Month: December 2022

Corporate CPR Episode 63: How to Stay Relevant in the New Era of Work

/ Jana

On today’s show, we discuss the new era of work and how companies can navigate it to stay relevant.

Emma Giles is one of the founders of SoWork, a product that helps digital-first teams do great work, no matter when they work or where they work from.

Emma leads product and spends her time working directly with SoWork customers who are leaders of organizations trying to navigate the digital-first work shift. This gives her a unique perspective on how the landscape of work is evolving, what leaders and their teams are struggling with, and how to solve the most pressing challenges with technology.

In her past life, she was a crisis counselor and a scientist. She dropped out of a PhD from Harvard/MIT in computational neuroscience to build a business, spent a year at Khan Academy creating free medical content for medical students, and scaled data initiatives for the WHO. Today, running a digital company allows her to live on Vancouver Island, where she spends her personal time hiking and running ultramarathon.

Key Takeaways:

  • The concept of remote work isn’t new, but the pandemic has catapulted these trends. Companies are trying to decide where on the spectrum they will land between all remote or all on site.
  • Performance of a business depends on people to come together in ways that are productive and high-functioning to drive great results. Teams need to be able to come together to be a unit that is greater than the sum of its parts. Team members as individuals need to feel seen, heard, and valued to perform at their best.
  • New tools are becoming available to help build spontaneity in digital teams, allowing people to be in common spaces digitally. As companies realize that many of their pain points are related to connection and collaboration techniques, these tools will become more in demand.
  • Teammates with at least 5-7 strong connections within the company are more likely to stay with the company. A strong connection is one where a person feels like they can be themselves with another person. These connections take cultivation to form and then touch points to maintain.
  • Because people are different, leaders should cultivate an environment for people to get what they need, but not feel forced to behave a certain way. Meet people where they are with technology and make sure they are able to use the technology in a way that keeps the benefit of their flexibility.
  • Adoption is often the biggest hurdle when implementing virtual team tools. Behavior changes require understanding, time, effort, realization for why it works, and then fitting it into people’s workflows. Less is more. Teamwork blocks are a great way to start. Select a unit of time where everyone comes together and works from the virtual office. They can see how it feels and build from there.

Top Takeaways:

  • Every team is completely different.
  • People’s need to feel like they can be themselves, be human, and connect in realistic ways is paramount.
  • Everything in the business stems from the individual’s needs being met. This empowers them to connect in teams and create great results that affect the bottom line of the business.

Connect with Emma Giles:

Website: https://sowork.com/

Corporate CPR Episode 62: Mindfulness for Your Organization’s Success

/ Jana

On today’s show, we discuss how mindfulness can affect our organization’s ability to be successful.

Dr. Eric J. Holsapple is a successful developer and entrepreneur who has used mindfulness to transform his life and business, and helps others to do the same.

Eric has a PhD in Economics, has been a real estate CEO and developer for nearly 40 years, lectured real estate at Colorado State University for 20 years, and practiced yoga and meditation for 30 years. Eric was awarded The Colorado State University Real Estate Entrepreneur of the Year in 2010; and Bizwest Bravo Entrepreneur of the year award for Loveland, CO in 2015. Holsapple has a unique perspective on how merging business and mindfulness can be a catalyst in changing lives. Eric is the Founder of Living In The Gap. His popular workshops teach CEOs and professionals a different way to operate mindfully while improving the bottom line.

Eric has written numerous published articles in real estate and economics, and a book entitled Profit with Presence that will be published in early 2023. He is a regular speaker at public and private events, and a popular guest on business podcasts.

Key Takeaways:

  • Essentially, mindfulness is focus.
  • To change negative thought patterns, develop awareness of how much focus is given to negativity. Focus on building relationship instead or determining if a change should be made.
  • Mindfulness helps to see other people as people and not just a means to getting the job done. End results are important, and should be looked at on a regular basis, but being present in the moment when speaking to people helps employees feel valued.
  • Impact to ROI – Aetna did a study showing a $2000 annual savings in healthcare cost and a $3000 annual increase in productivity per employee after implementing a mindfulness program.
  • A mindfulness exercise before a meeting helps the meeting to be more productive.
  • Mindfulness helps to filter random thoughts and only focus on the ones that are part of the desired vision of the individual or the organization.
  • Accepting our current reality reduces stress. Stress is resisting the reality. We can still desire and strive to make changes toward improvement, but accepting the current reality calms the mind.
  • The world doesn’t change. Your perception of the world changes.
  • The goal is to be able to focus on what you want to focus on to the exclusion of everything else. The exercises help to train yourself to do that.
  • Consistency is more important in the beginning than the length of the session.
  • One easy way to start is to just stop and take time to focus on your breathing.
  • Corporate mindfulness could shift the mindset of the world.

Pitfalls to mindfulness:

  • Time – We are all busy. Start small and focus on consistency.
  • Culture – People will criticize. Keep it private until you are confident.

Top Takeaways:

  • Start with 3 “gratitudes” each day. What are you grateful for and why?
  • Start to be aware of your breath. You can do this wherever you are.
  • Do service work. Getting into the community to serve others changes your mindset.

Connect with Eric Holsapple:

Paid programs and free resources available at:  https://livinginthegap.org/

Eric’s book launches Mar 7 on Amazon –

Profit With Presence – The 12 Pillars of Mindful Leadership

When Is It Too Late to Recover a Struggling Project?

/ Jana / Leave a comment

We’ve all been there before. A project is going south, fast. The client is unhappy, the team is demoralized, and you’re staring down an ever-growing list of tasks with no end in sight. Project Genetics can help you turn things around and get your project back on track. Whether you’re facing scope creep, unanticipated challenges, or simply need a fresh perspective, we can help with project recovery.

When Is It Too Late to Recover a Struggling Project?

With Project Genetics, it’s never too late to recover a struggling project. Red flags that indicate you should contact us include missed deadlines, lack of communication between stakeholders and team members, cost overruns, or insufficient resources allocated for the completion of a task.

In order to recover from a struggling project, the right support mechanisms need to be put in place. This can include providing additional resources, mitigating risk factors, and ensuring that all goals are achievable within budget constraints.

Identifying Risk Factors

There are many potential risk factors that can contribute to project failure, but some of the most common include:

Scope Creep

Scope creep is an insidious risk that occurs when the scope of the project expands beyond its original bounds. This can happen for a variety of reasons, but often it is the result of poor planning or changes in stakeholder expectations. Scope creep can quickly lead to cost overruns and schedule delays, so it is important to be vigilant about identifying and addressing it early on.

Unrealistic Deadlines

In many cases, deadlines are set without adequate consideration for the resources available or the complexity of the task at hand. As a result, projects often fall behind schedule, leading to frustration and wasted effort. To avoid this pitfall, it is crucial to take a realistic assessment of what can be accomplished within the available timeframe.

Inadequate Resources

Without the right people, materials, and equipment, it can be impossible to meet deadlines, stay within budget, or achieve the desired results. If a project is already failing due to insufficient resources, there are a few things that can be done to try and recover.

First, assess the situation and determine exactly what resources are needed. Then, reach out to stakeholders and other interested parties to see if additional resources can be obtained. Finally, it may be necessary to revise the project plan in order to account for the lack of resources.

Implementing Digital Solutions for Project Recovery

Digital tools can help with recovery in a number of ways. First, they can provide visibility into what’s going wrong and where corrective action is needed. They can also help to streamline communication and collaboration among team members, which is essential for getting a project back on the rails. Additionally, digital solutions can help to automate tasks and processes, making it easier to get things done quickly and efficiently.

With our industry knowledge and extensive network of contacts throughout many different fields, we’re able to effectively leverage resources and expertise to offer practical solutions to recover a failing project. Contact Project Genetics today for more information on how we can help bring your struggling project back from the brink!

Back on Track: 4 Steps to Project Recovery

/ Jana

Recently, it was estimated that 36% of business projects fail. Trillions of dollars are invested into projects every year, so that’s a lot of money being wasted. Most projects run into trouble towards the end of the project and it becomes challenging to right the ship. When it’s realized that a project is going off track, how do you recover it? Read on to learn the important steps for project recovery!

Back on Track: 4 Steps to Project Recovery

1. Create a Special Team

The first step is to create a special team tasked with recovery. This is a team composed of folks outside of the current project. Think of this team as an internal audit. Their goal is to do an independent evaluation of the project, conduct critical assessments, and execute the recovery process. As they will be stepping on toes, it’s important to have a good mix of personalities to minimize personnel issues. Buy-in from the current project team is key.

2. Start From the Top

Projects that follow the methodologies outlined by the Project Management Institute generally have a project charter with an outlined mission, objectives, and success criteria. These project artifacts must be reviewed and validated. It’s expected that some elements may need to evolve to match any new learnings since the project started. It’s also anticipated that any modifications will require approval.

3. Perform a Critical Assessment

A well-thought-out assessment is efficient, accurate, and minimizes project distractions. During the assessment, all critical project artifacts will need to be reviewed and project team members will need to be interviewed. Project artifacts in this step usually include the project plan, budget and associated metrics, estimate and pricing details, contract, and project organization chart.

The employees critical to the interviews include the project manager, sponsor, stakeholders, members of the project management office (if applicable), contractors, vendors, customers, and project team members. The goal of these interviews is to determine the exact status of the project, as well as any risks, issues, and opportunities. Interviews should emphasize confidentiality and open-ended questions.

Once the assessment is complete, the data should be analyzed and a list of findings and action items must be created. Then answer the most important question: is recovery possible? If so, move on to the next step.

4. Plan and Recover the Project

Once recovery is deemed possible, an extended team will need to be curated and the recovery process will start. It’s expected the focus now is on not failing. In addition, the recovery process will be subject to intense scrutiny, tight controls, and higher frequencies of communication and monitoring. The recovery plan must also take into consideration employee morale, personnel problems, and leadership issues. Patience, constant monitoring, and regular feedback are significant events during recovery.

Failing projects are recoverable. However, experience is necessary to turn them around. Do you need assistance in getting your project back on track? Check out Project Genetics today and meet with seasoned experts who can recover your troubled project! We help customers every day with project delivery. We are 100% committed to project success and can help you get your project back in line with your organization’s goals.

Corporate CPR Episode 61: The Impact of Financial Asset Management to Your Success

/ Jana

On today’s show, we discuss the impact of financial asset management to your success.

Devon Drew’s track record speaks for itself: As a senior executive at Vanguard he raised over $20 billion in assets for Vanguard’s proprietary ETFs and mutual funds within Texas.

When the world experienced the “George Floyd Moment,” Drew began to question his professional impact and got to work, collaborating with some of his fellow data and tech gurus, to create DFD Partners, a SaaS platform that is designed to allow diverse asset management firms effectively scale by leveraging data automation and machine learning.

Drew and his team have proved their concept, with already just under 100M raised and 70B in aggregate platform AUM. They are currently focused on helping small and diverse funds increase their AUM by 1 trillion by 2028.

Since launching the platform in Summer of 2022, DFD Partners is already amongst the fastest growing fintech companies this year. Within the past few months, they have been named One of the Top 10 Rising Fintech Companies by Future Proof and have sat on several panels, including the Keynote Panel at LG Innovation Summit alongside Meta, Google, Tesla and Amazon, and the Emerging Manager Panel at Tide Spark Conference, where the attendees made up over 400B worth of assets under management in the building. Drew himself has been interviewed by The Compound  and Friends Podcast, ABC, California Business Journal and Bloomberg, and has been mentioned in numerous media outlets, including Business Wire, Financial Advisor, Citywire, International Business Times and Advisors Magazine.

Key Takeaways:

  • Asset managers are the individuals within a company that control the money for organizations. Organizations may be a significant shareholder in many influential companies.
  • Through investments, the organization has a tremendous influence in
    • Employees retiring with dignity
    • Public policy
  • ESG – Environmental Social Governance is a set of standards that socially conscious investors use to screen investments. Organizations will receive an ESG score depending on how they demonstrate a demonstrable impact on these three key areas.
  • As more organizations comply with ESG or impact investing, over time these companies will outperform the others.
  • Diversity in background, gender, asset class, and age of asset managers will drive differentiation in thought. In turn, you’ll find differentiation in returns.
  • An organization needs to have an investment policy statement that adheres to what the organization believes in. It should guide how the money should be managed.
  • The underlying block chain technology is going to be revolutionary when it comes to balancing the ledgers. Digital assets will need some more regulation to eliminate those that are not commercially viable. We are still in the beginning stages.
  • Over the next 20 years, you’ll see 68 trillion dollars from Gen X and Baby Boomers transition down to Millennials and Gen Z. Trust and communication are imperative to build into the next generations, or they will abandon asset managers and try to do it themselves, potentially making poor financial decisions.

Top Takeaways:

  • Have a long-term approach to investing.
  • When making financially life-altering decisions, seek the help of a financial professional.

Connect with Devon Drew:

Website:  https://dfd.ai

LinkedIn:   https://www.linkedin.com/company/dfd-partners/

Twitter: dfdpartners

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dfdpartners

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dfdpartners/

Protecting Data Security During ERP Implementation

/ Jana / Leave a comment

With the increasing use of cloud-based technologies, there has been a heightened focus on data security, and Project Genetics helps organizations understand and mitigate any potential risks associated with implementation of digital solutions. Consider taking these steps in order to protect data security during ERP implementation.

Protecting Data Security During ERP Implementation

Risks can come from internal or external sources, ranging from malicious actors looking to gain unauthorized access to confidential information to mistakes made by personnel within the organization who do not have sufficient knowledge about data privacy laws and regulations.

To ensure proper protection of this sensitive information, organizations should conduct a security audit of their current system before embarking on any new implementations. This audit should include identifying existing weaknesses and vulnerabilities as well as assessing whether existing IT infrastructure can handle the new requirements adequately.

Plan and Implement Appropriate Data Security Measures

Once any potential risks have been identified, organizations need to plan and implement appropriate data security measures for their specific needs. Such measures could include two-factor authentication for all users accessing critical resources, using strong passwords that are regularly changed, and creating encryption algorithms for stored data.

Businesses should ensure that only authorized personnel have access to confidential documents. Additionally, organizations should consider implementing an identity management system that allows them to easily control user access levels and track user activities on a granular level.

Train Employees on Data Security Best Practices

As part of the training process, there should be an emphasis on topics such as understanding data privacy laws and regulations, recognizing common social engineering tactics used by malicious actors, and avoiding suspicious links or emails.

Employees should also be enlightened on the importance of backing up files regularly, properly disposing of confidential documents, avoiding writing down passwords, and never leaving computers unlocked or unattended. Additionally, they should be taught how to respond when confronted with a data breach so that they can take necessary precautions in order to minimize any losses incurred from it.

Regularly Test Data Security Measures to Ensure They Are Effective

Organizations also need to keep checking if their implemented data security measures are effective enough by regularly testing them against different attacker scenarios and evaluating their results accordingly. By doing this, organizations will reduce the chance of becoming the victim of sophisticated cyberattacks, thus ensuring that all confidential, business-related information remains secure at all times regardless if deployed on-premise or hosted remotely over cloud platforms.

Additionally, keeping hardware and software updated is another key component in reducing the risk of cyberattacks. These updates usually contain critical patches which address known vulnerabilities in systems or applications that malicious actors could exploit otherwise.

By taking steps to harden endpoints and ensuring that technology infrastructure is secure, you can help protect your business from potential attacks. At Project Genetics, we help businesses integrate technology solutions with best practices to streamline their digital transformation implementation. Contact Project Genetics today to learn more about how we can help keep your data safe during and after software implementation.