Book: The Ultimate Question

More than 6 years ago I wrote one article on power of personal recommendation. I talked about customer satisfaction and how people either recommend or not recommend the products. This concept has taken off very well in business world.

Concept of Net Promoter has been defined. A person who gives a positive recommendation is called Promoter. A person who gives negative recommendation is called Detractor. By asking customers whether they are willing to recommend or not, business organizations can try to quantify net promoter score.

“The Ultimate Question” Book by Fred Reichheld explains the concept and growth very well. I just finished reading the book. This is definitely a good read and this concept is going to gain more steam in coming years. Read more about the concept on Net Promter website which features a blog and forum on this latest trend.

Links: Net Promoter

Views: Spend money to earn money

Health of economy is dependent on how much money is in market than how much is in banks or storage. Imagine this: if everyone starts spending less and start putting money in a hole then what will happen? economy will collapse. It is will automatically bring down earning potential of each individual and lead to a financial disaster. Instead everyone should look at healthy level of spending and spend money within their budget. One should assume at least 50% of their income will be going towards their expenses in various ways and keep spending towards the essential and luxury of their own living. This in turn will make the businesses that survive on this spending. Don’t just stop going to movies or restaurants. If you do that there are people whose lives depend on you going to movies. Instead spend moderately instead of over spending. If you are using going to movies once a month, keep doing it. To make economy health you don’t have to start going to movies every day.

Your spending money contributes to earning of another person and in some cases it may be the reverse. Sometimes it is a chain of economic dependencies. Your spending feeds another industry and their industry drives another industry and that may be a driver for your business.

This rule applies not only to personal finances but business economy also. Each business has its income and expenses. Cutting down expenses is always a short term and maintaining expenses at a healthy level is most important things. Expenses made by your business will indirectly spurt health of economy.

In either case monitoring financial flow is most important thing to gain a better understanding. What is percentage distribution of your expenses to various categories year over year (or month over month) should be monitored. The expenses should be either maintained or distributed to higher or lower number of categories instead of cutting down completely. Important financial decisions should be taken after reviewing trends on regular basis instead of knee-jerk emotional reaction.

This utlimately results in a healthy economy. So, next time you feel economy is down, look at your own share in the down turn.

So, to earn more money, spend more money. One more thing to remember, spending need not always be throwing away money, it can be a wise investment too.

Note: I am not a financial specialist and above is just my personal opinion

Travel Company Recommendation

When I traveled to Yosemite & Las Vegas I went on a bus tour. My friend recommended this to me after he took a trip last year and that definitely motivated me to take this trip.

I found following advantages of the tour

• There was less physical stress
• Cost was less
• We could see more places than we would have seen on our own
• Tour Guide provided lot of information which we would have not known otherwise
• It was nice meeting people and travelling with them

Disadvantages of this conducted tour are

• You feel a little rushed as the tour needs to go according to a schedule
• Less privacy

Overall, I felt happy that we took a tour bus. Lassen Tours has lot of tours in both east coast and west coast of USA. I definitely recommend this.

As I write this, I am reminded on my earlier article “Power of Personal Recommendation“

Views on Conferences

Have you attended any technical conferences? Last month my company had its user conference Informatica World 2006 in San Francisco. It was a good opportunity to interact with customers.

I have not attended many conferences, but feel I should attend more conferences. Conferences are great opportunities to network with people in field. I attended and gave a presentation almost 7 years back. This was conference arranged by QAI India in Bangalore. My presentation on automated testing went on very well and had a chance to make friends. I am still in touch with a few people who liked my presentation.

When one attends a conference there is always a focus on getting best out of the conference.

• What’s New: What is coming up in the product or technology
• How can I Apply this: Next step will be how can I be more productive from the learning at the conference.
• What am I missing: Lot of times we don’t have opportunities to go beyond our current project and conferences give a chance to interact and learn from others. It can be either what succeeded as well as what failed.
• Best Practices: Are there best practices that others are able to implement that I can take away.

Most conferences also offer tutorial sessions that can be an added advantage.

Another thing is it also gives a chance to people to get away from crazy work schedules. Another conference I remember attending is Microsoft’s TechEd session. It was a one day conference but it was useful to understand new technology coming from Microsoft.

Informatica World 2006

My paper presented at conference held by QAI India

Knowledgebase: One hundred rules for NASA project managers

There are always things to learn about Project Management. I came across this link through another blog. This is certainly worth reading and implementing some of them. Go ahead and implement some of those ideas.

http://www.altisinc.com/resources/rules/100_rules.php

Tips: Performance Ratings

Man of the Match or Man of the Series

Earlier I have written artcile on performance ratings explaining rationale between various ratings. It is again that time of year when ratings are done and discussed. Major difference between an exceptional rating and very good rating is consistency. It is very difficult to understand the difference.

Think of it like this: If you know a series of games like a cricket series, not every one can become man of series. Player who performs very well in one match and is instrumental in outcome of the match will be given title of Man of the Match. But that player is not automatically given man of the series.

Man of the series is given to player who has contributed to each match played in the series. Consistency in performance in all matches makes one becomes Man of the series. If the player fails even in one match or performs below par, the chance of being nominated as man of the series becomes less.

The same analogy can be applied to performance ratings. An exceptional performance in one area or one project during the year does not automatically entitle a team member to Overall Exceptional rating. Consistency in every aspect is important.

Another important thing to remember is that this rule applies equally to all. Not just team members even supervisors and managers are also rated in same manner.

Next time you are getting into a debate with team members on performance rating, use this analogy to make it easy to understand. Let me know if this helps.

Tips: Trends in Training

In my previous articles I have highlighted importance of training. I wanted to share some of the trends I have noticed in training and their advantages and disadvantages.

Class Room Training: Cost of Training is high when it is classroom. It also requires people to go away from their regular work and incur travel costs in some cases. But advantage of class room training is the interactive nature increases chances of learning new skills quickly.

Offline Self paced training: This is method where you can buy the CD or other material and learn at your pace. This works well when a person is highly motivated to learn. It tends to be very cheap.

Online Self paced training: Online training has also become more popular. This is almost similar to Offline Self paced training but due to technology used to deliver, this tends to be a little costly.

Online Moderated Training: This method takes best of Class Room Training and Online Training Methods. This saves travel costs and it is easier to attend if you have well structure training program. Moderator can make sure all attendees get to complete the program.

While Classroom training is the best, other methods can be selected based on advantages they offer.

Recommended Resources

Class Room Training/Seminars:

• Franklin Covey
• AMA
• Effective Training

Online Training

• Quicknowledge
• ElementK

Views: Avoid Piracy

Piracy of software, music etc is not good for economy. Piracy takes away money from people who deserve it for their hard work.

If you are a software developer who spent months writing a great program and someone stole it, how would you feel? Cheated? It is not about regulations against piracy that will make piracy go away, but individuals avoiding piracy that will help.

On the otherside: what makes people pirate stuff?

Convenience: when it is easier to make a copy than buying genuine version. Lack of genuine versions available easily also becomes one reason people copy.

Price: when people feel real price is not worth paying when it is available for lower price. Everyone is out to save money.

Peer Pressure: Lot of times I have seen peer pressure to copy stuff (which is convenience as well as saving money) plays a key role. It is short term thinking that makes one bite the temptation to pirate and be done with it without feeling guilty. Lot of times this happens so fast that no one pays attention anymore.

Proliferation of Pirated Stuff: There are times when one does not know whether we are buying genuine stuff or pirated stuff.

Next time you are tempted to copy software or music or DVD, realize that it is always good to spend money which will be good for the economy. If you can afford to pay the money and it fits your budget, pay for the genuine stuff. You will feel glad you did. It is not fear of legislation but making the economy better that should be motivate you to spend money.

If you own business, create budget to acquire all necessary genuine software for each employee who joins your company. By planning properly you will avoid creating an atmosphere where unlicensed software is used within your business.

Avoid piracy: It is good for you and good for the economy.

Achieving Financial Success

Being free from financial difficulties is most important step for a successful life. Every individual cannot be become an expert in managing finances. It is fine if one makes a few mistakes and learns the lessons quickly. One should not repeat the financial mistakes and get into a financial mess that cannot be fixed. Simple things to remember for gaining financial freedom are

• Do not spend more than what you earn
• Do not live beyond your means
• Save for the future
• Focus on increasing one’s earning potential

Most people get into financial problems by ignoring these two basic principles and there is lot of literature that gets to investing for future etc. In my opinion, even if one does pay attention to increasing financial success, these basic principles need to be adhered to.

Do not spend more than what you earn will involve carefully tracking what one is earning and budgeting different expenses and spending within one’s budget.

Do not live beyond your means will involve resisting temptation to go beyond what one can afford which contributes to financial debt in most situations.

Saving for the future will involve making small savings on regular basis

Focus on increasing one’s earning potential will involve investing in one’s skills and potential. No one can live with one salary for life.

Links

Pay Yourself First

SWOT Analysis

I have a personal habit of performing SWOT analysis once a year. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats

Objectives of SWOT Analysis:

To become aware of strengths, weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats and  Help in decision making:

-         How to leverage Strengths?

-         How to increase number of strengths?

-         What are the opportunities and how to pursue them?

-         How to overcome weaknesses?

-         What are the upcoming threats? What can be done to avoid them?

Application to Personal life

Performing SWOT analysis in personal life can make us aware of our own strengths which we need to use in our work and personal life. Are we using our skills effectively. This helps us to look for opportunities where we can use our strengths to contribute better.

Weaknesses make us aware of areas of improvement. We are aware that we are not perfect. It helps us to perform introspection and look at ourselves critically. Very rarely in our life we take a look at weaknesses. This provides an opportunity to do that.

Opportunities are things we can do to realize our potential. Things we can do and go beyond our regular duties and responsibilities. Things that make us feel proud later in our life.

Threats are danger signs to watch for and plan for prevention of them. Taking steps to ensure that threats do not materialize.

Application to Business

Obviously this kind of analysis for a business has larger use. Without getting complacent, every business organization should make an analysis and continue to grow, improve their business.

A Sample Personal SWOT Analysis from my own experience

Strengths	Weaknesses
Testing Skills Time Management Skills Project Management Skills Web development skills Family relations Writing skills Personal homepage Book Reading Book Collection Spiritual Interest	Oral communication/Presentation skills Lack of focus Getting too much busy with work
Opportunities	Threats
Writing a book Serving as a volunteer Share experiences through homepage	Ill health

A sample Business SWOT Analysis

Strengths	Weaknesses
e-business development experience Existing Infrastructure Existing Customers Technical Skills Experienced People Customer Service Experience Office across country Business Contacts/Personal Contacts Hardworking Team Quality of work	Project Management Sales/Marketing (Getting new customers) Lack of References from existing customers (?) Quality of work
Opportunities	Threats
New Partnerships Business Opportunities in other countries Existing customer base of Indian Blitz	Low Cash Flow Weak Economy New Competition

Once such analysis is available a business organization can compare its current performance and see what can be done and make improvements.

Summary

Performing SWOT analysis does not take lot of time. It is worthwhile to do this once a year or when needed. This provides an opportunity for introspection. Either in Business or personal life, SWOT analysis can make us take decisions to change our life by making us aware of our capability and potential.