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Casual Articles - Reporting is Serious Business!
The January issue of Entrepreneur Magazine had a great article on brain science in business. The article quoted Daniel Amen M.D., a much-loved author and ADD expert, who said that:“There's a very high incidence of ADD among CEOs in small companies...These are people who take risks, need people to help them stay organized, don't like working for other people, have a lot of energy and are good at multitasking.”-"Gray Matters" by Mark Henricks Entrepreneur Magazine January 2006The reason for this, I think, is that CEOs (and small business owners) are entrepreneurs who are not
Where does this go? Let’s figure it out. As we move up the totem pole of reporting we plan for longer periods of time. The CEO and his executive team plan for three to five years in advance. Their annual results tell them how well their strategy is operating. They can be privy to quarterly and monthly data as well. Weekly and daily information would be overload!
Plan Quarterly => Record monthly => Report Quarterly
Plan monthly => Record weekly => Report monthly
Plan weekly => Record daily => Report weekly
Plan daily => Record Hourly =>
Whether you want a flier or a brochure to publicize your products and services, wish to communicate with other people through a newsletter or in-house magazine or want to publish a magazine as a commercial prospect, printing is the technology that becomes the most essential factor. Commercial printing is a highly technical task and most people, not familiar with the processes, are easily overwhelmed by the many parameters involved. Printing is not just putting words on paper. It involves the choice of text design, images (either photographs or graphics or a combination of both), the quality of pap
Often managers respond that they have no idea how to get the information they need to manage their businesses or departments. They either have too much or too little.
There are two problems. The first is that the managers have not identified their Key Performance Indicators. The second is managers have not set up a sound reporting structure. This article is about the structure of reporting.
Management in most aspects should be simple. The work they’re managing is a matter of developing a plan, carrying tout the plan and reporting on the success or otherwise of the plan. The cycle is; Plan – Act – Report. There can always be a fourth step – celebrate!
As the Hannibal from the A Team said “ I love it when a plan comes together!” Then they’d party. You should too.
In marketing articles one reads about ‘test and measure’. Well in management the same is true. We set up work, and have the person(s) doing the work measure the ongoing results and report back.
Management has a hierarchy of reporting that is often overlooked in the creation of reporting protocols.
What is planned for in a workday can be measured every hour and finally reported back at the end of the day. Usually work that you plan for in a day may be carried out by someone else or a team of people that you are managing. So the day you plan and the report you see at the end of it summarizes what occurred. You may choose to act some form of short interval control and watch the proceedings for a while and have more regular reports given to you. Mostly that would be seen as interfering! Often you are not in a position to see the actual tasks being accomplished.
Let’s look at some examples. A web marketer plans to sell 20 products per day. Each hour they can log in and see a report of how many sales have been made. At the end of the day they can see the summary of what occurred each hour. Could they have made any difference on the result by knowing what happened each hour? Probably not. So a single report at the end of the day would suffice for them to make plans and change their advertising campaigns. This is a continuous process.
A factory producing widgets. They make a plan for the day with the manager. The operator monitors the staff and machinery as well as production rates. She records the information on an hourly basis and at the end of the shift provides a summary of the days activities and number of widgets produced. This is a continuous process.
A repair shop services auto engines. Each engineer gets an allocation of work to do and reports back when it’s done as to how long it took and any problems. This is a discrete process. It stops and starts.
Where does this go? Let’s figure it out. As we move up the totem pole of reporting we plan for longer periods of time. The CEO and his executive team plan for three to five years in advance. Their annual results tell them how well their strategy is operating. They can be privy to quarterly and monthly data as well. Weekly and daily information would be overload!
Plan Quarterly => Record monthly => Report Quarterly
Plan monthly => Record weekly => Report monthly
Plan weekly => Record daily => Report weekly
Plan daily => Record Hourly =>
I have to admit it. I had almost no knowledge of the country of Romania just five short years ago, when I came here for the first time. What came to my mind were images of Dracula, Frankenstein, and under-cared for orphaned children, the kind that were featured in fund-raising specials that appeared on television when I was a kid. At least I can say that I knew for sure that it existed, and so did it's province of Transylvania. That's partially contrary to what I was taught in elementary school, by the way, when our teacher assured us that Transylvania was only a storybook land and therefore we ne
As the Hannibal from the A Team said “ I love it when a plan comes together!” Then they’d party. You should too.
In marketing articles one reads about ‘test and measure’. Well in management the same is true. We set up work, and have the person(s) doing the work measure the ongoing results and report back.
Management has a hierarchy of reporting that is often overlooked in the creation of reporting protocols.
What is planned for in a workday can be measured every hour and finally reported back at the end of the day. Usually work that you plan for in a day may be carried out by someone else or a team of people that you are managing. So the day you plan and the report you see at the end of it summarizes what occurred. You may choose to act some form of short interval control and watch the proceedings for a while and have more regular reports given to you. Mostly that would be seen as interfering! Often you are not in a position to see the actual tasks being accomplished.
Let’s look at some examples. A web marketer plans to sell 20 products per day. Each hour they can log in and see a report of how many sales have been made. At the end of the day they can see the summary of what occurred each hour. Could they have made any difference on the result by knowing what happened each hour? Probably not. So a single report at the end of the day would suffice for them to make plans and change their advertising campaigns. This is a continuous process.
A factory producing widgets. They make a plan for the day with the manager. The operator monitors the staff and machinery as well as production rates. She records the information on an hourly basis and at the end of the shift provides a summary of the days activities and number of widgets produced. This is a continuous process.
A repair shop services auto engines. Each engineer gets an allocation of work to do and reports back when it’s done as to how long it took and any problems. This is a discrete process. It stops and starts.
Where does this go? Let’s figure it out. As we move up the totem pole of reporting we plan for longer periods of time. The CEO and his executive team plan for three to five years in advance. Their annual results tell them how well their strategy is operating. They can be privy to quarterly and monthly data as well. Weekly and daily information would be overload!
Plan Quarterly => Record monthly => Report Quarterly
Plan monthly => Record weekly => Report monthly
Plan weekly => Record daily => Report weekly
Plan daily => Record Hourly =>
Is there space in your life for increased sales? Or is your desk in such a state of disarray, your filing so back-logged and your turn-around time on proposals so dismal that new business turns and runs the other way? While many people have witnessed the increase in organizational shows, books and products, some may not have made the connection between clutter and stagnant business.Intrigued? Read on for some practical suggestions to free up energy and attract more prosperity.1. Purge your files. In my own research and reading I continue to come across the suggestion that 80% o
Let’s look at some examples. A web marketer plans to sell 20 products per day. Each hour they can log in and see a report of how many sales have been made. At the end of the day they can see the summary of what occurred each hour. Could they have made any difference on the result by knowing what happened each hour? Probably not. So a single report at the end of the day would suffice for them to make plans and change their advertising campaigns. This is a continuous process.
A factory producing widgets. They make a plan for the day with the manager. The operator monitors the staff and machinery as well as production rates. She records the information on an hourly basis and at the end of the shift provides a summary of the days activities and number of widgets produced. This is a continuous process.
A repair shop services auto engines. Each engineer gets an allocation of work to do and reports back when it’s done as to how long it took and any problems. This is a discrete process. It stops and starts.
Where does this go? Let’s figure it out. As we move up the totem pole of reporting we plan for longer periods of time. The CEO and his executive team plan for three to five years in advance. Their annual results tell them how well their strategy is operating. They can be privy to quarterly and monthly data as well. Weekly and daily information would be overload!
Plan Quarterly => Record monthly => Report Quarterly
Plan monthly => Record weekly => Report monthly
Plan weekly => Record daily => Report weekly
Plan daily => Record Hourly =>
"Bureaucracy - any administration where action is impeded by unnecessary procedures" - Collins Concise English DictionaryIn your own organisation, do you ever think "Why are we doing this?" or "Why aren't things moving as planned or desired? Do you notice people becoming more difficult to deal with? Do you sense a rising level of frustration? Has your workplace lost its shine? Perhaps it's becoming or already is bureaucratic.Often unnoticed in an organisation's growth is a tendency towards bureaucracy. It's rarely intentional, yet very common.Here are some other s
A factory producing widgets. They make a plan for the day with the manager. The operator monitors the staff and machinery as well as production rates. She records the information on an hourly basis and at the end of the shift provides a summary of the days activities and number of widgets produced. This is a continuous process.
A repair shop services auto engines. Each engineer gets an allocation of work to do and reports back when it’s done as to how long it took and any problems. This is a discrete process. It stops and starts.
Where does this go? Let’s figure it out. As we move up the totem pole of reporting we plan for longer periods of time. The CEO and his executive team plan for three to five years in advance. Their annual results tell them how well their strategy is operating. They can be privy to quarterly and monthly data as well. Weekly and daily information would be overload!
Plan Quarterly => Record monthly => Report Quarterly
Plan monthly => Record weekly => Report monthly
Plan weekly => Record daily => Report weekly
Plan daily => Record Hourly =>
If you need to partially conceal your cameras from view, wireless security cameras are the way to go. Locations such as banks use a combination of wireless and wired, visible and hidden cameras to intimidate potential robbers, but continue photographing them even if they disable the wired cameras.Las Vegas casinos do the same. Look around you the next time you enter a casino or a bank. There are cameras evident and these are for “publicity” purposes. That is, they are there to intimidate a potential robber or petty thief from doing anything, knowing that their actions are being recorded. Th
Where does this go? Let’s figure it out. As we move up the totem pole of reporting we plan for longer periods of time. The CEO and his executive team plan for three to five years in advance. Their annual results tell them how well their strategy is operating. They can be privy to quarterly and monthly data as well. Weekly and daily information would be overload!
Plan Quarterly => Record monthly => Report Quarterly
Plan monthly => Record weekly => Report monthly
Plan weekly => Record daily => Report weekly
Plan daily => Record Hourly => Report daily
A daily plan and report combination may be for a production supervisor. The operator collects hourly data. In effect the recording drops down a level, which would also be a lower level in a management heirachy ( I couldnt show it in this document!) The report back goes back up a level to the manager.
The plant manager would work on a monthly basis. They will receive a summary of events monthly to report to the senior management group, above their level, monthly.
Questions of detail can be answered by drilling down. This is how many management software tools are set up. As a manager you are capable of choosing your level of detail. Obviously a senior manager would choose a dashboard to get a snapshot of the business and drill down on any anomalies.
Reporting structures allow the correct information to be sent up the hierarchy. It’s always great when all the reporting is done through a single system, like an ERP. This means that management can see the real data. Also staff can be sure management is reporting what is actually happening rather than making up the numbers to show the analysts.
Be wary of spreadsheet monsters! It is also important that data isn’t taken out of the system and reworked on a spreadsheet. If this practice continues without consolidating it back with the live data, soon it will not represent reality. This has caused more than one company some serious concern.
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