Cutting costs without killing business

How do we decide what costs we should cut when making efficiency savings in our businesses?

There are many ways to do this, but here is a method that you can use with staff, in a workshop environment. How to generate ideas that have real commitment and understanding from the managers who will have to implement them.

Their ideas , after all, are the ones that will work best.

The principle is to identify the activities at the centre of your business success. The things that you do that your customers really value. The reason that they use and recommend your services.

Think about customers for a while and then ask these questions
When customers use our services:

• What are the Must Have deliverables?
• What do we Need to Do to keep those deliverables consistent and successful?
• What do we do that is a Nice to Have that does not directly contribute to the above?

Look at every activity that the team delivers during a typical business month, list them out, summarise them on a chart and then vote.

Here is the rule for the voting. – At least 75% of the team must agree that an activity belongs in a category. Only debate those items that do not achieve immediate agreement. If you can not agree then the activity defaults to the least important of its disputed categories. Pin the chart to the office wall to remind yourself and the team of the decision taken. It sets out the scope of what you have to do next.

Now you have a list of activities for potential cost cutting. Anything in the Nice to Have category is a target. Everything else is safe for now.

When you reach your target cost reduction you have to congratulate the team for achieving it. If the target is not reached you need to ask them to try again or make some unpopular decisions yourself.


About the Author: Adam Blackie is a professional Interim Manager who leads service delivery teams through their change programmes. He works with CEO’s and their Boards in the UK to change the way technology is used by staff and their customers.

Eight steps for successful change management

Eight Steps

Getting change right is difficult. Doing it wrong is much easier.
Here are eight steps that you can take to try to avoid making the mistakes of any number of change programmes.
These tips are in not in any particular order, they all seem to appear wherever change is happening.

1. Keep up a sense of urgency. Make sure the managers who plan the change and the implementers who deliver have a real focus on the deadline.
2. Continue to use a powerful leadership team throughout. Try not to distract them. This group is responsible, but also have authority. It needs to look and work like a team.
3. Keep to the vision and roadmap for the change. Don’t deviate. Make sure this is expressed in simple teams that everyone can understand.
4. Keep communicating the vision in every available channel until the message has been understood. You’ll know when this has happened because others who are not in the leadership team will spontaneously talk about the vision, using their own words.
5. Try not to put too many barriers in the way of managers who are changing systems or structures. Remember to try to undermine resistance and encourage a little risk taking.
6. Identify, create and find short term wins.  Do make a noise about them and congratulate the team that delivered.
7. Don’t forget to use the quick wins to produce more change. Success increases the credibility of further moves toward the eventual goal. (and don’t use this as an excuse to move the goalposts).
8. Be persistent to embed the changes firmly into the business culture . When new behaviours are embedded they will not degrade/revert to the old ways. The lesson here is to ensure that the end of change is not declared too early. Continue to lead and manage until the changes are fixed.

These are eight places where change is typically derailed. Getting most of these right will put you way ahead of the competition.


About the Author: Adam Blackie is a professional Interim Manager who leads service delivery teams through their change programmes. He works with CEO’s and their Boards in the UK to change the way technology is used by staff and their customers.

Increasing your network traffic

Have you ever wondered why there is only one eBay or only one Wikipedia?

This is about the imbalance that popularity causes on the internet. It is as if there are only one or two places for each category of things.

This seems to be counter-intuitive because the Internet is the biggest thing humankind has ever created, and there should be enough space for all of us to be visible. But we are not.

This is all down to a thing called a power curve. The characteristic of this curve is that the imbalance of your visibility on the web becomes more extreme as your ranking decreases. The highest few participants in any sector enjoy most of the visibility and consequently most of the traffic.

The formula is simple. The person in the second position has roughly 1/2 of the visibility of the first. The third person 1/3, fourth 1/4 etc. i.e. The nth person has 1/nth chance of being visible. Therefore, this means that if you are ranked 15th or more you are effectively invisible.

The way to use this is to specialise. Each sector or category of a network has it’s dominant voices. To be visible, you need to be in a sector that recognises you as a specialist, not a generalist.

Breaking into an established sector is difficult due to the power law dominance of the leading voices. We either wait for them to fall from grace or we need to invent our own sectors.


About the Author: Adam Blackie is a professional Interim Manager who leads service delivery teams through their change programmes. He works with CEO’s and their Boards in the UK to change the way technology is used by staff and their customers.

Do you need Cloud Computing?

Work Anywhere

Cloud computing is a term that still means very little to most non techie's. You may also hear staff saying that your business needs Citrix, (one of the most common enablers).

So what is this all about?

The compelling advantages of cloud computing can be summarised as follows:

• It gives us flexibility about what technology we use.
• It means that we can access technology from wherever we happen to be
• It reduces the costs of IT support and our technology licensing costs.

What types are there?

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure and Cloud Computing are usually interchangeable as far as end users are concerned.

Cloud computing is generally described as on-line applications, either available to anyone or provided to us by an organisation to which we belong.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a technology that allows users to access their own work desktop from any location.

To end users VDI and Cloud Computing can appear to be identical, but VDI has two forms; on-line or off-line.

On-line means that a user connects to a data centre and is presented with their usual desktop but;

• what happens if the user can not find a connection?
• the system can be slow if connections are made infrequently. This is because a backlog of system updates usually takes priority and can delay the connection. A two / three minute wait for a connection can be very frustrating for users.

Off-line means that the user will be downloading data and applications to their hardware. They use it during the day and then synchronise with a data centre sometime later. This is convenient where;

• Real time communications are not needed for the role.
• The applications use static data and activity can be batch processed without affecting service levels.
• Geography means that connectivity is erratic

Is this good for all users?

That depends on the type of work a user is doing. Do they need their whole desktop or just parts of it? Are they a Remote User or a Mobile User?

• Remote users want to do real work, on a full desktop, with all their apps and communications options. Homeworkers fall into this category because they want to use the same desktop at home and in the office.
• Mobile workers want to do some work, with some of their applications and they want to do it on the move, typically between appointments. They need to view and update their data from whatever device they happen to be using, usually a Smart Phone,  iPad or similar device.

Both user types want to use cloud computing, but in entirely different ways.

Will it work with your IT?

Generally, yes. The tools exist to virtualise most applications or a workable compromise will be available. If your organisation has a partnership arrangement of some kind, go and have a conversation  about their approach to Cloud Computing. Most major vendors have their own unique strategies on this subject and understanding their approach from the start will save you time later on.

What about my Network?

The network will be affected. Typically Cloud Computing will;

• change network traffic patterns
• change the way users connect to the systems they use
• change the solutions for network and data security

basically it affects everything. So, don't select an on-line application and expect it to be live the next day. The lead times could be long and complex.

Is it Secure?

Of course, all technology can be made secure. And the technical bit is relatively easy compared to the contractual bit. Your biggest security risks will be:

• How technology partners handle your data
• The potential for end users to misuse, share, loose, steal and corrupt your data.

But, do not fall into the trap of spending all your planning time worrying about the theoretical misuse of your data. Ensure you know how to realise the benefits first, then consider the most likely risks of your chosen solution.

Do I need a policy for Cloud Computing?

Yes. Even if you have no cloud based applications, some employees will be using Google Apps or social networking sites to share data. It is human nature to use convenient tools and it will happen whether we like it or not. Making sure employees know what is allowed is a sensible precaution.

What are the Benefits?

This could be a very long list. For brevity the key ones are:

• Users can work in any location.
• Technology performance can be improved because data centre servers are much more powerful than desktops.
• Users can personalise their experience. This makes adoption, training and accuracy much easier to achieve.
• Hardware updating is easier when it is based at the data-centre. All users are updated simultaneously.
• It improves data security. Back-up is centralised. Data is not usually stored on the users hardware.
• The hardware costs less because the computing power is in the centre, not with the users.

Today's Blog was inspired by Alan Lee-Bourke. A very knowledgeable and helpful guy who has probably forgotten more than I have ever known about cloud computing.

About the Author: Adam Blackie is a professional Interim Manager who leads service delivery teams through their change programmes. He works with CEO’s and their Boards in the UK to change the way technology is used by staff and their customers.