Tuesday, January 22, 2019

5 Reasons How Six Sigma Green Belt Certification is Beneficial for your Career

Employers and organizations continually seek six Sigma professionals as they can bring a meaningful change. Being a quality management professional, having a six sigma green belt certification or such would increase your chances of getting hired by a company.

Do not wonder too much; if anything above doesn’t make sense to you, we will be detailing six sigma, green belt certification below for a better understanding.

What is Six Sigma?

“Six Sigma collaborates a set of tools and techniques that can be applied for better process management.”

The popular methodology of Six Sigma includes DMAIC – Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve and Control & DMADV – Define, Measure, Analyse, Design and Verify; which are employed to improve process management.

Six Sigma Green Belts are professionals who lead Six Sigma improvement project’s team as well as coordinate with team members on gathering data and validating processes.

Even though Six Sigma methods were designed initially for manufacturing processes, they can be applied in any industry to eliminate errors and maximize cost savings. Below are five reasons we want you to notice that are beneficial for you getting a six sigma green belt certification.

Benefits of Six Sigma Certification

1. Improve Business Processes by eliminating errors and defects

By identifying and eliminating errors in a project, six sigma professionals can ensure the quality of projects being handled; thus, improving business processes that impact the whole organization and be beneficial.

Six Sigma methods are always focused on minimizing errors, dubbed as defects per million opportunities (DPMO). By ensuring DPMO as low as possible, six sigma professionals can carry out projects saving cost, time and risk.

2. Ensure standard compliance and maximum utilization of resources

With Six Sigma methods applied to projects and processes, one can ensure that industry and government standards are met when handling any project. Being compliant with standard regulations saves time, reduces associated quality risks when delivering solutions for customers.

Six Sigma methods always ensure the contribution of all members is essential and focus on maximum utilization of resources cutting of extra budgeting or risk features. Also, with maximum utilization, projects are completed within budget, on time and are qualitative.

3. Take leadership roles and guide your organization

Six Sigma Professionals plan designs that carry out all the operations required for a process. As they plan out every phase, they can also take a leadership role in guiding and helping peers on how to efficiently finish the task at hand. This role is generally done by a manager but can also be allocated to a Six Sigma Professional.

Guide your organization to the roots of success by taking leadership roles, delivering at least three projects per year with efficient cost-saving.

4. Become a valuable Asset – Save Money for your organization

By applying six sigma methods, not only you do improve the process and quality management but also help your organization save money. On an average, a six sigma professional saves $200k per project annually and can take up, complete at least three projects and bring the cost savings to $600k approximately.

You can become a valuable asset by saving money for your organization with every project as well as increase customer satisfaction. Who doesn’t love saving money?

5. Competitive Salary

On an average Six Sigma Professionals are paid a sum of $90k annually according to Pay-scale. Better salaries are paid compared to quality managers who are not certified. Not only competitive wage is paid, but also huge bonuses are given annually in terms of performance at multiple organizations.

Summary

Take your career to in quality management to the next level with six sigma certification. You must look for Six Sigma Green Belt Training to start with, and understand how operations must be carried out under the supervision of a Black Belt or Master Black Belt. We wish you all the best for your journey of becoming a Six Sigma Professional.

Monday, March 19, 2018

8 Training Ideas To Refresh Your Team

Every organization understands that training is an integral part for all their work processes. It also plays a decisive role for every business. From on-board training to the new recruits to help senior team members brush up their skills, by providing trainings you are making a difference that enhances the productivity of your business.

But training programs often fail to convey the necessary information to the intended user. But why so? As they turn out to be less interactive, it becomes a daunting task for you to penetrate their minds. Thus, slowing their learning process which leads to loss of time.

On the contrary, if you compile interesting content for your training program, along with an engaging medium of delivery, audience would not feel forced to learn. Rather, they’ll enjoy their learning process till the end.

This scenario indicates that it’s time to step out of the conventional training system. Experiments are important to bring out some refreshing training ideas that help to impart knowledge to all your team members.

Training Ideas to Refresh Your Team


If you feel lost on “where to start” phase, then here are some of the many interesting approaches and methods that’ll help to provide training to your employees.

1. Cross-functional Training

Employees appointed to perform a particular function in a company, like sales or marketing or production, tend to remain in that functional area for the rest of their careers. Although, they get to interact with the upstream and/or downstream functions, they don’t get to know the work of other functional areas and the challenges faced by them.

This leads to a certain amount of hostility and lack of respect towards their team members from other functional areas. Also, one of the reasons why work gets hampered and so does a smooth team functioning.
It is a great idea to let them interact with each other. This helps each team understand the functional areas of other employees and learn the execution of complete business chain. This inculcates a feeling of mutual respect as well as aligns them with the overall vision of the company in a better way. A better way to increase productivity at workplace.

2. Peer-to-peer Training

Another great way to spice up your training programs is to let employees train each other. There are team members who have additional skill-set or attended a training program. They can prove to be beneficial for the organization and other employees by presenting their learnings to their peers through presentations or workshops. Employees would feel a greater degree of comfort in clearing their doubts from fellow colleague. In short, making the training system more efficient.

Best part, every employee can share what they are good at with the rest of their team, making it fun to learn as well as teach. Mix it up with cross-functional training and you have got the perfect recipe for a healthy team environment.

3. Excursion Activities

Despite the amount of effort you put in jazzing up your interiors, office spaces do get boring. Employees become tired of the same cubicles and cabins, and ultimately suffer from a lack of motivation that decreases their productivity.

So, trying to get them to know new stuff in the same (or similar) environment is not a brilliant idea. Take your employees out on an excursion for imparting valuable lessons through interesting team activities. There are a lot of facilitators out there to help you out in organizing such an event. Your employees would appreciate this effort, and you would be satisfied (and surprised) with how effective such outdoor learning programs can be.

4. Client Visits or Site Visits

This idea is on the lines of the previous one, but with a little less adventure. There are a lot of employees who never get to meet the clients that they are working for or the real world output that they have created. That’s why it’ll be better to take your team to meet clients or visit the site where their efforts can be seen.

For example, if you are in a construction or architectural planning business, you can take your team members to the actual site. Once they’ll look at their work and the fruits of their effort in real life will broaden their perspective and let them get a better clarity on how to improve better. If you are in the FMCG business, take them to a supermarket and explain them the dynamics of product placement. You get the idea, right?

5. Gamification

It can be considered the latest buzzword, but gamification is effective for sure. Gamification means that you make learning interesting for your employees by converting the whole learning process into a video game like premise.

eLearning software allows you to track and monitor the progress of your training programs for each employee. You can simply allocate some incentive once every level gets completed and maintain a leaderboard to motivate employees for their training sessions.

6. Quiz Contests

Another method to make learning process more interesting for your employees is to hold fun-filled event with gifts and incentives. Let’s say you want your employees to gain better usability knowledge on simple project management software. But how do you make this interesting?

Some employees might simply opt for a no obligation, free trial of the software. That’s a great way to know the features of the product better. But some try to avoid spending that much time on exploring the product.
This is where a study module will play a major role. All you need to do is pass on the module and organize a quiz contest where participants will be asked questions based on it. This works effectively for corporate policies, standard operating procedures, and others.

7. Job Shadowing

Shadows make look scary but not in case of imparting knowledge to new recruits. You can ask senior members of the team to take two to three trainees under them to help them know their job roles better. Their only job is to become a shadow of their senior and closely follow them the whole day and observe what they do.

This is one of the ways where trainees can learn the daily work nuances of a job that no classroom training can impart. Besides, it creates a strong bond among seniors and freshers.

8. Role Reversal

If you want to train junior team members to take up leadership roles, then try to go for role reversal. It will fit the bill perfectly. Switch the positions of seniors and juniors for a small period of time and let the juniors face some of the challenges and strategic decisions that seniors usually come across. It would prepare them with real life experience.

Conclusion


Employees are an important asset for any organization. That’s why, it is important that you plan on how to groom them to make them a profitable investment for the organization. But what stops you from training them? It’s simple, their lack of interest towards the traditional learning programs.

So, how do you resolve this dilemma? You need to realize at this point that traditional training methods to impart job role knowledge won’t work anymore. You need to find different training methods to groom your work force and make their contribution more profitable for all.

Methods like quiz contents, gamification, excursion activities, site visits, and others can make training periods more interesting for employees. Their productivity will also skyrocket and so will overall profits for the company. So try adopting innovative training ideas to refresh your team from time to time and you’ll notice the difference.

Author Bio: David is a technical writer, his works are regularly published in various papers and top-notch portals. His rich experience in Project management domain helps him offer latest and fresh perspective on improved efficiency in work flows across organizations. His informative works on similar lines can be reached out on ProProfs Project.

Monday, August 7, 2017

What does it really mean to be AI-powered and what can it do for Project Management?

A week does not pass without us hearing about developments or huge investments on Artificial Intelligence.The attention given to AI is remarkable, it’s like watching a baby take its first steps. We hear everything from AI-powered tools learning new tricks, developing their own language or how our future might look like with AI.
The AI hype also got everyone talking about machine learning, NLP, algorithms and concepts that before were just jargons limited to the computer science community. Now, companies and consumers from various fields are showing interest on AI and how it could be integrated more in our daily lives.
But as AI becomes more popular, many enterprises have associated the term “AI-powered” to their products or services too casually. Similar to what happened during the ‘green revolution’ when enterprises started labeling their products or services as ‘eco-friendly’, now many tech companies have somehow exploited the word ‘AI-powered’.
How to distinguish real AI from fake AI?
It is difficult to distinguish which products really utilize machine learning and AI technology from those who just tries to imitate it using smartly scripted if statements for the purpose of jumping on the bandwagon.
Here are some characteristics of an AI-powered tool:
· AI could do things proactively
The first thing that comes to people’s mind when thinking about AI is automation. But AI is more than automating tasks; it is also about the initiative. It could do things on its own without requiring a human to press a button or prompt it to do something. In what situations would it be useful in project management? The AI has the initiative to monitor the amount of time the team has been working on a task, and then uses this information to deliver status reports and overdue predictions. This requires real-time task monitoring and data analysis which is done even without being prompted by the user.
· AI is supportive
An AI-powered tool should be able to complement the efforts of its users through intelligent suggestions and recommendations. Two different users may have similar issues, but the answer isn’t always the same. By analyzing variations in work patterns, the AI will be able to explain why tasks are getting overdue, so the project manager can apply his best solutions. The AI can provide the support the project manager needs in order for him to exercise his skills in decision-making and problem solving.
· AI is smart
Any AI-powered tool is programmed to mimic how humans came up with their decisions. The AI provides what most people refer to as ‘artificial thought’ allowing the AI to solve issues on their own. The AI is given a lot of data and information and it is smart enough to classify these data to create accurate predictions and suggestions. In the case of the AI application in project management, it could analyze the team’s workload and then classify the factors affecting tasks in order to generate the probability of missed or overdue deadlines.
· AI continues to learn
Although it’s already smart, a real AI continues to absorb information from its users so the longer a person uses the AI, the more it becomes competent in analyzing data and recommending solutions. Machine learning also allows the AI to manage tendencies by drawing data from the past to determine what you might do next. The more data it analyzes, the more refined and accurate its answers will become in the future.
What it takes to be AI-powered?
There are endless possibilities on what AI can do and tech companies know that. The AI hype, however, is a double-edged sword. It has brought more attention to AI resulting in more investments and further development. But, it also attracted enterprises and vendors to identify themselves as AI-powered even though they are not or they don’t need to be. In the end, the real measure of an AI-powered tool is its maximization and functionality like how the AI is programmed to bring more value to the product or service and help its end users.
KnightSpear is an AI-powered project management system which leverages Machine Learning AI to automate task monitoring and analyze performance data and work patterns in order to support project managers in decision making and problem solving. The AI Work Coach, Isabella, predicts task overdue and makes recommendations on how to avoid delivery problems before they happen. For more information about KnightSpear’s AI work coach visit the website https://www.knightspear.com/
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Tuesday, July 11, 2017

You’ll be blown away with these 12 cool things you can do with KnightSpear which you may not find on your current productivity app.


Productivity apps are not created equal. There are always three or four things that differentiate one from the other, but 12?  That’s definitely overkill.

We put together a list of things you could be missing out on your current app, although, they might be copying these features in the next months. Here are the 12 things to prove that KnightSpear is seriously slaying project management.

Get assisted with your Personal AI Work Coach
KnightSpear uses the latest technology to give you access to your own AI-enabled work coach. Isabella, will help you get familiar with KnightSpear’s features and remind you of your overdue tasks and hanging messages or critical events which you may have missed. She has machine learning capabilities to predict probability of overdues and analyze performance behaviors of team members so you can properly motivate everyone to deliver results.


Overdue alerts
Existing project management apps lets you set a due date but may not be able alert you when tasks become overdue. KnightSpear, on the other hand, emphasizes deadlines and highlights overdue tasks. While current tasks are green, overdue tasks turn gray like an eyesore on your green lawn so you are constantly reminded of the tasks you need finish right away.

“Nudge”, “jab” and “stab” people if needed
We don’t suggest violence to get things done. You can click the “Nudge” button on a task to get the attention of the assignee or any user to focus on the task. Clicking it for the second time turns a slight “nudge” into a “jab” and it elevates to a “stab” for the next clicks. On KnightSpear, someone can get stabbed again and again when they don’t pay attention.
 


Real-time notifications
Are you relying exclusively on good ol’ emails for notifications? Logging in to your email and switching back and forth to your app can be a hassle. KnightSpear gets you notified in-app, on your browser tab, on your desktop pop-up, and also on your email. So you are notified even when you’re away from the app or if you’re unable to open your email at the moment.

Alerts on critical notifications
Critical events can’t be treated like anything ordinary. You could have a showstopper task or an immediate request from a client and you want to be all eyes and ears on its progress. Only KnightSpear isolates your critical notifications so important events don’t get drowned out by least important updates and you can act and respond to it right away.

Search multiple sources in one click
If you’re looking for something and you’re not sure where to find it from your scattered app databases, then it’s a total headache. Don’t you wish you only have to enter one keyword and all results from tasks, comments, files and messages would show? That’s how you will be searching on KnightSpear, so you can easily find what you’re looking for in seconds.


Choose your preferred view
Spreadsheet gives you an overview of your project while Scrum board makes it easy to move around tasks from one status to another. You don’t have to get stuck in one viewing format for your project when you can go for whatever format that suits your preference. KnightSpear lets you view your tasks on multiple formats so you can have the flexibility you need to manage your work.

Set multiple filter conditions and save them
Just any app will let you sort through your assigned and reported tasks but only KnightSpear provides multiple filter conditions; from different assignee, status, priority, labels and more so you can keep track of any tasks you want. Plus, you can save your conditions and get back to your filtered list anytime.

Jump straight to discussions from a task
Using a separate communication tool is not really a problem unless you need to discuss your tasks a lot, so you have to open a group chat every time you need to discuss. KnightSpear has a built-in chat which makes it easy to start a discussion from a task and add the team members involved. You don’t have to log in to multiple apps when your work management app and chat platform is combined into one.
 


Spot points for modification
KnightSpear has an image annotation feature so you can add spots for changes on an image. This simplifies editing process for screenshots of websites, mobile and web apps where you can add your comments directly to the image for the front-end developers to apply the modifications accurately.

Organizing files into versions
Are you seeing a bunch of duplicated files attached and can’t identify which ones are the most recent? KnightSpear has version control feature so files with the same filename and extension are compiled into versions. You can easily identify which ones are revised and still be able to access the older versions and download them.

Get Socially Productive
KnightSpear has tapped on the addiction brought by social apps to bring teams closer and get them motivated to regularly use the app and update their tasks. With the Social Feeds feature, team members can share announcements, links and upload images or video for the entire team to see. Teams can also ‘react’ or comment using stickers and emojis.

KnightSpear is an advocate of extreme productivity. Not by enslaving people and asking them to put in more hours than required but by working smarter and automating mundane tasks so they can focus on bigger, more significant tasks. We have put together the must-have features an IT team would require in their operations so they can be more productive and deliver their project to production on time. 

Visit KnightSpear's website at www.knightspear.com for more information

Thursday, December 10, 2015

7 Major Myths Business Organizations Believe When It Comes To Procure To Pay Software


Cutting down the major costs and driving drown to the supplier margins is what organizations have been expecting in terms of procure to pay software. And though the organizations have realized that procurement function is capable of doing much more than what is generally expected, it is still considered to be a strategy of marketing sales or finance. Given below are the 7 major myths business organizations generally believe when it comes to procure to pay software ensuring that procurement has always languished on the backbench of the organizational importance.
Procure to pay software helps in controlling the expenses and that their job but not a contributing strategy: We all have heard this before. When it comes to procure to pay software the procurement responsibilities are completely transactional, where you need to handle the requisitions, managing the on time deliveries of the requirements at the right place and at the right time. But when it comes to strategic decision making procurement strategy there has been no expertise that would help you contribute. Organizations who believe this should probably take a step towards the dark ages into the 21st century.
Individuals related to procure to pay software just get in the way and complicate things: Individuals related to procure to pay software make things happen in the right way and the right resource. This again takes a huge effort to upfront, and should be seen as an opportunity that would help you get things right. Complications would here continue to arise due to lack of consideration but again is not the case of procurement.
Direct procurement functions cannot be outsourced: While the major functions such as the vendor spend management and vendor relationship management are the two important things that need to stay with the customer organization, many number of other procurement activities to this have been deployed and outsourced. Functions like demand planning and forecasting, commodity price tracking, transactional purchasing and many more have been outsourced over the years.
Procure to pay software is nothing more than glorified outsourcing: Procure to pay software here generally means considering different options, and looking out for opportunities that would not just allow you think creatively but also forge in a new and better manner. Outsourcing here is considered to be a potential strategy that has its own appropriate uses and is not the only option available that is put to place.
Procurement recruits need to be good in numbers in order to manage the costs: Different kind of traits have been put forward when the requirements for all the procurement professionals are put forward during the job searches. Say for example when it comes to analytical he needs to be good in numbers and has to be a tough negotiator. And as mentioned above the role of procurement was logistical, clerical, with the only aim of getting the best cost saving and these traits would definitely do. The need here for now is for a new breed of having good procurement professionals.
Procure to pay software leads to the loss of control in strategy and processes: When it comes to procure to pay software, the procurement vendors are the one who are well integrated and act as a virtual extension of all the customer procurement functions starting from the adoption of strategic goals to the operational culture. The customer would then here continue to exercise his control over the different aspects of procurement function with the vendor.
They always run behind saving costs but forget considering the business they have been doing: Cost is a major factor when it comes to procure to pay software and is something that could be considered to be more than a dollar value. Procurement is considered to be good when it highlights the different perspectives and the cost benefits from the business decisions, with savings being one tangible outcome from looking at the situations in a different manner.
These were just a few but there are a lot more to go. So what are the other myths you would like to add when it comes to procure to pay software? How have you been dealing with them? Do leave your thoughts and comments below and we would be happy to add them to the list above.

Author Bio:


Shivli Ratul is a freelancer and has experience of over 5 years in expense and travel management softwares.She has in-depth knowledge about managing travel and different type of expenses incurred in business.she writes about Procure to pay software as a freelancer

Saturday, February 28, 2015

PM Building Relationships: RESPECT

Mutual respect is one of the hallmarks of a successful relationship. To gain respect in a business environment, it is important that the two groups understand each other’s roles and responsibilities. One way of developing this understanding is to have members of the two groups work closely together. Depending on the nature of the project, the project team may benefit from having someone serve a “tour of duty” in the customer’s department. By functioning as a member of the department for a few weeks, the “tourist” will learn how the customers work and—just as importantly—why they do things the way they do. This can be invaluable, particularly when the project involves reengineering the customer’s procedures.

Although it is less common for customers to serve a tour of duty, they can benefit from a briefing on the team’s organization and the tasks that are involved in completing the project. Without that, they have no way of understanding the complexities of the typical project and may become frustrated with the length of time required to complete what they believe to be a simple task. 

Differences Between Staff Augmentation And Outsourcing

Characteristic

Staff Augmentation

Outsourcing

Company contracts for

Individual contractor’s work

Predefined service or product

Selection of staff to perform work


Company’s (company staff interviews prospective contractors)

Outsourcer

Day-to-day direction of staff provided by

Company

Outsourcer

Pricing

Time and materials; hourly rate or per diem

Fixed price, typically payable monthly or on completion of specific deliverables

Location of staff

Company site

Either company or outsourcer’s site

Co-employment concerns

Possible, if lengthy assignment

None

Measure of success

Individual tasks

Deliverables

Key to success

Individual contractor

Outsourcer