana, Maharashtra and others) where they can revalidate the strength of their blueprint.

10.   In this journey, we might see some acceleration in the competition like following AAPs footsteps or upgrading the blue prints to challenge AAP. Nonetheless, AAP would have always remained the first choice because they had a credible success stories.

11.   And finally after doing all this,  they could attract the talent from the competition which would further strengthen their capabilities

Learnings:

1.       The moral of the story is - a great idea can become a nightmare without having a detailed blueprint and proper implementation roadmap

2.       We should never initiate a transformation project without proper roadmap. We must ensure that our commitments are realistic and achievable in the given timeframe

3.       The implementation roadmap must be comprehensive and inclusive of all the external factors. We can’t afford to discover the unknown external factors during the project execution and account our inability to deliver on them

4.       We should never hesitate to take baby steps in transformation projects. We must make the best use of any piloting opportunities.

5.       And finally, we must honor the contract (the mandate)

My first blog - Lord Shri Krishna: The Ultimate Consultant

Hello Readers,

Greetings!!!

This is my first blog ever and I hope I will be able to share some interesting thoughts here.

Being an IT Professional and specially a consultant gives you ample of free time to think about all possible unnecessary things and find value in them. When I think about some heroic figures in my profession, I hardly find anyone to relate with. The reason is, some of them are college dropouts and others are very educated. That means, mediocre like me have very bleak chances of making it big. Nonetheless, one can always be hopeful like the politicians of our country. Pun Intended.

Alright so coming back to heroic figures in consulting business, it was getting difficult for me to find a few names and articulate their approach. And suddenly I thought about Lord Shri Krishna and found an interesting analogy. Here it goes:

Role of a "Consultant" can be simply understood by the "Geeta Gyan" episode of "Mahabharat".

When Arjun found himself helpless in the battlefield, Lord Shri Krishna recited "Bhagvat Geeta" and enabled him to fight and win the battle. Without getting into the specifics when I see as an outsider, I strongly feel that Krishna played the role of a great consultant here.

Lord Shri Krishna could have given a 3-days training course to Arjun and issued a certificate beforehand and got him prepared for the battlefield. But then, there is a possibility that Arjun would have forgotten everything from the training in the battlefield. So Arjun got the "Gyan" when it was much needed. And that is the celebration of the role of a consultant.

Now lets look at Lord Shri Krishna's role here. Lord Shri Krishna was an extremely knowledgeable person with great presence of mind and excellent problem analysis skills. His immense ability to provide practical and relatable examples for given situation helped Arjun to understand "Bhagvat Geeta" and overcome his challenges. He not only advised but enabled Arjun to achieve the target.

Analyzing further, I find it interesting that "Krishna" did not fight the battle for "Arjun" which he could easily do. Instead, he presented himself as a go-to person for anything and everything.

Finally, think about the credibility of the work done by a consultant. Geeta Gyan delivered by Shri Krishna is repeatable, adoptable and comprehensive. It never gets obsolete and can be reused in all similar situation with great ease. And that's why I call Lord Shri Krishna - "The Ultimate Consultant"

So my friends, now we can summarize the role of a "Consultant" - One who can suggest right thing at the right time with great degree of simplification.

Happy Learning,
Aditya Dashora