Unspoken Communication in Presentation

Presentation ( making ppt) is one of key in almost all companies for communicating an important piece of information to stakeholders at all level. Presenting a concept , may it be a strategy, solution, plan or anything in form of power point presentation provides ease of building creditability and engaging all users to participate with their thoughts. Would you like to listen to a speaker who is standing with an angry look on his face? Mostly (baring few exceptions) not. Right from children to old people, we want to befriend a person who is cheerful, playful, approachable, smiling. Although we communicate with words, but our non-verbal signals communicate a lot in participants mind. Here are few points which would help present you point in a better way

1. Never show you displeasure: Even if something has not gone in your favour, do not look displeased. Wear a warm smile. Remember no one cares if your displeased, how ever people look forward to you if you are pleasing personality.

2. Don't Look away: While presenting make sure your eyes communicate ( where you look) to every side where the participants are sitting. Especially towards end (last slide) many people just look at the last slide as reinforcement or may look aside as to communicate (non-verbally) "thanks god it is over".Never speak with your back towards the audience.

3. Ease at start and End: Engage people in some general topic before  the start so that participant opens up the bond building with the presenter. Good example may be one of the recent topics of news (which generally all are interested in) or a quick story or joke. Although many people follow this but their are very few who does this at the end. Do not rush to pick your things and go back to your seat. Say thanks and wait for people to respond to you. Slowly pick up your things before you leave the presenter seat. Keep looking at participants while you are wrapping up to leave.

4. Hand Gestures: Use slow hand gestures that move in harmony with your words like your are directing a group of people performing musical night. Hold your hands out and palms down while presenting facts.Prospects that rub, pull or scratches their ear while you’re presenting to them means they 
have either; heard enough or they want to speak.

5. Visual Aids: While presenting you may use visual aids like some picture on ppt, or using some note card to participants. It is obvious that while you present using visual aids, you may loose eye contact. Hence keep note pad in your palms right in front of you or stand near the visual aid side of ppt. This will make people to keep eye contact with you

These are very small but very high impact communication for a presenter. Initial users ( who has not given much presentation ) can practice this and see the impact. 

5 Things That would Help in Project Management

Information Technology has always been a challenge for people who manages IT Projects. The challenges are different for following reason:

• Information Technology is always been linked to Business and business is always growing , changing and expanding. Information Technology projects goes through changes even before it has been delivered.
• Business users are ignorant about technology(Although we have seen a growth)  and their understanding of how to use the Information Technology to maximize potential is limited. They see technology as solution provider and not the tool to help them.
• Technologies are changing faster than any other business

Keeping all these in mind, we need to have following things to manage our Delivery of the solution in a better way:

1. Open for change: Define the scope and limit it to development but make sure that you are developing something which is easy for change. Avoid giving answers like "this is not possible in this technology?". Remember if you can not do it, some one else would.
2. Understand Business: It is important that the whole development team understands the business to the maximum they can. Once they understand the business and the need of the user , they would themselves come up with solutions which will give then praises from customer and end user.   
3.  Embrace Change:  Team should be motivated to accept changes which are critical to the business requirements. If they understand Business they would definitely accept it more easily.Make sure that team is able to say "No" for a change which is not critical for business or does not add value ( It reminds of Lean Philosophy).
4. Ready Made Code: A typical developer will always love to write his framework/libraries etc , this eating away the time which can be used for some meaningful development, if we take off the shelf available code or already developed frameworks/libraries.
5. Partnership Not Management: Project Manager, Customer and team should work as a Partnership firm, where every one has a role defined and is working for the goal. Manager should not be only acting as some one sitting high and ordering, he should be like a Team member with maximum expertise/information/experience

Finally I would be happy if you people ( whoever reads this!) can comment with their points.

Software Team Management

How is it different from any team management? Lets see how a common ( General Rule applied  ) man ( working in a Company) think of IT.

• If there is a problem, it has to do with software.
• IT does not yield direct revenue to the company
• IT people are paid well above their capabilities.

In all these scenarios it becomes slightly more difficult to manage your team. I am putting down some of the points which we must do, with the team to make sure that we deliver best as per expectations to the customer. These may not be the guide lines for doing it, but these have worked for me over the years.

• Do Explain the project from Business perspective to the team. Make sure when you are explaining, you explain in a layman's language.
• Spend time with the team  whenever possible. 
• Give small doses of appreciation. Who does not like it, even after years of service an appreciation gives me goose bumps
• Make sure you are friend to them when they need you and a tough manager to them when it comes to delivery.
• Ask them to write what they have understood. I learnt in my childhood after writing. It helps you recollect while thinking in mind and then while writing. Also, we have every thing in "Black and White" as they say.
• Remember not to show them that you are smarter than them. Sometimes a foolish idea from them can turn to be a big idea. This foolish idea will come to you only if you show that you are still learning.
• Understand the career plan for each of them and align that with the work given to them.
• Play some games to activate there mind during the project, may be ask riddles. Remember a mind used is mind sharpened. We need proactive ideas, nothing is changing and expanding as Information Technology.

I would appreciate you all to add to this and pass your comments. Finally it is a collaborative world now.

Vendor Management

You might be in any business but your company's overall performance in the market place is strengthened by strong relationship with your vendors. Companies spend lot of time and money in nurturing vendor's who are not directly impacting the bottom line of the organization. As we challenge our expertise in all fields by setting and raising standards, it is also same in case of Vendor Relationship Management. Great companies have best practices which are set of standard which they follow to achieve or exceed. Vendor relationship management also have standard practices which is followed for a great relationship. Ignoring these best practices for managing vendor may result in dysfunctional relationship and hence negatively impacting company's business.


So what is the best practice for vendor management?

What are the important steps for defining best practice?

My experience ( and i am sure most of yours too!) tells me that whatever is the standards or best practices followed, a healthy relationship with vendor yields a reduced cost, quality delivery/products, and high customer satisfaction only if we follow/control/watch some of the key milestones/points

• Remain Flexible


• Monitor Performance


• Communicate Constantly

Although selecting a vendor and defining the contract may be very critical, but we can discard the importance of managing relationship with vendor. Information Technology which is used as a "Tool" for business opportunities, can be used to deliver a needs of process for a successful and healthy Vendor Relationships. Companies can deliver results going beyond the expectations if they have process frameworks and management tools. If you have process framework ( I call it Information Technology Process Framework -ITPF) and strong Management tool (Vendor Management Solution - VMO), the delivery of high expectations of company and challenges of managing a vendor become a cakewalk.



Asheesh Vashisht

Prinicipal Consultant

http://www.systems-plus.com/

Basic Information often forgot about Internet marketing

Information Technology is a "Tool" and not "Solution" for your need.

I always start with this quote whenever it comes to technology. You would have heard one or more of the following:

1. I had installed CRM software , still not able to manage our relationship with customer.
2. I have most powerful ERP implemented in our organization, yet we take a week to close.
3. I have one of the best websites and done SEO , but we do not get business through internet.

The bottomline here is that these people have thought the software solutions as the solution and not the tool to aid/help them achieve the desired goal. Same goes with Internet Marketing. I am presenting few one line tips for you to consider when you do think of Marketing through internet.

1. Internet Marketing is all about visibility, presentability, availability, and accessbility. You should be visible in this vast Galaxy of Internet users. Once visible, you should be presentable(e.g. your site maybe visible but the presentability is so bad that user do not want to read about it). If you are present , you should have information available to the user/customer/reader. Last but not the least, if you have passed all the test, you should be contactable for any feedback/query/Comment.
2. SEO is not only being ranked high. It is about ranked high with correct keywords which matches your delivery and customer expectations.
3. SEO/SMM/ORM are all tools which you use to build "Trust" with your customer. Imagine you have very good friend in software solution, but you do not trust him that he can do internet marketing, will you go to him? Build "Trust" with your audience. People are more likely to trust a friend's recommendation than to trust an ad.
4. Social Media helps us communicate faster. It is "word of mouth" on steroids.
5. To use Social Media.

• Start on a phased approach



• Define your objectives clearly



• Select Target market



• Assess your knowhow and capabilities



• Execute the strategy



• Measure the performance.

And most important Experiment!!!!!