Category: Operations
Dealing with errors …
Dealing with error gracefully is the mark of a mature organization. This article is a very interesting discussion with a Google search executive about how Google deals with error from anorganizational and technological perspective.
Small teams = Success?
Here’s an interesting chain of thoughts about the success of Apple and its startup culture …
I read the blog post here and the original article the author referenced here and really wondered if the whole ’small team’ advantage is a reduction in communication overhead at its root. I appreciate the lessons as we all do about hiring ‘insanely passionate’ people. But there are many examples of companies laying in the dustbins of history who were populated by insanely passionate people. Sun Microsystems immediately comes to mind.
At the heart of a startup culture is the emphasis on leanness and I appreciated Sachin’s comments about Microsoft. Inserting multiple ‘hops’ in communication paths in the form of multiple management layers is a sure way to choke any project or innovative idea to death. Providing oversight without constant intervention is an art. And one that Apple seems to currently master.
Knowing what your employees know is more imperative than ever … Dodd-Frank Whistleblowers
With Dodd-Frank signed into law by President Obama, understanding what is going on in your organization from a people-perspective is more important than ever. Under the Enhanced Whistleblower Protections, The SEC is now empowered to provide substantial monetary rewards for whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are eligible for rewards of 10 to 30 percent of the collected funds on any sanction over $1 million, providing a significant monetary incentive to proactively cooperate with the government. The inherent risk here is that the monetary rewards are substantial enough to forego reporting of discrepancies or issues to internal company management before approaching the SEC for resolution and ultimately, reward.
It is imperative that companies are able to identify areas of risk vs Dodd-Frank and to rectify any possible situation as fast as possible. This means understanding your employees interactions in real-time – both topically and structurally within your company. Anomalous communications and interactions should be identified and examined proactively and investigated further before much greater liability is incurred. With possible huge payouts, the incentives are all on the side of governmental intervention vs. internal resolution. Vigilance is more important than ever both from the governance perspective as well as the risk management perspective.
Question:
What is your company doing to improve insight into employee interactions and their meaning vs your company’s risk profile?
ProjectGoo: Recent FAQs
ManageScope offers free email support for ProjectGoo and we’ve fielded some questions about the application that we’d like to share with our user community. While we’re still happy to receive the email requests, these FAQs and their answers might jumpstart your ProjectGoo experience.
- Is Microsoft Project required to use ProjectGoo?
Yes. The Project Manager client relies on MS Project 2007 Standard or Professional to create the project plan and also requires MS Project to receive assignment updates, etc. The Team Client does not require MS Project and can be distributed to as many project team members as you’d like.
- Is there a charge per user for ProjectGoo?
No. ProjectGoo is completely free for an unlimited number of users and projects.
- Can you customize ProjectGoo to my company’s requirement (x)?
Yes! We’re happy to work with you to customize ProjectGoo. We’ve fielded requests to integrate with Jira, Mediawiki, and SharePoint and while there is a cost associated for the service, we’re happy to implement your requirements. Feel free to contact us with your needs.
- When is the next release of ProjectGoo and will it work with Project 2010?
ProjectGoo is scheduled for its 3.0 release end of Q1 2011 and will work with Project 2010, .NET 4.0 and Windows 7.
- I’m having issues installing ProjectGoo. The installer won’t launch.
Please review the system requirements for the application. Make sure that you have .NET 3.5 installed and that you have both a Google Docs and Google Calendar account. All installation issues reported so far have related to a lack of one of the three requirements.
If you don’t see the answer to a question you have, please email ProjectGoo Support. We’re excited to help jumpstart your use of the application.