SIM Meeting

01.08.09

Ideas that worked

  • Hiring interns for renewable positions
  • Cross-training among staff
  • Cross-functional training within and among companies
  • Encourage teamwork through equitable treatment
  • Cross-training to supplement cuts in external training
  • Include technology and business skills
  • Cross-train non-tech folks to IT
  • Giving the opportunity for self-improvement – creative training on their own time – and in return, they train others on their team
  • Retraining skilled positions at lower pay (but without layoffs) enables greater acceleration
  • Deferred payments for services and products
  • Sending your best educators to conferences so you get the best benefit to all employees
  • Finding projects that give quick successes
  • Resource sharing within and beyond IT to develop intra-company partnerships that don’t cost the company more and retain productivity – “internal loans”
  • Join local organizations to gain new skill or learning
  • Retain your source of innovation (HP example that Ed gave).
  • Make it visible; collaborate lead
  • CBT, team learning
  • Review and prioritize employees and challenge stars
  • Portfolio management
  • Better priority setting
  • Risk identification
  • Strategy to get rid of old stuff
  • Stretching employees and giving challenges
  • Decommission marginal systems

Ideas that did not work

  • Executive denial, lying to self and workers (on the flip side, allowing workers free rein for rumor mongering is a morale killer – keep them away from the water cooler and root out the rumor sources and deal with these people)
  • Cutting into source of innovation, competitive advantage
  • Promoting a siege mentality, throwing up a wall around IT – must get to the business and sell IT value
  • Constantly emphasizing how bad it is going to be
  • More, less-skilled resources
  • Committing to change things that you don’t control
  • Starting a project without partnership of user
  • Bringing in cheap resources
  • Not getting rid of weak performers
  • Users underestimating the true cost

Ideas we’d most like to try

  • Networking among companies using social networking software to promote local partnerships
  • Training sales force (and CSR’s) to use tools properly, fully and effectively
  • Training users that have never had the “time”
  • Building team competition against managerial goals
  • Stamp out negativity
  • Encourage physical exercise, activity, even as a team
  • Internal resource loans
  • Use outside air to cool computer room and other green ideas
  • Team learning

Ideas we’d most like to avoid

  • Layoffs
  • Cross-the-board cuts
  • Training / professional development cuts
  • Hit-the-biggest budget cuts
  • Cutting IT prior to learning that the business is planning to rely on IT to generate ROI
  • Pushing IT costs and decisions to user departments