Get Your Boss to Approve Your Idea12/8/2020 You’ve got an idea! Maybe it’s to optimize a process, save the company money or to develop a new product. Many of us at one point or another in our careers will come across this situation where we have a brilliant idea but we don’t know how to implement it. Once we have the idea what we do after the fact is what makes or breaks our ability to turn into reality.
The steps below can help you organize your thoughts in a formal manner so you can further vet your idea while positioning yourself (and of course your idea) for the best possible chance to get approval from the powers that be. Step #1 – Develop A Business Case A business case captures the reasoning for initiating a project or task. It is often presented in a formatted written document outlining everything from the reason for the project, problem(s) it solves and the ROI. Components of a business case document may include:
Once you’ve compiled your business case now it’s time to present it. Set a meeting with your boss, or the appropriate party who would most likely approve your idea and or project. Inform them ahead of time what the purpose of the meeting is and arrive prepared with multiple copies of your business case both to reference and present from. Leave the approver with a copy of your business case and an action item to keep them engaged and thinking about your presentation. Well look at that! You did such a good job compiling your thoughts and presenting your idea that your boss granted you approval to move forward in the project. Excelsior! Now that you have approval, which is a fancy way of saying “we like your idea enough to put money behind it”, you will need to build out the project in detail using a ‘Project Charter’ to ensure it meets a successful conclusion. Note: What’s the difference between a ‘Business Case’ and a ‘Project Charter’? A business case comes first as it is an assessment or feasibility study of an idea or task; the sponsor (person who has the idea) pitches their case to the funding stakeholders (typically your boss or people in management). If approved, a project charter is completed outlining the project in detail. The information within the charter is the constraints for which success will be measured. Step #2 – Develop a Project Charter As mentioned above, the project charter is a document which clearly defines the project scope, objectives, and participants involved. Components of a project charter may include:
You’ll note that much of the work that was done initially for the business case can in turn be used in completing the project charter. If your project is big enough it may be worth looking into project management software, like Basecamp or JIRA, to electronically track your projects activities and deliverables. Now that you’ve got your main documents guiding you through the project out of the way the next step will be to kick off the project and get underway. I recommend doing the kickoff meeting in person if possible, or via video conference call, where the team can openly talk about the needs of the project and how tasks will be divided up. All resources involved in the project should have a copy of the project charter along with clear expectations on what their role is and timeframe to deliver those tasks. Now that you have a basic foundation for what is needed to get your projects approved and kicked off the next step is to look into resources like the Project Management Institute (PMI) and their primary resource guide called Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK). These resources will help you stay on track while providing vast amounts of information on how to move projects through to successful completion.
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Prepare for the Unexpected10/19/2020 We've talked on a couple occasions about the importance of planning ahead. When it comes to your business and the safety of your employees planning ahead for emergency situations is a must for all leaders and business owners, alike. Listen in as our Operations Manager, Trisha Aure, shares with us in this two part series why it's so important to have an ERP (Emergency Response Plan) in place and the steps to go about implementing one within your business. Part 1: ERP Overview & Initiation Now that we're aware of what an ERP can do for us and how to initiate it from scratch, let's look further into the implementation for an ERP. Part 2: ERP Implementation Continued Did you miss our article on Emergency Response Plans (ERP)? Access it here: http://www.sqr1services.com/white-papers-and-articles/why-you-need-to-implement-a-business-emergency-response-plan-immediately Dealing With Awkwardness in Negotiations6/22/2020 Negotiations can be uncomfortable. How we deal with those moments of awkwardness and discomfort makes or breaks our experience and of course the end result. Here's why...
Visit Square-1 Engineering's Resources Library for additional white papers, articles and videos covering a broad range of content from product design, supplier relationships to leadership. http://www.sqr1services.com/resource-library.html #square1engineering #square1 #engineering #lifescience #consulting #negotiation #advice #business #strategy Opening Salvo: Consulting, it’s the next big business opportunity frontier. From 2011 to present the consulting industry grew by 4-5% YOY on the coattails of increasing supply and demand. More people than ever on record have transitioned out of traditional career roles in the last 15 years to chase the ‘gig economy’ (increasing supply) while companies themselves have developed a steady dependency (increasing demand) on using external support to ensure their operations run effectively and efficiently. While this sounds encouraging, an unexpected outcome of this growth has left many customers with buyers remorse. As more people enter the consulting game the varying levels of experience, service, costs and related outcomes has left customers in a predicament. With a multitude of options now available to companies looking for help one of the biggest challenges afflicting buyers is how they will find the right support while ensuring the money they’re paying for it results in a positive outcome. Author: Travis Smith To view the full article click on the download link below: ![]()
Executive Summary: Businesses of all sizes must make strategic decisions to ensure its operations and outputs are optimized, functioning at an effective level to help them grow, increase speed to market, improve ROI, etc. One tool which helps to achieve those metrics, and more, is outsourcing. For the purposes of this paper we’re define ‘outsourcing’ as the act of packaging internal work to be sent outside to an external supplier to facilitate on behalf of the company, now client. There are many positive attributes of outsourcing, yet there are a bevy of deltas which accompany outsourcing if the client doesn’t carefully vet and manage their suppliers. Outsourcing, a valuable strategic business tool, is best experienced where expectations are managed while relationships are allowed to develop overtime. This produces fruitful outcomes for both client and supplier. Author: Travis Smith Contributor(s): Bill Colone, Achilles Young To view the full article click on the download link below: ![]()
Executive Summary: Developing a strategic and consistent process to evaluate and therefore acquire suppliers before you need them is vital to our ability in growing our company. When we utilize a systematic process we eliminate bias and emotion from the decision making process which allows us to make decisions which are capabilities and needs based rather than emotions. Your ‘minimum expectations’ list serves as a road map for decision making and comparison shopping as you engage with each supplier. Author: Travis Smith Read the full article by downloading the below PDF attachment ![]()
Executive Summary: The world of startups and small business can indeed be an exciting place to be. Its commonly characterized as highly collaborative, fast pace, less bureaucratic and wildly innovative. While this sounds great in theory, in practice the world of a startup can be rife with challenge, including heavy amounts of stress and uncertainty. It’s vital we as professionals analyze our personalities and professional behaviors to assess whether or not we would do well in the startup world - before we actually jump in. Knowing what you’re up against before you dive in will allow you to determine if it’s appropriate for you to consider the startup space, small business and or entrepreneurship. Author: Travis Smith Read the full article by downloading the below PDF attachment ![]()
Growth in hiring is typically a good thing. Why thank you Captain Obvious. While growth in hiring may very well be a good thing, successfully navigating the hiring process is an entirely different story.
Successful hiring can make or break the performance of a company. Unsuccessful hiring on the other hand creates all sorts of fun challenges for folks like you and me. In fact, Harvard Business Review identifies 80% of employee turnover is due to bad hiring decisions. What does this mean? First, let’s look at the potential tangible repercussions. According to Dice, one of the larger online job boards, a poor hiring decision for a candidate earning $100,000 per year could cost, on average, $250,000, and that expense comes right off the bottom line. That’s scary stuff! Basically, if the hiring decision you made ends poorly you can expect that mistake to represent 2.5 times the cost of whatever the salary is of the person you are hired. Rather than fearing the hiring process, or having it work against us, we should approach it with a strategic and open minded process to ensure success. Want to improve your hiring practices? Employee (pun intended) these 15 tips: 1. Why Would Someone Pick You/ Your Company? No longer is it realistic for employers to have the notion that just because you are in the drivers’ seat administering the interview means you have all the power. In fact, it’s quite the opposite as the current market is more in favor of the job seeker as they have plenty of options to choose from, you being one of them. If you want the best of the best you have to be able to speak to WHY people should consider you and your company. Your story must resonate with your interviewees. 2. Character Over Competency The best leaders use this philosophy – hire people who will bleed for your cause and will make the right decisions even in the darkest of hours. Competency in most jobs can be taught, character is what the person has developed well before you came around so don’t think you can change it easily, if at all 3. Behavioral Based Interviewing A great tactic while interviewing is to ask people what they would do in certain situations. This causes people to have to think and adjust in the moment. You aren’t trying to catch someone doing something wrong here, more or less understand their thought process and how they handle certain tasks or situations 4. Know What You Want Before You Interview All too often I hear people say, “we need to interview some people first to better understand who we are looking for”. You should never need to interview someone in order to help you understand who or what you are looking for. If you use this practice most often what it means is you don’t know what you’re doing from a leadership perspective. Tough love I know but it’s highly important you know what you want and need before you go looking for it during interviews. Wasting people’s time so you can figure out your direction with hiring isn’t advisable and it’s unprofessional. 5. Consult Others Before you go about the interview process speak with other managers about their experiences and your plans for your hiring process. The best advice typically comes from those who have been there and done it before that way you can learn from their successes and mistakes 6. Make Sure You Know And Understand Your Vision Somewhat similar to number #1 however this focuses on you and your specific team. Put yourself in the shoes of the person interviewing and think “Why would I want to work for her/ him?” “Does this vision excite me?” “What is my role in the future of this company?” 7. Best Foot Forward A helpful reminder if nothing else, remember when people are interviewing you are witnessing their ideal self, seeing them at their best. Asking questions which will give you better insight into who they are day-to-day, not just during your interview, are always good ways to get a better glimpse into who they are in a very day setting. 8. Tell Them Your Leadership Philosophy This is especially important if you are hiring the person to join your team. This is also very different than #6 which talks about the vision for your team or company. Here you are sharing with your interviewee how you lead and what you believe in. A great precursor question to this is asking the candidate what type of leadership they like and want in their next career 9. Interview Tests It’s a great practice to test candidates on their abilities on the spot, so long as the test is directly relatable to their core job function. If you are interviewing a Mechanical Engineer, for example, it is highly suggested you test them on the exact work they would be doing for you (ie Solidworks modeling) 10. The Reference Trick I personally think references are a waste of time. Why? Because the people on the other end of the phone are doing nothing but singing the praises of the person you are interviewing. In over a decade I can name on one hand the number of reference checks I’ve performed which brought about a poor review. Here’s how to get around it – when you are on the phone with the reference which was provided by your interviewee ask who else the interviewee worked with and then try to phone that person. This person won’t be prepared for your call and may provide you with more realistic insight into the persons’ work ethic and behaviors. 11. Put Yourself In Their Shoes Interviewing isn’t easy. In fact it can be downright terrifying for some people. Try looking beyond the interview. Just because someone’s interview isn’t a glowing success, or they may seem overly nervous, doesn’t mean they aren’t a good catch. Just because someone interviews well doesn’t mean they will perform well in the job. 12. Job Description = Performance Expectations It’s time we ditch the HR job descriptions and actually write and talk about what the newly hired employee will be expected to do from a performance perspective. If you’re hiring for sales, interview your candidates based on the quotas and metrics you’ll have in place. Ask how they will achieve those goals, what their strategies will be, etc. 13. Know Your Non-Negotiables What are you not willing to tolerate? When I’m in a position of hiring my two non-negotiables are attitude and integrity because both of these are things we have 100% control over. Knowing that I then ask questions around those two to see how they view my perspective on my non-negotiables. Asking interviewees their non-negotiables will also give you an idea of where their priorities land 14. Challenge Your Own Mindset One of the most common mistakes leaders make when hiring is they select candidates that remind them of themselves or select candidates that are beneath them skill wise. Great leaders surround themselves with people who are not only competent but will challenge the leader to be better. 15. Don’t Hire If It Isn’t What You Want I hired an employee that was most of what I was looking for but through the interview I uncovered some things that were less than great. Up to this point I had interviewed so many people that I just decided to move forward with this particular candidate and did the whole ‘cross your fingers’ bit in hopes they would work out. From that experience I can tell you it is always better to not hire when in doubt than hire because you need to fill a spot. Author: Trisha Aure
It seems nowadays there are no safe places for thoughts, comments or posts. There will always be someone that will have a negative response no matter what the content is. I was reading a post on LinkedIn about a company that hired their first woman board member. This is something that should definitely be talked about and celebrated. But then I started reading the comments, and it was talking about everything this woman was not: “That’s great, but it would be better if she wasn’t Caucasian.” “How is she going to stand up to her male counterparts?” Why can’t we see the actual message here instead of seeing everything that it is not? What would life be if we celebrated what we should instead of tearing down things that don’t align with our personal goals? We all have different goals, different paths and different stories. And this is exactly as it should be. We should be uplifting and supportive of one another, even when we disagree. Having a healthy mindset is not the easiest, and I have come to find out, this is an everyday activity. I’m sure there are many speculations on why our minds are triggered to see the bad rather than the good. The news, social media, celebrities, and pure gossip are just to name a few. I started thinking about this during a conversation I had with a friend of mine about my road rage. I realized that I get frustrated when someone would cut me off or drive too slow because I would take it personally. As though the driver saw me and said to himself “I’m going to cut that girl off…. haha.” My friend put a bit of perspective out there for me and brought up that this person could be driving their hurt kid to the hospital or frantic because they received some heart wrenching news. This struck home because it made me sound egotistical as though the world revolves around me; why did I think that? What does this negativity do to us? It creates stress and an unhealthy lifestyle. “Emotional stress can weaken the immune system and cause high blood pressure, fatigue, depression, anxiety and even heart disease.” In fact, it is estimated +75% of the physician office visits which occur in the USA annually are for stress related ailments. It’s also the leading cause of death. It’s a wonder why we react the way we do to certain actions is the first step. We need to change our daily habits in order to begin a healthy lifestyle. This can include:
Key Take Away Slow down and live life. Stop holding yourself back from happiness, success, family or anything else that you are striving to. Stop worrying about things that are out of your control. If it is out of your control, you can’t do anything about it, so why worry about it? Why get upset about it? Why lose sleep over it? By taking stress out of your life, things won’t look as dull. Our minds are so powerful, that if we train it to see things for what they really are it would be full of more rainbows than icy storms. Action Item You don’t know everyone’s story and why people act the way they do. We only have control over our own actions. Instead of judging someone, talk to them, lend them a hand, or let them pass. Humor is a big stress reliever for me. You can’t stress when you are laughing. If something works for you, share it. Sharing is caring people. About the AuthorTravis Smith is the founder and managing director of Square-1 Engineering, a life sciences consulting firm, providing end to end technical project services to companies which design, develop and or manufacture products in Southern California. He successfully served the life sciences marketplace in SoCal for over 15 years specializing in engineering services, consulting, project outsourcing and leadership development. In 2019 he was recognized as a ‘40 Under 40’ honoree by the Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce as a top leader in Orange County, CA. Archives
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