Back off the Bench

Being staffed on my second project in the last two weeks of December was a little unexpected. While I was excited about getting off the bench and learning new things, I had hoped the new project wouldn’t start until January. But things happen as they do. So what’s the new project?

I’m working with three other consultants on a healthcare project in Los Angeles. We are looking at the IT side of the healthcare company to find opportunities to reduce cost/improve service. Unlike the last project, I joined this project from the get-go so technically, this is my truly first project.

One of the first things that I’m beginning to understand is how consulting is both an interesting and boring career. Take this project. It is scheduled for six weeks, from data collection to analysis to presentation. Given the short timeframe, we are utilizing an approach to solve the client’s problem that was developed during a previous project. Rather than reinventing the wheel, we are adapting previous outputs to make it custom tailored to this specific client. It’s like custom tailor suits versus bespoken. Sure, we make it fit, but we don’t go through the work of taking the full measurement.

As bad as I make that sound, the actual work in the project is customized for the client. While we have an approach developed based on a previous client’s work that is similar, even minuet changes on the client side forces us to re-adapt and change our approach.

But besides all this high-level stuff, I’m actually excited about learning something entirely different. For me, most everything is new so I’ve tried to concentrate on core consulting skills rather the specific business skills. Core consulting skill is best thought of as thinking analytically and structured thinking. I worked with a co-worker to recreate an issue-tree to help me understand the different work streams in this project and how they are interrelated to answer the key question of reducing cost for the client. This was the first time I’ve actually worked through an full issue-tree to frame the work and it was truly amazing how much it help explain what, how, and why we were doing the type of work required to answer the key question.

But learning to structure my thinking is only one thing new. I am learning how to manage expectations , especially creating the balance between worklife and non-worklife. I have realized now that managing expectations is almost as important as the work you actually product. Take the following example. You’re given some work that you’ve never done before. The manager allocates 3 hours to learn and produce some outcome. You go straight through and start tackling the work. After a few minutes, you find that you can actually finish the work in 15 minutes. You rush through; finish the work ahead of time. You’re manager is surprised and thus allocates you some more work expecting better outcomes and thus giving you a short timeframe. Eventually, you’re going to hit a wall where you’re going to miss an expectation.

In the above example, there are several steps you can take to manager the expectation the work produced. For one, you shouldn’t just dive into the work right away if it is given with some learning time. Create an approach and allocate time to different aspects just as you would create an approach to the large client project. This five minute prep-time can be as simple as thinking about the assignment, understanding what you need to do, etc. As they say, properly done prep-work can save you a lot of time later on so you don’t have to go through rework because you failed to understand some thing. After the approach, complete the work, but try to understand more than what you are doing. For example, if you are given the simple task of formatting something and you’ve finished the work in five minutes but were given 30 minutes, spend the remainder of the time reading the document. Try to understand why you were given the task of formatting the document and how the document ties to other documents. Learning to understand what you are doing or understanding the big picture is more important as you move up and get promoted so try to do it earlier. Besides, there is not always a positive reason to turn in work early. Now, if it is major work and you can turn it something early because it will save you/client/company money, then that is a calculated move. But turning in work early on simple tasks simply shows that you are an efficient worker bee and more work should be allocated to you given the same timeframe. Now, while it is great for the company to have you humming along at 100% efficiency at all times, we humans aren’t machines and that type of work simply is brutal. Rather, you should see when work should be turned in early and when it should be managed as on time. Finally, let people know how you work. Tell them if you think you’ll need more time early on and ask about it. It doesn’t help you or your boss to come back to him five minutes before it is due to say you need more time. If you set the expectation early, then others can work with you or around you. Obviously, this doesn’t mean asking for five hours to generate a single PowerPoint slide, but it does mean managing the time given to you.

Ask and you will/can be rewarded.

Pale Blue Dot

Sometimes, you find something truly unique and interesting to read while browsing through the numerous humor and news websites ... even if it was written a few years back.

Below is an image taken by Voyager 1 in 1990. It is a photo of the planet we and all humans currently inhabit as seen from 3.7 - 4 billion miles away.



"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known." - Carl Sagan

A quick introduction for CRM, ERP, and SCM

Today, I wanted to summarize an topic that I've been trying to get a basic understanding in my field. What does CRM, ERP and SCM actually mean? I hear these terms but what do they stand for? I decided to summarize what I've learned from CIO Magazine.

This post will began with an explanation of ERP since it is an component that both CRM and SCM can utilize. This will follow with CRM and SCM. Finally, I will discuss how the three systems work together. Sources for this post is listed below.

1. ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning software. What ERP software attempts to do is "integrate all departments and functions across a company onto a single computer system that can serve" ever department. Why would this be good for a company?

A typical example is that ERP can improve "the way [a] company takes a customer order and processes [the order] into an invoice and revenue." By using the same software across different departments, people can see in real time what is happening. Orders are processed faster through improved communication by utilizing the ERP software. There is a reduction in human error and lost paper (or knowledge) as information is retained in one centralized location.

Now, multiple this idea across all departments. Imagine HR being able to see Finance (improve HR's ability in staffing or compensation) while Finance can view Shipping (to determine if revenues should be counted for once a product is shipped).

However great the promises of ERP, the reality can be quite different. The first reality check is actually finding a software that works well across all departments. Each department has its own unique requirements that requires special software. To have one piece of software be the best in every field is a tall order. Second, ERP entails a more connected system. This is great in the theoretical stage but in real life, real-time systems is costly to maintain and update. Froe example, pre-ERP, HR was using its own software and processes, but post-ERP requires HR to update and provide the most recent information into the system. Otherwise, other departments, say Finance, might use out of date HR information in the ERP system to produce financial reports. That would occur less since pre-HR, Finance might actually have to call up HR to get the latest data. So with ERP, there must not only be new software, but new processes have to be created in the way people perform their jobs. In the previous example, the HR department might have to redesign some of their business processes.

Ultimately, those new processes are what brings the biggest improvements with an ERP implementation. Once a standardized procedure is implemented company wide, the ERP software will benefit from people utilizing the new business processes.

2. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. The goal of CRM is "to learn more about customers' needs ... in order to develop stronger relationships" such as

• providing tailored services and products
• help improve sales
• retain and discover new customers

While CRM is generalyl thought of in terms of software, like ERP, the software is only a tool. CRM is only as good as the strategy underlying.

Since the goal of CRM is "to learn more about customers' needs" and to build relationships, CRM is important for those companies that do not have a understanding of who their customers are or what their customer needs. A CRM system will include softwares and processes that can collect, analyze, centralize customer data from a variety of sources to help improve customer understanding. As example of CRM in action is a retailer collection information (Web, mailing lists, credit cards) that it can then combine to help target those customers through either promotional items (discounts) or products (special offerings).

3. SCM stands for Supply Chain Management. The purpose of SCM is to help "plan, source, make, deliver and return" products. In general, SCM applies more for manufactures, but SCM can also apply to retailers.

Think of a ship building company. It needs to plan how many ships to build and the resources they require (steel, electronics, wiring, etc.), choose suppliers to provide the raw materials or semi-raw materials (guidance systems, engines), manufacture the ship, help with logistics after manufacture, and manage returns (defects, recalls).

Now, while each industry might requires a different type of SCM system (manufacturing might focus more on planning, sourcing and making while retail might care more about delivery and return) the overall goal with SCM is to improve either each individual step which hopefully will improve the overall processes. Why is this good?

Think of terms such as "just-in-time." Pre-SCM, manufactures had a difficult time planning for production. Overproduction would often result in a waste of resources will underproduction meant lost profits. Retailers would sometimes be at the mercy of manufactures and would have to keep warehouses full in the event demand rises. But SCM can help solve some of these problems with the right information. Retailers could provide manufactures data on demand so manufactures can plan strategically to source and make products. This helps reduce delivery and manufacturing costs by making only as much as needed. Furthermore, excess returns are reduced.

With the event of global manufacture and extended supply chain, SCM becomes even more important. With companies located sometimes across oceans, having processes and systems in place to gain information regarding your supplies chain is vital to company planning. Rather than just examining the immediate supply chain, now, a manufacture might look at the supply chain of its suppliers and or its customers (retailers) to help planning. In turn, retailers or suppliers might examine the manufacture supply chain.

4. So how does all this together? To understand this, let's go back first ERP. Since ERP is a software system that is standard across all departments, it is best thought of as a central data warehouse. Both CRM and SCM requires an extensive amount of information for each to work properly. CRM needs data from Finance, Sales, Manufacturing, etc. that have been collect on customers. Similarly, SCM utilizes the data in ERP for planning. But ERP also benefits from CRM and SCM. Each system in turn provides feedback to ERP on new information. While each and function independently, it is the synergies gained from all there system that is one of the biggest gains.

Here is an example of an idea world:
"For example, if you wanted to build a private website for communication with customers (CRM) and suppliers (SCM), you will wan to pull information from ERP, CRM, SCM together to present updated information about orders, payments, manufacturing status, deliver, and return."

Source: "ABC: An Introduction to ERP" by Christopher Koch, CIO, "ABC: An Introduction to CRM" by Thomas Wilgum, CIO, "ABC: An Introduction to SCM" by Ben Worthen, CIO

Being Benched

Part of the life of being a consultant is being placed on the "bench." For those that don't know, being on the bench is the term used when a person is unstaffed. Sitting on the bench for a long period of time isn't a good thing for the company or the consultant for a multiple of reasons that I'll discuss later.

I've been on the bench for about 3 weeks now since the end of my last project. While being unstaffed for a short period, around 1 week, is great after a long and difficult project because it gives you time to catch up, longer periods of bench time isn't so great.

Here's how I've been trying to pass around my time but if you have better suggestions, let me know:
1. Attending training session such as Pricing and Organization Strategy
2. Reading things such as IT Strategy and IT management
3. General reading and keeping up with the issues
4. Adjusting my investment portfolio

But in the end, there are only so many things you can do to improve yourself. Being on the bench for too long hurts your "chargability," or the percentage of time you spend working on projects that can bring revenue to the company. One way to think about chargability is to look at the car rental business.

Imagine yourself as a rental car. The company has paid X amount of dollar to acquire you. In addition, they have spent X dollars upgrading (training and equipping) you. If you aren't being rented (staffed) to some customer, then you are not providing a good ROI for the company.

However, this only paints half the problem for being on the bench for a prolonged period. For yourself, being unstaffed meanings you aren't learning new skills. Sure, I've taken the opportunity to learn new skills through training but unless you put those new skills into actual usage, then those are just theoretical skills. Thus being on the bench for too long is a double whammy.

Finally, as an employee at Accenture, too long on the bench hurts your year end performance revenue since part of our performance is measured by chargability.

With all this said, what can be done to improve this? At the moment, I haven't figured anything out yet.

TSA: What are they for?

As consultants, we fly around a lot. After a while, one gets pretty good at judging transit times, dealing with fly cancellations and delays, and the inevitable TSA security screening. But, on one recent trip, I suddenly wondered what one specific procedure, the inspection of your boarding pass with an ID was for. What was the purpose of determining who you are and whether you are flying?

Now, several obvious answers pop up into mind. TSA is trying to determine if you are the same person as the person who bought the airline ticket. TSA is trying to prevent unauthorized entry into the boarding area. ID check is a first step of security by TSA to determine suspicious people.

But there are several flaws in this thinking. First, why would it matter if your ID matched your boarding pass? If I am not carrying any explosives or dangerous materials, why block my entry? Perhaps I want to wait inside the terminal and surprise my girlfriend when she arrives? Isn't the whole metal detector, explosive air puffer, and x-ray suppose to stop me from carrying dangerous materials? If TSA is concerned about people entering the terminal and using their physical bodies to create harm, that would mean that everyone is a potential threat. I could always use my fists.

The second argument is that TSA is trying to prevent unauthorized entry. Well, how would TSA actually know if I'm authorized or not? If you have ever printed a boarding pass at home, you know that it is very easy to duplicate a boarding pass. Heck, a PhD student event wrote a php script to generate duplicate NWA boarding passes. Besides, wouldn't actual terrorists just buy an airline ticket anyways?

Finally, ID check is a first way to determine if the person is suspicious. Now, this an area that I do find at least an acceptable answer. I would assume that a person carrying some bomb meeting a TSA officer where he has to hand over his boarding pass and ID would be a little nervous. But, then again, most TSA people barely glance at the ID and boarding pass. No questions are asked. In addition, I've noticed different airports perform the same inspection differently. Some use an ultraviolet light to check the authenticity of the ID (i.e. state driver license) while others just glance to check the name on the boarding pass matches the ID.

Perhaps TSA could save tax payers some money by removing this useless step in the security process and put the money into better training and more staff for the actual screeners.

Don't thinks security is bad? Take at look at this PBS documentary.

Oh, if you have other reasons that you think TSA does the ID check, please let me know.

Performance Review: Feedback

I've been told its important after every major or minor project to solicit feedback. Below is the type of feedback I received after my first project.

Pro:
I require minimum direction, can work independently with guidance
Good at quantitative analysis

Cons:
Require improvement in writing, specifically grammar, proofreading, putting ideas into text


Things to communicate in future projects:
1. What type of style does the person have?
2. Leverage the available skills I've learned and communicate what I have done.
3. Communicate at the beginning of the project expectations and work styles

3 Tips of being a good BA
1. Have analytical skills
2. Quality deliverables
3 Communicate, communicate, communicate

Things I Learned

It has been an incredible busy and exciting two weeks. I felt like I learned more in the last two weeks than in entire semester at college. Part of this reason might be because I’m actually hungry to learn rather than passively attending classes. In any case, it was a great opportunity so let me delve in a bit further.

About two weeks ago, I was tasked by the Senior Executive (SE) to perform an IT Spend Analysis on our currently client. It would be a two week turnaround time with the SE giving most of the responsibilities to me. I was a little apprehensive about the whole project considering it would be presented to the CIO of our client rather than just general senior client executives. To make matters worse, the SE was going to be on vacation the entire week when I would be performing my analysis.

But the SE had given me pretty good guidance on who I could reach out to for information that I needed. In course of my analysis, I got a chance to work with Accenture Researchers, specialist in finding difficult to locate information to use for my benchmarking analysis. I also got to work with the consultant on my project o go over the IT Spend Analysis process to understand both how the work should be done in a conceptual model and what type of information the results for the analysis would provide to the client. Finally, I had the opportunity to operate independently without close supervision on conduction meetings with client executives and Accenture SE, deciding research results and analyzing key findings.

There were definite moments when I was stuck or unsure of how to handle the situation. One area that I’m working towards is building a better working relationship with lower level client personnel that I would work on in a daily basis. I find that I can’t build the same level of report as I would like to have. This definitely impacts the working relationship at times, but I’m unsure how better to proceed.

Another area where I think I’ll be able to improve next time is time management. After getting an idea of the turnaround time necessary for different types of work, I’ll be able to gauge how long it would take me to complete different amount of work.

On the following Monday, I got to present my findings to the CIO. It was definitely an interesting presentation. I had expected it would be more of my speaking followed by a question and answer section. But it was more of a conversation rather than presentation. We would talk about a slide for a few minutes with him asking questions and then move on to the next slide. It was during the presentation that I realized why being able to calculate numbers in your head quickly for percentages or in general was helpful because when the CIO asked for numbers outside my calculations, I was definitely stumbling along. Furthermore, there were some pretty significant mistakes in my presentation powerpoint that resulted in me second guessing a lot of my calculations. Thank goodness the SE was there to help.

While in the presentation, I realized that confidence in a presentation results both from experience and knowledge. Even though the SE didn’t do any significant amount of work, she trusted in my slides to pull out key results and interrupt them on the spot. She had already credibility and her knowledge of the operations of the client coupled with many years of experience was something I lacked. I simply wasn’t comfortable making any large recommendations because I didn’t believe in myself or the numbers and ideas that I had.

But this wasn’t the only analysis that kept me busy last week. I also did work examining the outsourcing provider’s offshoring initiative. Unlike the previous work, this required less financial analysis, but I utilized and honed many of the same skills as in my previous work. In the end, I enjoyed both work very much and was able to manage them quite well without doing too much over time.

Which makes me want to end on a note; I think working overtime isn’t necessarily a good think. It shows a failure in time management and project management skills. Given the time frame needed to complete certain tasks, it should be that there are one and off times between work and non-work. Managing those is part of the work/life balance. While an analyst has less control, it should be a skills that requires learning.

Eighth Best Company

This year, Accenture was ranked 8 out of 95 companies in Business Week's "2007 Best Place to Launch a Career"

Below is my summary of their information. For full information, please go to link.

Undergrad Internships

No. of undergrad internships in 22006: 125; 2007: 183

2006 interns from the following classes:
0% Freshman
0% Sophomores
22% Juniors
78% Seniors
0% Graduates

2006 interns from the following majors:

17% Business
6% Computer Science
18% Economics
42% Engineering
9% Liberal Arts
2% Math
2% Science
0% Undeclared
15% Other*

100% of internships paid

Is there an official summer internship program?: Yes

Average length of summer program: 10 weeks

Average total intern compensation: $9,400

91% of eligible 2006 interns received full-time job offers

71% of interns with offers accepted

Rising senior interns attend a 3 day leadership conference which includes team building exercises, networking opportunities, panel discussions, and presentations.

*Other college majors include primarily: Management Information Systems, Information Systems, Supply Chain.

Applicants & New Hires

Applicants for entry-level jobs in 2006: 10,400*; 2007: 5,170*

Entry-level hires in 2006: 1,040; 2007: 517

Entry-level hires who were undergrad interns in 2006: 6%; 2007: 1%

Most important characteristics for new hires:

1-College Major
2-College GPA
3-Analytical Skills**

2006 new hires majored in:

17% Business
6% Computer Science
18% Economics
31% Engineering
9% Liberal Arts
2% Math
2% Science
0% Undeclared
15% Other***

*Entry-level applicant data represents only those candidates for whom we conducted a screening interview.
**Accenture also looks for strong communication skills, extra-curricular activities, leadership and whether or not the candidate worked part time during school (exhibiting skills to balance work and school).
***Other category for college majors comprised of primarily Management Information Systems, Computer Information Systems, Information Systems, Supply Chain, Operations Research.

Salary & Benefits

Entry-level hires since Jan. 1

Average base salary: $55,000 to $59,999

0% earn less than $35,000
0% earn $35,000 to $39,999
4% earn $40,000 to $44,999
7% earn $45,000 to $49,999
29% earn $50,000 to $54,999
37% earn $55,000 to $59,999
12% earn $60,000 to $64,999
10% earn $65,000 to $69,999
1% earn $70,000 and above

55% received signing bonuses with average signing bonus: $3,767

85% received performance bonus first year on job with average performance bonus: $1,500

Reimburse employees for education expenses?: No

Time Off

Is there a Paid Time Off (PTO) Bank?: Yes, 25 days.

Health Benefits

Do entry-level hires have access to health plan?: Yes

Employees pay part of the cost?: Yes

Does health plan provide dental coverage?: Yes

Extra charge for dental coverage?: Yes

Does health plan provide vision coverage?: Yes

Extra charge for vision coverage?: No

Are same sex partners permitted as dependents?: Yes

Pension and Profit-sharing

Do entry-level hires have access to 401(k)?: Yes

24 months to full vesting in 401(k)

Max. company match as a percentage of salary: 3%

Min. employee set-aside as a percentage of salary to receive max. co. match: 6%

Are entry-level hires eligible for profit-sharing program?: Yes

Months to full vesting in profit-sharing program: 24

Other Benefits

Does company match employee charitable gifts? Yes*

Max. annual company match for employee charitable gifts: $5,000

*In 2006, Accenture and its employees donated more than $5 million to 486 US colleges and universities through the Accenture Foundation matching gift program. All Accenture employees are eligible to participate.

Work Environment

44 hours worked weekly by entry-level hires on average

Does average vary by business unit, department?: (Business Week said NO, I say YES)

Entry-level hire work locations...

70*% in open work stations
0% in cubicles
25% in shared offices
5% in private offices
0% have no company-supplied work space

Does organization monitor e-mail?: Yes**

Does organization monitor Web usage? Yes***

Typical dress code: Business Casual; Casual; Formal/Business

Does organization sponsor employee volunteer opportunities? Yes

*A high percentage of a new employees' time will be spent at client sites.
**Company has ability to monitor email, but does not routinely do so.
***Company has ability to block specific web sites – only used to monitor inappropriate sites.

Training Programs

Does your organization have a formal orientation program? Yes

If yes, how many days is it? 25*

Orientation includes**:

Computer Training
Guest Speakers
Diversity Exercises
Team Building Activities
Tour of Facilities

$6,600 average spent on training, per new hire, in 2006

* Of the 25 days of orientation, 3 weeks are in the local office and 2 weeks are at our training facility in St. Charles, Illinois.
**Organization Overview, Corporate Citizenship, Telecom / Security, Benefits, Time Reporting, Facilities and Services, HR Policies, Technology Orientation, Corporate Required Training,and Core Values.

Does company have formal mentorship program? Yes

All employees are assigned a career counselor.

Employees are encouraged to complete 0-10 days of of additional training to specialize in a particular function or technology applicable to the role they are or will be staffed in.

Raises and Performance

How are raises determined?: Performance

When are entry-level hires eligible for first raise?: Between Sept. 1 and Dec. 1 - provided person is employed for more than four months

How are promotions determined?

Performance
Business needs.

When are entry-level hires eligible for first promotion?: September 1 following one year anniversary - most after 18 months

Frequency of evaluations: Performance assessed for every project - rating follows annual review

Important qualities

1-Profitability/Margin
2-Analytical Skills
3-Learning Ability

Min. tenure in years required for job change: 1

From the Directors of Better Luck Tomorrow

Is this it?

Friday, I had a late lunch with a co-worker. During lunch, I was reminiscing about an event that occurred during an earlier work-lunch event. Half way through the lunch event, I thought suddenly, 10 or 20 years from now, I'm I going to be just like one of the senior executives in this room working for this company? Is that it? I'm going to be driving a nice car with some loft in SF? Has my life already been planned for me?

I told my co-worker about this and she put it perfectly into perspective. I was suddenly realizing that the prime years of my life are passing me by as we speak. Look at all the people that have really made it in their life, whether it be Nobel prize winners, famous writers, etc. The defining movement of their life all happens before the age of 30, usually before 25. What this means is that I have less than three years to make something out of my life or that's it.

This isn't to say I'm unhappy about the current state of affairs. I enjoy my work, I find myself very lucky to be where I am today. I'm more lucky than the usual breed, but I'll get into that on another day. What I'm "complaining" about is the sudden realization that time is tickling and I need to do something. But while I realize I need to do something, I don't see what I can do or which risks I can take to actually accomplish my goal. Which leads me to ask, what is me goal?

1 2 3 4 - Ipod Nano

Getting Feedback

While I have been pulled back into my old assignment, I went ahead and talked to a few people to get input regarding feedback.

One of the areas that I had questions was how managers wanted to keep a tab on the people below them. Like most questions, there wasn’t any one specific answer. I found the best advice was to read how your manager operates, but I did find some general helpful tips.

Before people know how you operate and your capabilities, it is best to keep the person in the loop as often as possible. This requires frequent updates and possible guidance.

1. As the manager gains more trust from observing your work and your deliveries, usually, they give you more independence and there is a less need to constantly keep the person in a direct report situation.
2. Over-communication is always better than under-communication. Most people know how to ignore the less important information. Also, by over-communicating, you give yourself some fall back space.
3. Be constant on how you communicate. Communicating doesn’t mean telling your supervisor every single detail of your project or problem. Like the work consultants perform, choose and synthesize the information you communicate.

The other important aspect in seeking feedback is having the feedback, especially good feedback, written down. Written feedbacks have two benefits.

1. During performance reviews, it provides concrete evidence necessary to give you the boost (assuming the feedback was good) that you need to move up.
2. People move on, retire, or quit. Written feedback keeps the information in your file for future review.
3. Written feedback forces the evaluator to spend some time actually thinking over the issue. It often results in more detail and specific feedback.
4. Make sure the feedback is both positive and negative. That way, you have areas you can work towards on your next project.

With those goals in mind, I’m going to send out a feedback request once I “officially” role of this project.

Good to be a Consultant

A recent survey co-sponsored by American Management Association (AMA) and The Institute of Management Consultants (IMC USA) and conducted by Consulting Intelligence (CI), showed that "82 percent, who retain consultants as part of their job rated the client-consultant experience as positive."

Furthermore, the "...survey results also reveal that the consulting profession is viewed as trustworthy. When respondents were asked to rank a list of 10 representative professions from most trustworthy to least trustworthy, they ranked consulting as the 5th most trustworthy profession, behind nurses, doctors, teachers and accountants. Rounding out the list of professions were sales representatives, corporate executives, attorneys, journalists and politicians."

Source

Now, what's interesting is that "The Consulting Survey^SM asked senior-level managers, CEOs and other business professionals to rate their overall experiences working with consultants" and they ranked consultants higher than corporate executives, aka, themselves. Hmmm...

Additionally, consultants are ranked higher than journalists in the trustworthy category which I found surprising. So the next time you are out on a plane, saying your a consultant isn't so bad.

The question remaining is, is it better than an investment banker? =)

In-N-Out

No, this post isn’t about great hamburgers. Rather, I’m being staffed back at the same project that I wrote last time. It seems roll-off isn’t always roll-off.

I got a call on Friday during Senior Executive scheduling meeting to say that I was to come back Monday. That one call sums up the life of a consultant. You never know exactly where or what you’ll go to.

So, it is Monday and I’m back on the client side doing some finishing touches. I’m told I’m being hold unless for a possible role on the East Coast if supply side logistics is resolved (i.e. they really need people and can’t find anyone on the East Coast who is cheaper to fly around).

In the mean time, I’ll try to keep my head up and do some work.

Dinner and a Conversation

My first project is official ending in a few days. It will be eight weeks when all this is over and it seems in a way that things are just beginning.

This project was a great introduction to the life and work of a consultant. I got to understand both a bit about the life of a consultant and the type of work I would be performing. The work wasn’t so challenging that I felt entirely lost, but just enough independence where I could build my wings.

The project consisted of two areas. The first area required me to update a deck of strategic ideas and formulation by looking at existing strategy documents. This was the easier part of the project because I was taking mostly directions from my boss on what I needed to do. While I was a little hesitant at first about the nature of the work, I quickly understood how valuable to get something easy to building your foundation in the beginning. Not only was doing client work, I was also learning how to be a consultant at the same time. The etiquette and techniques necessary to be in a client situation was entirely new to me. Having work that wasn’t too challenging gave me the necessary breathing room for me to get accommodated with my surrounding.

After that work, I moved on to more independent analysis. I believe consulting is different from most other areas of work because rather than being directed on what to do, much of the work is independently though. Your boss might have an idea of what s/he wants you to accomplish but how to get the work done is entirely up to you to figure out. This summarized how I completed this second project. I was given specific tasks and tasks that I thought would be valuable. Then, I had to come up with the necessary analysis. There wasn’t any steps given for me to say do X analysis and then look at Y data. I had to figure all that out myself, and it was a learning experience.

Many people, myself included, kept saying in college that we love to do challenging work. We don’t want to be the machine in the office, but the boss. But being the boss requires a level of work and thinking that is quite different than what I expected. Sure, at my level, there are still people I turn to for help and suggestions. But overall, on the project, I was the one calling the shoots, deciding what information to gather, how to get it, how to analyze it, and where the data leads. Like any good researcher, your hard thought hypothesis sometimes goes straight out the window after two weeks of work and you’ll have to start all over again. Only this time, you have two weeks less in time.

End of the day, I learned a lot:

• How to deal with clients
• How strategic is formulated at the higher levels
• How operational work aligns with the strategic thinking
• Processes to get information
• Phone conversations skills
• Consolidating multiple different pieces of conflicting information
• Formulating analysis for quantitative data that was previously qualitative

There are still areas that I would like to work on even after learning all of this. One of the biggest areas is gaining the confidence needed in a consulting environment. I always feel a constantly need to justify myself by bring value to my clients. How to do that when you have very limited knowledge is an area that I’m working on. Another area is just being comfortable in an environment where everyone is so much more senior than yourself. In the end, I’m looking forward to the next project hoping they are all as good as this one.

The Tonight Show: Mike Rowe Shitty Jobs

Dating

Every thought about dating that co-work down the hall?

The following link has nothing to do with work, but...what the heck, it's funny.

Link

Stop to smell, listen to music?

Read this article in the Washington Post: Link

Art of Executive Conversation

Ever had difficulty talking to a senior executive? The butterflies, the sweaty hands, those moments before walking into a senior executive board room? [Yes....no....senior executive, what are you talking about?]

Okay, for some people, they may not get much interaction with senior executives. But as consultants, we work directly with senior executives whether they be our own in the company or senior executives on the client team.

Working with senior executives presents a whole new challenge that I had never faced before. But with a few tips and some hard work, there is a way to defeat those fears.

There are three steps to managing conversations with senior executives.
1. Focus
2. Engage
3. Manage

1. Before beginning a conversation with a senior executive, it is important to decide what the focus of the conversation should be. Are there specific objectives you are looking for? Do you want him or her to do X or Y? Objectives need to be simple to understand and few in number. You don't want to list too many things in any one conversation. Keep it simple is the key for both you and the senior executive.

2. In the conversation, there is a need to engage the person. Engaging the person change come from many different angles. Does the person have some specific problem that you will address? Is there some common ground that can be found. The purpose of engaging the person is to build a relationship beyond just the conversation. That way, you can move forward in the future when other issues arise with the same person.

3. Managing the conversation is the most important part. Rather than seeing each conversation as independent of each other, try to tie the conversations you have with the same person together in a managed fashion. That way, the conversations turn into something more than just individual conversations and becomes a relationship. To accomplish this, think about how conversations objectivesvaries when you talk with the person. This doesn't mean you need to keep track of every single conversation, but focus on the important conversations that are preplanned. That way, each conversation is a continuation of the previous, if only in a different capacity.

Roadmaps of Risk Analysis

Many things happened this week, but I think the biggest was the creation of a roadmap for me to determine where I want to go. The idea came from a Harvard Business School (HBS) article about deciding how to take risks.

Many people make choices that on the surface seem without a plan. We hear stories about people jumping over their bosses to get at a project or fighting against director supervisor order. When these turn out badly, everyone in the room does the, “I told you so.” However, we rarely understand how those few success comes into play.

In the HBS article, the key point was understanding risk. Sometimes, taking calculated risks is part of the process. For an individual, that involves building a personal understanding of the type of risk associated with the action.

Now, what does all this have to do with my roadmap? I realized to get to where I want to go involved some risk taking. Just like the guy who wants to start his own business, there are risks involved.

So I devised a way to articulate my risks by first listing out the situation I’m currently in. This included both the positive and negative ask. Realizing that I was new to the company, possessing little knowledge and almost no corporate experience, you can imagine my list for negatives far outweigh the positive.

But the whole point of this exercise was to pinpoint what the negatives exactly were. I could then create a plan to mitigate or change those negatives into positives. In my case, one negative was the lack of knowledge in what area of consulting therefore limited my ability to articulate and control my career growth. I learned that simply saying I don’t like doing X doesn’t really tell people what I like to do. To mitigate this problem, I created an action plan listing several specific actions I could take to change the situation.

They included:
Networking with other individuals to get an understanding of the type of projects they do, both the positive and negative aspects
Articulate my desire to Senior Executives work on a range of projects to experience first hand what they are
Determine the type of skills necessary to move from one area into another

Having this roadmap, I realized that at the moment, if I were to attempt my choice right now, I would have a high probability of failure with no contingence plan. But if I stick to my road map, in a year, I hope to change the risk/positive/negative ratio to a level where I am comfortable in making that jump.

We’ll see how this pans out in some time.

First Project Week

Thursday counts as official the end of my first project week, and what a week it was. There were some tough moments as I jumped into the project, especially being a bit inexperienced in the whole process, but my co-worker was instrumental in helping me get up to speed. It was a great experience overall and I learned so much that it’s hard to sum everything down into one posting, so I’ll just touch upon a couple.

Tips
There were several great tips that I came across this week that I thought I would share. One was the idea that you should have an external interview every year for a position you are interested. This doesn’t mean you are actually interested in quitting. Because the purpose of the interview is to see how well your skills that you acquired during the year matches up with potential recruiters. It allows you to assess your own strengthens and weakness along with giving you a point of view of demand in the market.
1. Complain twice and then jump on the train. I heard this tip early on, but I only found it applicable this week. There are probably many things a new hire can begin complaining about (or maybe not). This isn’t to say I had a lot to complain about Accenture. I think the opportunity that I’ve been given is great, but as always, human nature is to want more. With that said, I realized early on that it is important to voice your complaints (or what I like to call, positive disagreements) but then stop after doing it twice. Tell your manager or boss what you thing is bad, but don’t over due it. Once the discussion is over, you need to jump on board the train. This is true especially for new hires with little experience as complaining only results in the label of being a complainer. ***This isn’t to say that if you see something illegal, you shouldn’t stand up and say STOP.
2. Ask questions, learn the process, but really try to understand the concept. This was one I think many people miss and an area I’m working towards. It is important t o ask some details, but at an early stage, learning the concept is more important. Why are we doing something this way versus that? What is the over all goal? The concepts leads to the process. Understanding fundamental concepts allows you to build a strong foundation for everything you will eventually do.

Travel
1. Having never really traveled for work, I realized there are some things that maybe a few people don’t know about business travel. These includes packing, business attire,, etc. I can touch upon everything, but I think if one thing I want to mention, it is that you should bring something to do during airport down times. For me, that’s a great time to check personal email, and write this blog. You never really know when or why a plane or plan might be delayed or changed. Flexibility is key.

Eating
1. It is great to be a consultant, always on the good eating out……Well that isn’t always the case. I do enjoy eating out and not worrying about doing dishes, but I actually like cooking which now I don’t have time. Besides, restaurant food tends to be greasy to the balance of finding healthy food and not eating burgers everyday is important. I try to get as much fruit in to substitute the lack of vegetables. Bring a Nalogene bottle if you so you don’t have to use water bottles. (There was a recent article about all the wasted plastic as a result of bottle water.

Besides these two areas, there were some things that I had a problem with. One was the realization that with work, you really don’t have much down time. Time management after work is difficult especially in the beginning when one is trying to learn everything all at once. For me, getting home after work every day only resulted in more work type questions as it was a time for me to as my co0worker all the question I had accumulated during the day. (I live in corporate housing with my co-worker in a two bedroom place). Having him there really helps with getting myself acquainted with consulting work and the Accenture organization. But it also means less time for exercise. So, if anyone has any great tips about exercising in confined spaces during short times, they should let me know.

Life and Music

Something I saw on Digg.

First Week

Well, first week is officially over and it was a very busy week. I just got notified that I would be on a project coming this Monday so I'm excited about that. But before I get into my thoughts on the first project, I wanted to touch on a bit about orientation.

Accenture's orientation is a pretty comprehensive set of Core Values. The purpose of the Core Values or the values of any large organization is to build a set of unifying goals and criteria which all employees try to live up to. While most people, maybe included, probably consider the indoctrination a bit unusual, I do understand the importance of instilling a same set of values in all employees. But besides the learning that went on through orientation in fundamentals like resume building and properly filling out a time sheet, the orientation allowed a group of starts to bond. I was personally able to meet some very smart and interesting people from a variety of backgrounds. One aspect that surprised me was that fact that those in our New Joiner Orientation included experienced hires, individuals who didn't just recently graduate. This allowed me to interact with managers and and consultants to get a different perspective.

After orientation was completed by mid week, we moved back to the San Francisco office to continue our training online or in formal classroom settings. These trainings included understanding Accenture policies and practices and training focusing on building skills directly applicable to the type of work each individual would be completing.

While some of the training are long and the going can be a bit slow, I found it interesting the few other organizations provide the same type of formal on-the-job training. I believe it is a key benefit that those in the consulting industry enjoy which isn't directly advertised during recruiting.

However, for me, I got to do both formal training and began the process of learning about my new project. Since the information in the project is confidential, most of the post will be about personal thoughts and not direct action.

As new analysts, one of things that I have tried to do is to talk to as many people as I can from a variety of levels to ask for advice. From these individuals I have spoken to, I have been able to consolidate some key points.

• Listen before you speak. This is an area I'm working towards as I tend to cut someone off and jump to what I think they are asking. Listening allows you to actually hear what they want and in the mean time, formulate a proper response.
  
• As analysts, one of the things we lack is experience. While some people might have joined the firm with prior consulting or industry experience, the majority do not. This means that it is important to began first by observing and learning some of the fundamentals of how an organization like Accenture functions.
  
• Networking and selling and sometimes the same side of the coin. While this doesn't mean you should go about shoving everyone out of the way in your goal to climb the corporate ladder, it does mean you need to think actively about how you want to manager your career. To do that in the beginning is to try to get to know as many people as possible. Each individual in your network can bring information to you that you might not otherwise have.
  
• Finally, my dad gave me the advice that as young, ambitious people, it is more important at our level to contribute not simply by hard work but by delivering value to both our clients and our managers. [Not to be corny, but it does match our motto of "High Performance. Delivered"] Value here doesn't necessary mean more hours in front of a computer, but what those hours are contributing towards.
  

With those tips in mind, I've been working at reading the information I've been given and thinking how I can create value. For now, I think the best way is to understand the big picture as soon as possible because that way, I will know if what I'm doing is contributing correctly. We'll see soon enough where this leads me.

Tips for First Days

First days are what I think of as similar to the 100 days of the Presidency. They are a way to benchmark someone and how they did. You have 100 days to make sure whatever objective are either achieved or not. Why 100 days, because in politics, that's about the honeymoon period.

I believe there is a similar such feeling or days in a new job. You are starting new, especially for recent graduates and it is a time to say a lot of "I don't know", but to learn quickly to pick up the ball. So how does someone navigate the 100 days well. I can't say for certain since I'm about to find out, but here are some tips I've been give.

1. Learn the politics in the office. Learn who is important, who is the go to guy, etc.
2. Don't be afraid to say I don't know. You aren't expected to know most of the stuff and pretending to know something when you don't is far worse because it often results in screw-ups. As for clarification.
3. Don't bite more than you can chew. I know I've fallen for this before, but as young ambitious people with limited experience, we think we know all there is to know. Experience makes a big difference in the corporate world or in management. Just because you think doing something one way is dumb or time consuming doesn't mean you need to make waves about it right away. Look, Listen, and Learn are the three big things you should be doing. Make notes about what you like and don't like, but don't jump the gun in make recommendations about organization overhaul.
4. Join every networking event you can. The more people you meet early, the better it is for you later.
5. Don't expect your boss to always know what is going on or what he is doing. Sometimes, the title doesn't always translate into more knowledge. However, that doesn't mean he isn't the boss.
6. There are times you are going to wonder why you signed up for the job in the first place. Why am I staying up at 2am doing copy and paste commands or sorting files or making copies? Any damn high school kid with half a brain could be doing this. Keep calm in those times. Remember you are just beginning and no one climbs to the top in 100 days or gets a promotion...almost no one. Those boring moments are going to mixed with moments when you feel things are flying way over your head. Keep cool in both.
7. Manage your own career. As someone has told me, a job stays with the company wherever you decide to go, but your career stays with you. So even if the task at hand is boring, make sure you are learning, constantly. That way, you build up a toolbox of skills that you can take anywhere you go.

Best luck on those start out.

Confirmation

So, it is confirmed, officially that I will be starting on July 16th with Accenture in their Palo Alto office. Most of the process of getting a new date set for orientation including location and date was pretty painless. My HR person was extremely helpful in making accommodations. Which brings me to the topic of asking.

I think as new employees, there are many things that we do not know. It is similar to being the new kid in the school playground. There are spoken and unspoken rules. The spoken rules are easy for most kids to spoke. Don't pick fights, don't do things that are stupid. But like most schools playgrounds, there are unspoken rules like where the cool kids hang out and how gets to use the basketball hoops at 3pm. To learn these unspoken rules quickly can save a person a lot of trouble.

Apply the same type of thinking to a new job and you get the idea. The spoken rules are usually common sense item. It is the unspoken one that are hard to think of. One way that I learned to spot these is to speak to ask many people as possible, and do as a good job searching about the company you are about to start with. That way, you know what you can ask your HR person and what you can't ask. It also makes your first day at work a lot easier, or at least I hope. We'll see in a few days.