The top 10 twitter profiles, I follow everyday

[caption id="attachment_847" align="aligncenter" width="432"] Top 10 Twitter Profiles, I follow[/caption]

Hi everyone! Are you using twitter? Are you tweeting every day? That’s great. But are your spending some quality time to read tweets from others? Well, you should do.

I read tweets from others using tweet deck in my smartphone. I can add important profiles and save some keywords search queries for anytime reference – it is a fantastic smartphone utility app for twitter particularly.

Here, I would like to share the top 10 twitter profiles I follow and read every day – I am sure, some of you are already following these people, but for others – I recommend, please follow them for regular updates. Their tweets are really impressive, informative and motivational.

1#. Robin Sharma: @_robin_sharma : Global Nomad+Author of the #1 bestseller The #Leader Who Had No Title.

2#. Guy Kawasaki : @GuyKawasaki :Author of APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur. Former chief evangelist of Apple.

3#. Eugene Kaspersky : @e_kaspersky : Chairman and CEO of #Kaspersky Lab.

4#. Tim O'Reilly : @timoreilly : Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media.

5#. Robert Clay : @marketingwizdom : INTJ Entrepreneur; strategist; author; speaker and business mentor to aspiring market leaders.

6#. Pam Moore : @PamMktgNut : 50% mktg, 50% geek, CEO entrepreneur, social brand strategist, speaker, author.

7#. Kareem Shaker : @kareemshaker : Blogger, Geek, Project & Program Management Professional, Social Media Fan, Leadership Evangelist, a Theory Y Manager & Dreaming of a Better World!

8#. Avinash Kaushik : @avinash  : Author, Web Analytics 2.0 & Web Analytics: An Hour A Day | Digital Marketing Evangelist, Google | Co-Founder, Market Motive

9#. Ilya Pozin : @ilyaNeverSleeps : Founder of Ciplex. Columnist for Inc, Forbes & LinkedIn. Gadget lover, investor, mentor, husband, father, and '30 Under 30' entrepreneur.

10#. Paul Isakson : @paulisakson : Creative/strategist making things that matter. Interested in #Creativity, #Culture, #Technology and #Business. Especially where they intersect.

So that’s the first cut list – there are more in fact. Share from your following list, it can be useful to others too. And yes, my twitter ID is @gvmuthu FYI.

Have a great day friends.

6 success tips for business from your websites

[caption id="attachment_813" align="aligncenter" width="432"] 6 success tips for business from your websites[/caption]

The first thing is – a happy birthday to Internet. Yes, today is the 30^th birthday for Internet.

Internet Websites are an essential element for modern business days. It can be a personal, organization, product specific or sometimes service specific. A website is not just HTML information on internet, but it is a brand value of you / your company or your product / service. Many websites even act as online sales points through its e-commerce channels. A strategic report from investornews, pcworld and hubspot says that approx 571 new websites are created every minute throughout the world around us.

Well, do you have your website for personal brand promotion or to promote the brand value of your organization?  How do you reach international customers to create an awareness of your product /service? In my study, many non-IT Smallbiz and enterprises are having websites but those are just HTML pages. I see this scenario in many IT startups too.  The point is the website is live, but it is not active to its audience. It always provides some static information from their business catalogs, and images from their photo gallery.

4^th Week of Dec 2012 - I participated in a group discussion with Smallbiz owners. Some of them are from IT startups too. I presented a strategy model for them to create / improve their websites and active information management. The goal of the strategy is to increase the brand value and improve the business transactions through their website. I would like to share some of the important points from our discussion here.

#1: Simple Website: The website should be simple. It means it should be understandable to any kind of visitor. Simple navigations, and easily understandable icons / photos / information diagrams can increase the readability of content. Use Color wheel theories to understand the minimal usage of colors, and site-map model to build navigations. The content should be updated regularly.

#2: Fast Loading: The fast loading website gets more attention from users. I always suggest avoiding flash and shockwave content in business websites. It is required only in specific sections for example:  a workflow demo of your ERP product. JQuery is good for simple web slideshows, photo galleries and UI designs. JQuery loads fast, provides impressive results with its new versions now days. Similarly HTML5, AJAX and other JavaScript frameworks helps improving performance of websites.

#3: Understand your visitors: Analytics is the best way, to do a reach on visitors and their actions. Google Analytics is the free one available, but there are many paid analytics systems to help us – some of them are not costly. Every website should be connected with an analytics engine to capture visitor activities. It required very less programming knowledge to integrate an analytics engine, but to evaluate the results from analytics engine, you need a strategist. A strategist can guide you about content planning, goal setting, bounce rate management and visitor count management.

#4: Connect with World: Social Media is an active marketing space in India from 2010 – but very fewer companies are utilizing it for business brand promotions. Facebook, YouTube and Blogs should be connected with your website to create more visibility. The URL of the website should be promoted though Social Media channels with every post and campaign.  Create engagement programs through social media and guide the users to website for more details: for example – to download an eBook or watch a video. Search Engine Promotions are also required – you can use free plug-ins available to download. A strategist can help you to build promotion strategies and insights analytics.

#5: Think about Mobile: Approx 30%* of visitors use their mobile devices/smartphone to browse internet now days. If your website is not responsive, it may not show content in expected way. Make sure, the website works for all required mobile device resolutions, and changes its shape accordingly. There are many free validation tools available to test the website with various resolutions. The alternative idea is to create a sub-domain for mobile users [m.yoursite.com] and redirect them to it via a small code script. Mobile website development needs some frameworks to build fast loading and content delivery – for example Wordpress for Mobile-sites. A strategist can help you to build technically qualified mobile version of website.

#6: Build a small web-store: E-commerce is for selling products / services online. But a web store can provide something even for free [for example: EBooks, PPT, PDF files etc]. Let the content be relevant to your products / services [example: manuals, learning books etc]. It creates a reason for visitors to increase their frequency every time. Talk about your updates in social channels to improve awareness. Take the suggestions from a strategist for more ideas.

I hope the above mentioned points are useful to you too. If you have questions and suggestions – please communicate with me.

Professional Certificates and Career – How to Plan

[caption id="attachment_772" align="aligncenter" width="432" caption="Professional Certifications"][/caption]

Professional Certificates are keys for your Career growth in any industry. A certificate confirms your professional knowledge to your organization, clients and opportunities. In a recent discussion with group of students and professionals from various businesses, for a social media purpose – we discussed about this topic elaborately. I experienced that, many of them were not having information and plan regarding which professional certificates are suitable for their career growth. Here, I am sharing a quick plan for my readers.

The Plan: It works well with a blank white paper and pen.

• Make a Quick note about you and your current career. Add points about what is your career plan for next 3 years.


• Choose the right professional certification suitable for your career plan.


• Discuss with your mentor, and with the organization which provides the certificate to understand about the possibilities of growth with this certification. [Try to get information about alternatives too]


• Schedule for preparation and follow it. Preparation is not just paid class-room sessions. Learn from Internet, Books, Magazines, Social Media and Friends. Read Case Studies, Articles, Q&A if required. Work-out Templates with real-time data if possible. Ask questions.


• Go for the Professional Certification and earn it.


• Update your Profile, and promote yourself in Social Media and Friends Circle.


• Don’t stop learning – Continues learning helps you keep fit for future. Share your knowledge as articles, Tweets, Social Media Posts with friends and community.


• Build best practices inside your organization with earned knowledge.

All the best..!!

Coming Soon: Information about Professional certificates for various IT Careers in my future posts

Top 12 Knowledge Requirements for 2012

[caption id="attachment_728" align="aligncenter" width="432" caption="Top 12 Knowledge Requirements for 2012"][/caption]

2011 gave a very powerful positive impact on specialized business life for Social Media and Smart Phone Professionals - many new Gadgets, Applications, Job Profiles, Start-ups and Success Stories.

2012 – Definitely, is coming with lot more new opportunities for IT communities.

Well, what is essential for your success in 2012 – Let’s take a quick look on top knowledge requirements.

• Mobile Application Programming – It is not just Android, Windows Phone and IOS Programming. Look into HTML5, CSS3, Advance Java-script, JSON, JQuery and PHP. Mobile WEB Frameworks are going to be an excellent option for “Develop Once-Deploy to All” Concept.


• Customized Agile Project Management – Agile is still not professionally implemented in many organizations. Most of the Small and Medium size companies are using it as simplified version of traditional project management – but in the name of Agile. Certified Scrum Master and Agile Scrum Trainings for your Project Team are essential for a success with quality.


• Location Based Services – There are very few applications with Location based Content Identification as a feature and most of them are just social and Infotainment. There are lot more requirements which can be fulfilled with LBS – for Example: Tourism, Education etc.


• Data Center / Networking Technologies- The demand for networking professionals is high with virtualization and cloud computing projects. Virtualization and the Cloud could also be behind the increased need for IT professionals with backgrounds in data center operations and systems integration.


• Smartphone Security – Smartphones are becoming part of corporate network elements now days and security for official and personal data becomes major question. Data Security Applications, Anti-virus Tools, Remote Content Management, Policies for using Smartphones are high in requirement.


• User Interface Design – UI Design and Development is an important presentation layer element, which decides the success of many Smartphone and Tablets apps, and also PC and WEB Apps. There are certification course available to educate you about best practices and standards and it is a hot item in job market too.


• Mobile Commerce / Payment – Smartphones and Feature phones are fully capable for Money Management now days with Applications from various vendors. There were few banking apps, mobile malls and payment apps showed success stories last year, and I am expecting more to come in 2012.


•  Context Aware Applications – A new technology provides improved user experiences by using the information about a person's interests, intentions, history, environment, activities, schedule, priorities, connections and preferences to anticipate their needs and proactively serve up the most appropriate content, product or service.


• Gaming Smartphones, Devices – estimated to $800 million business, it provides numerous opportunities for business owners and technical professionals.


• Help Desk/Technical Support–Mobile operating systems have added a new dimension to help desk and tech support community and this will improve a lot in future.


• Business Intelligence – from Cost saving to investing in Technology, I am expecting many new prospects with BI.  There are certifications, Business Analysis best practices to improve it.


• Life with Open Source – Open source is not just limited to PHP and MYSQL, but there are more useful, free to use, efficient platforms for developers, designers, project managers, analysts, testers, business owners and general IT end-users.

I wish you all the best in this New Year 2012 for many new success stories, career improvements and business values.

How to Promote HR in Social Media Marketing

[caption id="attachment_677" align="aligncenter" width="432" caption="HR in Social Media Networks"][/caption]

Human Resource is a business area, which always needs continuities interactions with individual candidates, groups, communities and Small/Medium/Corporate groups. The style of communication in various channels decides the greatest number in its business growth. Recently, I met a Client, who works for a renowned HR unit at Bangalore, for HR Portal Development and Social Media Strategy support services. Our meeting touched various success points as goals and strategy plans, in-fact I learned few ideas from him. I am sharing few simple ideas here, for any Human resource development businesses – which are into hiring, training, resource development, placements and management.

• Publish the available opportunities as small text notes in facebook, twitter, likedin and other common social networks. People need information about opportunities to get prepared for the same.


• Publish small notes about the current and future opportunity market trends, required technologies, knowledge base for opportunities. For example: Candidates should know that Java is still a major requirement for Mobile apps, and PHP plays a major role in Mobi Web Development. HTML5 is emerging as a next generation trend technology.


• Write and Post Human resource related articles in Social Networks with your Brand name. Educate the users about ethics, work cultures, Work – Life Balance and even personal finance management. These support areas are required for a healthy human resource management


• Create discussions on common interview questions and monitor how the attitude is changing with current scenarios.


• Ask Questions, Create Polls and Share them – let people participate and it helps for create a knowledge-base community

Our team of professionals, work for the above mentioned activities in content development and content presentations. The core idea is to create a community, where knowledge and professional values are connected together as growth.

How to create awareness on securing smart phones?

Smartphone is not just a next generation fancy device anymore. It is becoming an unavoidable gadget for most of the IT and non-IT employees. Just check around you – How many friends in your office are using Smartphone? Based on my experiences, I see almost 40% to 60% of IT staffs are using Smartphone. Yes, the non-IT industry is also having Smartphone impact – I see at-least 30% to 45% users.

The challenge is – most of the Smartphone users are unaware of its security risks. So, my question is – are you taking any steps to create an awareness on securing smart phones! Yes, it is required – not only for personal security purposes, but also for corporate IT information security purposes too.

I recommend the following simple activities to create a basic awareness on securing Smartphone devices.

1. Create Simple Posters about known smartphone security challenges and stick them around work places

2. Educate about secured Bluetooth usage and keeping Bluetooth off – while not in use.

3. Create small Case-Stories and publish them in official emails / Official social networks.

4. Guide a session on insecure Wi-Fi networks, and security challenges in using such networks.

5. Call for a Security weekend Day – to make them present their security tips for public interest.

I suggested these activities to my clients – many are following it and seeing some good improvements. I would like to listen in your experiences.

Have a nice day.

Share your experiences with Android Platform...

You recently moved from Blackberry / Symbian / Windows Phone (6 or 6.5) to Android Mobile Device? Please share your experience..![caption id="attachment_589" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="android"][/caption]

Career opportunities in Social Media Marketing

Every day is a new day, and every day opens new doors for opportunities – Not just for fresher, but also for experienced professionals. Social Media Marketing is another new door – come let’s see what kind of opportunities are there and what skills we need to get that…

UX Developer/Designer

• You need some hands on experience with XHTML, CSS, HTML5


• Ajax, Javascript, Jquery


• Prototyping skills, platform specific UX knowledge (Iphone, Android etc), PHP, MYSQL

Social Media Specialist

• Knowledge in creating social media content – Text, Pictures, Polls etc


• creativity and documented immersion in social media, including viral marketing campaigns


• Familiarity with website content management systems and professional graphics software.


• Excellent written and oral communication skills and success in presenting information/data.

Social Game Designer

• Experience in game and entertainment content of Social Media


• Knowledge in PC game development – with Flash


• Logical Thinking &  Creative mind


• Action scripting, PHP, MYSQL programming

Social Media Account Manager

• Updating Client's social media accounts with meaningful content to effectively engage audience.


• Weekly companywide social media tips and updates


• Monitor client’s brands and campaigns.


• Administration and moderation of multiple client social media accounts


• Building client social media accounts and pages


• Development and implementation of Facebook and Twitter promotions


• Conceptualization and project coordination of mobile applications and mobile optimized sites


• Coordination and development of custom Facebook content


• Project management, including managing contracts, budgets, project schedules, vendors, and staff

Social Media Strategist

• Ability to develop best practices and policies regarding use of various digital media


• Recommend and deploy an appropriate mix of communications strategies and approaches as they relate to websites, mobile technology, blogs, social media networks, social bookmarking, discussion groups and forums, to drive brand awareness and engagement.


• Facilitate ways to measure, test and optimize platforms, leveraging tools that will aid in driving programs


• Three to five years experience in a digital marketing role at a digital marketing/development, advertising or public relations firm preferred

Are you guys ready for these opportunities – why waiting, Just update your resume and try the new world… !!

Wordpress Blogs on the go…

Are you traveling without computer access, and you want to post a blog entry? Are you using a mobile phone with internet access – here you got an interesting utility for mobile devices – “Wordpress Mobile Apps”.

Wordpress for Mobile is available for all flavors –including iOS, Windows Phone 7, Andriod, Blackberry and Nokia. You have to simply download and install using appropriate stores.

URL : http://wordpress.org/extend/mobile/

You can create blog entries, edit, delete, approve or reject comments, do some administration and also can upload and share media components from your mobile [based on your network capacity].

I downloaded and installed for Nokia platform, wordmobi – works on python + pips framework.

Try it and share your views.

Sustainable Innovations

Early this week, I got an opportunity to attend a workshop on Sustainable Innovation – presented by Dr. Kumar S. Nochur (Ph.D, MIT’s Sloan School of Management, USA), President, Vidya Technologies Inc., - a Boston area management consulting firm. It was organized by Amrita School of Business, Coimbatore.

The workshop provided an excellent insight on Innovations and how to build a process for innovations. Basically from an Idea to Success. Kumar presented some very valuable business philosophies on Innovations and its process, stakeholders through various real-time examples including his experiences with 3M and other companies. Yes, it finally went into – ROI – How to increase your return of innovations…

I personally learned some real interesting business model system around innovations in industry, which includes handling stakeholders – investors, intermediates, influencers, customers/end users, and competitors. He also discussed about need and priority analysis, proactive and skillful management if key stakeholders, values and risks in innovations, positive relationships, what stops innovations in industries etc.

Kumar gave couple of workshop exercises – based on the personalized idea to success on everyone’s mind – which is a personalized innovation for their life. I wrote about enterprise mobile solutions – even though it is not an innovation – but an idea which can change the way of management in many industries.

I have to thank Vasudevan Uppili [CEO, Haritham Technologies] for this interesting opportunity. Now I am working on 5 critical roles kumar suggested in his workshop – for innovation success. I think I can fit into the role of creative thinker and champion to make it success.

Good things are happening… Happy to work on these kind of projects…:)

Facebook Desktop Chat

Ever tried to Connect Facebook Chat with your Desktop Chat Client - here is the easy way..

I am using Pidgin 2.6.2 as my Desktop Chat client - where I configured multiple Yahoo Accounts, MSN Accounts and Gtalk Accounts. Now, Let me show you how I configured Facebook Chat ..

Start your instant message program and locate the menu where you can add a new account (usually in preferences or settings).

Create a new account by entering the following info:

Protocol: XMPP or Jabber

Username: [your username]

Domain: chat.facebook.com

Jabber ID: [username]@chat.facebook.com

Password: <your Facebook password>

Enter the following server info, as requested:

Port: 5222

Server: chat.facebook.com

Use SSL/TLS: no

Allow plaintext authentication: no

Facebook + SKYPE = Facebook Video Call

Facebook comes with Video Call - Facebook + Skype.

Just click the call button at the top of your friend's profile or chat window — no need to launch new software.

You can also leave a Video Message. :-)

Social Media – Customer Service

Couple of weeks before I participated in an online group discussion on Social media based customer service management. Many organizations starts with social media in its marketing and communications, and as they began monitoring for brand mentions, they quickly discover they were intermediaries between the customer and the customer service department.
They are the most qualified to respond via social media, as they are the ones responding by phone and email.

There are few interesting things I noted in the overall discussion.

1. The person monitoring for mentions, whether they are in corporate communications or customer service, needs to know what to do with customer service requests when they find them. Make sure you have set internal expectations for response time.

2. If you already have established customer service response times, develop a social media response times too that fits within the culture of your organization. Make sure it is something that you can meet, because you want to post this publicly and set customer’s expectations for the response.

3. While customer service reps have always been on the front lines representing the company, if they will now be responding using social media, they need to understand the etiquette of the platforms. Some people can get a bit snarky when posting on social networks, and some of that grows out of the informal nature of the conversations. Informal or slightly fun is okay in your responses, however, they also need to be serious.

4. Your customer service reps can tell you the 10 most common questions asked by customers and prospects. Write a blog post for each one of them and use keywords in the titles so people can find them using search. This is the inbound marketing approach to customer service.

5. Simple responses to common questions can, and should, happen publicly. But real issues that require research or detailed conversations need to move offline. As soon as an issue is identified in this category, respond publicly with an email address or a request to send contact information via Twitter Direct Message. Other people following your company need to see a response, and the customer with an issue may require a response that is longer, and not appropriate for public channels. Frequently, customers who have raised issues using social media will post a positive comment once the issue is resolved. The ongoing perception that your company cares about its customers and wants to solve customer issues is important. If this is not true, using social media will be a challenge.

3 Gifts from my CSC Team

As many of you already know, I am not in my responsibilities of Photon and CSC Roles from Feb 4 2011. I resigned from Enterprise project management Office role, and now looking for opportunities in Delivery Management and Operations - also supporting to few SMEs as Consultant. My CSC Friends gave me a good party and few good books too – as a gift. Thanks to Neel, Veera, Shajahan, Sambit, Anthony, Kumbesh, Elumalai, selva and others.

I am yet to read these books but I am happy to share its titles to everyone.

1. JACK – straight from the gut – This book is written by Jack Welch. As CEO of General Electric for the past twenty years, he has built its market cap by over $500 billion and established himself as the most admired business leader in the world. His championing of initiatives like Six Sigma quality, globalization, and e-business have helped define the modern corporation. At the same time, he's a gutsy boss who has forged a unique philosophy and an operating system that relies on a "boundaryless" sharing of ideas, an intense focus on people, and an informal, give-and-take style that makes bureaucracy the enemy. This book is laced with refreshing interludes, such as "A Short Reflection on Golf," that capture Jack's competitiveness and the importance of friendship in his life. JACK: STRAIGHT FROM THE GUT is destined to become both a business classic and a deeply personal journey filled with passion and a sheer lust for life.

2. The Management Gurus – Lessons from the best management books of all time – Chris Lauer - Insightful summaries of fifteen outstanding management books.

3. The New age of Innovation – C.K. Prahalad, M.S. Krishnan - Named one of the "Best Books on Innovation, 2008" by "BusinessWeek" magazine. From the greatest minds in business today comes a groundbreaking new blueprint for executing the next stage of customer-created value. C.K. Prahalad, the world's premier business thinker, and IT scholar M.S. Krishnan unveil the critical missing link in connecting strategy to execution--building organizational capabilities that allow companies to achieve and sustain continuous change and innovation.

Once again, Thanks to everyone. All the best for a great time.

American Society for the Advancement of Project Management (ASAPM)

While discussing about the ethics in Project management through Facebook – one of my friends shared the below listed interesting information - I am just sharing the same for your views.

We, the members of asapm, in recognition of our personal obligation to our profession, to its members, and to the communities we serve, do hereby commit ourselves to the highest ethical and professional conduct and agree:

To maintain high standards of integrity and professional conduct, and to accept responsibility for our actions.

To avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest whenever possible, and to disclose them to affected parties when they do exist.

To be honest in representing our project management capability, and realistic in the application of project management.

To reject bribery in the conduct of our professional responsibilities.

To improve and promote the understanding of project management, of its appropriate application, and of its potential consequences.

To maintain and improve our project management capability.

To seek, accept, and offer honest criticism for the purpose of enhancing the project management body of work, and to credit properly the contributions of others.

To treat all persons fairly regardless of their race, religion, gender, disability, age, national origin, or other differences.

To avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by false or misleading words or action.

To assist colleagues and coworkers in their professional development and to support them in following this code of ethics.

Management Magazine Websites

In today’s world, the knowledge is the key. Knowledge comes not only through own experiences but also from continuous reading – Yes, I mean Magazines. Magazines will help us to understand the current trends, market and business strategies, views and focus points etc. Many of us are not reading even news paper now days – we all watch it in TV. But reading is a good habit per me. At least – 30 mins of reading can give a message / idea / or solution even. Fine, let me introduce few online magazines – for business managers. Try to visit these websites at least once in a week – or get the RSS feeds.

- Perdido - Features articles, profiles of organizations and their programs, and book reviews in the fields of leadership, human relations, and management

- Selling Power - Magazine for professional selling skills, motivation and sales management know-how in the business- to-business environment.

- strategy+business - Delivers penetrating insights and practical guidance about management, innovation, public policy, strategy, and more.

- Workforce Management - Provides information on employment law, human resource development and human resource management.

- Chief Executive - Magazine written for CEOs and their peers. Provides ideas, strategies and tactics for top executive leaders seeking to build more effective organizations.

Mobile Applications for Twitter

Hi Friends, try these mobile applications – these are really interesting for those who use twitter for personal and professional micro blogging, business management and of course project management.

- Twitter Answers – Enables you to Tweet answers and get responses. Like Yahoo Answers for Twitter.
- Twitter2Go – WAP or XHTML-MP interface that works on Palm, Pocket PC, BlackBerry, and almost any other mobile phone or PDA device.
- Twitterpation – An iPhone application that lets you record mixed voice-and-text Tweets

Best Sellers in Management shelf

Recently one of friend introduced me the store manager of landmark at Chennai. We discussed a lot about the change in reading habits of people now days, the growth of new age Indian writers, book exhibitions, and the type of books they sell in recently business scenarios.

I saw these books on stand – and found that these are the best sellers now days.
- Leadership @ Infosys by Matthew Barney
- Destination Work : Getting People Excited About Coming To Work And Working Hard by Harry Paul, Ross Reck
- Being The Boss : The 3 Imperatives For Becoming A Great Leader by Linda A. Hill, Kent Lineback
- Employees First, Customers Second: Turning Conventional Management Upside Down by Vineet Nayar
- Marketing 3. 0: From Products To Customers To The Human Spirit by Philip Kotler
- TEN MUCH- Ten Ordinary Processes For Extraordinary Success by A. G. Krishnamurthy
- The Maruti Story by R C Bhargava

Friends, Try these books and let me know your comments.

The New Manager’s Handbook

The New Manager’s Handbook [24 Lessons for Mastering your new role] by Morey Stettner is a small, but an excellent guide for Professional education. There are 24 quick chapters with great practical examples and simple ‘How to handle’ steps for success. I received this book as a gift from one my managers, when I accepted my promotion in his team. I am getting some good time now days to read all these, once again.

Decision Making – Guidelines from Managers

Decision making is a fundamental quality for any manager now days. Every manager and his management method is different, including their decision making style. Each person is a result of all of the decisions made in their life to date. I would like to share some observations from the managers, I met in various workplaces.

When making a decision you are simply choosing from among alternatives. You are not making a choice between right and wrong.

Choosing the right alternative at the wrong time is not any better than the wrong alternative at the right time, so make the decision while you still have time.

Do not make decisions that are not yours to make.

Do your decision making on paper. Make notes and keep your ideas visible so you can consider all the relevant information in making this decision.

Make decisions as you go along. Do not let them accumulate. A backlog of many little decisions could be harder to deal with than one big and complex decision.

Write down the pros and cons of a line of action. It clarifies your thinking and makes for a better decision.

It has been said that a decision should always be made at the lowest possible level and as close to the scene of action as possible. However, a decision should always be made at a level insuring that all activities and objectives affected are fully considered. The first rule tells us how far down a decision should be made. The second how far down it can be made.

As part of your decision making process, always consider how the decision is to be implemented.

Brainstorming alternative solutions with your staff or others will gain fresh ideas and commitment.

Before implementing what appears to be the best choice, assess the risk by asking "What can I think of that might go wrong with this alternative ?"

share your methods..!! Lets discuss more..