• Cross Border News
  
• Big Efficiency, Big Buck$
  
• Superior Performers

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Big Efficiency, Big Buck$
These days companies need every advantage they can get, and increasingly we are finding that the performance of your project management teams translates into big efficiency and big bucks! But, some companies are not seeing the benefits because they are not managing projects effectively. In fact, some projects are absolute failures.

What is the Problem?
Consider this disappointing fact: Organizations are not managing projects any more successfully than they have been in the past. In fact, less than five percent of projects actually meet project managers' main objectives of delivering a successful outcome within budget and on time. Sooner or later most employees find themselves in charge of a project. Although these projects are temporary in nature, they do have a definite beginning and end. Since this feature makes them distinct from the normal ongoing work of a business, special management skills are required.

Four Steps to Improvement
In order to improve the performance of your project management teams, consider the following steps to help ensure that you are building the competencies required for more efficient project management:

Step 1: Improve process design

• Document the current project management process
  
• Redefine and redesign the process from a blank page
  

Step 2: Enable with better technology

• Ensure a match between the process and technology
  
• Make necessary integration changes
  

Step 3: Achieve full project management utilization

• Set clear expectations for projects
  
• Compensate to match PM performance

Step 4: Follow-up and Evaluate

• Complete a final report
  
• Reassign project members
  
• Dispose of surplus materials and equipment
  
• Release facilities
  
• Evaluate project and activities

Project management is a critical work process that is often poorly implemented within organizations. It is a costly tool when not utilized fully. Some important points to consider when working on projects are:

• Learn to define, refine, and standardize project management work processes and skills
  
• Gain support across departments
  
• Treat communication as a critical tool
  
• Train on needed competencies
  
• Partner with vendors where possible
  
• Understand tools such as Gantt charting and PERT
  
• Understand cost dimensions

Contact LLH Enterprises today to see how our Proactive Project Management program can provide your employees with the necessary tools to improve their project management projects. Or contact us to diagnose, design and facilitate a master project management program. www.llhenterprises.com.

Performance Notes
Happy Customers Create Success! As Sam Walton said, "Whenever you get confused, go to the store. The customer has all the answers-and all the money." It seems that more and more companies are moving away from their customers-voice mail, email, concerns over profits and reducing expenses all generate a gap between what the corporation wants and needs and what the customer wants and needs. And yet it is the customer who will determine whether or not you survive. If you do things that keep your customers happy-or even make them happier-you'll be successful. They will stand by you through the mistakes.

Deep Cuts Bleed Companies-"Fifty percent of all companies that cut their head count across the board end up in a worse position as they come out of difficult times," according to Ian Downes, Vice President and executive sponsor for cost reduction, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. One of the lessons learned in cutting staff is the impact on employees who stay. They may be happy to have made the cut but they become demoralized. Companies that find ways to enlist employee support to come up with ideas to improve performance, win back customers or expand business will be more successful in the long run.

Superior Performers
In his book, Blindsided, author Jim Harris points out that companies are struggling with the current speed of change-driven by new technology, mergers and competition, all coming out of left field-meaning that the business landscape is more chaotic, confusing and complex than ever before. And the speed of this change is accelerating. While it took radio 20 years to attract 10 million users, it took TV just ten years, Netscape 28 months, and Hotmail 18 months. Organizations used to have stable industries, predictable customers, and five and ten year strategic plans. Today whole industries are being turned completely upside down and some seemingly healthy companies are in a downward spiral because they can't recognize and respond quickly to change. Yes, everything is moving faster today but does it mean we have to put ourselves on a constant treadmill of change? The answer is more likely that we need to refocus ourselves to meet the change around us.

For example, in our constantly changing markets we can easily lose sight of our destination or not know what to do. It gets confusing also because of all the business terms we seem to be bombarded with in books and articles. Whether you believe in a certain business model, a vision, a mission or a strategy for your business, what you are really looking for is a way of doing business that creates superior performance compared to your competition. For argument sake, I am going to call it strategy. Deciding on a strategy can be hard when change is fast and choices are uncertain. Consider what superior performer Dollar General Corporation has gone through in its history. When you get through reading their story, I hope you will agree that during their 64-year history Dollar General used strategy as a positive tool to move forward. The company reacted to market changes, they may have incurred ups and downs along the way, but they were never blindsided.

The Dollar General Story
Dollar General was started in 1939 by J. L. Turner who began the company as J.L. Turner & Son, wholesalers of basic dry goods. In 1945, their strategy switched from wholesale to retail in order to get rid of an oversupply of ladies' lingerie. They opened their first retail store in 1946 and by 1955, J.L. Turner & Son owned and operated 35 self-service dry goods stores with annual sales reaching $2 million.

The Turners' dollar store concept, (no item above $1) and the first Dollar General Store opened in 1955. But change didn't stop there. In 1968, the Company changed its name to Dollar General Corporation and went public. By the end of 1976, retail sales had reached $109 million. Dollar General acquired other companies between 1977 and 1983. Growth through acquisition, however, did not prove to be a successful strategy. Financial results in 1986 posted a three percent decline in sales and a 76 percent decline in earnings, so in 1988 they re-set their strategy for long-term growth. The Company devised a turnaround that led to an average 16.5 percent increase in total revenues and a 40.7 percent increase in net income between 1990 and 1993. In 1995, with a newly articulated strategy of being a "customer-driven distributor of consumable basics," the Company began to grow its distribution center capacity to support additional stores and its merchandising strategy.

Today, Dollar General is a Fortune 500® company, continuing to grow and currently operating more than 6,113 stores in 27 states. In 2003, Dollar General generated $6.1 billion in annual sales.

What does this mean to you?
You may not want to be as big as Dollar General but there is no doubt that this company went through a similar series of changes to what you are going through or about to face. One of the lessons to be learned from the Dollar General story is that strategy is what drove their success and yet it was no sacred cow.

When needed, strategy should be refined to meet changes in the environment. Equally important is staying focused on your core business. Over the years Dollar General never moved away from selling dry goods. They changed their distribution methods but they didn't change their business or their growth goals. When they stumbled they changed their strategy. So, what does this example mean for you? It means that it is important to devise and maintain a clearly stated and highly focused strategy and to consistently communicate it to employees, vendors and customers. How do you find the right strategy? By knowing your company inside out, by knowing your customers and what they want, and by being realistic in appraising your company's capacities. Change requires having relentless ambition for performance improvement and solid strategies.

Cross Border News
One of Texas' well-known companies, Electronic Data Systems Inc. (EDS) has had a strong impact on Canada. Currently EDS employs 138,000 people worldwide with 7,500 employees in Canada and according to the Toronto newspaper The Globe and Mail, current EDS president and COO, Jeff Heller, likes Canada's IT growth prospects. Mr. Heller, who was in Toronto this month, was quoted as saying, "There's a good opportunity here to create additional jobs with work from offshore." While Mr. Heller was playing down the impact of EDS's global restructuring and a higher Canadian dollar, he did confirm that EDS will continue to improve its cost structure, and identified Canada as a possible beneficiary. Mr. Heller who has teamed up with new EDS chairman and CEO, Michael Jordan, has already announced that the company would review non-core assets with an eye to divestitures and would cut two percent of its worldwide work force following the three to four percent reduction that they announced last year.

What is so interesting right now about EDS is that Mr. Heller is spending a lot of time shoring up the confidence of employees and investors in Canada which hopefully is a signal that the new turnaround team of Heller and Jordan is realizing the importance of leaders being committed not only to the business but their people. Building relationships with people at all levels of the organization and inspiring the rest of the management team translates into improved corporate performance. As a leader, it doesn't matter whether you make your decisions independently, in collaboration with the management team, or with a consultant as long as key decisions are being made that support the strategies and culture of the organization.

It appears that Mr. Heller has been reading Canadian newspapers because a recent poll by Ipsos-Reid Canadian Consumer Confidence Indicator stated that Canadians feel better about their economic prospects than they have in months because of low interest rates and a strong belief that their jobs are safe. The data from this poll confirms a trend that has persisted in Canada over the past two years at a time when most Canadians have been unfazed by plummeting equity prices and global economic uncertainty. At the same time, there are some indicators that the economic outlook is declining here.

Meanwhile on the U.S. side of the border, the state of consumerism is taking an interesting shift. BIGresearch surveyed 8,835 US consumers this month and found that 36.2% say that in the past month, they have put off eating out while another 33.5% have cut out movies and performances. In addition, 28.5% of those respondents in households making $75,000 or more have put off or deferred the purchase of vacation travel while 27.6% of affluent households have put off home improvement projects. Consumers are, however, not pulling their purse strings tight when it comes to online purchases. According to the Media Audit/International Demographics 22.5% of US households have made five or more purchases online in the past year compared to 19.7% that made online purchases in 2002.

As consumers get more and more comfortable with online shopping, businesses may be forced to move to an online marketing strategy to meet sales objectives. With a shift to high technology, old line manufacturing companies may need to rethink their business models.

Take a look at cellphone usage. Sixty-two percent of US adults say they like cellphones according to Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Compare that to 49% in Canada and 60% in Great Britain. Yes technology is impacting business across many borders.

Linda in Print
Linda's article on Achieving Corporate Alignment: Matching Plans and Processes to People was published in the winter issue of Canadian Manager/Manager Canadien. For a copy, email Linda at lhanson@llhenterprises.com

Please give us feedback on this issue of The Superior Performance Report (click here) and let us hear your insights and what you would like to hear about next time.

Copyright 2003 by LLH Enterprises-reproduction for publication is encouraged, with the following attribution: From "The Superior Performance Report," by Linda Hanson, CMC, www.llhenterprises.com.

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