Human Resources

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 07 dec 2014

Empowerment equips people with the ability to make decisions, take initiative and perform actions that lead to desired outcomes for the organization. Effective leadership enables and inspires people to achieve goals for the organization. Leadership, empowerment and organizational success are interconnected. According to Gallup research, organizations that empower their employees experience 50 percent higher customer loyalty. Leaders must give their people optimal level of freedom within the framework of organizational rules and objectives to perform their work. They should avoid micromanagement of the tasks delegated to the employees. Moreover managers should make sure that they remove impediments and hurdles that may arise while their subordinates perform their duties. Frequent communication exchange is necessary between the managers and employees and every interaction should provide employee with motivation and enhanced energy to perform better. In an empowered organization, people work collaboratively towards common goals and hold each other accountable. Read on...

The Business Journals: Why employee empowerment can lead the way to greater business success
Author: Art Johnson

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 07 dec 2014

Businesses, big or small, need to continuously evolve their strategies to stay competitive and succeed in the dynamic marketplace. Matt Mayberry, Professional Speaker & Performance Strategist, provides four simple strategies to improve their success rate - (1) Professional development: Adopt continuous learning approach and research about the market, customers, competitors etc. (2) High quality products/services: Provide quality at competitive prices. (3) Customer value: Keep adding value in the lives of customers and provide best solutions. (4) Serve over everything: Inculcate a 'serving' attitude and listen to your customers well. Read on...

Entrepreneur: 4 Simple Strategies to Improve Your Business Success Rate
Author: Matt Mayberry

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 06 dec 2014

Without customers there is no business. Without happy customers the business will not last long. So what should companies do to know their customers and provide solutions to them in the best possible way, keep them satisfied and happy, and let them come back again and again. JC Grubbs, CEO of DevMynd Software, explains of the efforts his team does to become subject matter expert's within a client's vertical and turns the vendor/customer relationship into a partnership. According to him, 'more than technology or even product design, the software business is about knowledge. It's about taking a problem space and synthesizing a solution from as much knowledge as we can obtain. It's essential to our success with any customer that we get to know their industry, their business and the people involved.' He suggests five things that his company does to build knowledge around an industry and particularly in customer's business - (1) Ask Questions (2) Follow the Money (3) Understand Partnerships (4) Understand the End Customers (5) Investigate Competitors. Read on...

Upstart Business Journal: 5 ways to get to know your customers better
Author: JC Grubbs

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 05 dec 2014

In the technology-enabled world, businesses have to utilize latest technologies, systems and processes to stay ahead of the competition and satisfy their customers. Enterprise technologies that were successful in the past may not suffice in the future. Eric Knorr, Editor-in-Chief of InfoWorld, provides 9 trends in enterprise technology that will have an impact in 2015 and beyond - (1) The triumph of the public cloud. (2) Container madness. (3) Microservices architecture. (4) Liquid computing. (5) Multicloud management. (6) Endpoint security innovation. (7) Machine learning. (8) The return of devops. (9) The end of network switches. Open source is leading the way in most technology developments with startups bringing them to production for their customers and other developers see their value and start building ecosystem around the core projects like Docker, Hadoop, OpenStack etc. This model of open source development - collaborative, self-organized, and distributed - is starting to impact enterprise app dev and will be a trend to watch in the years to come. Read on...

InfoWorld: 9 key enterprise tech trends for 2015 and beyond
Author: Eric Knorr

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 04 dec 2014

In pursuit of success, entrepreneurs have to put in long hours of work and had to survive on little money. This may lead to adverse effects on their health and well being. Moreover even the hard work and sacrifices may not lead to success for most of them - 8 out of 10 entrepreneurial businesses crash and burn within the first 18 months. Kristopher B. Jones, a successful entrepreneur & mentor, suggests necessary qualities for entrepreneurial success - (1) Perseverance: Sustainable companies require patience & perseverance and are built over times. The success is not merely about having a big idea, its more about carefully, effectively and patiently executing it. Entrepreneurs need hard work, tenacity and true grit. (2) Optimism: Its a combination of confidence, hope and positivity. Entrepreneurs need to keep going to accomplish goals at every stage. (3) Decisiveness: Right decision-making is needed at the right moment. Don't dither and procrastinate and make speedy choices with objective reasoning. (4) Self-awareness: Know your strengths and weaknesses and be honest about them. Find good people to do the job that you can't do yourself well. (5) Motivation: Entrepreneurs are motivated by something bigger like contributing to society, impact people, solve an important problem or just change the world for better. (6) Focus: Key component of the entrepreneur mind-set and most challenging to implement. With information overload to distract entrepreneurs, they need to keep themselves focused on their one big idea and develop a plan to execute it step by step. Read on...

Forbes: The Dark Side Of The Moon: Why So Many Entrepreneurs Fail
Author: Kristopher B. Jones

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 04 dec 2014

'Meaningful use' section of the American Investment & Recovery Act of 2009 and provisions in the Affordable Care Act of 2010, required health providers to invest in patients' electronic health records and allow for electronic data reporting to the government. This prompted healthcare organizations in US to invest heavily on IT and created large amount of data that can be used to improve the quality of care, increase patient satisfaction, and reduce costs. But only few are doing it efficiently and effectively with the help of clinical business intelligence (CBI). CBI is an IT system that collects and analyzes data and delivers the results to frontline clinicians in real time, helping them to make better decisions. It can be used to keep clinicians informed about everything from infections and iatrogenic injuries (those caused unintentionally by physicians) to whether units are over- or understaffed. ThedaCare Center for Healthcare Value, an independent non-profit educational institute, has identified three key building blocks that are required to create and implement a CBI strategy - (1) Change leaders' mind-set: A sustainable, transparent, empowered, evidence-based culture supported by CBI is the end state. Getting there requires leaders to understand the need for information at the front line of care and to support efforts to provide it. (2) Standardize data: Organizations must create a centrally located area for storing data and develop standard definitions for variables and exclusions. (3) Build a culture of transparency: Create an environment where workers are empowered to identify and solve problems each day without manager intervention. Workers need leadership support, transparent work environments, and the essential data on defects, wait times, inventory etc. Read on...

Harvard Business Review: Hospitals Are Finally Starting to Put Real-Time Data to Use
Authors: Melissa Mannon, John S. Toussaint

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 30 nov 2014

Nonprofit boards play an important role in providing direction and guidance to the organization by developing policies and plans to achieve their goals. They also bring accountability and oversight to the organization. Eugene Fram, Professor Emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology, provides outcomes of one of the sessions organized by National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) focusing on board 'challenges and opportunities expected in the next five to seven years.' According to Prof. Fram, the results of the session, although for for-profit boards, can also be applied to help nonprofit boards focus on culture, leadership and achieve strategic success: (1) Inherent in the board-management relationship is an information imbalance. (2) With an expanding board agenda, process and expectation settings are critical. (3) An empowered lead director... can help mitigate the risk of information imbalance. ... and can break down some of the roadblocks that may develop between the management and directors. (4) Ultimately, the board has to make winning decisions that are informed by data. (5) The board should identify which stakeholders are critical to the strategic plan and target communications to those groups. Read on...

Huffington Post: Strong Culture and Leadership Critical for Nonprofit Board Strategic Success
Author: Eugene Fram

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 29 nov 2014

In the world of ever changing expectations of customers for meaningful product experiences, designers have to bring emotions, empathy and sensitivity into their designs. Technology is often a facilitator but not everything in the design process. Sohrab Vossoughi, President & Founder of Ziba, as a participant of the panel discussion on 'The Future of Product Design' alongwith Allan Chochinov of the School of Visual Arts and Core77, Aura Oslapas of A+O, and John Jay of Wieden + Kennedy, explores and evaluates the evolution of product design since the time they entered the profession. They all agreed that the real expertise of product designers is not in the mastery of latest computer-aided tools and technologies but their ability to identify needs, create meaning and form a thoughtful point of view on what a design should do... and why. Five important themes emerged out of the panel discussion regarding the direction in which product design would go in the next 30 years - (1) The product is rarely just physical anymore. (2) As more services go digital, real world experience becomes more meaningful. (3) Consumers expect better design across the board. (4) Improved tools make us more efficient, not more effective. (5) Tomorrow's crucial design skills will be empathy and translation. Read on...

Core77: Expectations and Empathy: The Future of Product Design
Author: Sohrab Vossoughi

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 20 nov 2014

According to recent American Community Survey, 2.6% of workers telecommute. More and more organizations are providing their workforce flexible work hours and locations to perform their job responsibilities. Technology is facilitating this shift in work dynamics. Effective collaboration tools are needed to get the dispersed members of the teams to stay connected, focused and efficient. There are variety of such tools available in the market, both free and paid. Here is the list of 7 free online collaboration tools - (1) Podio: Enterprise social network with project management system functionality. It has user profiles, chat app, internal email, contacts, calendar and tasks. Has customization features. (2) Asana: Project management/workflow management tool. Works on most platforms, offering the flexibility to assign tasks and to-dos, set milestones and deadlines and keep track of it all on work on tablets, smartphones or desktops. (3) Google Apps: Used as a suit, provides Gmail, Hangouts, Calendars, Docs, Sheets, Slides and more many of the features project management and collaboration software offer. (4) Yammer: Enterprise social network where users can create a personal profile page, create and join groups, share and like comments, upload images, and attach files. Best for communication but lacks project management capability. (5) Trello: Project management tool that uses a model known as Kanban. Projects are represented and organised using boards or cards that contain task/to-do lists that users share in real-time. (6) HipChat: Multi-platform communications tool allows to create virtual rooms for teams to meet and communicate as well as share files and photos. (7) GanttProject: Open source project management and scheduling app. Allows users to create and organise tasks and milestones. It can also create Gantt and PERT charts as well as reports in HTML or PDF formats. But it doesn't provide social features. Read on...

ComputerWorldUK: 7 free online collaboration and project management tools
Author: Rich Hein

Mohammad Anas Wahaj | 19 nov 2014

Over the years workplace has evolved as a result of advancement in technologies and changing nature of businesses. The earlier fixed office space has now transformed into anything from a living room to a corner coffee shop, depending upon the availability of good internet connectivity. Most modern businesses provides their workers flexibility to work from within or outside the traditional office space. This shift in work environment also brings new challenges for the managers to lead their remote workers and teams. Marty Fukuda, COO of N2 Publishing, suggests 5 essential keys to effectively lead remote workforce - (1) Set expectations: Establish and communicate the expectations early and that should include availability, productivity and meeting attendance (2) Leverage technology: Use communication tools like GoToMeeting, Facetime, Google Hangouts etc or simply utilize a phone call to connect with the team whenever required (3) Be available: Give opportunity for workers to contact and connect through online availability status or schedule specific times for them to interact like academician's office hours (4) Remember the power of face-to-face meetings: Arrange atleast some one-to-one meetings with each team member (5) Trust your team: Provide them freedom and flexibility to work and trust them to do what they do best. Read on...

Entrepreneur: 5 Essential Keys to Leading a Remote Workforce
Author: Marty Fukuda

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