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Zvika Bash is an Applications Manager at a large, multinational Israeli IT organization.
He specializes in SAP Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation projects. Projects he led have included full scale implementations, upgrade projects and business intelligence implementations.
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What are some difficult situations when managing people and how do you overcome them?
When people from different companies work together on a project, they may not feel accountable for the entire project or obligated to exceed the customer's expectations. The lack of traditional reporting structures can cause participants to be less engaged, overprice tasks or feel irresponsible for schedules.
To create a connection between people, the project and the customer, we emphasize the following:
● Team building - it creates a pleasant organizational atmosphere. We have weekly breakfast meetings to share project updates; we celebrate birthdays and personal events. We also do team building activities away from the office.
● Organizing frequent meetings with senior staff - to emphasize how the project contributes to the organization as a whole and, in our case, improves national security.
● Personal meetings with the customer - I do my best to encourage as much direct interaction as possible between the staff and the customer. Those meetings dramatically improve the success of finding the best solution for the concrete needs of the customer. In addition, it increases the staff's motivation and improves the work process.
● Listening to people - it is important to listen to your employees and learn to understand their individual needs. I make an effort to get to know and help my team members, which in turn increases their personal commitment towards me. No one wants to disappoint someone who supports them.
● Planning ahead – planning ahead and for the long-term gives people stability, and at the same time prepares them that there may be a few more obstacles ahead. Planning also prevents employment insecurity – when employees feel comfortable and secure in their roles, they don't feel the need to search for different projects or other jobs.
● Technological challenges - it is important to combine projects that are technologically challenging and provide the opportunity to make a difference. Challenges motivate employees to find technological solutions in their respective areas.
What are some practical tools you use the most to lead your teams?
We use different methods throughout the project to lead the teams:
● The most important management tool that we use is the Gantt Chart created with Microsoft Project. It allows us to separate tasks and their deadlines, easily analyze bottlenecks and map critical paths. We constantly monitor progress and plan upcoming tasks by comparing manpower forecasts to the staff's available workdays in the project.
● To manage the project's development progress we use an SAP standard tool called Solution Manager. This tool allows us to document developing features and to manage the status of each development. Intercommunication of the progress of each development is performed by SAP Solution Manager and supervision is made possible using the data produced by this tool.
● The testing phase is managed using HP Quality Center Software. We analyze defects and monitor them frequently in a daily meeting lead by me. The ability of the software to analyze mishaps enables us to better understand the system's status and improves our decision making.
How do you instill customer service attitudes in your employees?
We have a few guidelines to improve customer service:
1. Create an organizational culture that emphasizes good customer service.
2. Offer training courses to consultants and service dispatchers, and motivate them to constantly improve their customer service skills.
3. Assign service dispatchers to become engaged at customer sites (this creates a positive relationship between frontline workers and service dispatchers).
What benchmarks do you use to determine successful outcomes?
1. During the project - creating a clear definition of milestones and reaching them.
2. At the end of the project - meeting deadlines, staying in budget and utilizing capacity.
3. After the project - assessing the amount of negative feedback in the service department, assessing the amount of logistical errors, for example the slow transportation of critical elements to the production environment, and the percentage of time that the system was down due to such errors.
What was one of your greater (team) successes? Were there setbacks? Lessons learned?
The biggest success in my current project has been a technological success. For the first time (as far as I know in Israel) we technologically combined SAP software with development in the FLEX environment. The project's staff successfully developed a special graphical interface that can be produced only through FLEX. Since this had never been done before, there were a lot of first-time decisions to be made. Even though we tested the technology before execution, problems arose when it went live. However, the execution was very successful overall. Considering the technological challenges we faced, we managed to finish this ERP project within a year - a significant achievement.
As for failures - I am happy to say I haven't personally experienced any. Wise planning, methodical reviews, order and mostly the devotion of our staff have found us reaching all of our goals.
Lessons - It is very important that the customer is involved in all stages of the project. In my opinion, the customer or a representative should be an integral part of the team. This representative needs to be accountable for the success or failure of the project as any other member of the project team. He/she needs to be responsible for decisions made and he/she serves as ambassador to the IT department. That is how decisions are accepted and adopted into the organization, even if it's a decision that increases the workload and causes process changes. It is important to get the customer involved and make sure everyone is working towards the same goal. In our project, all developments are authorized by a development committee, approving every change in the process. I call it "positive bureaucracy," it helps minimize the total amount of changes in the program and its development, and makes it possible to execute the project with little interruptions.
How would your team members describe your leadership style?
My leadership style is characterized by several aspects:
1. I support creating a positive team environment (in soccer it's called "locker room environment"). I absolutely believe that a positive team atmosphere contributes to the growth of the individual team members and that a united team is stronger than just the sum of the team's parts.
2. I include all of the different group heads in the decision making process. This participation enables people to express their professional perspectives and contribute ideas. It helps them connect to the solution and leaves them more committed to the success of the project.
3. Planning, order and organization - my projects are well-organized with documentation of meetings, characterizations and a clear work plan. Order helps achieve success and communicates to the staff that their work is important and fulfilling.
4. Good relationship with the customer - I convey to the staff that it is important to understand the difficulties that the customer is facing. Understanding the customer’s perspective enables the team to develop the best possible solution.
What is your weak spot?
I love going into details on everything, and sometimes I ask too many detailed questions about the improvement solutions that someone offered. I can see how it can make my staff think I don't respect their experience or professionalism at times.
How do you engage people on a project that may mean (their) jobs become redundant?
Every project that changes an old system presents a disruption for the people maintaining it. However, it also creates a need along the way for learning (teaching) new processes and for executing the new way of doing business. In the current project we combined the old team with the new team. The best solution is to keep everyone employed long-term and not to create fear over job losses and layoffs. We did that by training the old team for the new technology and assigned them new tasks (in this project we trained Power Builder programmers to work with ABAP software which is part of SAP).
What do you do to keep up with the world around you (do you have favorite newspaper, website, etc.)?
I mostly keep up with the SAP products world. I am subscribed to an email newsletter called SAP Flash that keeps me informed of the latest updates. The SAP developers website (SAP Developer Network – SDN) is filled with useful information on SAP products and services. In addition, I read the Gartner Group articles to learn more about other fields that I want to extend my business in.
What are some helpful habits that you have formed over the years?
My big hobby these days is running, and that indeed has become a habit. Above the physical workout and its advantages, I find running releases stress and is a good time to calmly think about difficult work-related things.
What was your first job and how did you become a project manager?
I started my professional path in the Israel Defense Forces serving in one of the IT network units. Serving in that position gave me the opportunity to rapidly develop myself professionally and as a manager.
My first position was in the systems analysis field as an SAP implementer. This is a classic position for a person such as myself with an academic background in industrial management engineering and information engineering. During my military service I was involved in big projects and had the honor to lead massive organizational changes relative to my junior position. After that, I was given an opportunity and promoted into management working on the IB and Portal. That was my first job in project management. I managed the establishing projects of these systems and later on oversaw their maintenance. Eventually, other projects were given to me and I managed project segments in the CRM field and for specific SAP models that included project management, maintenance and production management.
My experience and managerial development led to a leadership position as an ERP project manager in charge of establishing and managing all models, development, foundations, guidelines, inspections, authorizations and more.
What event/ experience in your professional life has made really big impact on you?
My first project as a systems analyst was very big in Israeli terms (a project of 150 IT people and assimilation of 1200 users at the same time). Being involved in a project of that scale throughout all of its phases was a formative experience for me. As an active partner and sometimes a bystander on the project I learned a lot about project administration, what it means to manage a project from start to finish, the importance of building a team, managing clients and getting them involved, and how to integrate all the elements in a project. That was a good experience that provided many positive and negative lessons. Later, those lessons helped me when I started managing the "show" and needed to make the decisions.
What management/ leadership insights or tips can you share with us?
1. Put an emphasis on building a team and choosing the right people – by that I mean creating a team with the right combination of professionalism and connectedness. Putting together a great team will produce 90% of the results needed to successfully complete the job. It is important to facilitate social activities (in the right dosage) that help co-workers connect right from the start (and throughout the duration of the project).
2. Integrate the organization's senior management in the project using a steering committee – this helps solve problems and makes it easier to lead progressive organizational changes.
3. Collaborate with others to make decisions and to plan the work tasks.
4. Outline the project steps in detail and monitor and supervise them to make sure that progress happens in the right place and at the right pace.
5. Decentralize authority to give professionals the power to make decisions in their fields (followed by ongoing supervision).
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