Project Kick-Off

I realize this is a bit lame, but here is a long email that I wrote this week. Doubt I will get any constructive criticism, but if you have time, you should add some :-)

Hi All,

I wanted to write you regarding the ‘analytics’ piece of the pricebook project. At this point, I think there has been some confusion on the term ‘analytics’ and what it represents, especially in regards to what should be included in the pricebook project. In my opinion, the right team to provide the definition is the pricing strategy team. I will recap my interpretation of ‘analytics’, and hopefully, each of you can help fill in any misunderstandings or gaps in my explanation.

Based on my discussion with Joe and Schmoe, it sounds like there is an expectation that the next pricebook software will help with creating pricing strategies using built in analytic software. However, it doesn’t sound like there is a firm grasp on what specifically the software will do. Should we compare costs, historical sales data, incorporate margins, estimate market trends, create graphs, what kind of graphs, etc? There are hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of different ways to try and analyze data, but in order to do that, we need to have some sort of requirement on which data to use, and how we are going to use it. Currently, there are no ‘analytics’ requirements established for the pricebook project. If analytics is to be built into the pricebook project, then a set of specific requirements need to be created.

From my understanding, Jack and Jill aren’t going to provide these requirements, and quite frankly, I don’t believe they are the proper users to create them. They are not necessarily being called on as market experts in the field of pricing analytics and software. They are experts in the field of Siebel/Oracle functionality. Based on my discussion with Jack and Jill, they can help determine whether Siebel will meet a set of requirements that we provide them, but they probably won’t be good consultants in the area of current market pricing strategy software.

Before we even begin a vendor analysis regarding our requirements, we (pricing strategy) need to nail down what the exact requirements are. If you ask a tire salesman if you need new tires, then of course he is going to tell you that you do. The same will be true when bringing in a bunch of vendors that sell pricing strategy tools. It might be hard to sort through what is useful, and what is a bunch of extra fluff. Because of this, I feel there are a few options that have been suggested on how to proceed:

1.)    Bring in a consultant/expert in semiconductor pricing strategy. There are a lot of new tools and capabilities out there, and finding the right fit for Xilinx is going to be important. I’m unaware of any internal employees that fit this expertise requirement, but maybe there is someone who is top notch with the most up to date and effective pricing strategy market trends. If that person does exist, will they have time to dedicate to this project? Also, which team will be responsible for bringing in the expert?

2.)    Put an existing team member exclusively on the task of researching what is common pricing software practice today. This could take weeks or months of research, I really don’t know what sort of timeline would be needed. As stated before, there are several vendors, all with different capabilities and ideas. Each will claim to have everything we need. Sorting through the necessities is going to take time and due diligence. This sort of research, in my opinion, would probably take persistence to detail and full time dedication to this process.

3.)    Continue the project without analytics included in the price creation software GUI. This is the route that was suggested in December by my previous team because of the complexity involved in the pricing strategy and graphing capabilities utilized by the pricing strategy team in excel today. Instead of integrating analytic capability, a friendly user interface would be provided to allow easy database access and data extraction for analysis in excel. This is very similar to what is done today. Data is pulled from XPM, Finance (cost), Vendavo, and COMPASS and integrated into excel manually. Integrating all of these data sources conveniently into one environment is a lot of extra overhead by itself, let alone adding capability to create various charts, graphs, and trending analysis with all of the data.

Although I am capable of filling the role suggested in number 2 above, this role will probably be a full time role on its own. The role would not leave a lot of extra time for other responsibilities and tasks. If I take on this responsibility on my own, it would be hard to maintain the current pricebook support role at the same time.

I apologize for the length of this email, but please review and analyze the above ideas and suggestions. I would like to have a meeting sometime this week to make any changes, suggestions, and correct any misinterpretations. Hopefully this will allow us to iron out the kinks and figure out exactly what needs to happen next to get on the right track for the pricebook project.

Thank you all very much for your time,

-Dan Cherry

Next Step

Where to Move??
Over the last several months Erin and I have been contemplating where to move. Although we love the people we have met in SF, it's not quite home. However, that's not to say that we will be moving back to Colorado yet either. Realistically, it looks like we could go just about anywhere and that's a lot of fun, stress, and job searching if you don't even know where you are looking.

So we're hoping to narrow down some possibilities, but they actually just keep growing. This means that I'm going to need to be prepared for anything, which even means a new job of my own.

Social Media
With the new norm of today stemming from twitter, facebook, and most importantly LinkedIn, it's important to stay on top of the game. Unfortunately, I'm not good at this and I have to work at it. As you can tell from my blog, it's a little rough around the edges. So over the next few months, my goal is going to be to clean up my online image. Start to build a niche for myself and maybe learn how to use all these fancy tools that so many people are able to work with today.

Useless Info:
Yup, a lot of this is useless data. I'll try to begin brainstorming more creative topics over the next few weeks. Perhaps my experience with creating a media niche for myself will bring some more creative content in the future. First blog of 2012... super lame. Guess the good thing is that it can only get better.

The Extended Work Week

I’m Baaaaccckkkkkk!!!

So I realize I haven’t written in a while. Given my original purpose for doing this blog there shouldn’t be any missing gaps and I really have no valid excuses. It’s been really busy at work with this being the last month of the quarter I have a LOT going on.  In the last few weeks that I haven’t blogged, I have managed to piss of my manager, break some software, become disillusioned at a wedding, and learn a ton of new stuff through all of the heartache J

Pissing off my manager

This is a long and short story. Basically, I haven’t been doing what I’ve been asked.  What I’ve been asked to do is take ownership of the pricing business process and learn what each individual team member contributes. Unfortunately, I know nothing about pricing, am clueless about how to go about getting this data, and lastly I never quite figured out how to even start (more on this later).

Let me put some perspective of my feelings (yeah, mushy stuff) via an analogy:

Say you were tasked by ‘The Guru’ to build a gigantic sky scraper. You were told what the dimensions should be and where the building would be placed, but that is all the information you were provided.  So you get started on your task and after a few weeks you still haven’t finished. The Guru comes along and says ‘hey, why isn’t this finished yet? I asked you to get working on this.’ So you provide some updates and list some challenges and the guru goes off. Couple weeks later the guru comes back and you still haven’t finished, in fact you really maybe have just finished up with the foundation and the guru gets a little more frustrated and says ‘what is going on, why isn’t this finished yet you idiot?’ Again you provide more insight and the guru says nothing and just says ok and leaves.  A few weeks later the guru comes back and you’ve started building but some walls are messed up, there are some broken windows and the building looks pretty unstable. The Guru says “what the f$%^ have you been doing you dumb a#$?!! I told you to build me a building exactly the way I want it!!! I could do this all by myself with ease and know exactly where to start, who to talk to, and how to make everything fit!! But you clearly are an unintelligent idiot of a loser who likes to f#$% everything all up!!”

In a nut shell, this is how I feel that I have been managed to this point, and that is, managed without much mentoring.  I’m not sure that I can really blame this on my manager because the time I need doesn’t really fit into the manager’s busy time frame. So what do I do? I struggle, and not just a little, I struggle a lot. It’s painful, it’s frustrating, it’s challenging, it’s angering, and definitely anti-motivational. 

BUT… this has led to some amazing growth and I have learned more through all of this then I have in quite some time. It’s allowed me to take the time and use all of the pain to my benefit in learning what I can do to become better at work. Hopefully, this will only continue and I can get better at this as I go along.

Other Things

I’ve decided to just leave it at this for the week, this is enough writing for one sit and you can always plan on more coming next week. Next week, I will try to focus on my personal struggle with presenting confidently.

Stay tuned,

-Ding to the le

Precision Q and A

Class Time
This week I was afforded an opportunity to attend a one day class with my team that took a deep dive into asking and answering precise questions.  The class was great, and I learned some new concepts I had never given thought to before. Many times throughout the day, I imagined I wouldn't remember much from the full day class and that the new information would probably be lost over the next few weeks.  Having chewed on this thought during the course work, I wasn't the least bit surprised to find the conclusion at the end of the day included a mention to the affect of:  Don't to try to remember every detail but instead focus on a few key areas to improve on. Writing these areas will surely help right?! ... RIGHT!!!

My Points of Focus:
As a result, I narrowed my learning to 3 main points. This includes:
    1.) Keep Questions Simple
    2.) Put answers into Bullet/Number format when possible
    3.) Preparation is Vital!!!

SIMPLE Questions
I don't have a mnemonic for the word SIMPLE yet, but I think that would be great, so some day when I crank out my own PQ&A class, I will come up with something for my new word.  But back to the topic at hand, simple questions are straight forward and singular.  This means that questions should not span multiple parts and allows for a single question that can be expanded upon later.  Unfortunately, this only works well if the person answering the questions sticks to the question at hand.  So along with this aspect is learning to interrupt another person when necessary to get back on track.  This is important in reaching the needed information without looping through a set of other points that aren't necessary.  As the old saying goes, "keep it simple stupid".

Using Bullets
Turns out using bullets is useful in writing AND in conversation.  It is useful because it helps the listener to mentally prepare for what you are about to tell them. For example, say I am going to have you bake a cake.  I could do it one of two ways:
    a.) Baking a cake:  Get a recipe, find the ingredients, make cake batter, bake the cake, frost the cake, enjoy
    b.) 6 Easy Steps to Bake a cake:
        1.) OBTAIN recipe
        2.) COMPILE ingredients
        3.) MIX cake ingredients
        4.) BAKE cake in oven
        5.) FROST cake
        6.) ENJOY

Now in looking at these two options, you may already have forgotten everything you just read, but you probably remember that there were 6 steps which is a much better start than the jumbled mess from the first example.

Preparation is VITAL
This wasn't actually an emphasis of the course and wasn't really even a part of the course at all.  Instead this is my own addition because what I realized throughout the day is that real precision questioning and answering involves knowing your audience, what you are talking about, and to whom you are talking. In order to compile all this information, you need to prepare, and you need to do it adequately.

One of the best preparation methods is to Practice, Practice, Practice. Whether you are giving a presentation, or asking questions at a presentation, the more you practice and prepare the more respected you will be. Instead of asking ill timed or unadvised questions, or perhaps answering a question to hastily, pause for a second to compile your words intelligently and in turn your thoughts will come out clear and precise instead of in a clumped chunky spew fashion.  In keeping with the lameness of the rest of my blog.... Practice Makes Perfect!!!

Spouting off nonsense once a week...
-Dingle McT

Keeping motivated

It's only week 2 and I'm trying to figure out what to write about and how I'm going to stay motivated to continue for three whole months. My daily routine doesn't quite seem interesting enough to captivate anyone's attention, but I'm going to continue to try because maybe someone out there is actually reading :-)

Rundown
Over the past week I made quite a few large strides. I arranged 1-on-1 meetings with team members and began to dig deeper into what is needed by those that I work with on a daily basis. Unfortunately, I also began to explore the aspects of the job that have been built around a budding monster and how I'm going to tackle this will be an ongoing challenge.

1-on-1 Meetings
Being the youngest member of my team (in both age and tenure) I feel very privileged to have the opportunity to sit down and meet with those around me with so much experience. I gain constant feedback and insight into what it means to be a part of the team and it's great to feel like everyone has something important to teach me. There are so many new concepts and everyone seems to have an opinion that is slightly different from the last so I pick up each section of advice and add to it as I go. It's great to have so much personality because it creates a new step in learning how to manage and communicate in my weekly meetings.

However, being the youngest also means that I have a lot to prove, and often times, I feel looked down upon. Not that I'm disrespected as a person, but more that my opinions are so new, young and probably uneducated. I need to constantly keep in mind that I am still learning, so my opinions and ideas are always open for change. I'm sure this will adapt as I grow into the new role, but I really want to make an impact today, and that's hard when I'm not yet a respected leader.  So, I really need to become that leader and prove that I can take charge and value every single opinion and aspect of my new role.

The Monster
This week I also learned about what I'm going to call 'The Monster'.  Basically, this is the deep chasm of information that has been scattered across all teams from a previous member. The specific person is no longer with the company, but the remnants of past work remain, and it's partly my job to bottle them up into an organized and well managed location.

The Monster grew as a result of what teams needed. Scripting was created and given for each new aspect that was necessary, but the scripting was very poorly managed and was by no means done professionally.  More specifically, most code is entirely un-commented and I am left to sort through it all, learning as I go. I can see, in some sense, that this made the job invaluable because no one truly understood how deep the scripting went. As a result the old process has now become the way of today. 

The problem is that team members put together the pieces on their own, and afterwards, more scripting is tacked onto the older scripts to keep the work routine moving. If any of the parts is broken, then new hack jobs are implemented to continue on.  This adds to the monster and it continues to grow.  I'm not sure how to stop it and it might take a doomsday collapse to start from scratch and do it the right way.  Until then, I am left to sweep around the grenades, hoping that nothing explodes.

Results
I know that all of this is just a recap, and unfortunately, I don't have any answers to the issues at this time. Part of my goal is to create the picture and add descriptions of resolutions over time. I just hope that you don't get to bored in the meantime :-)

Cheers!
-Dingle

My First Post

THE BEGINNING:
This being my first blog, I figure it will be best to supply a reason for my creation and to set some goals in moving forward. I've been told that writing my ideas will help me to better organize thoughts and display them in a fashion that is useful for others. That being said, I would like to focus on business analysis and the learning process involved in working through my new job and the added responsibilities that it entails.

I began my quest to learn everything there is to know about Business Analysis. Granted, I will never know everything, but with a lofty goal, I will never cease to learn and grow along the way. It's been 3 months thus far so I might be compared to an infant in my learning experience.

Before beginning my job, I read that you should allow 3 months time for learning, meeting new people, and getting integrated into the role and your key responsibilities. Taking a step back to breathe in all of the concepts has been more than challenging to say the least. I say this because my engineering background has taught me to step in and redesign or change a function if it needs updating.  For the moment though, I am soaking in the new role and waiting for my chance to make a difference.

BECOMING A LEADER:
From my perspective, my next role is to really step in and lead within the projects that I have been given. But what exactly does this mean? Am I to step on others toes to reach the top?  Perhaps I need to make my presence known in meetings and presentations.  Maybe I find new and bigger projects that need my assistance...

All of the above questions really get ahead of a well maintained learning process, so how do I find step one?  This is a big challenge and making my priorities is going to be key.  So what comes first?  For me, I have really decided to focus on communication.  Forming 1-on-1 meetings with team members to get to know what's working well, what's missing, and what needs to be changed immediately.  This allows me to meet all working team members from the IT teams, to the marketing analysis groups, and even financing.  What a great opportunity to really expand my communication skills and begin to build relationships that will be essential for future tasks.

GROWTH:
I am still excited to learn every nook and cranny of the new work environment and I am drinking from the never ending fire hose.  My goal is to become a knowledgeable employee who is incredibly valued and useful within the company.  I can only do this through hard work.  Work here is not defined by hours and time that are put into the job, but instead by the intellect that produces useful analysis for those that need it.  It's not the end goal that is important, but more the process involved in getting there.

THE END:
This is not the really the end, but merely the start of a long quest to move upward and onward.  Hopefully I learn something along the way, and maybe, just maybe, my insight will stir you do the same...