How to run six meeting at the same time

Interesting, how to handle such a overload of information

1. Product planning meeting 1 > 13:30 15+ (PM, BP)
2. IT planning > 13:30 18+ (PL, EA)
3. Ministry IT planning > 13:30 70+ (PG)
4. Product planning meeting 2 (risk planning) > 14:00 21+ (PG)
5. Enterprise risk planning > 14:00 22+ (PG)
6. IT domain planning > 14:00 10+ 0h30m (PG)

Menarik, kalau disederhanakan, meeting tersebut terdiri dari:

1. Enterprise: Owner level planning, Enterprise level planning
2. Product: Business level product planning, Business domain level product planning
3. Function: IT level function planning, IT domain level function planning

Corporate Sarcasm

Sarcasm increases creativity for both expressers and recipients

Liljehu IG

• Agile: getting nothing done, solve imaginary problem
• Technology enthusiast: Latest iphone
• Digital transformation: Spreadsheet
• Director: Middle manager, no power, no authority, no direct report
• Compliance: Corporate scapegoat

Project Management

Interesting Project Management approach, taken from 9gag.

https://9gag.com/gag/a7qjPYb

However, to be honest, in the spirit of “I hate people equally” the sentiment is not only for project management, but also for auditor. I am count down to 13 more years to go.

and this

Linguistic of work: control freak

Mismanagement comes into many words, control freak for the example. Another keyword that relevant -again this is much more language problem, linguistics issues. The first thing to avoid this is through identification of the activities (properly name it). Mismanagement is combination of lack of experience (skills, knowledge) and also personality (anger management, emotional issues)

• Micromanaging, control the time through task (e.g can we discuss the approach)
• Bullying, control the time through conversation (e.g can we have status update)
• Double standard (do as I say not as I do), control the time through mental manipulation (If you can’t convince them, confuse them – Harry Truman)
• The employee being smarter than the boss and the boss feeling threatened by the employees smarts instead of utilizing the smarts to the bosses advantage.
• Making decisions based on what is best for them, never what is best for others, or what is best for the organization (simply selfish)
• Dishonesty or lack of transparency: everyone deserves to have a sense of what is really going on.
• Unclear or impossible expectations: work should be clear and achievable, as well as connected to whatever it is that is the measure of my performance.
• Micromanaging: Overseeing every bit of work and making a big deal out of small things, instead of hiring me to do a job and trusting that I will do it.
• A lack of boundaries: expecting the employee to be perpetually available – every night. Every morning. Every weekend. On time off.
• An undiscerning sense of urgency, or arbitrary deadlines: an inability to distinguish what is truly urgent from what really is not.
• Too much work: a disregard for how much work one person can do.
• No flexibility: an inability to see that every person has a life to manage aside from a job to manage.
• A lack of feedback: the effort and generosity in ensuring the employee has a clear path towards improvement.
• An unsafe environment: people who don’t feel safe do not speak up and take no risks. Their work shrinks rather than expands.
• An absence of respect: people should be treated with consideration and kindness.
• Playing favorites: this makes everyone else feel invisible.
• Moving or promoting people into roles that are not right for them: makes people feel they are not being seen, and are not useful.
• An inability to see who is doing what: recognizing and/or promoting the wrong people.
• A manager who is checked out: we all want to work for someone who is emotionally invested.
• An absence of vision. You need many answers to “why”. Why does my company do what we do? Why is my job important? Why do I do what I do?
• Reducing your job to a series of tasks that are not connected to anything bigger. This robs you of a sense of meaning.

Gajah dipelupuk mata

Finally, all things make senses now, all the hardwork is paid off. The biggest problem in our life is linguistic. I know that something is wrong, but I don’t know how to say it. For example skip level meeting, I just start to realize that skip level meeting is very wrong, especially that done on daily basis.

This story goes very long time ago. I just realized that SW and FS basically is not as good as I thought before. She basically, looking at the background is orphan, unfortunate step daughter, inattractive physical appearance, average smart. Coming from big family, a poor old money, she is unhappy all the time. With this kind of limitation, it is lucky she ended up in this kind of life, with all the damage is made during her life. Her main problem, I think is ambition.

When she married it is a match, a poor man meet a (seem to be) rich women. However the marriage is not a happy one, but they manage to survive. I think partly because the women has a fulltime job, and is well trained to be independently survive due to her background. Him, SW brother’s on the other hand is marry another women that also realized that very consciencely that she should be a princess. His wife does’nt have a job, which at the beginning seems perfect, but later in life is proven to be hurtful.

This complex situation also happen in the office, the background of the men is where the problem begin.

keyword: language

Life is perfect

Life is perfect since day one. Work is perfect since day one, project is perfect since day one, since the first day. Alhamdulilah. Just realized after I am able to managed my calendar trying to achieve a perfect 8 hours a day, trying to fit an more than one function, with less than one resources. It still can be achieved, at least after six month I found a pattern. For example, the use of two laptop is not only providing backup, but should be as snipper spotter relationship. One laptop to deliver the service, another laptop to observe. The same as one team deliver the service, another team to observe.

Ref:
Normally, the most experienced sniper is the spotter. He calculates the distance, and makes the wind call. The person on the gun follows directions to the letter, so both people know where they stand if the first shot misses. The spotter also follows the trace of the bullet through the air so he will know approximately where the bullet went, especially if the bullet strike is not seen.

A sniper is the highly skilled marksman responsible for delivering precise, long-range shots with a specialized rifle, often tasked with eliminating high-value targets or providing cover for friendly forces. On the other hand, a spotter serves as the sniper’s crucial support, specializing in observation, range estimation, and communication. The spotter assists in target identification, calculates wind and environmental factors affecting the shot, and communicates necessary adjustments to the sniper. The collaboration between a sniper and a spotter enhances the overall effectiveness and accuracy of the team in a tactical or strategic setting.

Ref: marksman = a person who skilled in precision shooting

Keyword: Day one deliverables

How to work 8 hours a day

How to work 8 hours a day – Part I

Studies show that people only focus for — roughly — 3 hours a day on their work tasks, while the rest of their shift is spent on other activities, such as:

1. Checking social media
2. Reading news websites
3. Discussing out of work activities with colleagues
4. Making hot drinks
5. Smoking breaks
6. Text/instant messaging
7. Eating snacks
8. Making food in the office
9. Making calls to partner/ friends
10. Searching for new jobs

How to work 8 hours a day – Part II

Simple rules. Just start to realize this pattern. Not bad, I am good at pattern recognition

1. Managed instant messaging (whatsapp, teams chat): block distraction (that reduce resources effectiveness). A dedicated laptop to work where it has no whatsapp. A dedicated laptop that has no network restriction (an all access opened) as observer
2. Managed online meeting (zoom, teams): allocate resources efficiently. A preparation for online meeting might takes about 15 minutes
3. A well trained team to handle any kind of situation
4. A small scissor. A symbol, a token to remind to cut the unnecessary connection. A representation of discipline.

How to work 8 hours a day – Part III

Meeting is wrong:

• Research shows that the average duration of a meeting is 31 to 60 minutes. In reality, the average attention span is just 10-18 minutes. Consider shortening your scheduled meeting times wherever possible.
• Book: The 25 Minute Meeting: Half the Time, Double the Impact (Donna McGeorge)
• The majority (around 83%) of employees will spend up to 33% of their workweek in meetings!
• Workplace stackexchange: Is it normal to not be able to work 8 hours a day?

Management by whatsapp is wrong: overload and technostress

The Effect of WhatsApp Usage on Employee Innovative Performance at the Workplace: Perspective from the Stressor–Strain–Outcome Model (Nur Muneerah Kasim, 2022)

Social media applications have increasingly become a valuable platform for personal communication and knowledge sharing in working life. Several researchers have considered the direct role of social media usage in influencing job performance. However, limited studies explore how social media use may impact employees’ job performance, especially in innovativeness. Moreover, inconsistencies in the findings exist in the literature regarding whether social media improves employees’ job performance or causes harm. By adapting the stressor–strain–outcome (SSO) model, the present study investigates how WhatsApp use at work can predict social media overloads that might induce technostress and, subsequently, affect employees’ innovative job performance.

Thus, 206 Malaysian employees from the government and private sectors participated in this study and the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings show that social media, predominantly WhatsApp, used at work has a mild but statistically significant influence on information overload, communication overload, and social overload. In addition, information overload and communication overload positively influence technostress, except for social overload. Subsequently, technostress does not have an impact on innovative job performance. This study provides theoretical and practical implications for extending the knowledge and mitigating plans and efforts to improve employees’ performance at work. Therefore, this study helps mitigate the dearth of research pertaining to the roles of social media use at work on employees’ innovative job performance.

Keyword: social media, information overload, communication overload, social overload, technostress, innovative job performance

Morning meeting is wrong

Was there anything accomplished or discussed at that meeting that couldn’t have been addressed later? What is even more wrong: make it a lecture instead of a discussion; try to cover too much

1. “The meetings can be a lot of fun or they can be frustrating.” — Bob Weir
2. “The longer the meeting, the less is accomplished.” – Tim Cook
3. Patience: “The world is run by those willing to sit until the end of meetings.” — Hugh Park
4. “Meetings move at the speed of the slowest mind in the room.” — Dale Dauton
5. “Meetings are a symptom of bad organization. The fewer meetings the better.” — Peter Drucker
6. Irony: “Meetings at work present great opportunities to showcase your talent. Do not let them go to waste.” — Abhishek Ratna
7. Irony: Meetings are not done to get away from work; it is an extension of work to make it work. “People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything.” — Thomas Sowell
8. Decision Making: Discuss and unanimously decide. The aim of an official meeting is to get to a decision which will fetch positive results for the organization in the future.
9. You have a meeting to make a decision, not to decide on the question. — Bill Gates

Tag: Intelligence, Quote

Russell Ackoff Quotes

Russell Ackoff Quotes:

1. Explanations always lie outside the system, never inside.
2. Continuous improvement isn’t nearly as important as discontinuous improvement.
3. The basic managerial idea introduced by systems thinking, is that to manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.
4. The cost of preparing for critical events that do not occur is generally very small in comparison to the cost of being unprepared for those that do.
5. The less we understand a phenomenon, the more variables we require to explain it.
6. Jargon is noise that keeps our brains from understanding what our mouths are saying.
7. The only thing more detrimental to organizational development than corruption is tolerating it.
8. Good secretaries serve as filters and condensers of solicited and unsolicited information.
9. I do not deny that most managers lack a good deal of information that they should have, but I do deny that this is the most important informational deficiency from which they suffer. It seems to me that they suffer more from an overabundance of irrelevant information.
10. Those who serve management should focus on those that they serve, not on the services they render or the instruments used in rendering them.
11. The best place to solve a problem is not necessarily where it appears.
12. Changes in a field are never created by experts, but from outsiders looking at the field.
13. We have also come to realize that no problem ever exists in complete isolation. Every problem interacts with other problems and is therefore part of a set of interrelated problems, a system of problems I choose to call such a system a mess… Furthermore solutions to most problems produce other problems… a financial problem, a maintenance problem, and conflict among family members for its use.
14. When a mess, which is a system of problems, is taken apart, it loses its essential properties and so does each of its parts. The behavior of a mess depends more on how the treatment of its parts interact than how they act independently of each other. A partial solution to a whole system of problems is better than whole solutions of each of its parts taken separately.
15. A bureaucrat is one who has the power to say “no” but none to say “yes”. Bureaucrats can find an infinite number of reasons for rejecting any proposed change, but can find none for accepting it. (anjar: interesting, basically bureucrat is female)
16. The only problems that have simple solutions are simple problems. The only managers that have simple problems have simple minds. Problems that arise in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a single part. Complex problems do not have simple solutions.
17. The lower the rank of managers, the more they know about fewer things. The higher the rank of managers, the less they know about many things.
18. Managers who don’t know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure. For example, those who want a high quality of work life but don’t know how to measure it, often settle for wanting a high standard of living because they can measure it.
19. The less sure managers are of their opinions, the more vigorously they defend them. Managers do not waste their time defending beliefs they hold strongly – they just assert them. Nor do they bother to refute what they strongly believe is false.
20. The less important an issue is, the more time managers spend discussing it. More time is spent on small talk than is spent on large talk. Most talk is about what matters least. What matters least is what most of us know most about.
21. Managers cannot learn from doing things right, only from doing them wrong.
22. An improvement program must be directed at what you want, not at what you don’t want.
23. The criteria that you use is perfectly simple, I will only improve the part if it results in an improvement of the whole. If it doesn’t I will not change the part. Which is exactly the opposite of what we do in management normally.
24. When you get rid of what you don’t want, you do not necessarily get what you do want and you may get something you want a lot less. It is that simple…..anyone that ever watches television knows that!
25. Problems seldom (if ever) exist in isolation. Problems are extracted from reality by analysis. Almost any problem exists as part of a set of interacting problems called by some a mess.
26. Successful problem solving requires finding the right solution to the right problem. We fail more often because we solve the wrong problem than because we get the wrong solution to the right problem.
27. The product of an innovative act may be either good or bad. Not all acts of creativity are beneficial or satisfying. For example, a newly designed article of clothing may actually be repulsive to potential uses. Many new products fail in the market place. – Russell L. Ackoff Quotes
28. The hope was that mechanization and automation would relieve people of many onerous – dull and repetitive – tasks. Those onerous tasks that remain in developed countries are increasingly exported to less developed countries. Unfortunately, the exporting countries have not made a significant effort to replace the jobs they have lost in this way. They could do so by providing other more productive and demanding tasks.
29. Change itself is constantly changing.