:: MIS Insights ::

I got this from the Jay’s talk in the last HP WSNT-BIDS coffee talk. When giving feedback to other people, here’s a useful formula to get you started:

When you [insert action that person did], it [insert impact to you or others here]. Can we [suggest what can be done about the feedback] next time?

For example:

When you answered a phone call in the last meeting, it distracted the audience. Can we silent our phones and avoid answering them in the succeeding meetings?

The objective of a feedback is to stop an undesirable event from happening. In this case, we want the person to stop answering phones during meetings because it is distracting. The following, however, is not a feedback:

You work slow like a turtle on a leisure stroll. Can’t you work any faster?

Where the former statement had a specific and repeatable action, the last one was very subjective. Instead of using a verb (an action word), it used the adjective lazy. The problem when using adjectives is that they are descriptive words based on personal interpretations. What might be slow for one person might be too fast for another. The following would be a better form of feedback, I suppose:

If you keep submitting your reports past the deadline, other deliverables dependent on your task gets delayed also. Can we agree on a timetable which we can use to satisfy the customer’s expectation on a timely manner?

Feedbacks aren’t only meant to prevent bad stuff from happening again though. They’re also there to keep good things happening over and over. Here’s what I told Bacchus during the event:

When you invited me for coffee during my first week at HP, I felt very welcome and good about the company. I appreciate the gesture in the same way that I know new hires will too.

The following though, is not a feedback:

You’re a good Project Manager. Keep it up!

In contrast to:

Your persistent and encouraging mobilization of resources has helped the team deliver quality work on time. Others can learn a thing or two from what you do best.

Giving feedback takes practice though. It’s a form of communication that’s devoid of emotion. It’s not something you do once in a while and expect to do correctly every time. As Filipinos who put a lot of value in what they hear and say, objective and constructive feedbacks might take some practice. I’d recommend doing it every day. Try it out with your seatmate. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

Wikimedia is addicting. I just installed it in my laptop and I’ve been using it whenever I get the free time.

With the huge amount of information that I have had to digest lately, Wikimedia is a godsend for me. You see, I like taking notes (ya rly!). Unfortunately, there are times when I can be disorganized with my notes. I tend to write things down wherever I can - my “official” notebook, “unofficial” notebook, laptop notepad, desktop notepad, google notepad, email, pieces of paper, etc.

With such decentralized data, it can take some time for me to get the data that I need - if I ever find it. Wikimedia helps me by storing all my notes in one storage location. So what’s the difference between noting it in Wikimedia and writing it down in Microsoft Word / Open Office Writer / a single Notebook? Personally, the main selling point of Wikipedia is its ability to expose and organize unstructured data.

You can be organized at the atomic (article) level and leave it there to organize itself. Using links and references between articles, data organization will take care of itself. If you forgot where you placed your articles, you can use the search function which provides results that have relevance ratings. You can use tags and keywords to classify data. These metadata are the building blocks that business intelligence tools use to expose gathered data. In addition to that, data can also be accessed via networks - sharing the good stuff to others.

For people conscious with the concept of Knowledge Management Systems, knowledge captured in distributable media is like a Christmas Bonus multiplied by ten.

Businesses have always had to deal with system upgrade decisions - whether it be in the realm of hardware or software. In the world of constantly evolving information systems, developments proceed in a yin and yang process. At one side, power-hungry and information-crunching software creates the demand for monster hardware. On the other side, overqualified hardware with its abundant computing power allows the improvement of complex software.

Upgrading is a balancing act between cost and risk. As Michael Hillenbrand puts it, managers want to know how much will it cost if I upgrade (cost) and what can happen if I don’t upgrade (risk)?

Many decision-makers (read: managers and accountants) are put off by the cost involved with upgrades:

• Licensing Costs (per machine, per account, per head, per processor, etc.)
• Training (new way of doing things might mean re-training existing users)
• Interruption to Business (installation of hardware and software might cause some downtime during deployment)
• Actual Costs (Planning, Implementation, Support for new system and process)

However, for some, upgrading can address several business concerns too:

• Support (When is the End-of-Life product support of the software? Is the hardware still available? Some legacy software are machine-dependent)
• Compliance (Is our software compliant with our third party supporting software? Will our existing systems pass security and functionality audits?)
• Competitive advantage (Actual benefits that we get from using the new software or hardware [less effort or time needed to provide same or better quality of work] )

With the high impact of software and hardware that we use in our work, knowing the reasons why and why not to upgrade is essential in keeping your business profitable.

APC wrote an article about how new hires are shying away from workplaces that have restricted internet. From banning certain websites, online tools (Instant Messaging) and ultimately, total internet lockdown, restrictions left and right are being set up to guide (or limit) what people can do at the workplace.

Kirah defines ‘digital immigrants’ as people who were not born into the digital lifestyle and view it as a distraction rather than an integral part of life. The younger generation of workers have been using computers and mobile phones since birth and she calls them ‘digital natives’.

From a Digital Immigrant perspective, management is just doing everything it can to make the workplace as productive as possible. There’s nothing wrong with this. Management not only has a right to do this, but are obligated to do so for the sake of the shareholders. For instance, non-work-related e-mail can easily eat up an hour’s worth of work everyday from an employee. The logic goes, In minimizing distractions, employees can focus on work.

Digital Natives would disagree though. Humans were born to be distracted. Humans need a break, a period of rest or some diversion from what they’re doing once in a while. Even soldiers need a break from the war.

The only problem is when we get too many breaks to the point that it hurts productivity. This is where pro-active management comes in. While reactive management will try to keep blocking services to guide its employees, pro-active management will educate its employees on the proper use of the internet at work. Like the hallway printer isn’t meant for printing your favorite song lyrics, the internet is also a tool that can be helpful if properly managed. If college students didn’t learn that playing TextTwist during class was bad, it is management’s right and obligation to teach them once they get into the workplace.

There are two types of people in this world.

Those who create options.
Those who choose from the options

Which one are you?

For the past two weeks, I got hold of two books that made me postpone my filing of SEC registration papers.

The first was Elements of Business Fianance by G Miranda. The book talked about the different entities (ex. Partnerships, Corporations, Etc.) one can create in the Philippines. It also dabbled on management topics for proper financing and cost control.

I got this book because I wanted the right legal representation for the different types of services I offer. What would I need for my web hosting, web development and systems analysis and design services? Is it a sole proprietorship, partnership or a corporation? At first glance, I wanted to go for incorporation since it provided the most ways to raise funds (stocks) and offered protection (limited liability). However, the exorbitant tax rates are very discouraging. Besides all the monthly reports and annual financial statement paperwork, corporations are charged higher tax rates than other entities.

That’s why I got another book - How to Protect Your Property and Business from Lawsuits by J Lopez. This one examines the legal characteristics of the above-mentioned entities in detail.

As a primer to the Philippine Asset Protection Law, it shows other ways of protecting your business besides choosing the right legal entity. The book’s numerous examples and historical snippets illustrating possible legal business scenarios have been very helpful.

This weekend, I will scour bookstores for discussions on proper Financial Reporting and Taxation Laws in the Philippines. After protecting your company from industrial threats (competitors and what-not), one always has to stay on “the good side” (the government).

I’m very glad that there are Filipino books and writers like these out there. The books might have cost a mere Php500 ($US10), but compared to the knowledge I have acquired or the interview fee of attorneys or lawyers, these books are priceless. Though I do plan to team up with an attorney or lawyer someday, I need to learn some legal jargon first so that we can communicate properly and effectively.

As such, I feel like I never really left school (save the fact that I’m still at the Ateneo everyday for gym and business matters). There are so many things that I’m still learning (Doing Business Legally), re-learning (Economics, Statistics) and want to learn more about (Accounting). Learning makes my time worthwhile. The more that I learn, the more options I create.

Once upon a time, I was waiting in line to pay for my tuition fee at college. There were two options to pay for the tuition - cash or cheque. That day, I had cash on hand, hoping that it would have the faster or shorter line of the two.

The registration committee wanted to make sure everyone was waiting at the right line. So, a volunteer went around asking, “Who are the people paying in cheque? Take this line please…”

Since I was with Jonathan Ang, I told him, “Hey shouldn’t you be there? You’re paying in tsek”

——-

I needed some cash last week and all I had were account receivables in the form of cheques. Fortunately, both of them were Metrobank-issued cheques, so I assumed there wasn’t going to be any problems cashing them out.

In the morning, I went to Metrobank-Katipunan to cash them out but it turns out that the first cheque I had was issued by a Metrobank branch that didn’t have any arrangements with the Katipunan branch. Eh?

The second cheque was marked for deposit only at my bank account. Ergo, no instant conversions to liquid assets. Eh?

In Tagalog, both cheques couldn’t be cashed out right then and there.

Later in the afternoon, I went to Metrobank-Tandang Sora with an in-genius plan. I would deposit the cheque at my Metrobank bank account, then withdraw it on the spot. That should get around my first round of obstacles right?

Wrong. There’s a three day wait in clearing your cheques. Therefore, you could only withdraw your moolah after three working days.

——-

You don’t have to cash out cheques at the issuing bank if it’s your name is written on it.

——-

Hope this helps.

The world doesn’t need Superman because the times and needs of people have changed. We can no longer rely on shows run by only one person. The plurality of today’s lifestyle has demanded for a methodology that produces varied solutions involving more than one person to crank the good stuff. Though there’s no rule against having a whole football team composed of Supermen, there is a move from having a football team entirely dependent on one Superman.

Businesses have changed already. Businesses today are no longer entirely dependent on its assembly line. Merely churning out products or doing services above the industry’s efficiency and quality standard will not suffice. Such mechanical feat can always be replicated by others, leaving businesses with temporary advantages. What businesses need are more than refinements to its production lines. They need something more substantial and long-lasting. Businesses need ideas - innovative and strategic ideas that can penetrate the competitive and saturated business environment. In this case, two heads are usually better than one.

Customers demand more nines for their Benjamin$. With 24×7 and 99.9nines uptime as a standard for business operations right now, downtimes are intolerable for our customers. It is not enough to have redundant and fault-tolerant hardware backbones for businesses. We also need redundant and reliable people manning the machines so that in case your lead person gets sick, resigns or is held up in any accident or trouble, your business will be able to deliver those four or five nines as agreed upon.

Teamwork rules. Many companies have failed because of one person, but a lot more have been successful because of teams. Well-managed teams usually provide better decisions. It also helps everyone psychologically by addressing the social being in man and distributing work and stress with others. For what it’s worth, a good reason why there are more males than females in mental institutions is because that men think they can do everything. They try to do everything on their own and without external assistance. In cases like this, it is only a matter of time before they find themselves struggling with the situation, desperate and ultimately, disconnected from the world.

Having one person do everything just increases the likelihood of something critical being missed. As humans, everyone will commit a mistake, sooner or later. Whether it’s a mispelled command parameter or a forgotten step in a process, relying on one entity to do everything does have its disadvantages. Something that companies should do well to address.

why is everyone so eight-to-five? i mean, what happened to the philippines that it became an offices-here-have-an-eight-to-five-schedule nation?

is it because people have no choice?

is it because it’s part of a company’s rulz and regulationz? employees cannot not follow the system - unless they are ready to face dire consequences. for example, companies have in their contracts a “work hours” clause stating how many hours an employee should log in for every normal workday. an example would be “to complete eight hours of work during the eight and a half hour stay of the employee in the company premises.” as part of a legal contract, any breach would merit punishment : salary deduction, cancellation of certain benefits, added work hours, or at worst, termination. (though i know some people out there would love to get fired from their current jobs)

is it because of foreign influence?

some companies might be pressured to set an 8-to-5 policy because of investors - foreign investors who are used to the 8-t0-5 setting working for them and investors who wouldn’t feel good if their investments didn’t conform to the tried-and-tested norm.

the 8-to-5 work hours for the corporate setting might work like a charm with western countries like the US and Europe. primarily because the US and Europe have their countries divided into 3 and 2 time zones, respectively.

imagine this. at 5pm in new york, it is just 2pm in los angeles. that means while one part of the US is already taking a break, another part is still working. those 3 time zones effectively give US an 11-hour work-shift sans the overtime every day! this might not make sense much in paper, but when a country has more work hours over other countries, it means that it is able to interact with other countries more - more business opportuinities for them!

so is it their fault that their geography forced them to adapt more than one time zone? nopez. it only means that the 8-to-5 setting provides an advantage for them not available in single time-zone countries.

so how is this relevant to the philippine setting? for a country that has a shorter work time, the eight to five corporate model will not do. i think we should work less hours but work on more jobs at a time. rather than sit at one job for eight hours, we should work on two jobs with four hours apiece.

compressing work and taking additional responsibility will teach us how efficient we can be. shorter hours doesn’t necessarily mean lost quality as long as we really work. i doubt if filipinos actually work every minute of that 8 hour shift. unless close supervision is present or strict work ethics are enforced, the watered-down eight-hour shifts that supervisors see are really just four hours worth of efficient work.

now some might argue that this will lead to a very stressful environment where everyone is on the move. well, i don’t think the alternative has done our country much good. i believe filipinos can benefit a lot from this, being efficient, hard-working and resourceful that most people are. despite having limited access to all the good stuffs in life.

i know of someone. he’s one of those financially challenged people, feeding a family of six with no education to get him a cool-paying job. but that never brought him down. at 6am, i would see him going around villages, delivering hot pan de sal. by 10 am, he’d be going around again the villages, looking for newspapers and bottles that he could re-sell. and if ever he gets lucky, he’s out again under the sun by 2pm, mowing grass of empty lots for nearby occupants. he is one of those filipinos who have shown me that nothing is impossible.

But we really not that 40-man-hours-per-week schedule!

a year ago, 2005, the Philippine government tried a four-day-work-week. government employees didn’t have to work during fridays. i don’t think it did much good to boost the productivity of the offices. i heard no reports on the media (or at least I was not able to read / hear anything about it) detailing the results of the experiment. i have to assume the lack of praise or good points regarding the experiment meant … that that media had other better things to talk about.

if we are going to get into a 4-day work week or a 4 hour schedule (4 is just an arbitrary number, change it as you like, as long as it’s not 8 for the purpose of this discussion), proper mental preparation must be in place. while employees had a 4-day work-week, they had a 5-day work-week perspective. there is no urgency in this. i am not saying this goes for ALL offices or that employees slack off - that’s not the point. that said, we cannot think of a four-hour work schedule with our current eight-hour work schedule in mind. it simply does tally out. 8 is not equal to 4.

some companies, most of them manufacturing, won’t make it with a 4-day work week or shortened production time. and there’s not much we can do about it. maximum asset utilization is not equal to shorter work hours… unless one can setup a factory whose manual labor is replaced by robotics…

but that would be expensi– unethical, right?

our priorities are our stakeholders and inves– employees, right?

that wouldn’t sound right on a public press confere– to the families involved, right?

before you companies tell me that it can’t be done, think about your priorities and perspective first. much can be solved if you think about it even before you speak or none can be solved if you don’t think about it even if we talk all day about it.

so how do we go about it? that’s where management *cough* information *ahem* systems come into the picture. with the advent of technology, work these days no longer take as long to finish as they did before. we can set up support systems to help automate and eliminate manual tasks that would otherwise be prone to error. we could also invest on newer machineries that are more efficient, effective and environment-friendly from the ones that we used to have. sounds like a plan eh? a pretty expensive one too.

well, i’m not here to promote buying stuff that can do work better when the current stack of assets can do work fine as it is. for some companies that are just concerned with making things work, the last thought bubble is not an option. but for those who are looking for ways to improve despite the damage it can do to the company’s profit, be my guest.

IMHO

personally, i would rather work from 9am to 12noon everyday and spread additional work throughout the day whenever it’s convenient or needed - allowing me to play, exercise and indulge myself in my other interests. stress, anyone?

i am not against the system though. i respect and follow systems whenever i find the underlying principles, motivation and goals appropriate and beneficial to everyone concerned. for instance, when an officer says that i have to wear an ID, by virtue of security concerns, i will wear an ID. no questions asked.

if i am going to work from 8-to-5 straight, as long as the principles, motivation and goals behind such rule are made clear to me, i will work that eight-hour-shift. however, right now i have several questions that prevent me from doing so.