CAL featured on business showcase

Last week I was asked to do an interview about my background, the services CAL offers and our plans for the future of the company.

Using the brilliant AudioBoo! application for the IPhone our friend Doug Jenner put together this 5 minute recording

Rewiring for Lean Teams

In many organisations, technology has liberated distributed teams with members working from regional offices, on the road or train, at home or office. Unreliable mobile connections have given way to web enabled devices, 3G internet connection on the move, high-speed home broadband connection and e-mail allowing contact almost anywhere anytime!

But when was the last time you looked at the processes you run as a team and asked if they are more efficient?

Sure they are faster and in many cases can now involve more people, but is this saving your organisation money or have processes become more complex, involving extended decision making just because senior managers are now contactable. At CAL we work with clients in establishing a set of guidelines that can be applied to any processes your team are running to keep them lean, effective and raising productivity.

1. Assess the stage - Each stage of the process and ensure each has a recognised input or action to initiate the process. (This will remove random actions starting a process with little control).

2. Look at the output - Is this fed directly into the next stage or is this held up or delayed in some way (This prevents stages being completed before it is necessary, ensuring value is delivered, if not then the team member should be working on another process which is needed).

3. Does the stage require decisions or approval? - If it does ensure that these are taken locally and do not involve contacting anyone outside of the team. If this is the case ensure that the decision is adding value and not comfort to a senior manager (This is to ensure decisions are made quickly and not strung out waiting for a senior manager to note approval).

4. What value does the stage add? - The team members involved must be adding value to the process, product or service. (Very often stages are a legacy of office based processes that are no longer relevant, but add a comfort factor).

5. Could the process be reduced or speeded up? - Look at the actions and ask could this be changed to improve the stage, be creative and open to ideas. (Consider if this could be a smarter process, removing any actions that are not adding value or using technology improve them).

By taking a little time to invest in the processes driving business as well as the staff supporting them, real measurable efficiencies are achievable within any organisation.

Social Housing Seminar - October 20th 2009

Things are really hotting up for us in the housing sector after a year of working with associations, carrying out market research and forming business partnerships.

We are co-hosting a seminar in Southampton on the 20th October at the offices of LangdownsDFK looking at challenging teams in social housing. The seminar will feature distributed working best practice guidance couples with a road-map for developing 2 and 3 star service accreditation for registered social landlords from Peter Bird of Primary Business Support (http://www.primarybs.co.uk/)

You can find information about the event as well as booking details in this flyer



I am more present on twitter these days - as it seems to be the rule rather than the exception among my business contacts these days and is a great way to promote events as well as articles and blog updates. You can find me there by following enhanced_teams
. The very attractive background was designed and created by my very good friend Ces Loftus from Creatively Minded

Smart working centres – Making a difference to the way people work

We have all read the headlines about ‘Flexible Working’.

The fact that many people now get the change to work from home or work flexible hours around family or community commitment, but what is the real truth behind the headlines?

In reality many people find the logistics difficult if not impossible, with finding a dedicated space within their homes, children’s holidays all adding to make the experience unrealistic. But that is all about to change across Hampshire with the creation of a network of Smart Working Centres (SWC) in key locations across the county. Each centre allows the members to book a desk, room or use the drop in open area when required for as little as an hour. The aim is to meet the needs of the community; working parents linked with play schools and child minding facilities, Commuters looking to stagger the journey and travel at quieter and cheaper times, community projects wanting to complete administration tasks in an office environment.

Hampshire has already commissioned four centres and is looking to establish twenty centres by the end of 2010.

Project manager Tony Corbin said ‘Hampshire CC are committed to encouraging business development and smart working across the county, which the initiative is key to meeting these targets’.

If you would like more information on the centres http://www.ehampshire.org/matisse_smarter_working/s-69.html

5 ways to win with virtual teams:

Commerce these days is increasingly becoming resourced by distributed teams of smaller highly specialised providers. This relatively new model of doing business can, if properly utilised, provide high quality services at affordable prices to even the smallest company and also allow the growth of leaner - more robust and recession-resilient businesses.

Here is a checklist of areas that should be considered when starting project work with external providers as 'virtual' team members. By following these simple guidelines you will ensure the highest chances of hassle-free relationships and timely deliver of contracted work and therefore progress of your business objectives.

1. Use social media to identify and then hire 'the best' - then insist on both a quote and references before progressing
One terrific business development of recent years is the advent of the internet - and this should not be missed when aiming to resource project work for your venture. It is said that 40% of internet traffic currently is driven from 'social media' sites like LinkedIn or Twitter - which many thousands of suppliers use to offer their wares and grow reputation and awareness. As a business owner looking for resources to supply your projects - this is a great place to start looking - and as these platforms are global in nature - you have the advantage of global competitiveness built in.
So: why should this be of interest ?
These platforms are full of small business service and product providers offering almost every conceivable thing any business requires.
Take the time to search for the services that you require on the internet and you will soon have numerous choices of supplier - offering themselves for you to do business with.

2. Work to projects - agree scope, fee and timescale for any work up front
Be wary about not following conventional thinking and engaging on retainers of for that matter in house employees. Instead start small and allow trust based relationships to grow around the delivery of a number of small-tightly defined projects - do not commit to critical larger projects initially.

3. Ensure that processes and platform are in place before recruiting
Any supplier must have a crystal clear understanding of what is required in a particular piece of work in order to deliver both on time and to your requirements. The use of collaborative platforms accessible by both you and the supplier together with a robust virtual team infrastructure will give you the confidence to delegate and then track and result any issues arising - before they impact on the delivery of your objectives.

4. Agree defined time frames and then measure performance and progress often
Take the time to agree upfront a definition for the piece of work and address all issues arising from it before the work commences - the resultant project may include a design or analysis phase - but these should also have both clear scope and clear timescales - mutually agreed deliverables. By using a virtual team support platform - projects can be resourced by multiple-collaborating suppliers as team members where progress can be seen at any times and collaborative assistance can be requested and applied when it is needed.

5. Do not tolerate under-performance by suppliers - seek to enhance and profit from healthy competition between supplier teams.
Relationships with 'virtual team' suppliers need to be created on the understanding that they have been competitively awarded and that in the eventuality of failed deliver of project deliverables - penalties will apply and that you may take your business elsewhere.

Virtual teaming - 3 reasons why it works

As a company, CAL often uses external partner firms on projects to leverage skills areas that our core team do not have. The use of social media platforms (in our case LinkedIn, Ecademy and Twitter) has, for us, as well as allowing us to grow the awareness of our brand (our original objective) also allowed us to solve one of the biggest challenges in this area - where to find the right partner organisations in the first place.


Here are the top reasons why, for us, this model works so well.

1 Ongoing 'Lean' operation
During the high growth phase of small businesses - there is a huge on-going demand for a diverse set of professional skills to ensure the successful maturity. Issues in cost-control and funding inevitably arise when companies try and do it all themselves - take on too much too quickly and over stretch themselves. By identifying external skills required to complete projects on a case-by-case basis and them seeking those skills externally - the ongoing operating overhead of the firm can be kept to a minimum while the skills of expensive, specialists are deployed exactly as and when required - not as an ongoing overhead with you having to find things for them to do between times of real need.

2. Support and Information
Running a business often seems a walk from one set of challenges you are ill equipped to solve - stragith to another. Engagement with virtual teams and use of social media really helps in this area. The level of knowledge and advice offered by contacts and past,present and future commercial partners never fails to amaze me - there is, I doubt, any subject that a contact could either advise and help with directly or introduce you to someone who can help. As the anecdote says - it really is who you know - not what you know that counts.

3. Enable the growth a strong brand
By careful selection of the best partners for your projects - you are also creating advocates - external companies that understand your values and what you are hoping to achieve. These in turn become strong advocates for you in due course once a working relationship based on trust has developed. The two key elements of creating a strong brand are - I would suggest - firstly by having a very good quality product/service and secondly by ensuring that it becomes well known by you target audiance.


While these benefits are fairly obvious - getting this sort of working realationship in place and successful takes ongoing commitment and effort from both sides.

Heart and soul - share and show passion - and engage !

The key to productivity in any team lies in the perceived relationships between the team's peer-group members and the lines of responsibility and control through to the people with team management responsibilities.

When a team is distributed - this can become a huge challenge - as the members of the team may feel isolated from the guiding hand of leadership, fearful of a lack of real participation and worth and as a result insecure, unvalued and unsupported.

This is where software tools that allow shared knowledge management really come into their own. Ongoing operation of these solutions provides the whole team with all the evidence they need; not only access to see documents in real time and work as a team on all the artifacts relating to a given project - but also by providing a cradle of knowledge, increased peer-level sharing and collaboration and therefore giving an increased sense of belonging to each team member as part of the 'whole' team.

A vital element to effective leadership is the passion that is evident in the leader for the completion of the tasks in hand - any lack of energy and enthusiasm at the top is a guaranteed way of demotivating and limiting the commitment and output of the team members themselves. By adopting the tools described above, this passion is clear from day to day - project by project, even if a team member is a lone-worker by nature - the reassurance that trusted support and encouragement from the team leader as well as other peer group members of the team is there whenever needed, and very easy to obtain on a day to day basis - boosts morale tremendously.

Using these technologies also gives the team leader an opportunity to really support individual and sub-group efforts as and when required and for this support to be seen and valued by not only the people involved but by the whole team.

The future of distributed teams

For this months CAL newsletter I interviewed Anne Marie McEwan, and expert in the evolution of working practices and leaders of the Global Mobility Forum.

Here is an extract from the interview

The current economic slowdown is causing many employers to reduce workforce numbers - what advice would you to prepare for recovery?

Employers are understandably looking to minimise costs and often taking hasty action in reducing head count when in fact a calm cool stepping back and looking at where value lies is what is needed.

Fourteen years ago when entering this field, I worked with traditional manufacturers as they made the transition to Lean Manufacturing. This was the BIG change in industry. Not only is there nothing new, change happens constantly, there is a lot that we can learn from that time. Of major importance right now is the need for employee talents to be properly leveraged in the workplace. Take the opportunity to take a good look at the talents and skills of others in your workplace – this is where untapped potential lies. This is what I used to do with shop floor operators, with startling results for the bottom line. The current climate gives us a golden opportunity to consider new ways of working.


How do you feel the workplace will change over the next five years?
We need to be realistic here. We are unlikely to see huge changes overnight. I am quite pessimistic about the rate of change of working practices. Work will undoubtedly change over time. Consider this change as a bit like an iceberg moving a millimetre at a time. It is not apparent to the naked eye but it is unstoppable and inevitable in its ability to gouge out the landscape.

Times really have changed, for example nowadays a typing pool is a thing of the past. Thirty five years ago when I first started work as a youngster, I was given a dress code for woman, written into my employment contract, different from that given to male employees (that sort of discrimination just would not happen today).


To read the interview in full visit our web site here