In order for management to make decisions, data is critical. Data shows helps you define your benchmarks, and also define forecasts for improving upon baselines for continued company expansion and growth. Things such as Total Quality Management, Improvement Teams, Standards and Measurement departments, Process Management, Quality Circles, Six Sigma, etc are not just buzz words people. Pick a system for measuring and quantifying your data and quickly measure the lifeline of your project vis a vis your overall goals. Find out where your bottlenecks are, find out where the cost overruns are taking place, and quickly identify why your Widget sales are declining before it becomes an irreversible money draining problem. This allows you then to take action whether hiring an operations consultant to integrate processes, or in the decision to release staff in certain non-critical areas.

Metrics need to be constantly monitored and measured. Charts, graphs, and summary data need to be reviewed on a regular time table whether it’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. From then you can then navigate your business or department towards a profitable plateau. Failure to comply with these very basic performance metrics analysis could result in flushing valuable time, money, employee morale, and reputation down the proverbial toilet if these things are ignored in your project or managerial role.

A rule of thumb is that ANY system in place for measuring performance metrics is better than having none at all. If you are in a dynamic environment and already have 2 or 3 projects in the air, then feel free to gradually introduce these factors based on your industry line.

Related posts:

1. Project Management – You Give Me The Feature Creeps
2. A Guide To Performance Management
3. Reputation Management and Your Business – reputationmanagementconsultants.com

Electronic mail, web log, forums and sociable media locales like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, to name some afford person the chance to talk what they consider about your business sector things without the choice for you to screen what’s being talked. The truth is the internet has created reputation management a large transaction. Just take a look for reputation management and you will arise with to a higher degree. The good news is that you do not have to employ a reputation management firm to counteract popular opinion that’s prejudicial to your business sector if you want. You are able to manage this yourself by applying a steady program of releasing your achievers and accomplishments on the World Wide Web or if you think you need an expert help then visit reputationmanagementconsultants.com, they can aid you to create your business sector achiever.

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2. Take Classes Online
3. Search for management related jobs online

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.” Albert Schweitzer

1.You set the standard: Work as hard, or harder, than your employees. Be a role model when managing people. Strive to know more than your best employee (or best sales rep) about your product line, industry, and their jobs. This doesn’t mean you have to know everything. Still, educate yourself. I frequently hear in my seminars, “My boss has no idea what I really do in my job. The challenges, the pressures I face, and the time constraints.”

2. Be an effective communicator: Communicate the good, the bad, and the ugly at least weekly. In study after study, employees and business leaders overwhelmingly want a leader who is “straightforward.” I hear this over and over in my leadership seminars and workshops worldwide. Good interpersonal skills are crucial in managing people.

3. Be authentic, be real: The #1 trait people want to see, to willingly follow their leader is honesty. How can you expect them to look up to you if they don’t trust you? Leadership is all about honesty and integrity.

4. The top 5 things: Ask your people point blank, “What are the top 5 things I can do to help you succeed?” For example, if they are salespeople, what can you do to motivate them to be out in the field instead of in the office?

5. MBWA: Management by walking around. Be accessible to them. Get in the trenches with your team. Nothing will gain respect for you more than that. This is another trait I consistently hear from my participants that they want to see in their leaders, and from their management team.

6. Be willing to fight for them: But before that, set the standard so they know how far they can push something before they ask for it. And when is enough…enough.

7. Get the facts first, listen: Never question their integrity without first gathering all the data. Have an open mind. Let them tell their side of the story. Just because you acknowledge what they say doesn’t mean you have to agree.

This leadership article on managing people represents the opinions of a large cross section of employees, most of whom are managers themselves. In presenting approximately 100 leadership programs a year worldwide for the past ten years, these are the top 7 “common-sense” traits I hear employees most want from their managers. I refer to them as common-sense as it seems most leaders would know how important these people skills are to possess. Yet, many in management have risen in the ranks due only to their “hard skills” or technical skills. Many managers are promoted to management positions without any formal training in the area of communication and managing people. As a result, they can be too overbearing, or just the opposite, non-confrontational.

If nothing else, develop your communication and conflict-resolution skills. It’ll save you money in the long run. As a manager, it’s imperative to know how to manage people. The courts are filled with hotheads, people who said the wrong thing at the wrong time. Or worse, said nothing at all, and enabled the behavior of a difficult employee until it reached a crisis point.

“Sow an act, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.” G.D. Boardman

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1. A Guide To Performance Management
2. Project Management: Performance Metrics Matter
3. Project Management – You Give Me The Feature Creeps

In order to minimize this confusion, the items below will give you a general idea of what Performance Management is all about as well as the activities that are involved in this process.

What is Performance Management?

Performance management is a process that provides both the manager and the employee (the person being supervised) the chance to determine the shared goals that relates to the overall goals of the company by looking into employee performance.

Why is it important?

Performance Management establishes an outline for employees and their performance managers to assess and to come to an agreement on certain concerns and aims that are in accordance with the overall structure of the company. This enables both parties to have clear objectives that would help them in their work and in their professional growth.

Who conducts Performance Management?

Performance Management is carried out by those who oversee the performance of other people – work/team leaders, supervisors, managers, directors, or department chairs.

What are the processes involved?

Below are the phases of the Performance Management process:

1. Planning

This phase of Performance Management process includes establishing job descriptions and identifying the employee’s essential functions as well as defining the strategic plan/s of the department or the company as a whole.

Job Description

A job description is used to advertise a vacant position, which typically specifies the following:

- The specific functions, tasks, and responsibilities of the position

- The amount of time needed to act upon each function

- The qualifications needed (skills, knowledge and abilities) to perform the job

- The physical and mental requirements of the position

- Salary range for the position

- To whom the position reports

Job descriptions should be disclosed to the employee as soon as he or she is hired. Note, however, that job descriptions are listed using words that make it difficult to measure the employee’s performance. They are in contrast with competencies, which list the skills needed in performing such tasks and are described using terms that can be measured.

Strategic Plan

In effect, a strategic plan tells you three things:

- Where the company is heading in the coming year/s.

- How the company is going to get there.

- How the company will know if it is already there or not.

Included in a strategic plan are the following:

Mission statement – the primary reason why your department (or company) exists.

Goals – associated with the mission statement, they determine the results that will advance said statement/s.

Strategic initiatives – specifies definite steps that must be taken to accomplish each goal. It is a dynamic process, usually examined during periods such as one or two years.

2. Developing

This phase of Performance Management process includes developing performance standards, which offers a scale that describes how a specific job should be performed in order to meet (or exceed) expectations. They are explained to newly hired employees and are later used to evaluate work performance.

Performance standards are generally outlined with the help of the employees who actually perform the tasks or functions. There are a number of advantages with this approach:

- The standards will be suitable to the requirements of the job

- The standards will be applicable to actual work conditions

- The standards will be easily understood by the employee (and performance manager as well)

- The standards will be acknowledged (and received) by the employee and the performance manager

Standards of performance are usually in the form of ratings (1 to 5, A to E) that are used by performance managers to rate the employee’s actual level of performance.

3. Monitoring

This phase of the Performance Management process includes monitoring employee’s work performances and giving feedback about them.

As the basis of feedback, observations should be verifiable: they should involve noticeable and work-related facts, events, behaviors, actions, statements, and results. Feedback of this type is called behavioral feedback, and they help employees improve and/or sustain good performance by precisely identifying the areas that the employee needs to improve without judging his or her character or motives.

4. Rating

This phase includes conducting performance evaluations. This is the critical aspect of the Performance Management process, especially because it is important for performance managers to arrive at an unbiased assessment.

A performance appraisal form has the following features:

- Employee information

- Performance standards

- Rating scale

- Signatures

- Employee performance development recommendations

- Employee comments

- Employee’s Self-appraisal

Why conduct performance appraisals? It provides an opportunity to improve performance in the future not only for employees, but for managers as well. Performance appraisals enable managers to acquire information from employees that will help them make employee’s jobs more productive.

5. Development Planning

This phase of the Performance Management process includes establishing plans for improved employee performance and development goals. This advances the overall goal of the company and at the same time increases the quality of work by employees by:

- Encouraging constant learning and professional growth.

- Helping employees maintain the level of performance that meets (and exceeds) expectations.

- Improving job – or career-related skills and experience.

In closing, Performance Management is a process that, when executed fairly and effectively, can improve the quality of the company’s workforce, raise standards, increase job satisfaction, and develop professionalism and expertise that would benefit not only the employees but the entire organization as well.

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