Human Resources is a dynamic subject.  Federal, state, and local labor-related laws and their interpretation are continually under review.  Generally, the review process for labor laws is through the courts, which have the jurisdiction to hear and decide on these cases.

Additionally, the very nature of a business itself, relative to its size and mission, will dictate the level of Human Resource Management and the structure and application of HR Policies & Procedures.

One thing every business has in common?

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Prior to the 1960′s, we used manual systems — entirely paper-based, like ordering, purchasing, sales, and production — to run the business. Then the information age hit and technology was introduced to automate the information flow or paper shuffle (remember the dream of the “paperless office”?). Productivity increased, jobs descriptions changed, and the new technology was accepted.

Now that computer systems are ubiquitous, everyone wants access to the information they contain. People want new business reports describing new relationships, and the IT department has responded by developing more software applications for more users. Historically, the corporate IT department has reacted to demand but in today’s hypercompetitive environment, that’s not enough. IT has to anticipate!

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How many times has someone asked you to do something like “Draw up a plan for ‘X’” that you complete, only to have them say, “That’s not what I wanted!” or “That’s not how you do it!”  You might be thinking, “You didn’t tell me exactly how you wanted it done.”

If you find yourself saying “That’s not right” to your employees after the job is supposed to be complete, you have a communication problem — one that’s resulting in general inefficiency, as well as bad feelings and low morale.  Perhaps it’s time you thought about creating a Policies and Procedures Manual.

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In the first part of this article, we discussed Workplace Change and the Speed of Information. In part two, we complete our discussion with a look at information technology’s effect on Social Systems, Skills Displacement, and the Dynamics of Information Technology.

Social Systems

Questions in the information age have been surfacing, causing rifts in the social system of the organization. Changes in thought are occurring as part of the cultural transformation. Work groups are forming as workers move away from linear processing (assembly lines) and toward other models and dynamics, yet we are glued to the computer more. Social interaction as our parents and grandparents knew it is on the decline. Organizations will be forced to adopt changes in order to survive in the fast-paced information age.

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From its inception, information technology has been changing the way business is done. IT is changing the basis of business from labor and manual skills to knowledge management. The jobs required by information technology, as well as the technology itself, are changing the social system of your organization. Furthermore, information technology is key to a firm’s competitiveness — organizations that are unable to adapt to the rapid pace of technology change will not survive in the marketplace of the future.

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Are great quarterbacks born as great football players or did they have to learn how to play football?  Great players practice all week for the game on Sunday.  But what do they practice?  They are already great.  They practices plays — football procedures.

In business, employees are expected to perform their job all day long.  But how much time is allocated to practicing their job?

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Not all processes require procedure writing.  There’s a lot of overhead associated with every business procedure you write.  Therefore, the more business procedures you write, the more procedures you have to edit, implement, train, audit, and

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Project Execution, Project Monitoring & Control, and Project Review & Close

The first phase in any project management process is Project Initiation.  The second phase is Project Planning.  Together the first two phases represent the seven “Ps” of planning:

Proper Prior Planning Prevents a Pretty Poor Program.

But you are not preparing planning for planning’s sake, you need the deliverables.  The next phase – Project Execution – is the area most people spend most of their time.

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Last week, we learned about the five phases of project management.  Each phase of project management has a distinct purpose, importance, and set of outputs designed to ensure that the project manager is moving the project towards the desired results.  The first phase is Project Initiation.

Phase I – Project Initiation

The primary purpose of Project Initiation is to discover the project’s scope — where are its boundaries?  As you see in Figure 1, you need to determine and document the User Requirements & Project Assumptions, produce a Business Case Justification & Feasibility Study, and put together a Project Charter and Project Team.

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