As much as we listen to our customers, we have to translate what we hear into fields on a screen so that software engineers know what to build. Think of it this way: when you say, “I want to easily adapt Bizmanualz procedures for each of my clients”, that could require a bunch of screens.

We have to develop several screens that together enable you to accomplish customization intuitively.  Finally, when you use the screens and say, “Yes, that’s what I was expecting”, your requirement has been met and the loop is closed.

Before we code the screens, we “mock them up” and ask you if you see what you expect, if we’ve included too much, or if we missed something. Here are some tools that help us share mock-ups with you.

Mock-Up Testing Tools

Balsamiq is desktop software that makes it easy to create mock-ups of software screens without having to worry about developing working pages. A marketing guy like me can quickly “draw” pages by dragging and dropping pre-built drop-downs, menus, radio buttons, etc., onto a page. That way, I can show you what I heard you say. I can do this any number of times until you agree that “…that’s what I was expecting!”

Here’s an example:

A simple mock-up contains basic screen functions and regions representing content that you are testing for relevance with users.

For now, you save your Balsamiq page designs onto your local computer, then e-mail them to testers or share them through other online testing tools: soon, Balsamiq is coming out with a really cool online version of their software that will facilitate collaboration within the marketing and development teams and with the customer.

FiveSecondTest is a really easy-to-use online sharing tool for running usability tests of your web screens. You just upload an image of the screen (which you could create in Balsamiq) and submit it for memory or click testing. Testers take the memory test, “recall the five things that you saw on the screen,” or the click test, “buy a book on this page.”

In both types of tests, users perform an action that can be completed within the screen you’re testing and provide you with short written comments explaining their actions.  You can let random people who come to the FiveSecondTest site take your test, or you can send links to testers you’ve selected. In either case, testers can earn “Karma points” on the site that they can spend on their own tests.

If you’re just getting into user  testing, FiveSecondTest is a good tool for sharing and testing simple screen shots.

If you use a Mac, you may want to look at OmniGraffle, a diagramming and charting package. (NOTE: OmniGraffle only runs on Mac, so we can’t use it.) Think of this package as Visio meets Adobe Illustrator. The package has stencils and templates for just about any shape you can imagine, so you can create anything you want. Unlike Balsamiq, it does not appear to be a special-purpose web screen prototyping tool, though it can certainly be used for that. Once you design or import third-party stencils, you can assemble them into web page mock-ups. Though I can’t run OmniGraffle on my PC, I’d sure appreciate your comments if you have any experience with it.

Silverback is another Mac-only application for usability testing. It’s not a web application; instead, it runs on your local computer. Again, because it’s a Mac tool, I can’t speak from personal experience, but I understand it more purely captures actual user behavior while they interact with your web site…which you might want if you’re fulfilling a product or service online and it’s really important that people are happy with the experience, so they don’t go away. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

This package (and others that run on PCs) help you capture screen activity, video record participants’ reactions, record their voices, and export video so that you can gather and compare tests. This is not something that you would do your first time testing online user experience, but something you’d definitely want to do as you need to find incremental improvements.

Like FiveSecondTest, Loop11 is another on-line usability and user testing tool. Beyond testing, it has integrated e-mailing to testers (the “invite” feature) and online reporting of test results. If you’re testing multiple screens or comparing the performance of one screen to another, you definitely want some power behind you. Otherwise, you’ll end up in “Spreadsheet City” as you tabulate and summarize your results.

Loop11 claims to support testing in over 40 languages. If you have some experience with online usability testing and if your business depends on your web site, you need a way to manage tests and keep them organized.  If you’ve ever managed e-mail campaigns, you’ll be familiar with managing your several user tests in Loop11.

Each web page is presented to the user with a question appearing in a banner at the top. Testers try to complete a task on the page presented, then move on through the test, clicking to “complete” or “abandon” each page.

Getting Started

If you’re just getting started, stick with FiveSecondTest or simply mailing screens to customers or posting pages in a “backwater” of your existing web site. Call customers or e-mail them some questions and ask them to accomplish a specific task on your site. Call at least two more customers and ask them to do the same. Make note of any “hiccups”, errors, or misunderstandings that occur, even if it’s only one tester who finds problems. (Put the one tester’s problems before the others and they might just respond, “I hadn’t thought of that. Good point.”)

Write down what you learn and give it to your developer, along with printouts of the screens you tested, highlighting problem areas. That’s it — you completed your first test.

As you get the hang of it and run tests with larger numbers of testers, you can move into a more advanced testing tool like Loop11. You might even conduct the same test with two versions of a given screen (old screen / new screen) and see which version testers prefer.

As always, we appreciate hearing from you. Post a comment below or on our web site. If you have any experience with any of the products mentioned above, we’d really like your input.

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.

Project Management Phase III: Project Execution

Project Execution is the third phase in any project management process.  It consists of developing, executing, and creating or building the project deliverables.  The hard core planning elements prepared you for what you have to create; now you have to create it.  Your output at this phase could be design documents, prototypes, examples, samples, or actual product, which should be accompanied by verification test results that substantiate that the deliverables meet the requirements.

Typically project execution is a construction phase.  In the case of a process improvement project, Project Execution consists of constructing the solution or understanding the root cause and implementing the appropriate corrective action.  After Project Execution, you move to Project Monitoring and Control.

Project Management Phase IV: Project Monitoring and Control

Project Monitoring and Control is the fourth phase in any project management process and consists of…well, monitoring and control.  It is the last step of the six sigma DMAIC process and is critical for process improvement — ensuring that the problem is really solved.

Key variables are monitored to determine if they remain within tolerable ranges, so that your process improvements are maintained.  In a custom home building project, monitoring might occur during the warranty period.  The home owner would monitor their new home and report issues that come up.  Once the monitoring period is complete, you are ready for the Project Review and Close phase.

Project Management Phase V: Project Review and Close

Project Review and Close is the final phase in any project management process and consists of closing out the project.  ”I’m done with the project”, you’re thinking.  ”What else is there to do?”  There are three important elements of closing out a well-managed project: final project housekeeping, project review, and the project close-out report.

Project housekeeping consists of the project tasks that wind down your project:

• Complete final acceptance sign-offs;
• Complete the project review;
• Archive all documents and records;
• Recognize exceptional project achievements and discuss a project celebration event;
• Return project resources – people, facilities, and equipment;
• Write the final status report and create the project close-out report; and
• Communicate project successes and project management recommendations.

Project review is really what this phase is all about.  You need to collect feedback from the project team (individually and as a group), management, the customer, and your suppliers.  Project feedback is about knowledge management — capturing “lessons learned” for the sake of future projects.  Make sure you identify project successes and problems for future project managers — one of them could be you!

People performing different functions on the project bring their own knowledge and experiences and they each have a unique, different view of the project’s successes, failures, and possible solutions.  They see and hear things others don’t, and vice versa.  Ensure that each project stakeholder group is represented — and participates — in your project review.  Remember, it is the users’ view of the project and its deliverables, along with the view of the major stakeholders, that will live on long after your project is complete.

Important project review questions to ask include:

• Do we have a list of went wrong and why?
• What do the customer satisfaction data say about our project?
• Have all handoffs and project transitions to the customers been completed?
• Are there any outstanding issues, activities, or risks?
• Is technical support in place?
• Was the project organization, including staffing and skills, appropriate?
• Were the schedules effective?
• Did the processes for change control, quality, and configuration management work well?
• How effective was the project communication plan?
• Were our success factors met?
• How was our time/budget variance and performance?
• What are the recommendations for future project managers?

The project manager is responsible for preparing your final deliverable for the project, the Project Close-Out Report.  In the project review, the project manager obtained input from the project team and other major stakeholders.  Now it is time for the project manager to organize the project review data into concise, cogent project information, harvest the project wisdom, and communicate the project results.

The project close-out report represents your stakeholder’s final thoughts on the project.  It starts with summary descriptions from your project charter, explanation of project performance, operations management issues, documentation archives, and concludes with your project recommendations for future projects.    You may include a list of project close-out items that demonstrates the project housekeeping activities are complete.

Your project sponsor approves your report and you are done, right?  Almost.  You must distribute the report, too.

Your project close-out report should include:

• Project title, date, and author;
• Project description, goals, and benefits (from the project charter);
• Performance baseline (target versus actual);
• Operations management handoffs and issues;
• Project documentation archives;
• Lessons learned and recommendations;
• Project close-out checklist; and
• Approvals.

Documenting project review data is not enough — you must share the project successes and lessons learned with others in your organization.  Consider adding this information to your project management procedure.  Use your project close-out report — establish or continue your knowledge management process — so the lessons learned are there for the benefit of future projects.

At this point, your project management event is complete but your project management process is ready for the next project.

Project planning is the second phase of any project management process and consists of developing the core planning elements.  The output of this phase is a set of project management documents, or plans.  The most important one is the project plan itself.  (Figure 1 shows the table of contents for a project plan.)

Figure 1 Bizmanualz Project Plan Template

The project plan starts with (1) the project overview, where you summarize and introduce the project.  This is your “management abstract”.  Management may not read much else, so you have to make an impact here. Explain the ROI, user experience changes, and the benefits of the project.  Don’t just list the project features — the deliverables, schedules, milestones, and costs.  Explain the benefits to the user, or customer.

Next, your (2) project organization describes the reporting structure, or organization chart, along with the roles and responsibilities for the various project team members, including customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders involved in your project.

Everyone has a role.  Customers approve requirements, may participate in testing, and are definitely part of acceptance.  Suppliers are involved in your procurement.  Note the interfaces to all stakeholders.

In many projects, various resources may be involved only part of the time: clarify individual roles and responsibilities and their level of involvement.  A 10% resource may become a critical bottleneck because 90% of their time is being used on other projects.  Don’t just make a superficial list of resources — note in detail all resource issues and your project structure, to minimize project risks.

If management wants to see the details to items mentioned in the project overview — time, money, and risk control — the (3) managerial process plan is where management will find them.  How will the customer’s money be controlled?  If risk is a big issue, a separate Risk Management plan may be referenced.  Are there any issues — hurdles, bottlenecks, dependencies, etc. — that may affect the project’s Closing?  If so, think through the Project Closeout plan to note key handoffs, maintenance, or future training issues.

Technical details are covered under the (4) Technical Process plan.  Special test equipment, development hardware, expertise, or facilities are explained, to provide cost justification in the budget.  Information from the feasibility study may be referenced or included to explain the design approach, methods, or other design inputs.

It is important to explain what acceptance will mean, so everyone will know when you’re done.  The Acceptance plan describes how acceptance will occur, those responsible for acceptance and the criteria for acceptance testing.  If the solution will be rolled out to a big or a complex group, a Deployment plan may be in order.

Other planning details are included in (5) supporting process plans.  Here you can include additional project planning documents, such as:

• Communications Plan
• Quality Plan
• Procurement Plan
• User Training Plan
• Test Plan

In a large project, these plans could be separate documents (and probably should be, with ample details).  In a small project, you could simply incorporate them into the project plan document.  Either way, it is important that you make it clear how you intend to face the planning issue.  Leaving out an important project planning element could be a cause of project scope creep, leading your project into time or cost overruns and possibly failure.

Let’s say you’re working on a set-up reduction process improvement project.  Your plan focuses on one work cell at one plant that has three shifts.  Management suggests you take the improvements on the road to the other eight plants.  Stop and think…is this scope creep?  It is if your original plan didn’t address training a large number of workers across the country.  (It didn’t, did it?)

For the “other eight plants”, you need to see results from the first one.  Only when you’re satisfied with those results do you develop a new project charter and a new project plan with a new budget for the other eight.  Your new project plan needs a communications plan and a user training plan of its own.  Additional training resources will be needed.  In other words, despite the similarities, this is a different project.

The Project Plan is your most important project management document.  The Project Plan and its supporting plans are your primary management control mechanisms.  Your project Plan contains the information you use to control the project’s resources and prevent scope creep.  Use your Project Plan to explain to management what they are asking for — stay in control of your project.

A Project is a temporary collection of related tasks to achieve a desired and usually unique result.

What do you think? Do you find yourself managing a collection of related tasks to achieve a desired result?  If so, you qualify as a project manager.  Businesses today are evolving, downsizing, and pushing more work down the organization chart.  You may be a project manager and not know it.  But what if you haven’t been trained as a Project Manager with the necessary skill and tool sets?

This month, we’re going to talk about the project management process and try to answer some questions that every project manager (or would-be project manager) should have the answer to:

• What is project management?
• What are the five phases of project management?
• What are some project management tools and methods?

What Is Project Management?

Projects are unique events and not processes, yet project management is definitely a process and not a unique event.

Project Management is a disciplined utilization of tools and methods for successfully describing, organizing, and controlling a project.

Project management is a structured process of disciplined actions that follows a common Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle found within the five phases of project management.

What Are the Five Phases of Project Management?

• 1. Project Initiation
• 2. Project Planning
• 3. Project Execution
• 4. Project Monitoring & Control
• 5. Project Review & Close

Figure 1 Project Management Document Map

All projects go through the same five project management phases that typically culminates in some type of project management phase review (see Figure 1, Document Map).  Each project management phase has a distinct purpose, importance, and set of outputs designed to ensure that the project manager is moving the project toward the desired result.

Following a disciplined project management process should help you to eliminate common project issues resulting from poor buy-in, projects consistently going wrong, failing to learn from past project mistakes, or difficulty in getting your projects approved.

Project management begins with the “Project Initiation” phase.  Next week, we’ll  describe this first phase — its purpose, inputs, and outputs — in some detail.  In the following weeks, we’ll explore the remaining phases of project management — planning, execution, monitoring & control, and close & review.

At the heart of your improvement plan should be a strategy.  Rendered maps can help you visually represent that strategy.  You need to paint an attractive picture — show a positive future, show the outcome that people will buy into.

We illustrated a strategy of faster turnaround for aircraft overhauls. It was simple. Workers could easily see how the changes being asked of them would result in good outcomes.

We helped an aircraft overhaul facility, or MRO, cut the time required for major service on aircraft overhauls.  Less time in the shop means operators get their planes back in service faster which, in turn, means they make money instead of spending it.  That helped the aircraft overhaul facility garner a competitive advantage.

We mapped process flows and activities throughout the company; for example, how materials were specified, requisitioned, and tracked.  With our process maps, the client saw how small changes would flow through the system and have a big impact.

Had you asked department managers at the time, they would have told you they were already aware of most of the improvement opportunities that we identified. Certainly, the inefficiencies had been there for years, managers would have said. And point solutions had been identified in some cases.

But the eventual impact of small changes was unclear or unknown, so it was hard for them to justify the time and resources needed to effect change.  So, improvement flagged.

Lighting a fire for change meant we had to change minds.  We illustrated an improvement story that showed certain small changes having a big impact.  Using rendered maps, we illustrated the strategy that was easy to buy into.  We also illustrated a number of systemic improvements that would help sustain the improvements.

Show the Positive Future and Give People a Reason to Change

For example, we selected and illustrated how highly skilled mechanics were spending time and many footsteps getting parts.  Everyone understood that if a wrench doesn’t turn, the plane doesn’t move, and turnaround suffers.

This rendered process map shows mechanics' walk and wait times in the current state. Inefficiency and waste are readily apparent.

In the future state, we instead showed parts being delivered to the mechanics:

In contrast to the current state, the future state is much simpler and, therefore, a marked improvement. As a communications device, it leads workers to ask what is required to achieve and sustain the improvement.

It sounds simple, right?  It was simple, and it tied in with the overall strategy of reducing turnaround.  It made it a great story.  Ultimately, it was the story that had been lacking in the past.

The story, told in rendered maps, helped us get the buy-in that was essential to support the many process changes required to sustain change.  How would the runner know what part to deliver to the mechanic?  When would the  part be delivered?  How would chain of custody be maintained?  Many questions arose that, before, simply froze out improvement, but by telling a story for positive change, the hard work of change became tenable.

By virtue of our illustrating specific improvements, people could see exactly how that lofty strategy translated into their daily work lives.  Our story consisted of sufficient current-state and future-state improvement “concrete steps” and examples to show that improvement was, in fact, possible and exactly how the “positive future” of reduced turnaround time could be achieved.

Telling the Improvement Story Is Part of Your Job

Had we stopped at producing the descriptive maps and left it up to the department heads to structure an improvement program, they surely would have made some incremental improvements in their system.  However, their efforts would have lacked urgency and sustainability.  Change would not have happened fast enough to outpace the industry.  Hungry competitors would not have been overtaken, and no sustainable competitive advantage would have been achieved.

But it was achieved.  As we learned, it’s part of our job as leaders to tell the improvement story. Rendered maps are a tool for telling stories of positive change. Fact-based, tangible, visual stories can illustrate a positive future, and should be in your process mapping toolkit. So, tell the story. Complete the improvement journey. Use a map.

Activity maps display information about the relative worth or value of activities.  They show process steps in columns – activities within each step, or column, are shown.  Activities are color-coded according to the value that customers might derive from them (i.e., are they value-added or non-value-added activities?).  Some activities add value and some do not — those that don’t should be minimized or eliminated.

Assigning a value to activities is, by nature, subjective: we may rationalize our value judgment by attributing it to the customer.  That is shifting the responsibility for the judgment onto the customer, which may ensure that some activities that should be cut are not.

Recapping the Seven Process Map Formats

Let’s recap the maps discussed over the past several weeks.  The following table lists the information each map reveals and the best use for each.  Click on the links for articles and blog posts explaining or applying the highlighted concept:

Moving From Process Observation to Process Improvement

The descriptive process maps help capture the current state.  Activity maps help us collect detailed information about what is occurring.  We use them to reduce the number of steps – we make the process lean.

Convincing others to accept our judgments often requires changing minds, showing people a new way to work.  We move beyond simply describing a process to tell a story, illustrating our point of view.  There are maps that help us do just that; one is the “rendered map”.  In a rendered map, we show enough information to persuade our audience to accept our judgment.

Now, we hear the objection, “Show all the information and let the viewer decide.”  Our objective is to “inform to persuade”.  Everyone has their biases, their own set of filters.  We commonly think of this in relation to news media; however, your relationship to a business process colors your judgment, too.

As an analyst, quality professional, change manager, and executive, your role is to collect and sift through information, form a qualified, professional opinion, and present a compelling case for improvement.

Not having collected and mapped everything you did, your audience doesn’t have the perspective you do.  They know more than you about their specific area, department, or function but you captured key aspects of that in interviews you did.  When the facts are analyzed and the mapping is done, it’s time for you to make your case: convince people to take action in step, in time, and with significant potential impact.

In the next article, we conclude our Process Map series with rendered maps — setting the stage for change.

Now look at quality in light of behavior change.  What do you design and develop that causes behavior changes.  Certainly that would include teaching methods, but also the curriculum, course length, how the day is structured, homework, grading, extracurricular activities, grade levels, meals served, etc.

Consider a factory that makes a product.  The factory worker uses work instructions, methods, and tools to create the product.  The system the worker uses consists of these very same work instructions, methods, and tools.  Problems or defects with the product produced, as a result of these work instructions, methods, and tools, require changes to the system.  The product is not the work instructions, methods, or tools.  Seems obvious but, how would this work in education?

Let’s take a look at the teacher in a school.  The teacher uses work instructions, methods, and tools to create the product we call learning, just like a factory worker.  If the product produced (learning) has problems or defects (i.e. learning is not occurring as expected) then the teacher must change their work instructions, methods, or tools in order to decrease the defect rate and increase the quality of the product.  Teaching is to a school as working is to a factory.

There was a European study done in 1997 regarding the Application of ISO 9000 Standards to Education and Training.  Although it references the old ISO 9000:1994 standard instead of the current ISO 9001:2008 standard, it is still a worthy interpretation of ISO 9000 for education.

People Don’t Create Defects. Systems Do.

People use the system (made up of work instructions, methods, and tools) to create products.  Neither teaching nor working is the product.  They represent the system used to create the product.  The consumers consist of the students, parents, and society whom all consume or benefit from the learning.

The effectiveness of any system is a function of product flow.  Variations and defects obstruct the product flow causing rework, delays, and unsatisfied customers.  The work instructions, methods, and tools need to be aligned to deliver maximum learning at a maximal product flow (progression through the grade levels).  Effectiveness occurs when the two are aligned to produce the highest composite result.

Education Quality Basics

Purchasing – Think about art supplies, books, equipment, meals, sporting goods, or furniture.  If there are purchasing specifications that are important to learning than those items need to be controlled.  Do you have an obligation to provide safe and healthy meals?  What about sufficient supplies, equipment or furniture for learning?

Production & Service Provisions – Think about the work instructions or teaching procedures to ensure some type of consistency or uniformity.  How are these controlled, revised, distributed, and validated (how do you know they worked?).  Can you trace or track learning (or the lack there of) to a specific teaching method or event?

Customer Property – Think about what kids bring to school: coats, notebooks, books, supplies, etc.  Do you have an obligation to care for their property, provide lockers, or control access?  What do you do if an item is damaged or misplaced?

Control of Non-Conforming Product – A non conformance can be in the teaching methods, student behavior or performance, or purchased items needed for learning.  What do you do with broken furniture, equipment, or lockers?  What is your process for removing it from the learning process so that it does not hinder other students from learning?

Corrective Action – What is the process for monitoring, reviewing, and adjusting the learning system as a result of complaints, comments, or audit findings?  Each incident should be tracked, investigated and resolved.  A good complaint handling process is the best ways to instill a culture of continuous improvement in your organization.

Preventive Action – Do you review your methods and make changes BEFORE you receive complaints?  If you get a complaint your action is corrective, if you fix it before you get a complaint than its preventive.  So what are you doing to prevent complaints?

A class is like a manufacturing cell in a factory.  The batch size is the number of students.  But one class does not make a graduate.  A student must pass through numerous classes or manufacturing cells in order to come out an educated student.  How your students progress through the cells in your facility determines the learning effectiveness of your quality system.

Two ways – budget and a show!  That’s right you need to fuel innovation for change and improvement and budgets are what top management understand.  Company leaders demonstrate their commitment to change and improvement by making budget available for it to happen.  But spending money on change and improvement that nobody knows about does not deliver much actual change does it?  You need to get the word out and that takes some kind of show.

Do You Schedule Change and Improvement?

First, let’s look at budgets.  Nothing happens without a budget and only top management makes the budget.  And by budget I am talking about more than just money, it also takes time to spend the budget.  Time is money right?  Not exactly.  In business, time is as precious a resource as money.  Top management can allocate a budget for change but, with backorders, development delays, rush orders, and other customer demands, can you really afford to trade valuable production time for improvement?

You may have a budget for such things as training, communication, audits, corrective and preventive actions, and management review.  But do you have the time to spend the budget?

Production time is seen as valuable.  And what do you do with a valuable resource like production time?  You probably use a production schedule to make sure that that time is accounted for and allocated.  Do you have a schedule for improvement?  You may schedule training, audits and management review but do you also schedule corrective and preventive action?  It’s like preventive maintenance, change and improvement must be scheduled.  The more change you schedule, the more improvement you get.

Do You Communicate Change and Improvement?

Second, do you have a communications calendar?  And how do you coordinate all this change and improvement?  Changes and improvements are news to your organization.  You have to get the word out and communicate the news so others can profit from the changes and improvements.  I like to think of it as a news show.

All of this activity must be coordinated.  You need a news staff to write, produce, and distribute your news program.  Your news show should have a regular time slot, format, and an editor or anchor for your program.  Perhaps featured stories regarding training events, Kaizen of the month, and progress on major changes or improvement objectives.  Be creative.  Produce videos, a newsletter, a change wall, or skits for the changes.

How much do you budget for your news program?  Major software changes get money for new software and software customization.  Typically less time and money is spent on communicating the changes.  This may be due to the lack of any formal communications program.  Start a news show.

Showing Commitment to Change and Improvement

So the next time you are making your budget for the year, think of a time budget to go with your financial budget.  Make a change and improvement schedule to go with your production schedule.  Then identify a news staff to make the communications that get the word out.  Delivering change and improvement is like producing a big show.  You have to budget for the production of the show (the change and improvement development activities) and you then have to have the show, on a regular basis, just like the news.

Your management commitment to change and improvement will be demonstrated by the time and money you budget as well the quality of the change and improvement show you produce.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Data to Information

Today’s IT departments and resources are required to handle enormous amounts of data. This is where some degree of standardization can help minimize inconsistencies, confusions and resulting risks. But all data is not equal in terms of importance or sensitivity. Data itself is not very useful. Think of it as the “Know-nothing”? stage.

We must understand what the data is and how it relates to our needs. Once a relationship has been defined then the data becomes information. This is the “Know-what” stage.

Information to Knowledge

Next, the information must be converted into knowledge by finding patterns within the relationships. These patterns have the potential to represent knowledge once the patterns and their implications are understood. Knowledge allows us to predict, information by itself, does not. This is the “Know-how”? stage.

Knowledge to Wisdom

Wisdom arises when the knowledge is transformed into insight or principles. In other words, once you understand the source of the patterns, you have found an eternal truth. This is the “Know-why”? stage.

Company Policies and Procedures

Policies and procedures are written for a host of reasons including decreasing training time, meeting compliance requirements, communicating effectiveness measures, simplifying access to information and transferring knowledge.

Use of consistent, well defined policies and procedures save time by guiding users in converting raw data into meaningful information, transferring knowledge, and imparting the wisdom from past generations in order to take appropriate actions in not-so-obvious situations.

IT Policies and Procedures

Having formal Computer and Network Policies and Procedures in place enables organizations to assign responsibilities and provides definitions, guidelines and rules for employees. Your IT policies and procedures should cover all aspects of your information technology management—from computer usage and network security to IT asset management and training & support.

Policies and procedures allow managers to communicate the way things should be done and IT policies and procedures are no exception. Prewritten documents can speed up procedures development, which, in turn, speeds an IT department’s path towards greater effectiveness, and better results.

To learn more about improving and strengthening your IT processes, order the NEW Computer and Network Policies and Procedures Manual or attend the next How to Align a System of People and Processes for Results class.

If you are eager to learn more about creating more order out of the chaos you are feeling at work then the How to Create Well-Defined Processes class is right for you. ISO 9000 Quality Auditor classes are forming now for Internal Auditor or Lead Auditor.

Call for information on having your own private in-house classes today.

Computers and IT have become important parts of business operations, storing and circulating critical information between numerous business processes. Many business functions require the use of computer systems and networks, and businesses and computer networks are increasingly interconnected.

But how do you govern these systems and what standards do you choose? In other words, how much should you think about coordinating and securing the information that is so important to you and your business?

Information Security

Any information is susceptible to leakage or damage unless protected by a strong security system. Information stored in computers is no exception. With the high usage of computers, servers and many systems connected by layers of networks, security is one of the key challenges for IT professionals today. We hear so much about identity theft, virus infections or spyware hijacks. At various levels, all these activities put heavy burdens on your resources.

In order to preempt this threat and protect your information, you must have information security measures in place to maximize results. This means developing and implementing a set of controls through appropriate policies, procedures and processes. Besides meeting your organization’s goals and objectives, these controls should also be aligned with other business processes in your organization.

IT Governance

This is where the issue of IT governance comes in. The executive summary of COBIT or the Control Objectives for Information and related Technology identifies IT governance as “a structure of relationships and processes to direct and control the enterprise in order to achieve the enterprise’s goals by adding value while balancing risk versus the return or IT and its processes.” In other words, IT governance is about balancing risk and return from your IT processes.

So how do you approach IT governance? Businesses can either create their own structures and frameworks, or adopt universally accepted “best practices” standards that have been tried, tested and improved by a large number of organizations and individuals. Implementing an IT quality standard has its own benefits.

IT Standards

Two main IT standards available today are COBIT and ISO 17799.

Currently in its third edition, COBIT is a framework for managing IT risk and was created by the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA), and the IT Governance Institute (ITGI). It consists of 34 high level objectives covering 318 control objectives categorized in four areas—planning and organization, acquisition and implementation, delivery and support and monitoring.

The six elements of COBIT are documented in separate volumes and include management guidelines, control objectives, COBIT framework, executive summary, audit guidelines and an implementation toolset.

ISO17799 was originally published in 2000 by the International Organization for Standardization, which reissued a revised version in June 2005. It is based on the British Standard BS7799 and focuses on security with an aim to help organizations create effective security plans.

The ten main sections of ISO 17799 are: security policy, security organization, asset classification and control, personnel security, physical and environmental security, communications and operations management, access control, systems development and maintenance, business continuity management, and compliance.

Benefits of IT Standards

Adopting an IT Standard, by itself, may not mean that your organization is 100% secure. However, compliance with these established standards goes a long way in demonstrating that you take security issues very seriously. On the top level, four obvious benefits of IT standards stand out:

Completeness: Like any other internationally accepted standard, IT standards spare you from reinventing the wheel. Why spend the time and resource creating something that already exists and is proven to work?

Compliance: Using a widely regarded standard demonstrates that the organization practices industry norms and follows applicable laws and regulations.

Credibility: Having a standard in place reassures stakeholders of the company, including customers, suppliers, and employees by demonstrating that your organization is committed towards protecting valuable information.

Confidence: By minimizing risk of information leakage, IT standards lead to better knowledge management and more efficient use of your IT assets.

This week we have looked at how to govern these systems and what standards to choose in order to coordinate and secure the information that is so important to you and your business process management.

To learn more about improving and strengthening your processes, attend the next How to Align a System of People and Processes for Results class. If you are eager to learn more about creating more order out of the chaos you are feeling at work then the How to Create Well-Defined Processes class is right for you. ISO 9000 Quality Auditor classes are forming now for Internal Auditor or Lead Auditor.

Call for information on having your own private in-house classes today.