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Error Correction
If something goes wrong...
Everyone knows that mistakes occur during the execution phase of practically any project due to incorrect task descriptions, failure to understand the goal or desired outcomes, lack of attention to details etc.
It is all very well if errors are caught and corrected before project completion. However, in some cases, the product that clients receive is quite different than expected. They become angry, rightly so, and still want to receive the promised result.
How to remedy a situation by turning it in a positive direction?
Rule number one: do not make new mistakes.
Despite the fact that any overdue project is stressful for both the client and the service provider, you must try to say “Stop!” and evaluate the situation carefully.
There is no sense in wasting time on a detailed analysis of the project as a whole. If a deadline has been broken, the client is on edge and time is ticking.
- It is essential to identify the key points which require immediate action.
- Compile a short basic to-do list with a clear description of your objective and follow the steps identified.
- Do not jump from task to task. Divide the problem up into several parts and complete each task step-by-step. You may start a new step if the previous step requires time to process, but under no circumstances should you jumble everything together at one time. Time overlaps are permissible, but there should always be a clear delineation between tasks in your head.
- If a problem cannot be resolved immediately or within a day, be prepared to make adjustments and offer your client flexible solutions. A “flexible solution” is a solution designed to fit a situation at a particular moment in time. If changes arise in an emergency situation, the solution may change as well.
- If necessary, find an assistant to carry out simple tasks which do not require your personal involvement, but never give full responsibility for a project to your assistant. As a manager, you must be in charge of any emergency situation and rectifying any mistakes.
- Try to turn off all emotions. This may be difficult, but it is often the only way to overcome a situation in which a step-by-step process must be executed with precision and accuracy.
- Remember your intuition. The most correct and expeditious solution is almost always in plain sight. You can hear your intuition when you are level-headed and calm.
Rule number two: keep the client informed.
Uncertainty is more upsetting than anything else. If a mistake has been made which cannot be corrected within five minutes, call the client. Talk to him/her. Explain the situation and show him/her that you are not indifferent to what has happened.
What if you have absolutely no time to call? In this case, simply write a short email to show that you are working on the problem. It is important that your email reflect your personal attitude toward the problem and your personal interest in its resolution. Standard phrases such as, “Thank you, we have received your message and are working on the problem,” are nothing more than a formal and impersonal version of the run-around and can only reassure the client for a very short time, if at all.
Error correction
Do not even attempt to address the issue of error correction if you do not care about applying it in the future. It would be better for you to look for a more interesting pursuit in life.
However, if you do find it interesting, then it would be a good idea to do the following after you have successfully corrected the errors in your current project:
- It is very useful to sit down and “rewind,” remembering the entire history of the project from the present back to the beginning. Ninety-nine percent of all errors are in plain sight and are caused by very simple factors.
- Play out a logical project development scenario along with possible risks and tentative solutions in your head or write them down on paper. This will give you a birds-eye view of the many possible alternatives for the progression of events and provide valuable experience for future projects.
- Speak with the vendors and service providers. Figure out what caused setbacks on their end. It is possible that these negotiations will lead you to understand that you need to replace a vendor. Do not be afraid to do this if you have no other option. Otherwise, you will face the problem again.
- Review the tasks that you complete during the course of a project. You might be able to free up some time for important matters by finding tasks that could be delegated to assistants without relinquishing supervisory control over the project.
- Use your mistakes for self-improvement. You should not linger in one place for long if your work becomes routine. This destroys your individuality and decreases opportunities for you to achieve your potential. Constantly search for new challenges. This will also provide a reprieve from the inherent routines of management.
Mistakes in Management
If you want something done the way it was thought up – participate in all its stages.
Today I would like to refer to widespread mistakes in managing projects. I don’t want to focus my attention on precise methodologies, rules and procedures that have been elaborated in hundreds of books. These is all instrumentation, but the key factor in management is not the instrument, but in the person who is holding it in their hands. So, for example, you can learn to say the right thing or smile nicely in conversation, train yourself psychologically, have a to-do list, study how to do something in a certain scenario... the human brain is capable of learning or copying these simple tools very quickly, without requiring much input from your personality.
What’s more important is that which lies deeper than learnt knowledge. It is your own participation and experience of a situation on an emotional level and the sensations in your body, your direct engagement with the process.
90% of the successes of those things I take on and complete depend solely on my approach and relation to it, my understanding and feeling of the aim, time and place. The remaining 10% is my inattention, fear, over-evaluation of my strengths and capabilities... So, I come to the main mistakes:
Lack of a manager
‘The Manager’ is the most important, who’s always in fashion, to whom the ‘ends’ of any project are attached, on whom lies the whole responsibility for the company’s outcome. In most cases he’s just absent because very few people understand what personal responsibility is and where its borders are. So, for example, to formulate the mission, issue it to an executive and to then simply wait for the result is not the role of a manager or project manager – this is the role of a ‘porter’ who carries boxes from one place to another. In this instance the technical design of a project, your idea or an assignment act as boxes...
A good manager in the literal sense takes on the project from the ideas stage to the stage of its full completion in the form of definite goods or services provided, every detail should interest them, including the client’s reaction when the project is completed. The Manager is like the conductor of an orchestra. The conductor’s baton is his precise intent, aimed accurately at a definite executive at the required moment in time. And also, until that time that the concert is over and the satisfied public head for home. In order to understand this you have to feel yourself like a conductor of a simple matter like tidying a flat...you have to know how to ‘conduct’ yourself.
Therefore when choosing project participants it is essential from the beginning you should have a clear understanding for yourself of their roles and areas of responsibility, and then enter the roles of the proposed pretenders and look to see if they are suitable. It’s not worth giving client correspondence to a creative designer, it’s senseless to ask the secretary to keep track on project progress etc. The role should match the executive’s skills.
Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ and replace a worker if it’s clearly now working out – this provides a chance to avoid additional expenses at later stages of the project. But if you see that someone can learn and develop, then you should give them that chance. The best employees are those who have learnt from the very start.
A genuine result is only possible with genuine engagement of all its participants.
Information, like a structure, is not something static, it changes constantly throughout the process. Therefore I am opposed to the thoughtless use of tables dictating certain actions. The choice of what action to take depends on the current moment and place, it is not a table, it is an adequate reaction to what is happening at a certain moment in time. Knowledge can help when taking a decision, but responsibility for the decision belongs above all to the person making it, not to a prescribed table.
A good manager in the literal sense takes on the project from the ideas stage to the stage of its full completion in the form of definite goods or services provided, every detail should interest them, including the client’s reaction when the project is completed. The Manager is like the conductor of an orchestra. The conductor’s baton is his precise intent, aimed accurately at a definite executive at the required moment in time. And also, until that time that the concert is over and the satisfied public head for home. In order to understand this you have to feel yourself like a conductor of a simple matter like tidying a flat...you have to know how to ‘conduct’ yourself.
Lack of the executives necessary
If you don’t have a manager or you have trust in the people chosen for your project by people who don't understand its aims and objectives, then you won’t have good executives capable of carrying out the task assigned to them adequately. If this somehow happens, then this is the Will of Fate. Every employee should work in their place, otherwise it is a useless waste of time, effort and your money. In addition this does not add to the respect for you, or for the manager, from those who sit waiting for work or carry out their work without experiencing interest in it.Therefore when choosing project participants it is essential from the beginning you should have a clear understanding for yourself of their roles and areas of responsibility, and then enter the roles of the proposed pretenders and look to see if they are suitable. It’s not worth giving client correspondence to a creative designer, it’s senseless to ask the secretary to keep track on project progress etc. The role should match the executive’s skills.
Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’ and replace a worker if it’s clearly now working out – this provides a chance to avoid additional expenses at later stages of the project. But if you see that someone can learn and develop, then you should give them that chance. The best employees are those who have learnt from the very start.
A genuine result is only possible with genuine engagement of all its participants.
Lack of information and the correct approach to it
This widespread mistake is about instrumentation – those instructions, methodologies and documents that are called for to help workers answer simple questions connected with managing a project. Ease and simplicity is the key to the understanding of and optimum access to the information you want to communicate. Once in possession of an understanding you can communicate the information further, because it’s important to try as best as possible to understand the basics, share and clearly document the essential details, appoint those who can share the information best, be in the loop of what’s going on, constantly collecting and processing new data.Information, like a structure, is not something static, it changes constantly throughout the process. Therefore I am opposed to the thoughtless use of tables dictating certain actions. The choice of what action to take depends on the current moment and place, it is not a table, it is an adequate reaction to what is happening at a certain moment in time. Knowledge can help when taking a decision, but responsibility for the decision belongs above all to the person making it, not to a prescribed table.
Sincere Interest
Why I enjoy working
In every person’s life there are a huge number of external factors which constantly direct us. Surely we have all experienced a situation in life when they completed something and hit the ‘ceiling,’ as if seemingly nothing more can be done and it’s time to change something. Many people, under the influence of external factors, collapse at this crossroads and choose a new activity, a new partner in life, change work, take up sport, friends, etc. Meanwhile at each of these crossroads there is the possibility of a choice – to make an effort or to give up. In this context ‘effort’ will be the transition to a new level – it is as if you reach the next level without collapsing or leaving the building and don’t set off on the quest for something new. As a rule, people start convincing themselves that it’s necessary, that they are sick of the old, that they can’t be bothered to anything extra, when it is already clear... This happens, but more often than not this is a trick of our mind. In order to understand it, you have to try and think of all the events in your life which have been done without the influence of other people or unexpected events. It’s great if you find a partnership, the rest will simply be the convergence of circumstance.
I am quoting a couple of examples to make it simpler:
- You’re just about to buy something, a new sofa for example. You go into the shop, haven’t chatted to the shop assistants and chosen the one that’s most ”for you” when at the last moment someone comes to you by chance and says that this sofa is not so good, the springs are flimsy and bla-bla-bla... Certainly you have nearly been ”tricked,” you start to doubt and buy another one so at least it will be a proper sofa and not a rollaway bed.
- or, you’re driving a car, and you think about a beloved girlfriend on the new sofa..., when suddenly a boy-racer cuts you up... Nine out of ten people react to this with an attack of indignation and offence and will probably forget about the sofa and the girlfriend instantly.
The situations described are mere trifles that happen every day in real life.
Interest - is something more constant, something on which we focus our attention and maintain it for a long time. Attention is the tool that feeds our interest. The result is the end of the road, our visualisation of what we aim to achieve. The effort that needs to be applied at the crossroads, which I wrote about earlier, is the act of attention focused on a result. If this act doesn’t happen, external factors bear down from above and we can forget about the aims, results and reasons that convinced us to start one thing or another. It has often been the cast that people close to me, friends and other ‘chance’ acquaintances have turned me onto the wrong course. I consider these things a big success and a valuable lesson.
So why is work interesting for me?
Work is the process of searching for those same perspectives from which I can make a step forward in development. Unfortunately I never use the opportunities presented by life to the maximum. I never pay enough attention. Nevertheless, when this happens somehow or other, it is an extremely stimulating and motivating therapy which provides a lot of new experience and opportunity.
Some words before...
Money
Everyone really wants it, as well as receiving more and spending less. In the
overwhelming majority of cases money is the main argument for decision making, is
the key factor in any Russian tender, the sharpest item in the financial report, the most sought-after
bonus, which you want to receive together with recognition of your human value.
This is nothing to be surprised about – it’s always been like that and will be
for a long time to come.
The Result
Everyone needs it, everyone talks about it, and even more think about it in
the context of receiving the same money that engenders many well-conceived,
thoughtless and sometimes senseless projects. At times the method of achieving
this result is very cloudy, and the methods applied are not always suited to
the situation. This all blocks the road to the Holy Grail in something
resembling a Brownian motion.
Management
In the majority of cases this results in the transfer of responsibility from one performer to another. As a result of their joint efforts something is created that only barely resembles
what was planned in the beginning. Furthermore this is proudly named The Result
and, they say, just like it was conceived and is good that it turned out just
like that and not worse. For all of this there is a huge number of project management
and personnel management methods, a vast array of books and articles have been
penned about management structures. Just a few of these emphasise the internal
development of ‘the manager.‘
When I first convinced myself of just how stable this model is, in which to a known degree everything is posited from head to toe, and embedded in contemporary business practice, it seemed to me that I could use this as an excellent opportunity for developing and offering my clients management and services of a level quite different to those that they were accustomed to receiving.
Interests
“And when will I be paid?”
Pay day is everyone’s favourite day of the month. This completes the circle
– beginning with money, everything comes down to just that.
When I first convinced myself of just how stable this model is, in which to a known degree everything is posited from head to toe, and embedded in contemporary business practice, it seemed to me that I could use this as an excellent opportunity for developing and offering my clients management and services of a level quite different to those that they were accustomed to receiving.
I needed to turn the page with the heading Interest in the Result. With due
effort interest generates responsibility in a person, forcing them to seek a
solution and forming the required expertise for independent management. In this instance money is not an end to itself,
but an entirely natural reward and the result of applied effort. In this manner
I had the chance to sell not just goods and services for a certain monetary amount,
but a whole process or my own type of management culture, whose result is the
very same product or service, but of an incomparably different character. The difference is, above all, in the impressions and feelings, that the client has
from the Result.
It’s about just these very experiences, management culture and personal responsibility
that I wanted to write about in this blog.
