Staying Organized and On Track

by Matt Romero

Foreword

I was trying to come up with a more accurate title. Alas I could not come up with anything more elegant and simple and thus stuck with what I originally wrote down in my Microsoft OneNote back when a co-worker suggested a few days ago I should write an article about what you're about to read - thank you for your time, I hope it helps!

As I hinted this is more than just how to stay organized and on track in your daily work and/or projects but it's a good starting point/foundation.

The big picture: the sum of all parts

So before we dive in to what will apply to you directly we need to consider that everything around us affects us directly or indirectly and we also affect it which includes technology (systems) and processes besides people. An organization is the sum of its parts and its success is a reflection of each employee, as the saying goes there is no "I" in team and you are only as strong as your weakest link. Empathy is a key skill I don't see enough of in today's world.

I say all this first because I want you to think about all the pieces, gears if you will, that are required for a well-oiled machine aka company or what have you to work. Those gears (or cogs) are effectively people broken down into within roles whom leverage and use systems/technology or affect technology like developers, engineers etc. All those people/employees, and all those systems must coordinate, and talk-to each other. They are in-meshed in an elaborate choreography of processes, rules and policies if you will. You take one team using system "a" and that team interacts with another team using that same system but then also uses system "b" that integrates to "a" and what you get is an ever evolving, ever expanding web-like infrastructure/machine that, hopefully, if done right can expand and thus scale without compromising quality.

It may sound like I'm going off on a tangent but I'm just taking "you", as the worker, and zooming out 10,000 feet. Now let's zoom back in on you...and me... and everyone else for that matter, that are cogs in a machine (sorry if this is coming off as too Matrix-ish, not my intention, I promise this has a positive purpose and outcome :) ). Everyone is, hopefully, doing their jobs to the best of their abilities, maybe trying to affect positive change and maybe going above and beyond to help the business succeed. However knowing that everyone (as their own singular person/entity) just form a minor, seemingly insignificant fraction of a massive eco-system, we ask ourselves and wonder, how much do we really matter?

Building the yellow brick road

Remember that we make up that sum of all parts. Everything within an organization, company, product that's already been established, built, and designed has been done so step by step, block by block, layer by layer. As humans we may be the cog in the corporate machine but we are also building, creating, designing the actual blocks to take the next step forward. So that being said (and yes we will get to the part of being organized and staying on track at your job, this is all relevant and needed I promise) look at this perspective as an approach to how we work, execute a project, a task, communicate with a team. When tackling a problem, you don't just tackle the problem itself but the potential causes, and when you get those potential causes on paper you don't just pick one, you drill down to what may have caused those causes to find the root cause. You can use tools and methods like the 5-Whys or a Fishbone diagram. When you're mapping a process you don't just take the whole thing and start mapping, you understand it high-level first, then you create a 2nd level, 3rd, and so forth so that it is accurate, easily consumed and understood and hopefully using a standard universally understood notation or method like BPMN 2.0. When you're planning an event or program you break it down into doable tasks and probably in sequence and may work backwards to get the desired outcome to ensure deadlines are met and you probably need some Project Management software like MS Project.

Take it step by step, Rome wasn't built in a day and you shouldn't get stressed because the task or project ahead seems insurmountable. You should, however, be prepared, and planning is the best vaccine against failure at any level. Aside from composure and approach choose your tools wisely (cue Indiana Jones quote).

It takes a village

Let me just say first that the downfall or decline of teams and companies I've seen and experienced in the past has been from a lack of understanding that ALL stakeholders (that especially means team members AND managers) are important and affect the success and sustainability of outcomes. That also means that certain roles are still valuable and needed even if they aren't the clincher or last one to seal the deal. "You are only as strong as your weakest link" also applies here. Shortsightedness to not document process or assuring a proper Project Manager to steer the ship because the director doesn't see it as an immediate value-add or profit-generator will cap-size a group through the attrition of wasting time reacting to tasks and problems and throwing money at the wall rather than improving current workflows/systems, adequately caring for your current staff and identifying the problems proactively. If it doesn't cap-size then it will at least be stagnant and leave a team or company stalled from ever growing further. This one paragraph can provide enough material for many other articles so I'll just leave it at that for now.

Get organized

If you feel like you're always digging through notes, missing details, tasks or just plain overwhelmed the following could be some of the reasons:

The unknown can cause uncertainty and uncertainty causes stress. Let's face it, sometimes when we or others don't know enough about a piece within a project panic ensues, and panic leads to miscommunication, not thinking clearly and probably a few yelling matches and that all could have been avoided.

The other reason could be taking on too much? This one is a bit tricky because it's the cart before the horse scenario. A lack of organization may be contributing to your bottleneck and the conclusion that "I'm doing too much" is an excuse. We have to be honest with ourselves and take feedback, or at least say thank you and move on. Again, I feel like this would be for another article for another time so I'll move on.

Your work-space

Your work-space is your ground zero, HQ, mission control, where the magic happens... you get the point. Could be a desk in a cubicle, could be a coffee shop and just you and your laptop and phone. There is a method called 5S ("S" stands for Japanese words) but essentially: Sort, Set, Shine, Standardize and Sustain. Keep those words in mind but I'm going to stray a bit and apply my own experience and methods on how to stay organized.

First, take stock of everything you regularly access daily. That means apps/tools, websites, notes, plans etc. Now take all the websites you regularly access and bookmark them in some logical order for quick access. Make some shortcuts on your desktop or task-bar if you think it's quicker. This is essentially Sort and Set where you're separating the essential and non-essential sites and you're organizing so everything has its place.

Next, look at the actual tools/apps that you use and leverage (technology/systems). Consider these an extension of yourself, kind of how the phone is an extension of many people (and in some cases forms their identity). Social commentary aside, this extension should be a positive force for good for you and should be leveraged to your advantage by assisting you towards a successful outcome. You may not always have the exact tool you want as it may conflict with mandated ones by your company. One thing I will say is have less systems, the less the better, and create synergy between tools. Less maintenance and planning and more execution should be the goal. You should spend a max of one day a week (half-day ideally) organizing your backlog and plans. The rest of the week should be executing efficiently with 0 filler work.

Easier said than done I know but let's take the concepts described above so far and let me tell you what I've done for myself and own organization. It's served me well and allowed me to plan and execute projects successfully through organized, thorough due diligence.

Let's start with taking notes. Note taking is something we do, and something I do a lot especially any time information, instructions, feedback, suggestions, questions etc. are given, so...a lot. It's OK to have a notebook and then have something like OneNote. But you should really keep ALL your notes in one place and preferably not a physical notebook. Let me clarify: I prefer OneNote, it allows to search and because I'm pretty sure most people's physical notebooks have never seen their pages turned back more than once only to never be looked at again this feature is invaluable. Make your notes work for YOU. Have a digital tool like OneNote where your notes have their logical place and order that you can leverage for reference quickly later (archive anything as seen fit to). Your notes are knowledge, and can be more valuable at a moment's notice than you may think. Unless you are a human hard-drive you will need a tool to assist.

Now let's take for example Project Management software. Crucial for any PM role but probably a good idea for anyone dealing with many different tasks and deliverables. Besides, if we're going to learn about organization then using PM models and best practices is usually a safe bet. I personally use Jira which is essentially an elaborate Kanban board. I use it because that's what my company uses but also I use what others use so I can cross-collaborate, sometimes compromise is required to help the team. If you are in multiple systems i.e Salesforce and Jira, then make sure you can leverage any integrations and synergies. When I say synergy I mean something like OneNote has great synergy with Outlook, obviously because they are made by Microsoft but also because I can take notes in OneNote then mark a task as to-do which in turn shows up in my Outlook tasks aggregated with the emails I also marked as to-do. Leverage these synergies and you can have multiple systems act as a suite allowing you to make informed self-sure decisions. You could have document repositories in different places but I suggest taking time to version everything. Versioning is an art I see forgotten or paid little attention to a lot and in the long run for a little effort it can save a lot of time and headaches down the road. If I have to attach documents to my planning and tracking tool i.e. Jira that's great but I should know that file has its twin in a shared drive and we should know they are the same because...versioning.

Single source of truth

Each tool should have its purpose, they should not overlap too much. If they do then someone needs to conduct a better source selection. For example when it came time to pick the best place for a repository of processes and documentation I proposed to several teams to switch over to Confluence fully (made by the creators of Jira). Why? Well among several reasons like dynamic, quick updates and macros I wanted to use Confluence because it synergized well with our other major system being Jira where we can track progress of activities by linking back to tickets or exposing dynamic information. More than that however is the concept of a single source of truth. There should never be multiple slightly different copies of the same documentation informing or instructing people. There should be a clear line, end-to-end showing a logical order of how the business operates. This is sometimes called a Process Hierarchy and its a key artifact known to business process analysts but I'll save that for another rainy day.

Finally the last 3 "S" which are Shine, Standardize and Sustain. SHINE: We use methods/tools/apps to keep our work-space clean and reduce the chance for inaccurate information and/or missing deadlines/tasks. STANDARDIZE: we must keep a consistent method of executing workflows, projects, communications etc. This means we need to use the same tools in a consistent manner. One of the positive side-effects here is that we can have more accurate metrics that will contribute to better reporting. Reports drives business decisions that in turn affect outcome. Data can show insights and help inform us when troubleshooting problems or improving a process. Basically if everyone in a team is working using the tools and processes as intended or going by an agreed upon standard then we can safely measure and rest assure we have the data we need because it is being recorded accurately.

SUSTAIN: this is by far the hardest goal to achieve. We can't move forward until we've established a baseline that we know we can execute 99.99% all the time...not 5% of the time all the time. If you map out a process and see that there's an area inconsistently followed and with wild variation i.e. hand-offs or tasks supposedly done by the PM but instead done by the admin then we call this an area of focus and it should be addressed. You cannot improve the process or sustain for that matter until the baseline and foundation is fixed and set to a tolerable variance. If you would like an article on Lean Six Sigma and Process Mapping let me know as this is relevant to that!

Knowledge is power (in a good way...not Daenerys way) 

I want to end this rather long article (on my 5th espresso) on perhaps the most important factor that has contributed to my career advancement and ability to push the envelope and become a force for positive impact and change for my company (and prior ones). However more importantly I want to tell you why I think this is also important and beneficial for YOU.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist, don't feel bad if you're not an engineer or developer because everyone has their place and every company needs you. As long as you understand, that in order for developers to do their job they need someone who is the right communicator, a go-between the business and tech and any other side in question, a planner and adapter, a cheerleader, someone who knows the lay of the land, can identify issues affecting cross-teams and proactively acting upon, someone who can document and know when process is being followed and when it is not or when to improve it for that matter... then YOU understand your company needs you. But here's the thing, what if you did know some or enough technical jargon that the devs or engineers or doctors speak? What if you understood high level how the systems work? Or the obstacles and general understanding involved with how the techies accomplish their tasks?

I cannot emphasize this enough: a little knowledge goes a long way. Be pro-active with learning, learn about your company and products even if it's not your job. Instead of saying "that's not my job" take something as an opportunity to show them you can go above and beyond. Learn something new and propose it to your boss to implement. When I was a temp doing mail-room duties I offered to do graphic design and some web work. When they asked me if I knew Drupal I said I could learn it but timing was not on my side as they needed someone asap. However, between that job and the next one I took a 3-month online course and while my next job did not ask for those skills aforementioned, not soon after we needed to build a new website and I proposed doing a CMS website aka using Drupal to enhance the capabilities well beyond their aging HTML-only site and thus able to do our jobs quicker and thus service our customers better. After a thorough proposal backed by research I was given permission and resources to manage and help build what eventually became the final version which wasn't too different from what I had designed and demoed originally. That website still exists today and has been delivering valuable products to thousands if not more. Not much later I went down the path of project management and eventually studied and practiced process improvement which I do today. All of these skills though which are somewhat technical but not considered super technical were applied and appreciated by employers as diversity in skills is apparently not dead! The point is, I pro-actively studied and trained in related areas to my position I saw could be both beneficial for my career but also for the company I worked for (this applies of course to my present employer). There's a lot to learn out there and let's put it this way: I'm not going to start studying Quantum mechanics in hopes of a company hiring me for that but I will study the heck out of Salesforce because I ran projects in that and knowing more helped me make better informed decisions when speaking with developers or vendors. Heck learning a computer language like Java allows me to then more easily understand the depths of Salesforce (Apex) and the tech speak of a developer. Our time now in history is perhaps the best time to be able to learn anything we want at an incredible pace and all the material is available at the tip of our fingers RIGHT NOW.

I would say today more than ever, in an age of robots, A.I., automation, and just technology in general, human thought, design, creativity, communication and interaction is still very much part of the equation that makes a company and product successful. So know, at least high-level everything you can, BE that person that people go to if they have a question or seeking guidance. Imagine a battlefield: the General on their war horse at the highest point having a full 360 degree view of the battle. BE that General or General's Assistant :) take your knowledge and connect it to the immediate projects and processes you are involved in. You may be an Ant amongst an Ant hill but you have the power to affect change in a way that can be contagious. That one small accomplishment could balloon into a major initiative that transforms the company in more ways than you could ever imagine. People, process and technology can transform an entire organization, YOU can start it and/or be a part of it. Spread your knowledge, teach others, job security is an antiquated term that should thrown out with the remaining prehistoric traditions. YOU have the power to create your own opportunities and move forward so you can make way for others to advance right behind you. No one needs to step on top of one another, because that's not how a company truly succeeds, they succeed by having everyone work together towards a common or several common goals. Synergy, empathy and knowledge.

Thank you for reading and see you around.