Two “eternal” approaches to managing your own business

Numerous theories of business management offer owners a lot of ways for effective management, but they all, one way or another, agree on one thing: you can manage either projects or personnel. Moreover, it is possible to keep both areas under control only at the initial stage of business development. The choice of business management option depends primarily on the qualities of the owner himself.

Project management

This option is possible if the business owner has enough competencies and time to understand the essence of the projects themselves. Project management as a modern scientific discipline appeared back in the 50s of the last century, and it was based on the methods of structuring work and network planning, which contained information about the role distribution in the project, approaches to managing its life cycle, goals and criteria for assessing success.

Then there were project management procedures and a separate methodology of the projects themselves, which we will now try to disassemble, briefly describing the most popular techniques. In real life, they work differently than on paper. For their implementation to be effective, you need not to sacredly believe in rituals, turning project management into a cargo cult “I want it like they do, so I will do the same,” but combine the best and look for our own path.

Agile… This is the so-called “flexible” approach to work organization and a system of attitudes focused on teamwork, close interpersonal interaction and strict separation of personal responsibilities. Agile can reduce waste and ineffectiveness and help your team get things done faster. This approach is good for high uncertainty and creative teamwork. True, highly specialized specialists are not entirely suitable for this method – here you need a multi-functional team that can work with different parts of the project in a complex manner.

SCRUM… Another representative of the family of “flexible” approaches, which is used in cases where speed and flexibility are needed in the implementation of projects. A distinctive feature of SCRUM is the constant interaction with the customer of the project, necessary for the client to be able to evaluate the intermediate results, and the team can make changes to the process itself. Many modern approaches to business management are based on the principles of this method.

Kanban… This approach is perfectly illustrated by the example of cloud project management systems like Trello or Bitrix, where the card system is implemented. Each card contains information about an individual project and a set of performers. After the completion of each of the processes, the work is transferred along the chain to the next responsible employee. This is how complete transparency and clear structuring of production is achieved, where everyone has their own area of ​​responsibility.

Kaizen… This method is based on continuous improvement and optimization of production processes, support structures and each individual employee. To achieve the result, standardization tools are used that help eliminate waste in processes, and this does not require impressive costs, since the work is based on interaction with available resources. The reorganization of the project team is one example of the kaizen approach.

6 sigma… This concept provides a clear blueprint for the implementation of projects and continuous improvement of each of the processes. To apply it, it is necessary to define goals, analyze them and, based on the obtained quantitative data, make decisions on optimizing production. The 6 Sigma methodology works well at a distance when implementing labor-intensive processes where there are many complex operations. It allows you to continually learn from mistakes and improve work efficiency.

Employee management

This approach presupposes high-quality human resource management and is advisable if there is not enough time or competence to understand the essence of projects. For example, if the owner’s knowledge has lost its relevance or there are too many projects to effectively control them all. There is an opinion among hired employees that “a good boss is one who does not interfere with good people to work.” It is partly true, but without a competent boss, even the “good” employee risks becoming his complete opposite.

The structure of HR management looks something like this:

  • organizational planning. It involves the distribution of roles in the project and a clear regulation of areas of responsibility and reporting;

  • recruiting personnel to work on the project;

  • team development – “pumping” individual and team skills aimed at improving the quality of work.

What are the inherent problems of HR management

There are difficulties in personnel management, as in the work of any structure. Here are the main ones:

– management of the project team itself (its formation, development and possible problems with disbandment); – resolution of industrial conflicts;
– communication problems between project participants and representatives of other departments;
– the need to check the level of competence of employees;
– the formation of loyalty from the staff.

Let us dwell on the last two points in more detail, after all, after all, the principle of “trust but verify” is one of the most important in the context of ensuring the efficiency of not only a single team, but the entire company.

How to assess employee loyalty and competence

The loyalty of employees to the company is manifested in emotional attachment to the organization, adherence to its values ​​and awareness of the goals and objectives of the company as their own.

The level of staff loyalty can be assessed using standard methods:

  • by conducting a survey or questionnaire;

  • by conducting interviews with representatives of the departments where the most pressing problems with loyalty were noticed;

  • control of office correspondence using various DLP (Data Loss Prevention) systems.

Even more effective ways are:

  • interviews with dismissed employees;

  • monitoring of feedback on work in the company in Runet;

  • “Test purchases” with the proposal of “behind the scenes” negotiations with company employees;

  • using non-standard means of personnel loyalty control

As for competence, it is possible to assess the level of an employee’s compliance with the position held by means of periodic certification. For this, the company must develop requirements, in relation to which the following indicators will be assessed:

  • labor productivity;

  • quality of work;

  • compliance of personal characteristics with the company profile;

  • the presence of additional skills and abilities;

  • striving for personal growth and professional development.

But it should be understood that competence does not guarantee an employee’s loyalty in the company. And this is a rather big problem, because a person who is literate, but not “burning” with the ideas of the enterprise, can leave at any moment. His departure can both entail reputational losses and provoke problems in the context information security

For example, a manager from the sales department who is dissatisfied with the conditions when moving to another company can “grab” a customer base with him and by all means entice them to competitors. Or an employee who was previously engaged in work on a unique project may, when applying for a new job, boast of ideas and best practices, considering his level of involvement sufficient to consider this project his own.

In order to prevent information leakage, it is worth turning to the services of a secure data processing center (DPC), which can only be accessed from authorized office devices and which will allow the administrator to manage the levels of access to company data.

Learn more about Data Center

Data center “SafeDC” provides just such unique services in the field of information security. The SafeDC data center is maximally protected, which is confirmed by a certificate of compliance with the 1st class and 1st level of security of information systems that process state information resources and personal data of citizens.

SafeDC data center also leases computing infrastructure depending on the needs of customers, as well as places its own equipment on a high-tech and highly secure site, where all the necessary conditions are created to ensure the reliability and resiliency of the IT infrastructure.

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