Service and Product Management

Before I dive into service management topic, I want to dedicate a part of this article to the age old subject of commodity, goods or service and their differentiation and product management. I am sure you have all heard about the coffee bean analogy, but it is worth reading and hearing again. 

Commodity is the raw material that a company uses for making goods. So the coffee is harvested and then sold based on price per pound. At this point coffee is considered to be a commodity.

Goods are tangible material that companies keep an inventory of. So now the commodity - coffee in this case - is grounded, packaged and shipped to the store to be sold at a higher price. At this point, the commodity has become a “good”.

 

Services are specific activities someone performs because the consumer does not want to do it themselves. Services are not tangible so to speak, and they are customized based on consumer needs.  So then going back to the coffee, the same ground up coffee that was shipped to the store, now can be brewed in a coffee shop, street corner or a gas station and will be priced as service.

So depending on where you stand a single coffee bean can be a commodity, a good, or a service. Product management is about being aware that it is the distinctive experience that increases the value of the product.  Product marketers understand that it is all about consumer experience, hence all the fuss that goes into packaging and advertisement.

 

Having said that, product management and service management share a common objective. The only subtle difference is that service management was designed only around service. Service management is also about client or consumer experience and must understand what attributes to target for excellence and keep the needs of client in mind quite heavily.

 

The path to operational excellence - not far from our everyday lives - is understanding. We need to analyze and target our resources in designing and applying improvements where there is maximum effect. Last but not least, let's not forget the 4 E’s: Expectation, Encounter, Experience, and Emotions.

 

All the Best.

Best Practice

We hear the term “Best Practice” on regular basis.  But if you actually ask what that is, most people will not be able to articulate a meaning and tell you what it constitutes.  So how do we know that we are accomplishing this?

 

To begin with, this is considered a method or technique that has steadily shown results greater to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark.

 

Scientific Management was developed by Frederik Taylor back in the 19^th century.  The studies were based on facts and not guesswork and estimation. Even though much of his philosophy is no longer favoured, he did introduce a way in finding business and production deficiencies, which is called the “Best Practice” today. 

 

One of the most important points to keep in mind in engaging best practice at all levels is process documentation.  Every organization has number of processes to be followed for effective delivery of their products and services. Trying to do this without proper documentation can prove to be hard in quantification, control and successful repetition.               

Documentation translates the tacit knowledge into explicit; and through this we become organized and make the processes useful to everyone.  Documentation is proved to reduce training time by 80% and increase the quality and productivity.

One special happening during the documentation of a process is that we find better practices to implement, as we spend time thinking about the current state.

 

To document the business process successfully, here are some hints:

·         Understand the scope of the process and the documentation,

·         Identify the key components of the process to be documented,

·         Write an introductory paragraph explaining why this process is important,

·         Define individual roles and responsibilities,

·         Outline the technical tools required for the process,

·         Write a step-by-step of how the process starts and completes,

·         Include an “exception” or “emergency” section,

·         Edit and proof-read to make sure the final product is easy to understand, yet professional.

 

 

Have Fun!!!

Taking it Personally

Taking responsibility in business if often mistaken by taking it personally.  To me they are two different subjects completely.  When you have your own business or are employed to someone else’s company, taking responsibility would mean that you see the project / process in hand through in the most efficient and effective way and do the best you are able to do under the offered circumstances.  There are no needs for someone to follow up to see if you are doing what you are supposed to.  You are on time checking pulse on your deliverables. You have the sense of ownership.  You take pride in what you do and it shows through delivery.  For someone who takes ownership of whatever they are doing, criticism – constructive or destructive, direct or implied, sincere or insincere – comes as just that; criticism.  They are not criticizing “you”, they are criticizing the outcome.

Fair enough, you are going to say, but I was behind the outcome.  Yes you were, but you are also forgetting that I said earlier: “do the best you are able to do under the offered circumstances”. The one who is doing the criticizing may not even be aware of what circumstances were.  If you take the comments offered “personally”, then the wall of defense goes up, you draw your sword and are ready to behead the criticizer. If you do not take the comment as a direct attack on you however, you would be willing to have a conversation to get to the bottom of it.

Unfortunately in many businesses “taking it personally” has become more of a trend.  In larger organizations you see the most tears shed and hearts broken when there is a performance assessment, or an award ceremony.  Sometimes managers are mandated to come back with couple of chosen ones from the team as a low performer, regardless of how they have performed.  When the manager relays the message to the employee, his/her confidence is crushed.  They try for days to talk about it to everyone and justify their cause.  They are disheartened and going to work in the morning becomes a chore rather than a pleasure.  At this point, they have taken the manager’s feedback personally. 

Remember that everybody’s opinion is exclusively the product of their own life and reality. Look around and you will see that it is always easier to get offended, have an internal fight, and or believe what they have said; than thinking about it, understand where it comes from and let it go.  It takes a strong person not to take things personally.  Hear what they say; accept it as a reflection of their little world; understand their level of self-confidence and self-reflection, then, let it go. Let it disappear.

This is also true when you seek advice about what your plans are.  You will hear a range of emotions come out from: “Wow! Go for it!”, to “Good luck with that”, or “You need to be more realistic.”

Does this indicate that the first person believed in you? Not at all.  This just means that they believed in themselves.  They did not have an issue imagining something of that magnitude.  To them it was an absolute possibility.  Likewise the others, were not trying to say “you” cannot do it; they were saying in their little world of reality, that cannot be done. It is not a possibility for them.

When hearing a criticism, an advice, an insult, or a praise, always reconnect back to your world and your awareness.  You are the only one who knows how true or false that is.  By taking things personally and taking their feedback to your heart, you would be doing yourself a huge injustice.

SMPO

It is not proper to view service management as a single project with a defined beginning and end, or something that you implement like hardware or software. Service management is a way of thinking and behaving that can start small and then expand incrementally to the entire organization.

 

Service management transforms an organization from a narrow focus on infrastructure and process to one that includes managing the services, experiences and outcomes. It needs the commitment and buy-in from leadership and executives, as well as all levels of management.

 

A conceptual organization called SMPO - Service Management Program Office - having the responsibility of supervision, coordinating and managing all the related efforts. SMPO can actually provide insight to risk issues and benefits of successful outputs.

 

SMPO represents few key interests:

-          Service provider organization

-          Customer

-          Service infrastructure

-          Service operations

-          Set standards for process design and documentation

-          Assisting in development of processes and procedures

-          Implement process governance and required corrective actions

-          Lead the ITSM tool selection

-          Spearhead standardization and integration

-          Outline functional terms of tool implementation

-          Develop metrics and reporting that matter

-          Lead continual service improvement efforts

 

Most organizations presently have people performing all or part of the above-mentioned. By bringing them together into a single service management program office they will have a better chance of a well utilized and established Service Management practice. 

Mind-Mapping

I love mind-maps.  If I just give you an idea of a project through mind-map, it would be: first start by classifying your major project tasks in a mind map format.  From this point onwards, you would be able to add tasks and sub-tasks and assign them to the project team, while creating completion timelines. It is always simpler to estimate the timeline for smaller tasks that encompass the major components of the project.

Mind map gives you a visual view of how the whole thing flows outward from the centre. Once all the tasks in the project are identified, then come the assignment to resources and establishing timelines.

If you have not already guessed it, this is the time to take care of your project chart. Now you will take the tasks on the mind map and add resources (people and tools) to them.  It will also include all dependencies, scopes, and allows you to create accountability for team members.

The mind-mapping method offers a difference and delivers with impact.  It is a good way to brainstorming of ideas, making action plans and presenting the whole thing in one shot.  I find them to be more stimulating at times of presentation.

You can use mind-mapping for just about anything.  Schedules, meetings, proposals.  You can draw connections between tasks and find out how everything affects each other in a visual way, which in turn makes prioritization easier.

To me, mind mapping is about consolidating massive amount of information, which creates a perfect platform for analyzing business requirements, making decisions, SWOT, Balanced Scorecards, and any business model you can come up with can be simplified and enhanced in this manner.  The radiating property of mind-map allows for boundless development of the ideas, while keeping a comprehensible structure; at the same time giving you a holistic snapshot. This can be useful in anything you do, process or otherwise.

Map Away!!!!

Productive Meetings

Meetings can be set to be useful, or completely useless waste of time.  I am certain you have all been to meetings where a lot is promised and nothing is delivered or achieved.              There are action items a plenty, which never gets followed up on.  These are meetings with no accountability.

 

As per research an average employee spends nearly one day a week in non-productive meetings.  Talk about cost cutting.  Just getting together and talking about what needs to happen, does not make it happen.  The tasks need to be assigned to an accountable party, with a specific completion date.

 

Few simple steps to keep in mind are: first, create and distribute an agenda ahead of time.  In your agenda also include if there are any projectors in the room, or if you are using products such as WebEx, or GotoMeeting, etc..

 

Second, during the meeting have the agenda displayed in a visual format of your choice and assign the action items to each person, discuss the timelines, resources, and comfort level, making sure there is no room for different interpretations of what is being asked.

 

Be certain to distribute the action items document as soon as possible after the meeting to all attendees and ask for their feedback to ascertain that there are no misunderstandings. 

 

Last but not least schedule a mid-line follow up meeting to talk about the same action items, as they appeared in your first meeting and understanding the status of each item. 

 

Running your meetings this way will bring about few benefits: your meetings will be shorter and to the point; you get results on what was promised; and everyone is on the same page.  You can conduct these meetings with the basic software available to you, nothing fancy required.