Category Archives: Collaboration

The Missing Loop – Guest Post by Paul Foraker

Posted on February 20, 2014 by | Leave a comment

CommitKeeper: The Missing Loop

What’s missing in work group software?

Cloud-based software supporting collaboration can include shared calendars, files, and tasks. Workers share dates and documents with each other using services like Google Drive or SharePoint; and there are several task managers available to small groups. Plus, there are platforms like Producteev, Flow, and Remember The Milk that integrate all three. One thing they all seem to be missing, however, is a collaborative workflow that emphasizes the importance of making negotiated commitments.

A negotiated commitment (Flores, et al.) is one in which a Requester and Performer have made an explicit agreement about the terms of the task at hand. Requests will include:

  • title
  • due date
  • budget
  • description of the scope of the task

The next step — which most solutions ignore — is to get the Performer to agree. Top-down management doesn’t always work. Lost emails stop progress.

The SaaS solution called CommitKeeper (www.commitkeeper.com) aims to provide the missing link; or better, the missing loop. CommitKeeper automates the commitment-based management (CBM) stages of:

  1. Preparation
  2. Negotiation
  3. Countered
  4. Delivery
  5. Acknowledgement
  6. Archival

When a team member fills out a New Request form and clicks Send, the parties Negotiate. If the Performer needs to, she makes a Counter-offer. After the parties agree, they enter Delivery. When she’s finished, she clicks Deliver, and the Requester is notified. Time to Acknowledge. The Requester can ask for rework (back to Delivery) or click OK (Archived).

Explicit commitment closes the loop and brings results.

Leave a comment

Posted in Collaboration, Commitment Based Management, Execution, Managed Conversations

Lencioni’s “Five Dysfunctions of a Team” – A Commentary

Posted on December 6, 2013 by | Leave a comment

In 2002, Patrick Lencioni wrote “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team” describing the many pitfalls teams face and the fundamental causes of organizational politics and team failure.  Despite the lack of actual data to support his observations, the book has been on the New York Times and Business Week best-seller list, and it is a favorite of many organization consultants.  This is no doubt because the dysfunctions are so familiar.

Lencioni describes the hierarchy of the five dysfunctions:

  • Absence of trust — if team members are unwilling to take interpersonal risks with one another and are unwilling to be vulnerable or to admit mistakes and weaknesses; this culminates in poor trust-building practices.  (Note: See my other blog articles on Trust.)
  • Fear of conflict — when teams are incapable of engaging in unfiltered and passionate debate of ideas, the outcome is that members rely on carefully crafted safe statements to avoid conflict and reprisal; the unvarnished truth is not spoken.
  • Lack of commitment — without healthy conflict team members feign buy-in; causing ambiguity about decisions. If there is agreement, it is done begrudgingly or to deflect conflict.
  • Avoidance of accountability — without commitment and buy-in, accountability suffers as it is hard to hold someone accountable for what you do not believe in.  Performance standards decline when no one is called out on their counterproductive behavior.
  • Inattention to results — if team members do not hold each other accountable, results suffer. Individual interests, such as status and ego, override the team’s agenda.

Lencioni’s model

We can all recognize these dysfunctional tendencies.  In fact, these are present to a lesser or greater degree in virtually every team.  So the question remains; how can leaders promote improvement along these dimensions?

Many organization consultants use this model in team-based interventions and executive coaching.  Recognizing the dysfunctions and understanding how they affect team performance is not difficult, the hard part is changing them.  How exactly do leaders change the norms, practices, and behaviors of individual team members?

The root of the problems and the focus for making change is in the nature of the conversations going on among team members, i.e., who is saying what to whom, on what topics, with what words, in what mood, etc.  The team dysfunctions are manifested in the dialog, or lack thereof, going on between team members.  To make improvements in team performance, managers need to focus on these conversations.

In his 2013 book Conversations For Action and Collected Essays: Instilling a Culture of Commitment in Working Relationships, Fernando Flores wrote:

“Leadership is a phenomenon of the conversations of a team, not of an individual.  The role of the leader is to make sure the right conversations are happening and that they are being assessed by the team as being effective.  These are not one-way messages like take out the trash or do this task, but rather two-way conversations in which individuals share their background concerns, negotiate agreements for taking action together, and continuously develop a shared assessment of how the work and their relationship is progressing.”

Lencioni’s model is used by many management consultants to help leaders and groups understand the roots of their performance problems and to prompt changes in the group’s conversational patterns.  For some this can be an important intervention illuminating a pathway for change.

The real challenge, however, is making the intervention stick.  It is one thing to learn the model and quite another to change a group’s behavior, their practices around the structure and quality of their conversations.  Even if this can be done during an intervention spanning a few weeks, how can the manager, leader or group make sure the new practices stick over the long haul?

This challenge is one of the reasons 4Spires developed its social task management solution – CommitKeeper. The software helps to instantiate new practices around conversations that address all of the team dysfunctions.  CommitKeeper prompts explicit responses to requests and assures that clear commitments are made and that each party maintains proper and ongoing communication throughout the entire cycle: initial request through post-delivery.  Accountability is made visible and the software keeps a detailed record of results.  Trust is built through more honest conversations and a track record of making and keeping one’s commitments.

I’m betting the interventions that yield the best long term results will include a combination of training accompanied by the CommitKeeper software.

Leave a comment

Posted in Accountability, Collaboration, Commitment Based Management, Managed Conversations, Performance Management, Trust

Evolving Email – Guest Blog by David Creelman

Posted on October 16, 2013 by | Leave a comment

David Creelman (www.creelmanresearch.com) has been a thought leader on human capital management issues for more than 10 years.   He writes extensive, thought-provoking papers and speaks frequently at industry conferences.  I reached out to David back in 2011 to gather his reactions to the work we were beginning at 4Spires.  In response, he wrote the following blog post.  Two years on, David’s observations are even more relevant.  He writes:

“The biggest untapped opportunity for organizational effectiveness is email.

Managerial and professional staffs spend a big hunk of every day on email. It is the single most important means for control, coordination and communication. Yet how much time does HR invest in creating the means so that this tool for control, coordination and communication is used effectively?

One stumbles a bit here, because while HR leaders can imagine providing training on using email, the broader sense that HR should “create the means to make email more effective” (to repeat my own awkward phase) feels outside the scope of the function. Yet if HR doesn’t grab hold of this, who will?

Let me ease the discomfort by pointing to something concrete. I recently spoke to David Arella of 4Spires. He reached out to me because of things I’d written about conversation as a technology. My point was that managers spend 80% of their time in conversation, and making those conversations effective is by no means simple; HR should think of conversations as a sophisticated “technology” for getting things done, not just a trivial everyday act. Arella is interested in “managed conversations” and because many, even most, conversations take place in email—and because email has all the opportunities that come with any online technology—Arella is interested in email.

The starting point is the recognition that conversation is not just about sharing information. A big part of conversation is about making commitments. You ask me to do something by some date. I reply that I will do it. That kind of promise is the key to control and coordination.

The theoretical underpinning for this is speech act theory. If you are a keener like me you will have read the background work by philosophers JL Austin and John Searle, but the practical application of speech act theory comes from Fernando Flores. Flores elucidated the small number of elements of a conversation that results in commitments. Basically it starts with a person making a request, and then someone accepting it, rejecting it or making a counter-offer. When the request is fulfilled and acknowledged as suitable, that commitment cycle is complete.

Flores believes that if people are deliberate about these key elements of conversation, organizations would work more effectively. What better way to enable this than to add functionality to email that helps clarify and track the conversations that manage commitments? This is exactly what 4 Spires is attempting to do.

If you are old enough and geeky enough, you will remember that 4Spires is not the first to try this. Flores himself created an communication application called the Coordinator which attempted to enforce his view of how conversations should be conducted. This wasn’t a success, and my understanding is that it was due to overzealousness on Flores’ part. You wanted to send an email saying “Great game last night!” and the Coordinator would make you decide if that was a request, a counter-offer or whatever. Arella has learned from this experience and has a system that is much lighter on its feet; it gives you the option of a disciplined email conversation that manages commitments but imposes nothing.

Let’s imagine you are running a project that involves 5 or 6 people and a few of their own direct reports. Everyone knows this kind of project can be hard to keep track of. Is everyone doing what they are supposed to? Has something fallen off the rails? Project management software is not suited to this sort of thing; it’s more trouble than it’s worth. But if your email program is tracking who has committed to what by when, then there is an automatically generated record of what is going on. It becomes easy to see “What are the things Joe is supposed to be doing?” or “What deliverables ought to be back to me today?” Tracking who is doing what by when, need not be a separate activity, it happens automatically simply by ticking a few boxes. This is the new face of project management.

One thing that also falls out of this simple commitment tracking is who has done what, who is done on time, and who is consistently late on meeting their commitments. As always, any metric is simply the launch pad for more investigation, but if an employee is consistently late it raises the question of whether the employee is overworked, under skilled or simply poor at estimating how long something will take. This is important management insight. It’s the new face of performance management.

Having structured data online about conversations and commitments leads to many possibilities: potentially you can look at all the commitments an employee has made; you can look at all the deliverables you expect this week; you can see if elements of your project are being held up by people who have made, but not fulfilled, commitments to your own direct reports.

Management is mainly about conversations, and important conversations are about commitments. Most commitments are made by email and so if we track this we can manage it. It’s that simple.

Email is the biggest thing to happen in management in the past few decades, but we’ve kind of just let it happen. We’ve never really grabbed hold of it as the powerful tool it is. If a whole department can worry about the control tool of accounting; why not pay similar attention to the much more expansive tool of email?

Managed conversations in the 4Spires way is not the only thing you can do to improve email. The point is to realize that in email we have a monster of a tool; investment in managing that tool better could have an extraordinary impact on organizational effectiveness.”

Leave a comment

Posted in Collaboration, Commitment Based Management, Execution, HR Systems/Technology, Managed Conversations, Organization Development, Performance Management

Elevating Employee Engagement – New Technology Can Make a Difference

Posted on August 5, 2013 by | Leave a comment

Improving employee engagement is a perennial management concern.  While difficult to quantify, there is little debate that engaged employees contribute more to the enterprise.  An HR executive recently summarized the keys to improving engagement with three words: “Respect, Empower, Inspire.”

Ok, fine, but how does a company or manager do this exactly?  Beyond admonitions to managers, what specific behaviors can managers employ?  I suggest one key lever to focus on is how managers communicate with their staff, i.e., what words are used, what are the conversational patterns, what are the means of following-up and reaching closure, etc.  These are “systematic behaviors” that can be observed and strengthened with an eye to increasing respect and empowerment.

I am referring here to the ground-breaking work by Drs. Fernando Flores and Terry Winograd who developed the model of a “conversation for action” that embodies a new pattern of communication between work colleagues.  First of all, each work conversation begins with a “request”.  Not an “assignment” that presumes a one-up and one-down relationship between the parties, but a “request” which acknowledges from the start the mutual dependency and the associated respect due to the performer.  Just using the words “can you. . .” changes the mood of the whole work delivery conversation.

The second stage of the conversation is equally powerful.  The performer is provided the opportunity, as a respected equal, to “negotiate” their response to the request.  The performer is empowered to say what they can and cannot commit to.  No more just assigning a task with a person’s name on it and a due date.  Rather, an actual agreement with a performer who is empowered to respond with what they can accomplish by when.  Note, also, that providing this measure of autonomy to the performer is the quid pro quo for clarifying subsequent accountability for delivery.  Accountability is baseless without negotiation.  If the performer never has room to say no (i.e. decline a request), then how can you trust a yes?

The work conversation proceeds full circle with a clear delivery of the agreed outcome followed by the manager’s acceptance and praise or critique.  A successful cycle inspires the next one.  Trust, a key element of engagement, is built along the way from repeated cycles.

So, the next question is how do you instantiate these behaviors throughout the organization?

We believe technology can improve engagement by guiding and facilitating a “managed conversation” between requesters and performers.  4Spires has developed a new generation of social task management software that combines task and relationship management.  It goes right to the heart of the engagement question with a specific and tangible intervention that can change the conversation content and dynamics.  The software acts as a third party to the conversation by prompting the use of specific words and responses and by assuring explicit closure of the conversation.  The tool is an expression of new practices and new behaviors.  Helping individuals make and keep their commitments builds engagement.

 

Leave a comment

Posted in Accountability, Collaboration, Commitment Based Management, Managed Conversations, Organization Development, Performance Management, Workplace norms

Book Review – “Conversations for Action and Collected Essays” by Fernando Flores

Posted on June 3, 2013 by | Leave a comment

First, I am impressed with how well the information in this book has stood the test of time. I might even go further and say that the material is more relevant in today’s work culture than it was 30 years ago when it was written. Our modern, technology-connected, but personally-disconnected life can certainly benefit from improving how we converse with each other. Dr. Flores offers an astute analysis of how we communicate, from the basic linguistic elements through an appreciation for background concerns, flow, moods, and trust. He deconstructs our everyday exchanges with other people into their essential elements and then constructs a compellingly simple model of the back and forth “dance” that goes on to achieve shared action. The “conversation for action” loop he developed 3 decades ago remains a powerful model for improving knowledge worker productivity.

In particular, I found the discussion of autonomy vs. accountability very relevant in the context of our current generation of workers. Along with shifts toward less loyalty to company and increasing worker mobility, we can sense a growing demand for increasing autonomy in how (and where) work is conducted. There are obvious benefits to this trend, including increased employee engagement and innovation, but maintaining efficient coordination may be more challenging. Adherence to the conversation for action model adds clarity and a modicum of rigour to work conversations that can make accountability explicit and visible. A growing number of case studies attest to the improvements in collaboration the model provides.

The book offers valuable insights like the following:

— We all make “characterisations” of others and of ourselves. We say “he is trustworthy,” “she is unreliable,” “I’m bad with numbers.” “These features are not real; they only exist in conversation…when we forget that characterisation is a conversation, we perpetuate our competencies and incompetencies, and those of others…grounded characterisations allow us to have productive conversations; these are conversations for moving forward together rather than staying stuck in the present.”

— Our background mood affects how we perceive the world and the people around us and how we behave. A person’s mood is driven by their vision of the future. “A common belief is that the future is basically an extension of what is going on today.” To manage moods, therefore, it is necessary to create a different understanding about the future. Dr. Flores suggests “the most important key to generating moods of challenge, confidence, and ambition is to understand that people create the future in the commitments they make to each other and the actions they take together…we invent the future together.” There is key information in this section for any group leader to consider.

— “Leadership is a phenomenon of the conversations of a team, not of an individual. A team participates in a set of ongoing conversations among people who commit to share an explicitly declared mission and to coordinate actions to fulfil the mission. The leader takes action to ensure that these conversations take place and that they are assessed by the team to be effective. The leader is the person who is granted authority by the team to take care of these conversations in an ongoing manner.”

— Language is central to being social. “We build networks of people with whom we participate in conversations.” These are not one-way messages like “take out the trash” or “do this task,” but rather two-way conversations in which two or more individuals share their background concerns, negotiate agreements for taking action together, and continuously develop a shared assessment of how the work and their relationship is progressing. These are the kind of principles we should be mindful of as we design modern work management systems.

Perhaps the gem of the whole book, however, is the last chapter “On Listening.” Using examples as seemingly far apart as a used car salesman and Lech Walesa, Dr. Flores presents an entirely new approach to the practice of listening. Exhibiting keen observation skills, the author exposes the mechanics of dysfunctional conversation patterns that are immediately recognisable and then presents a new model for listening that can achieve genuine engagement between people with entirely different backgrounds. We see how the traditional training on listening skills is flawed, and we learn an observable, but radically new way of participating in conversations that any reader can utilize and benefit from.

My one reservation with the book is that I was left wanting more examples of these principles in practice. The everyday examples in the book are used only for explanatory purposes. I think the book would have benefited from the inclusion of some case studies where the ideas made a difference. I know they’re out there…perhaps in the second edition?

Leave a comment

Posted in Accountability, Collaboration, Commitment Based Management, Execution, Managed Conversations, Organization Development, Trust, Workplace norms

CommitKeeper selected as finalist in Global Awards for Excellence in Knowledge Worker Innovation

Posted on May 24, 2013 by | Leave a comment

In April 2013, Future Strategies Inc. invited 4Spires to submit a case study in their annual search for excellence in “knowledge worker innovations”.  Our case study described how our Fleet One customer has used CommitKeeper to improve the productivity of their marketing department.  The press release below announces our selection as a finalist in this prestigious competition.

May 22, 2013—Boston, Mass. The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2013 Global Awards for Excellence in Adaptive Case Management.


In 2011, WfMC inaugurated a Global Awards program for Adaptive Case Management (ACM) case studies to recognize and focus upon ACM use cases. Adaptive Case Management represents a new approach to supporting knowledge workers in today’s leading edge organizations. ACM provides secure, social collaboration to create and adapt goal-oriented activities that enable informed decision-making using federated business data and content.








Finalists were selected by a 16-person program committee comprising experts in this field. Committee leader, Max J. Pucher said, “The submitted ACM solutions in 2013 are focused on showing the financial return of being a leading business that uses state-of-the-art technology. While forefront ACM functionality such as evolutionary process improvement by business performers is used by only a few entries,, the ‘Design-by-Doing’ aspect of ACM is widely represented. The spectrum of verticals this year is proof for the wide-ranging applicability of Adaptive Case Management concepts.”






Co-sponsored by WfMC and BPM.com, these prestigious awards recognize user organizations worldwide that have demonstrably excelled in implementing innovative ACM solutions. Award winners will be announced at a special virtual awards ceremony on June 27th at ACM Live.


There are seven categories this year:




    

  • Back Office
    • 

  • Construction and Big Projects
    • 

  • Financial
    • 

  • Legal and Courts
    • 

  • Public Sector
    • 

  • Shipping and Logistics
    • 

  • Knowledge Worker Innovation
    • 





The 2013 finalists (in alphabetical order) across all categories are:


1.    Axle Group Holdings Ltd., nominated by EmergeAdapt


2.    CargoNet AS, nominated by Computas AS


3.    Department of Transport, South Africa, nominated by EMC Corporation


4.    Directorate for the Construction of Facilities for EURO 2012, nominated by PayDox Business Software


5.    Fleet One, nominated by 4Spires


6.    Info Edge Pvt. Ltd, nominated by Newgen Software Technologies Ltd


7.    National Courts Administration of Norway, nominated by Computas AS


8.    Texas Office of the Attorney General Crime Victim Services Division, nominated by IBM


9.    U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), nominated by AINS, Inc.


10.  UBS Bank, nominated by Whitestein Technologies




WfMC Chairman and founder of the ACM Awards program, Keith Swenson commented on the strength of the entries, “This year brings a significant maturing of the field of entries,” said Swenson. “We see well-rounded mainstream use cases with lots of knowledge workers as participants who use the system to innovate their processes every day. In domains where thinking matters, they show that there is a real business case, and the return on investment is really incredible.”






“This distinguished group of finalists survived very high standards and tight scrutiny by a discriminating panel of judges, representing the top influencers in our field” noted WfMC Executive Director Nathaniel Palmer. “Now in its third year, the Excellence in Adaptive Case Management program reflects not only a thriving global market for case management, but clearly demonstrates the value this sector offers to businesses and governments worldwide.”






More details on case study requirements and the finalists can be found online at www.adaptivecasemanagement.org.  Finalists receive additional recognition by having their case studies published in the 2013 edition in the ACM Excellence Series by Future Strategies Inc., following the success of  “Taming the Unpredictable” in 2011 and “How Knowledge Workers Get Things Done” in 2012.  The Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) and BPM.com jointly sponsor the annual Global Awards for Excellence in ACM.  The Awards program is managed by Future Strategies Inc.






For further information:




www.adaptivecasemanagement.org

Layna Fischer (Awards Director)


Future Strategies Inc.

awards@FutStrat.com



							

	
			

					
Leave a comment

									

						Posted in Collaboration, Commitment Based Management, Execution, HR Systems/Technology, Performance Management					

															

		


		
	


			

			
“Conversations for Action” – Perspectives on the Design of Cooperative Work


			

				Posted on March 5, 2013 by  | Leave a comment
			


				

				
 


In 1987, Terry Winograd, Professor Emeritus, Computer Science, Stanford University wrote a compelling paper ‘A Language/Action Perspective on the Design of Cooperative Work’ which was published in Human-Computer Interaction 3:11 (1987-1988), 3-30.


In the article, Winograd describes what he and his fellow collaborator, Dr. Fernando Flores, called ‘Conversations for Action’ which he asserts form the central fabric of all cooperative work.  “Language is the primary dimension of human cooperative activity.”   Winograd concluded that a language-action perspective would play a major role in developing the field of ‘computer-supported cooperative work’.


He was right, but it has taken more than 25 years and several software attempts to realize his vision.  4Spires is the most recent company to design work management software based on this perspective.


Below is a synopsis of the Winograd article:


People act through language.  The language-action perspective focuses on the form; the meaning and use of language to get things done.  A ‘conversation for action’ follows a certain structure – one party (A) makes a request to another (B).  Each party interprets a future course of action that will satisfy the request.  B can accept (and thereby commit to an outcome), decline, or propose a counter-offer with alternative conditions.  Each of B’s ‘moves‘ then lead to different ‘moves‘ by A, and the conversation can be seen as a dance that eventually leads to a mutual understanding that the requested action has been done or that the conversation is complete without it having been done.


The perspective deals with the structure and coordinated sequence of acts by A and B rather than the actual doing of whatever is needed.  Conversations for action are the central coordinating structure for human organizations.


“We work together by making commitments so that we can successfully anticipate the actions of others and coordinate them with our own. The emphasis here is on language as an activity, not as the transmission of information or as the expression of thought.”


Winograd (and we) are concerned with designing computer systems that support these conversations for action.  Email is still the dominant electronic communication tool, though email does not provide sufficient structure to properly support taking cooperative action.  Email, for example, offers only one, generalized way to begin a conversation – ‘compose email’, and it does not offer any distinction between information sharing and making a request.


The system Winograd and Flores conceived allows for a user to initiate a ‘request’ form which prompts the user to specify a performer, others who will receive copies, a related domain of interest, and a description of the desired outcome and due date.


The recipient, on the other hand, is prompted with the various options for responding (e.g. Agree, Decline, or Counter-Offer) that are generated by a conversational state interpreter.  At each stage of the conversation the user is presented with a display of only those actions that could sensibly be taken next by the current speaker (i.e. A or B).  The program deals with the structure of the conversation, not the content.


“The system has no magic to coerce people to come through with what they promise, but it provides a straightforward structure in which they can review the status of their commitments, alter those commitments they are no longer in condition to fulfill, make new commitments to take care of breakdowns and opportunities appearing in their conversations, and generally be clear (with themselves and others) about the state of their work.”


Unlike email, the basic unit of work is a conversation, not a message.  Rather than just linking email messages by the use of Re: in headers, each message belongs to a conversation.  This key distinction enables a much more powerful retrieval and monitoring of work in progress.  To begin with, answers to basic questions like who has the ball, and what do I have to do next become readily apparent.  Messages can be retrieved based on status, or stage (e.g. open or closed), or role (e.g. performer or observer), or domain (e.g. goal or account), etc.


The system replaces typing parts of the contents of an open email message with more direct and structured interactions which are more efficient.  It is a generic tool in the sense that it is intended for a particular kind of communication (i.e. taking cooperative action) without regard for the topic or functional domain.  It is not built for arbitrary sequences of messages, but for the requests, promises and completions that are at the heart of coordinated work.


Systems designed to support conversations for action are not intended to replace face-to-face verbal interactions, or to lessen the importance of interpersonal relations.  Language acts, in general, can be less effective in the absence of personal relationships.  Much of business involves meetings and the social acts of persuasion, negotiation, and, at times, argument.  Trust is developed and built-up over time and is a key factor to productivity along with the mood and motivation of individuals.  Systems, however, can add substantial value by recording and tracking these agreements and work tasks.


Winograd’s article lays out a compelling case for a new generation of tools designed specifically to support conversations for action.  Email is as inadequate to this purpose today as it was 25 years ago when he wrote the article.  Like Winograd, we here at 4Spires believe the basic unit of cooperative work is a conversation that turns into a commitment to act.  Our solutions draw their differentiation from this work management perspective.

							

	
			

					
Leave a comment

									

						Posted in Collaboration, Commitment Based Management, Execution, Managed Conversations					

															

		


		
	


			

			
Work Management Software 2013 – toward a richer understanding of this emerging new category


			

				Posted on January 30, 2013 by  | Leave a comment
			


				

				
A new business software category is emerging called “work management”.  We are eager to make 2013 the year where this new category really gains a foothold. We are concerned with closing the execution gap between goals, tasks, and results.  This article is intended to help develop a richer understanding of this new software category.  How we get more done is suddenly sexy and all kinds of functionality and vendors are eager to be included in the new buzz around “work management” software.  Unfortunately, this has tended to cloud the new field with a wide-ranging set of features and capabilities to the point where there is no succinct definition of what constitutes “work management” software.


The following is a primer on some of the distinctions across various work management software offerings.  Vendors will begin to stake out their differentiating features along the following dimensions:


—  Function-specific tools vs. general tools.  Some tools are designed to support managing the work of specific users.  For example, call centers or IT support desk users might use a support ticket system that integrates inquiries created via email, phone and web-based forms in order to manage, organize and archive support requests and responses.  Professional project managers could also be considered functional specialists who use project management software as a “work management” tool.  These function-specific tools are built around a specific set of features tailored to the activity of that function.


By contrast, generalized tools are designed for a broad user population. These “tools for the rest of us” (e.g. calendar apps) can be used to manage work in virtually any function or environment, small groups or large.


—  Individual vs. Group ware.  Some “work management” tools are designed primarily for single users; others for groups.  Most task management systems, for example, are fundamentally single user applications.  I make lists of “to do’s” for myself and then I work down the list.  Similarly, many project management tools are also designed primarily for input by an individual user.  Yes, tasks can be shared with others in the group, but interactivity between members is limited.


The term “group ware” was popularized in the 1990’s.  In contrast to “standalone” applications, “group ware” referred to messaging and workflow solutions designed to improve coordination across many users.  The new breed of “social” tools have many of the same attributes – sharing information with others to get work done.  See further comments on “social media” below.


—  Goal and Task management.  Managing work certainly involves setting goals and accomplishing tasks.  Goals are typically “bigger” and have no specific deadline, but, other than that, there is significant functional and practical overlap between managing goals and tasks.  Perhaps to oversimplify a bit, the distinction can be reduced to the size of the outcome (e.g. what’s the difference between a weekly goal and a task that’s due next week?).  Task management tools, of which there are dozens, can help manage an individual’s work, and they are generalized, but how are they to be included in the new “work management” category?  I can create Goals and Tasks for myself with or without conversation with others.  What is new is sharing (i.e. broadcasting) my Goals and Tasks with others in the group along with progress updates.  Tracking delivery commitments I have made to others and that others have made to me are essential for effective coordination of group work and resource allocation.  So goal and task management have shifted from being individual-ware to being group-ware; this is a significant shift in a familiar tool.


—  Collaboration vs. document sharing, videoconferencing, chat groups.  Unfortunately, the term “collaboration” is no longer a very helpful descriptor.  In the beginning, the term was hi-jacked into meaning shared documents (along with content management and searching).  A recent white paper by Info Tech Research Group, for example, gave high marks to one vendor’s “team collaboration portal” which boasted permission controls, voting by group members, and micro-blogging in addition to sharing content. Co-laboring clearly involves much more than managing shared content.


More recently the term collaboration has come to include an expanding range of features.  A recent Forrester study of “Collaboration Software Vendors” included eight companies with very different capabilities that ranged from file sharing and synch (e.g. Box) to video conferencing and instant messaging (e.g.Cisco/Webex, Citrix/GoToMeeting) to online chat groups (e.g. Salesforce Chatter and IBM’s SmartCloud Social Business Toolkit and Yammer).  Given this wide variety of features, the term “collaboration” no longer contributes much precision to the discourse.  I suggest we drop the term collaboration and use the actual features (document sharing, videoconferencing, chat groups, etc.) instead.


For a further discussion of the distinctions between document sharing and collaboration see my blog “Collaboration 2.0 – More Than Sharing Documents”.


—  Social media.  The word “social” has crept in everywhere.  We have: social media, social enterprise, social strategy, social collaboration tools, social work management, social workflow, social performance management, and social goals among others.  Let’s be clear that the term “social” has now been pretty much defined to mean a one-to-many communication pattern.  While it is possible to have one-on-one conversations, the “social” tools are designed primarily to enable an individual user to broadcast a question or a “posting” to the larger forum.  The term “social” has come to mean “shared with the group”.  The “group” can be a predefined group of limited members or a public, undefined group.  Familiar examples include Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Chatter, Yammer. These are generalized tools without a functional focus.  Facebook and Salesforce.com have begun promoting the value of individuals posting entries and updates to help groups get work done.  See blog post about Facebook’s new group features (http://blog.chegg.com/2012/05/29/get-work-done-using-facebook/).


At the Salesforce.com “Dreamforce” convention last fall “social performance management” was the rage.  A number of sessions promoted “new ways to work”, “working together better”, “rebooting work”, “fixing work”, “new management practices”, “openness”, “transparency”.  As represented by Rypple/Work.com, “social performance management” emphasizes broadcasting individual goals, awarding badges in a public forum, and then cobbling together the badges and coaching notes for individuals into a performance review.  Interaction is primarily only one-way – one person awards a badge to another and your manager writes your review.  Social media adds value and can set the background context, for example, by aligning shared goals. Recognition and rewards add positive energy to the workplace.  Feedback, recognition, coaching, and rewards are motivating, but it remains to be seen whether changing how we write performance reviews, and how often we write them, will actually have any real effect on productivity.  Even Salesforce execs at the convention reported that “70% of all sales reps leave because of poor relationships with their boss”.  This problem cannot be fixed with purely social media tools.


—  Messaging/dialog.  In contrast to the new “social” tools, stand the old personal messaging tools, i.e. that support two-way dialog.  Email, IM and SMS are still the dominant ways two people communicate about getting work done (i.e. one-to-one communication pattern).  Emails can be shared with the group with cc’s to others, but the primary function is one-on-one conversation. This is the most personal, the most urgent, and still the most effective means for actually getting work done.  Just because these tools lack a modern marketing spin does not mean they are any less effective than they were 10 years ago.  The buzz around “work management” should not delude us into thinking that the new “social” tools come anywhere close to the power and effectiveness of such interactive media.  One can, of course, communicate one-to-one in Facebook, and emails can be shared more broadly using CC’s and blasts, but the dominant distinctions hold – Facebook is mostly a social media, email is primarily a personal messaging tool.  Read more about the distinctions between the one-to-many vs. one-to-one tools in my blog post “Bringing The Social Model to Human Capital Management“.


—  Metrics.  There is no question that measurement and feedback drive behaviors and, in turn, productivity.  Let’s be clear, however, that there are important distinctions regarding the metrics that can be obtained from social vs. interactive tools.  Tuning in to the social buzz around what has been called the ‘enterprise social water cooler’ can certainly provide a more real-time picture of employee concerns than a survey.  Employees can share comments and suggestions in an open forum that can result in improved operations.  Badges awarded to colleagues can be accumulated (even counted) at review time.  However, while creating a “social enterprise” can render new information and even insights, meaningful metrics require something more.  Social media has very limited data potential for actually informing/improving how work gets done.  Meaningful metrics rely on facts that are documented and comparable.  The system for collecting data must be structured and consistent across the entire enterprise.  These are not typically the qualities of a purely social, one-to-many network. The inherent diffusion of a large social group, coupled with its anonymity and randomness of participation severely limit meaningful metrics.  On the other hand, messaging media has the potential to be a rich source of data for tracking who is speaking to whom, how long it took to get what done, and when was it delivered.  A new era of work management and productivity metrics is emerging which will include such measures as an individual’s (or department’s) on-time delivery record, average amount to time to complete a certain standard task, or total resources expended in completing a goal to name a few.


Summary Discussion


So how does each category of tools mentioned above relate to actually improving how we “get work done”?  Which features and capabilities will actually improve execution?  In my view, the best “work management” tools will be a blend of the capabilities discussed above.  They will be generalized tools that capture and expose individual goals and tasks, that enable sharing of documents, that incorporate both social media and one-to-one dialog in real-time, and that provide a new class of productivity and performance metrics (See my blog “Nine Part System for Effective Business Execution“).


Beyond the features, the new tools will affect behaviors and practices and ultimately the culture of the organization.  New visibility into work activity will drive new approaches to accountability.  New ways of relating person-to-person will emerge that can increase trust.  The new tools will effect who speaks to whom, how they speak to each other, and even the words they use.  Organizational hierarchies will become less relevant as information sharing increases across departmental boundaries.  Personal networks with an ever-expanding number of respondents will need to be tempered with tools that clarify individual delivery commitments.  Network management will eclipse matrix management, and working in an egalitarian workplace will take on new meaning.  In the end, we expect new “work management” tools will dramatically improve productivity in the years ahead.

							

	
			

					
Leave a comment

									

						Posted in Collaboration, Execution, HR Systems/Technology, Performance Management					

															

		


		
	


			

			
4Spires Welcomes New Customer – Fleet One


			

				Posted on January 2, 2013 by  | Leave a comment
			


				

				
4Spires is happy to kick off the New Year by welcoming our newest customer – Fleet One.


Fleet One® provides fuel cards and fleet-related payment solutions to businesses and government agencies with vehicles. The firm offers fuel and maintenance purchasing controls, detailed reporting, online account management, and other cost-saving services.  Our CommitKeeper solution was acquired for use by Fleet One’s marketing department.


Business Situation


As with most marketing departments, Fleet One needed to handle many projects simultaneously, and each one demanded close coordination of many participants (e.g. art, copy, procurement, production, etc.) against tight deadlines.  Multiple people and groups are often involved in each project.  It was not uncommon for the department to be working on 150 tasks, but only 50 projects.  In addition, Fleet One’s Vice President, Marketing, Stacey Bright, identified two specific challenges; they needed a solution that could easily link main projects to supporting tasks and one which provided an easy-to-read, understand, and manage project summary that showed the status of any individual task at any time.  Prior to CommitKeeper, Fleet One had used Microsoft Outlook’s task system, but this product does not permit supporting tasks, making it hard to effectively manage and review the status of each project, every deliverable, and each employee’s status.  Without a proper work management solution, managing all 150 tasks in Outlook was untenable.   Stacey had been looking for a solution for a long time.  Work and project management solutions were too cumbersome and task tools were not robust enough.


Solution


Once the marketing group began using Salesforce, Stacey was delighted to find 4Spires‘ Salesforce version of our CommitKeeper product on the AppExchange.  Marketing now has the ability to assign secondary tasks within a commitment.  They have completed 200 plus commitments in less than three months across 59 active projects.  Stacey can tell at a glance where each project stands – negotiation, in progress, delivered, accepted, canceled or declined –  along with a complete audit trail.  The department now has the ability to understand where its time and efforts are being utilized.  The group-individual making the request is identified and the associated budgeted hours are captured.


By using CommitKeeper’s Observer feature, the Marketing VP is able to provide executive management with a simple summary dashboard to review and update every project.  Requests for new projects from other departments are entered in CommitKeeper so the marketing department can negotiate clear delivery agreements.  The Marketing VP is now managing down, up, and across the organisation with one integrated tool.  CommitKeeper has improved oversight, coordination, and business processes within Stacey’s team and across the company.


Stacey summed it up this way: “CommitKeeper is a fantastic solution.  It is very easy to use which equates to getting people to accept the solution; the team has already ‘committed’ to the program 100%.  The 4Spires team is top notch and really made the decision to use the solution an easy proposition.  They have been extremely supportive from day 1 and continue to work with my team. This is a great company and Fleet One looks forward to their long-term success.”


Thanks, Stacey, welcome to the group.


 

							

	
			

					
Leave a comment

									

						Posted in Collaboration, Commitment Based Management, Execution, Performance Management					

															

		


		
	


			

			
4Spires Brands New Image


			

				Posted on December 17, 2012 by  | Leave a comment
			


				

				
 


4Spires (www.4spires.com), the leader in business execution SaaS solutions, has developed a new and exciting image that embodies and brands the spirit of our company, business philosophy, and products.


The essence revolves around the firm’s belief that all actions, all executions, all commerce is achieved in some fashion through a ‘conversation’ between a requester-customer and a performer-provider.  At an elemental-core level, all organizations can be seen as simply an interrelated, fluid network of person-to-person conversations and interactions.


To be most effective as well as for the organization and individuals to receive the greatest benefit, each of these interactions needs to involve a simple four-stage pattern.


    

  • The cycle begins with a solid foundation (Blue).  One person begins the conversation with a clear description of their needs and expectations; they make a request.  They INSPIRE the conversation.
    • 

  • In the second stage, the other person (i.e. the performer-provider) responds with their abilities  and constraints and the two parties make an explicit agreement to deliver (Green).  They CONSPIRE.
    • 

  • In the third stage, the performer does the work and delivers what has been promised (Silver).  Figuratively, the performer PERSPIRES.
    • 

  • The fourth stage is completed when the requester receives and assesses the deliverable; they ‘crown’ the whole interaction with a close-out comment of satisfaction and appreciation (Gold).  Both parties ASPIRE to have satisfied the original needs.
    • 



The pattern is repeated over and over, request – agree – deliver – assess.


Completion of one task-related cycle spawns the next.  Requests become more precise.  Accountability within the organization, for the individual and resultant deliverable is clear.  Results are acknowledged with increased organizational and team cohesiveness.  Feedback is provided on each delivery which fosters heightened business process efficiencies and personal recognition.


This is a virtuous cycle for improving performance in any organization.  It improves execution; it also boosts trust and builds better relationships between individuals, within departments, across the organization and even with customers.


This logo will be associated with our line of “CommitKeeper” products, each one of which is designed to facilitate the creation and support for this beneficial four-stage cycle.  We think the application of this simple idea can dramatically improve personal and organization performance.

							

	
			

					
Leave a comment

									

						Posted in Collaboration, Execution, Managed Conversations