Project management and other news from your pals at Journyx
{ Category Archives }
Check out a new podcast interview with Journyx CEO Curt Finch over at the Employee Benefit Adviser’s Audio Arena. In the interview, Curt discusses relevant issues like how companies can cut costs during a recession without losing valuable people and projects, and how time tracking helps both individuals and businesses of all sizes.
“Metrics” is a popular word these days. It seems that every project manager and everyone working on a project needs them, so what are they? Well, it turns out that “Metrics” are nothing more than “A theory or system of measurement” and isn’t that what we are supposed to have been doing on projects all along? How else can we know how we are doing, where we are at, and how we are going to get the rest of the way to where we want to be?
But today, that’s no longer sufficient - people want to know the results of those measurements post-project so they can determine how successful the project was. That’s a diplomatic way of expressing the thought “How good a job did you do on the project” and usually framed in terms of: “Was it on time and within budget?” With a little more forethought that might be extended to “And to specifications, requirements, (you name it), and customer satisfaction?” Never mind the problems, (er, risk events), you encountered, the questioner probably would not have done any better, because at this point they are asking the wrong questions!
What they should be asking is how successful is the product? And that can only be measured after the project is completed, perhaps long after, and typically measured by those who promoted the project in the first place. But the definition of “success” itself is a vague term, so let’s be more specific: “Did we obtain expected value or even best value?” That question should take you back to the justification in the project’s Business Case (your project does have a Business Case justification, doesn’t it?) and the Project Charter that shows how that justification is to be achieved.
Read more at MaxWideman.com.
And now for a variation on our regularly scheduled “Mondays with Curt,” here is a link to the Student Operated Press, where Judyth Piazza had a chat with our fearless leader.
The two discussed issues like project accounting and time management, as well as some of Curt’s philosophies on business, technology and leadership.
*If you missed it, check out part one of A New Attitude for a New Year.
Increasing percentages of rich country workforces are moving from farming and manufacturing to knowledge work, which creates broad opportunities and challenges for their citizens. As property has moved from the physical realm to the intellectual one, serious issues of applicability of property rights to knowledge work have arisen. Strong protection of property rights is at the foundation of the prosperity begat by market systems, but intellectual property is harder to protect and arguably should be less protected. As a result of this historic shift to knowledge work as the engine of economic growth, the U.S. patent office has endured changes to its workflow from a trickle to a flood over the last century (including a few by yours truly - http://www.journyx.com/company/patents.html)
Another problem faced by companies in the new knowledge world is understanding their costs. This is easy for farmers and has been solved for manufacturers, but most knowledge worker companies still have no idea of their costs of production in any real sense. Software companies, for example, produce products at unknown costs. Drug research is done in a vacuum of cost understanding and engineering firms have no idea which customers are profitable and which are not. Effective time tracking and project management practices can help you solve that problem.
Additionally, the world economic system has become increasingly characterized by international trade in manufactured goods (e.g. computers), commodities (e.g. oil) and services (e.g. call centers). This specialization on a global basis has created a situation where your competitors are increasingly less likely to be close to home, and this makes understanding of per-product, per-project and per-customer profitability all the more important. Some of your customers will be more profitable than others. Without knowing your costs, however, you cannot know which ones are which. This is why we invented a process for taking you down the path to per-person, per-project profitability.
The disinflationary pressures begat of hundreds of millions of people from China and behind the iron curtain being thrown upon the international labor pool have nearly run their course. Wages are rising fast in India and China and soon many of the benefits of globalization will be wrung out of the system. The low hanging fruit will be gone. When that happens, governments will find it increasingly difficult to keep inflationary pressures and recessions at bay. We will be returning to an economic era where deeply understanding your costs will be paramount. Companies that gain a deep understanding of their costs will lead the market and others who do not will fail or, at best, limp along in a torpor.
You don’t have to stay in the dark. We can help.
This new year I beseech you to make a commitment to start working towards gaining a deep understanding of the costs of production of your knowledge workers.
It is more like an exercise program than a shot in the arm and its benefits are similarly long term. We are here to help you accomplish it.
- Curt Finch, Journyx CEO
In 1945, Germany was separated into two countries with two economies. The east was based on central planning and government ownership of property and the west was based on a chaotic market system and private ownership of property. In the west, individual rights were protected, especially property rights. In the east, however, this was not the case. In most other respects, the two Germanies were not very different – they had similar religions, genetic makeups and cultures. It was as close to a scientific test as you can ever get in the real world of how different economic organizational systems perform over time – in this case, over 4 decades.
Due to a lack of data exiting East Germany, we could only estimate economic activity in that region during that time. Most estimates placed it at about 60% of the west’s productivity in the late 1980s.
When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and we were finally able to peer into the true inner workings of the economy behind the iron curtain, we found that our estimates of economic activity in East Germany were substantially higher than the reality turned out to be. East Germany was an economic ruin.
As the conclusions of this experiment sank into the minds of well-meaning people around the world, the concept of cental planning in economies fell quickly into disrepute. Today it can be easy to forget that in the early 1970s in America, price controls were in effect under the Nixon administration. The U.S. – the bastion of market driven economics – was experimenting disastrously with central planning.
Today central planning is only seriously practiced in North Korea, Cuba, and most recently Venezuela, and their economies are suffering as a result. The rest of the world – most notably China, which contains ¼ of the world’s population – has embraced chaotic market systems as the best way to enhance the human condition and enrich populations.
As a result, hundreds of millions of people worldwide have been lifted out of poverty. You can check out the statistics in GapMinder’s online tool for exploring population data.
- Curt Finch, Journyx CEO
Rocco Costa, a graduate student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, was the winner of Journyx’s first annual scholarship after writing an essay on how to persuade someone who does not want to track his/her time on a per-product per-activity basis as to why it is in his/her best interest to do so.
You cannot mandate productivity; you must provide the tools to let people become their best. – Steve Jobs
I would add to Mr. Jobs’ observation that you can’t manage productivity if you can’t measure it. Persuading people to “become their best” at work depends on finding and meeting their needs. The “tools” for accomplishing this include using some kind of time management system.
Tracking the time spent on products and activities throughout the workday has many applications, most importantly as a cost-saving instrument for business. If a person can measure productivity within a given period, they not only know how their time is spent, but also whether it is the best “value” for the company. Both businesses and employees gain from this since workers can establish if they are functioning efficiently, and businesses can determine their deadlines, profits and costs on an hourly, daily, and even yearly basis. Enhanced productivity leads to maximized profits, which may then be distributed via promotions, raises, and even the creation of new jobs.
This tracking tool applies to all industries. Even the public sector - where measuring productivity and outputs is more abstract - acknowledges the substantial benefits. Nonprofits and international organizations increasingly look to such private sector methods as a way to improve efficiency and capacity. Their donors are beginning to behave like investors: they want to protect their “investment,” determine what a service is really worth, and set deadlines for results.
Read the rest of Rocco’s essay here.
For more information on the Journyx Scholarship Program and how to apply for the 2008 Award, click here.
Journyx Timesheet has always been available as a free, unlimited-use download for installations of 10 or fewer users, but today we’re announcing something new…
Starting right this very second (well, actually about 24 hours ago, but work with me here) Journyx is offering a free, 100 user unlimited-use 45 day trial of Timesheet SaaS to anyone who wants to take a look at the latest version of our patented, proven solution to all your time tracking and project accounting needs.
But what do we mean when we say Timesheet SaaS, you wonder? SaaS is simply the acronym for Software-as-a-Service, which is the fancy name for “hosted” or “ASP” software. In other words, Timesheet SaaS is the hosted version of Timesheet, the one that you don’t have to install on your own computers. It’s the version of Timesheet that runs on our servers, freeing you up from the drudgery of application and database maintenance so that you can focus on using Timesheet to help you reach new heights of profitability.
So whether you’re already a Timesheet customer who’d like to experiment with trying Timesheet SaaS as an alternative to your existing local installation or if you’re someone who’s never gotten around to taking Timesheet for a test drive, here’s your chance to see how SaaS makes everything better.
But don’t take our word for it. Sign up and get started with Timesheet SaaS today. And, just in case you’re worried, we’re still offering Timesheet for download, too. So if you’d rather check us out that way, that’s fine by us.
Sign up for the FREE Timesheet SaaS Trial at:
http://journyx.com/rss/saasfree.html
Download the completely FREE Timesheet local at:
http://journyx.com/rss/gendl.html
Ah, the holiday season. Regardless of which holiday you’re celebrating this time of year, you can count on Aunt Irma or Grampa Morris or someone hauling out the old family stories. You know, the ones that get told at every family gathering, every year, year after year, forever? Oh yes, you know them. We do, too. Heck, at Journyx we even have one of our own. It dates all the way back to the early years of the 21st Century. It’s called “Journyx And Santa” and we link to it every year just so you can appreciate your own family all the more…
Hermey changed the report to Cube Report format and clicked the Export to Excel button. Once Excel opened with the data, Hermey quickly added a calculated percentage column. Hermey pointed to the Furby percentage. Even the old man had to be stunned at this.
Read on and relieve the good ol’ days one more time at:
http://www.journyx.com/rss/santa.html
In case you hadn’t heard, Journyx has officially launched the Journyx P5 Protocol – a proprietary process that enables customers to achieve per-person, per-project profitability.
The P5 Protocol uses Journyx technological solutions to help companies identify profit opportunities along the per-person/per-project continuum, as well as gather and analyze time and project management data. This information is then used to increase productivity, aid hiring and retention, and improve the quality of work while positively impacting profitability.
The P5 process guides companies through a series of steps toward improving profitability, with companies first identifying where they currently are on the continuum:
Once companies determine where they currently are on the continuum, they can begin to improve their per-person, per-project profitability by using time-tracking data to identify profit opportunities.
“Journyx is driven to provide our customers with significant value at every point along the way because we believe your business and your money are too valuable to use difficult, over-priced enterprise software,” said Journyx CEO Curt Finch. “The Journyx P5 Protocol allows customers to see where they are, where they need to go, and understand how to get there.”
Get on the road to Project Nirvana at: http://journyx.com/rss/products/p5.html
Last week Journyx attended the North American PMI Global Congress - held in Seattle - and I was fortunately enough to be able to present a lecture entitled Project Management: Using Data to Increase Profitability and Reduce Risks. This year’s conference had nearly twice the number of attendees that PMI originally expected, so we were very pleased with the number of great people we met there from all over the world.
If you were at the conference and made it to my presentation, I’d love to get your opinion and ideas on the topic of the speech - achieving per-person per-project profitability - and how it has applied in your company and your experience.
If you were there you know that the turnout for the speech was tremendous, so if you were one of the unlucky folks who didn’t get a copy of the handout - or if you’d just like a copy of the PowerPoint presentation that went with the speech - drop me an email and I’ll be sure to get it right to you. I felt that the discussion went well but would love your thoughts on how i might improve the message.
Journyx is always listening, so if you’ve got something to say on project management, project accounting, project profitability or your local sports team, don’t be shy about grabbing us for a chat. We’re here because of you, and what you have to say is of utmost importance to us.
Thank you again to everyone who came to the PMI show and stopped by the booth to visit with us or who made it to my presentation. We look forward to seeing each of you again in the future.
Sincerely,
Curt Finch
CEO, Journyx
curt@journyx.com
p.s. If you’d like to have me come give a talk similar to Project Management: Using Data to Increase Profitability and Reduce Risks at your local PMI chapter, we can make that happen. Just let me know that you’re interested and my ace team will get the wheels in motion.