Tag: Requirements

McLean, Va. – While many employers may be cutting back on overall staffing levels during the economic recession, companies also recognize this period of time as an opportunity to hire top-quality job candidates. The challenge, recruiters say, is managing tighter recruiting budgets and picking out top job performers in a flood of increased resume submissions. M

ore than three-quarters (76 percent) of in-house corporate recruiters say the recession offers an opportunity to bring in higher quality talent to their organizations over the first half of 2009, according to a Jobfox (www.jobfox.com) poll of 200 recruiters. At the same time, 53 percent of in-house recruiters expect their companies to hire fewer new employees during the first six months of 2009 compared to the same period a year ago.

“It’s the typical recession reaction whereby companies want to cut or freeze staffing levels, but not at the expense of losing good people or hiring top-flight contributors,” said Rob McGovern, CEO of Jobfox, the Internet’s first career site to bring precision matching to online recruiting. “The companies that will emerge victorious will be the ones that are most resourceful in managing cost-efficient recruitment activities.”

Despite the growing list of corporate layoffs, employers continue to post millions of new jobs each month. For example, there were 2.5 million non-farm job postings in November 2008, the most recent data available from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. That same month, 4.3 million non-farm new hires were made, even with overall unemployment at 6.5 percent.

While hiring continues, recruiting budgets are under closer scrutiny with 48 percent of in-house recruiters expecting to operate with decreased budgets during the first half of 2009. Meanwhile, recruiters say they are inundated with job seeker applications.

“Right now there’s a lot of unemployment and saturation of the job market, so we get a flood of resumes that don’t have anything to do with what we’re looking for,” said Kobie Drew, the account acquisitions manager for Citysearch, a leading online lifestyles guide. “There are more and more resumes to look over.”

“If Jobfox shows that a candidate has the qualifications we’re looking for, then I’m probably calling that person,” Drew said. “I spend less time reviewing and more time interviewing, which is what I need.”

The Jobfox 2009 Poll: Recruiting and Hiring in a Recession was conducted during the months of November and December, 2008. The poll was conducted using a random list of current and prospective Jobfox employer clients. More than 200 U.S.-based in-house recruiters, hiring managers and human resource managers with corporate recruiting responsibilities were surveyed using SurveyMonkey.com, an online tool for creating surveys and collecting responses. The bulk of the survey report focuses on the expectations and actions of in-house recruiters. 2/09

By Executing Your Small Promises on Single-tasking Mode

I continue here to expand my set of Rules of Lean PM, following Hal Macomber’s comments in his blog on my original four rules series (http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2008/11/09/883/).

Another lean principle put forward by Hal “has to do with batch sizes of one or single-piece flow.” Hal, as do many Lean and Agile PM proponents, notices that: “Large batch production, whether it’s placing concrete, writing software code, doing design, or performing administrative work, misses the opportunity for learning, creates the circumstances for waste, and delays the completion of the project.”

I have already covered the part about very small deliverables (small batch size) in my blog entry on tracking small promises (http://www.projecttimes.com/content/view/180/92/). Unless I misinterpret Hal’s point, I might not have put enough emphasis on the need to deliver them as much as possible on single tasking mode. This is a very important principle to follow, on an individual level, to eliminate waste and accelerate the delivery of your own promises on any given project.

In my blog entry on tracking small promises I reported that, according to research by Goldratt and others, productivity is greatly improved when you deliver in small promises. Doing this reduces the set-up time required for the Last Planner to continue the work to be done after an interruption, thus increasing productivity dramatically. I omitted to talk about the single-tasking technique one can use to further accelerate individual promises delivery. Still, according to Goldratt, although you might work on many tasks in your multi-project environment, you will be more productive if you tackle those tasks one after the other, when possible (usually tasks on different projects that are independent of one another). So Goldratt proposes that you single-task those multi-tasks, that is do one after the other, to save further on task set-up time.

The productivity increases achieved through this single-tasking strategy can be quite impressive. Hal Macomber once wrote about a small experiment one can run in workshops that goes this way:

• Split the workshop participants in pairs, one person executing tasks and the other timing execution time
• Give the following tasks to perform: write three series of characters, namely 1 to 10, a to j, and I to X (roman numbers)
• These tasks must first be performed in parallel, i.e. write 1, a, I, then 2, b, II , etc…while you time the work
• The tasks must then be performed in series, i.e. write 1,2,3,4, etc., then a, b, c, d, etc…..while you time the work.

Try this. You will be amazed by the differences between the two ways of doing these tasks. I have tried that with more than 200 workshop participants up to now. The productivity increases come consistently between 20 to 50 %. If multitasking is this detrimental on such simple tasks as writing series of numbers or letters, imagine what is happening to your projects when you keep switching between more complex tasks, from one independent project task to another, in the hope of accomplishing more during your week.

So Rule number seven of eight of Lean Project Management is Execute your small promises on single-tasking mode.

Rule No. 7 of LPM – Once your deliverables are cut into smaller pieces, deliver them one after the other, as much as possible.

By cutting your project work in smaller pieces/promises, you will save on set-up time each time you are interrupted, thus accelerating delivery. This accelerating effect can be increased furthermore, if you also try to execute these promises, one after the other, this saving an additional amount of set-up time. In a multi-project/multi-tasking environment, the most productive strategy is to single-task, doing these multiple tasks in series, when possible.
02/09

What should a PM do when the economy turns down and their employer must lay off workers? Large layoffs change the tone of the working environment and the resources available to the project. It’s also a pretty good indication the strategy of the organization has changed.
Recently Microsoft announced they would layoff 5,000 workers. On the same day Sony announced their layoff would affect 8,000. Clearly many of these workers would hold operations or manufacturing positions. We can only speculate how many would be supporting the myriad of ongoing projects in these two organizations. We don’t know how many projects would be affected by the changes although we can expect there would be many.

During the planning stages of large downsizing initiatives, senior management is tasked with assessing the impact of the cuts to active projects, and to projects in the pipeline for future initiation. The PM is not usually asked for the impact on their project prior to the layoff. That is, not unless the project is quite large or has significant implications to the competitive position of the company. Yet there is likely to be an impact and the PM has a responsibility to assess the impact and communicate their findings to senior management.

As a general guide the PM might consider three areas: alignment to strategy, impact on resources and affect on motivation.

In the face of tough economic times, organizational goals and the strategy to achieve these may shift. This would be cause to review the importance of all projects in terms of the value they are expected to deliver and their alignment with the new goals and objectives of the organization. A PM needs to be clear on the value expected from the investment in the project they are responsible for. If this changes so will the project scope.

Resources available to the project include budget for both internal and external spending. Changes in staff and contractors assigned may impact the project scope. Perhaps contributors with unique experience are lost impacting the ability to achieve the product of the project or to do so in previously established timeframes. Given the extent of the economic fallout, there is a good chance that changes at key suppliers will impact the project.

Finally, a significant disruption such as a large layoff can affect the remaining workforce by altering the tone and motivational dynamic of the working environment. Understanding the impact this will have on project activities is important to managing the project through the organizational change.

Whether project managers are asked for an assessment of the impact of a major layoff or not, it is incumbent on them to do so and ensure adjustments in the corporation are properly reflected in the project they are managing.