Management Questions

For each “bad” action, ask the team:

• What choices could we have made to avoid the bad action?
• What choices did we make that should have been avoided?
• What misinterpretations of events, motivations, and actions did we make that led to the bad action?
• What were the correct interpretations?
• What do all these imply about what we should and shouldn’t do going forward?

For each “good” action, ask:

• What did we do to cause this?
• Is there anything we refrained from doing that allowed this to happen?
• Did our interpretation of events, motivations, and actions help this action come to pass?
• What do all these imply about what we should do and shouldn’t do going forward?

Source: How Your Company Can Learn From Mistakes / Stever Robbins / HBS Working Knowledge, June 16, 2003

15No Comments »http://www.mgmtquestions.com/2006/01/31/reviewing-project-performance/Reviewing+Project+Performance+2006-01-31+19%3A34%3A50Administrator Posted by Administrator / Project Management Questions

Even the most seasoned sales veterans sometimes struggle to get more than a few questions into the process of general discovery before quickly trying to push products. To improve your success in this area, break those discovery questions down into four subcategories:

• Marketing questions: How do you go to market? How do you distinguish yourself from your competitors? What are your biggest competitive challenges?
• Operational questions: What are your biggest operational challenges? How do you manage labor costs effectively? What cost-saving methods are you most proud of?
• Relationship questions: When you are considering an important change, what process do you go through to evaluate the benefits? (This question provides you with an important understanding of not only who the decision makers are, but also how the decisions are made.)
• Ego questions: What are your biggest challenges within the organization? Where do you see your career headed in the next few years?

Source: Line of inquiry: to strengthen your customer relationships, learn to ask the right questions on sales calls / Rick Davis / Prosales, May, 2004

14No Comments »http://www.mgmtquestions.com/2006/01/31/more-sales-questions/M.O.R.E+Sales+Questions+2006-01-31+19%3A12%3A27Administrator Posted by Administrator / Sales Questions

For every asset that supports business critical service, Visible Ops recommends the following questions be answered:

• What does it do?
• What is the hardware platform?
• What is the operating system platform?
• What applications are installed?
• Who is responsible for this asset’s uptime?
• What service(s) does it support?
• Who is authorized to make changes?
• What does this box do for the business?
• What will happen when this box stops working completely?
• What will happen when the performance of this box is severely degraded?
• What is the change success rate?
• Is this device fragile? Can we build a new one if it fails?
• What are its dependencies?
• What other infrastructure depend on this unit?
• What planned and unplanned changes have been made?
• What is the device’s name? Is it appropriate for the tasks performed?
• What is the outage cost? (In other words, the cost per minute of downtime)
• Where is it physically located?
• Is there anything odd about this box?
• Is this a generally-supported platform in our company?
• Is this box going to go away in the next few months?
• How do we get access to this box (remote or otherwise)?
• How is this unit backed up?
• How long does it take to re-provision this unit (estimate)?
• How long can the business afford to be without it?
• Are we monitoring this unit for changes?
• Are we fault-monitoring this device?
• Do the fault-monitoring assumptions match the dependency realities?
• If the unit is mission critical, then are there adequate hardware backups in place (power supply, network card, RAM, etc)?
• Why do we feel that this unit is unstable (if applicable)?
• Is there anything that needs attention on this unit?

Source: Starting a Visible Ops-Based Change Management Program / Tori Harris, Ron Zika / Tripwire, Inc.

13No Comments »http://www.mgmtquestions.com/2006/01/09/questions-to-ask-about-business-critical-service-it-assets/Questions+to+ask+about+business+critical+service+IT+assets2006-01-09+22%3A31%3A02Administrator Posted by Administrator / IT Questions

• Workforce planning and workforce analysis: Which employees are eligible for retirement in the next two to five years? Do they possess critical skills? Which jobs and skill sets will be impacted? How will you replace these skills once these employees retire? What are the critical skills for the future that will need to be recruited or developed?
• Learning management: Do your current training and learning programs focus on the critical skills needed for the future? Are your delivery systems designed to provide training in ways that meet older or new employee learning needs?
• Recruiting: Do the current recruiting processes operate effectively so that you can quickly hire top talent as the competition for skilled resources continues to increase?
• Succession planning: Which employees can assume leadership roles when the current leaders retire?
• Rewards and recognition: Do you offer creative and flexible rewards to employees eligible for retirement in order to encourage them to stay? Do you offer competitive rewards in order to attract and retain new talent?
• Employee relations: Do you have an environment where employees feel valued and respected in order to make sure both older and younger employees stay?
• Knowledge management: Are you able to capture and make accessible the unique knowledge possessed by workers who are retiring?
• Workplace design: Are the workplace and jobs designed so that they are sufficiently flexible to accommodate the needs of employees considering retirement or new workers seeking flexibility, such as job-sharing, telecommuting and part-time work?

Source: Achieving High Performance in a Rapidly Aging World / Rajan Srikanth, James Benton, and Yvonne Herrera / Accenture

12No Comments »http://www.mgmtquestions.com/2006/01/03/addressing-the-implications-of-an-aging-workforce/Addressing+the+Implications+of+an+Aging+Workforce+2006-01-03+22%3A41%3A12Administrator Posted by Administrator / Human Resources Questions