Merits and rewards
As a logical consequence - the so-called 'cross on the T' - the accumulated wealth is to be fairly distributed amongst the teams. How does this example sound? Does this person ring a bell? Spontaneously, I was thinking of Mr. M.C., whom we all know from never-ending meetings with our process owner.
Money makes the world go round - that's not just a mere proverb but people are desperately longing for that kind of attention once in a while. On the contrary, the average co-worker has to figure out the right balance between the cash factor and the deeper intrinsic reason for his job.
Just to make sure, if money doesn't seem to be very attractive as an incentive, we might also go for a temporary job rotation model, offering you quite a new perspective of daily business:
Boss: "Dilbert, I am putting you on a rotational assignment. You will be working in marketing until further notice."
Department of Marketing: Two drinks minimum!
Another possibility of showing appropriate recognition would be providing specific business cards for the exemplary employees. That way, they can proudly present their standing whenever it's necessary:
Boss: "Ted, I am giving you a promotion in title. Now you're the senior vice duke and imperial majesty of all engineering."
Ted: "Can I have a business card?"
Boss: "No you are only a vice duke."
It might happen that a bunch of diligent team members are keen on receiving special clothes which make their appearance in the public even more significant.
Note to yourself: An obvious temporary promotion of your reputation can easily turn to the opposite causing severe trouble in the long run.
Ultimately, I'd like to share with you the issue of rewards; surprisingly even natural rewards can affect the behavior and motivation of the company's most valuable asset.
Eventually, this kind of recompense could positively influence the overall eating habits of our staff; above all, the realization of the employer's social welfare obligation is practically guaranteed.
To sum it up, I should mention some more typical amenities which have been experienced in reality:
- One classic option is the dining out principle that has been offered several times to the delight of the key users. For this purpose, indoor - as well as outdoor - convenience has been wisely chosen in order to follow the motto 'Variety is the spice of life'.
- In addition, we were invited to participate in a skittle event or also called playing ninepins. This game required a lot of physical exercise but turned out to be worthwhile in terms of excellent nutritional treatment and beneficial communication. In this way, we did in fact successfully contribute to bridge the gaps between project teams of different departments which are forced to economically intertwine sooner or later anyway.
Mission accomplished
What can be more satisfactory than exclaiming loudly "We have made it" - "We've done our share" - "We're glad that we finished".
Personal remark: Do you still recall the political success story of former president G.W. Bush when he cheekily defined his victory early 2004 on the battleship "Roosevelt"?
In my opinion, proclaiming sustainable success requires a much more solid rock of argumentation. On the other hand, you should also avoid ending up with 'flying colors'. Personally, I would have preferred a more generous frame of reference similar to the 'Gates spectacle in N.Y.C.' - That kind of professional extrinsic acknowledgement regarding this vital exultation surely would have done much good for our pleasure.
Having gone that far means to think through all steps and phases of testing again, ponder about any open issues, worry about new change requests and make sure, that each mandatory documentary prerequisite (e.g. taking care of vacation lists and/or Mercury IT contents to mention only a few superb examples) has been timely collected and transferred to the Program Management for further purposes.
Concerning an expressive 'ex-post vs. ex-ante' analysis you always need to gather the essence of the business around you; these experts will definitely give you the advice which is necessary for such a profound judgment.
Provided that the overall blessing of the company's board has been achieved you can confidently look forward to the actual date of implementation.
In the meantime, you may be invited again to a champagne reception and celebrate the status of the project together with the entire group of 'brave hearts'.
Big Bang - Reality Bites!
The time of truth has come - the clock strikes high noon and everybody is curiously waiting for the signal to start working again with the newest release package. You could almost feel the nervousness on air due to the importance of this unique occasion. There was so much tension to be perceived since the 'sword of Damocles' (also known as 'GoLife deadline') was about to determine SAP reality again.
Nevertheless, the core-team-members were asked to sacrifice one day of their beloved weekend in order to carry out the last tests of verification regarding data migration and other miscellaneous checks for the final proof.
Accidentally, the official day of realization happened to be on "Fasching" (i.e. special vacation period in Germany which is around midst of February) which was not considered a joke but caused some employees to spontaneously change their leisure intentions to be temporary available for this historical event.
But it goes without saying that everybody wanted to be there to know about the consequences of this oath of manifestation.
The Time after Tomorrow...
Now, the golden era after the costly but precious support of the consultants has come into being and it's now up to us - the key users - to show a kind of problem-solving character and keep the wheel turning.
Primarily, you might be a little bit anxious about what can really happen, won't you? I am sure the regular business case could look like this:
"Step away from that network server. I'm certified! I summon the vast power of certification! Well, that's embarrassing. That's all I remember from the classes."
I guess the reader perfectly knows what a real help desk attitude could feel like.
There are no strings attached but organizational restructuring once in a while sometimes requires new departments that are going to be your best friend in terms of finding the right solution, in particular, when you can't depend on consultants any more:
Boss: "We are going to start tracking our time spent with internal clients. I will cleverly send fake bills to other departments to show how helpful we are."
Ted: "I can't help you. I'm busy with my time sheet."
Lesson learned: Please take it for granted to co-operate professionally with your customer!
Furthermore, the situation might change forcing you to build up new teams; for this reason, you definitely need to have qualified personnel around you. However, a little rotational exercise won't do any harm to anybody although the proven philosophy of 'never change a winning team' is questioned:
Predominantly, the need for avoiding technical mistakes will be fairly great. However, due to the existence of nicely-sounding tools (e.g. HelpMatics) the workforce will be easily able to cope with that kind of inconvenience as well.
Just in case, when the daily user gets seriously lost and almost panics, there is always the possibility to touch base with our consultants from time to time.
Though, I should give you the advice to critically ask for a decent price calculation in order to prevent the company from bankruptcy in the long run.
Boss: "So you charge a fee every year even if you do nothing?
Consultant: "It takes year of training to know when to do nothing."
Boss: "I guess that makes sense."
Consultant: "Here's my bill for not removing your tonsils."
Sooner or later, there will be the last day of the consultant's presence in our company. However, this is not a reason for losing tears or being extremely sad.
I would like to reduce the final countdown to the following description that reveals reality pretty well:
Consultant: "Today is my last day. I'm saying my farewells. We've never talked, but I was working my way down the row and here you are. So let's stay in touch."
Boss: "Don't be a stranger."
As a logical consequence - the so-called 'cross on the T' - the accumulated wealth is to be fairly distributed amongst the teams. How does this example sound? Does this person ring a bell? Spontaneously, I was thinking of Mr. M.C., whom we all know from never-ending meetings with our process owner.
Money makes the world go round - that's not just a mere proverb but people are desperately longing for that kind of attention once in a while. On the contrary, the average co-worker has to figure out the right balance between the cash factor and the deeper intrinsic reason for his job.
Just to make sure, if money doesn't seem to be very attractive as an incentive, we might also go for a temporary job rotation model, offering you quite a new perspective of daily business:
Boss: "Dilbert, I am putting you on a rotational assignment. You will be working in marketing until further notice."
Department of Marketing: Two drinks minimum!
Another possibility of showing appropriate recognition would be providing specific business cards for the exemplary employees. That way, they can proudly present their standing whenever it's necessary:
Boss: "Ted, I am giving you a promotion in title. Now you're the senior vice duke and imperial majesty of all engineering."
Ted: "Can I have a business card?"
Boss: "No you are only a vice duke."
It might happen that a bunch of diligent team members are keen on receiving special clothes which make their appearance in the public even more significant.
Note to yourself: An obvious temporary promotion of your reputation can easily turn to the opposite causing severe trouble in the long run.
Ultimately, I'd like to share with you the issue of rewards; surprisingly even natural rewards can affect the behavior and motivation of the company's most valuable asset.
Eventually, this kind of recompense could positively influence the overall eating habits of our staff; above all, the realization of the employer's social welfare obligation is practically guaranteed.
To sum it up, I should mention some more typical amenities which have been experienced in reality:
- One classic option is the dining out principle that has been offered several times to the delight of the key users. For this purpose, indoor - as well as outdoor - convenience has been wisely chosen in order to follow the motto 'Variety is the spice of life'.
- In addition, we were invited to participate in a skittle event or also called playing ninepins. This game required a lot of physical exercise but turned out to be worthwhile in terms of excellent nutritional treatment and beneficial communication. In this way, we did in fact successfully contribute to bridge the gaps between project teams of different departments which are forced to economically intertwine sooner or later anyway.
Mission accomplished
What can be more satisfactory than exclaiming loudly "We have made it" - "We've done our share" - "We're glad that we finished".
Personal remark: Do you still recall the political success story of former president G.W. Bush when he cheekily defined his victory early 2004 on the battleship "Roosevelt"?
In my opinion, proclaiming sustainable success requires a much more solid rock of argumentation. On the other hand, you should also avoid ending up with 'flying colors'. Personally, I would have preferred a more generous frame of reference similar to the 'Gates spectacle in N.Y.C.' - That kind of professional extrinsic acknowledgement regarding this vital exultation surely would have done much good for our pleasure.
Having gone that far means to think through all steps and phases of testing again, ponder about any open issues, worry about new change requests and make sure, that each mandatory documentary prerequisite (e.g. taking care of vacation lists and/or Mercury IT contents to mention only a few superb examples) has been timely collected and transferred to the Program Management for further purposes.
Concerning an expressive 'ex-post vs. ex-ante' analysis you always need to gather the essence of the business around you; these experts will definitely give you the advice which is necessary for such a profound judgment.
Provided that the overall blessing of the company's board has been achieved you can confidently look forward to the actual date of implementation.
In the meantime, you may be invited again to a champagne reception and celebrate the status of the project together with the entire group of 'brave hearts'.
Big Bang - Reality Bites!
The time of truth has come - the clock strikes high noon and everybody is curiously waiting for the signal to start working again with the newest release package. You could almost feel the nervousness on air due to the importance of this unique occasion. There was so much tension to be perceived since the 'sword of Damocles' (also known as 'GoLife deadline') was about to determine SAP reality again.
Nevertheless, the core-team-members were asked to sacrifice one day of their beloved weekend in order to carry out the last tests of verification regarding data migration and other miscellaneous checks for the final proof.
Accidentally, the official day of realization happened to be on "Fasching" (i.e. special vacation period in Germany which is around midst of February) which was not considered a joke but caused some employees to spontaneously change their leisure intentions to be temporary available for this historical event.
But it goes without saying that everybody wanted to be there to know about the consequences of this oath of manifestation.
The Time after Tomorrow...
Now, the golden era after the costly but precious support of the consultants has come into being and it's now up to us - the key users - to show a kind of problem-solving character and keep the wheel turning.
Primarily, you might be a little bit anxious about what can really happen, won't you? I am sure the regular business case could look like this:
"Step away from that network server. I'm certified! I summon the vast power of certification! Well, that's embarrassing. That's all I remember from the classes."
I guess the reader perfectly knows what a real help desk attitude could feel like.
There are no strings attached but organizational restructuring once in a while sometimes requires new departments that are going to be your best friend in terms of finding the right solution, in particular, when you can't depend on consultants any more:
Boss: "We are going to start tracking our time spent with internal clients. I will cleverly send fake bills to other departments to show how helpful we are."
Ted: "I can't help you. I'm busy with my time sheet."
Lesson learned: Please take it for granted to co-operate professionally with your customer!
Furthermore, the situation might change forcing you to build up new teams; for this reason, you definitely need to have qualified personnel around you. However, a little rotational exercise won't do any harm to anybody although the proven philosophy of 'never change a winning team' is questioned:
Predominantly, the need for avoiding technical mistakes will be fairly great. However, due to the existence of nicely-sounding tools (e.g. HelpMatics) the workforce will be easily able to cope with that kind of inconvenience as well.
Just in case, when the daily user gets seriously lost and almost panics, there is always the possibility to touch base with our consultants from time to time.
Though, I should give you the advice to critically ask for a decent price calculation in order to prevent the company from bankruptcy in the long run.
Boss: "So you charge a fee every year even if you do nothing?
Consultant: "It takes year of training to know when to do nothing."
Boss: "I guess that makes sense."
Consultant: "Here's my bill for not removing your tonsils."
Sooner or later, there will be the last day of the consultant's presence in our company. However, this is not a reason for losing tears or being extremely sad.
I would like to reduce the final countdown to the following description that reveals reality pretty well:
Consultant: "Today is my last day. I'm saying my farewells. We've never talked, but I was working my way down the row and here you are. So let's stay in touch."
Boss: "Don't be a stranger."
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