Here are five good reasons for using Time-boxing to help you manage your working hours:

• Time-boxing is simple and costs nothing. All you need is a clock timer, which you probably already have on your mobile phone or computer. There are also plenty of timer software devices freely available online. The basic method of time-boxing is this:Choose which task or set of tasks you’ll be doing on a particular day. Set the timer to a period which is enough to complete the activity. Now, having started the timer, focus on the task in hand and only that task. Try not to get distracted and don’t clock watch. When the clock alerts you of time up, you stop working. Job done. Repeat the process as necessary.
• It is a flexible and customisable time-management method. For the perfectionists and ditherers, time-boxes can be made as short as 5 minutes or any length you desire which, for many people, would make working against the clock less intimidating. In the case of workaholics, time-boxing can work the other way – it can limit working hours, so taking away some pressure, and making work less stressful.
• Ditch that procrastination. Sometimes, just to get started on a task is often more difficult than getting your teeth into it once it is underway. This is where Time-boxing can make getting started less daunting. For example, it’s a lot easier to begin a task you only have 30 minutes to complete than one you could spend an indefinite amount of time on. When you think of work and time in an indefinite way, it can be difficult to complete tasks.
• Keep that obsessive perfectionism in check. Perhaps not too surprisingly, procrastination is often caused – or at least related to – the need for everything to be perfect with the task in hand. Unfortunately, not only do perfectionists find it hard to get going on anything, they find it equally difficult to continue when they do get to a certain point – and sometimes to finish even! Time-boxing lessens the aversion to – and stress from – the task by simply limiting its duration. Also, by setting specific goals to accomplish before time is up, the perfectionist is forced to settle for good enough. He has to prioritize the essentials and avoid getting carried away with often superfluous details. If tinkering can’t be avoided, it can at least be time-boxed. And remember that perfection is the enemy of good.
• Going with the flow. Those perfectionists make work too challenging by setting unrealistic goals for themselves, often with standards that are too high. On the other hand though, when the goals are too trivial or the standards are set too low, work becomes too easy, resulting in boredom – and the end product being of poor quality or of a just adequate standard. But when work is neither too easy nor too hard, it becomes effortless and pleasurable, and certainly highly productive. Yes – this state is called flow and it’s what you need, every working day!

Many say that agile is not a project management methodology but rather a product development methodology. But in many cases the companies prefer to treat the development as a project and hence the notion of agile project management. Now the agile and traditional approaches are totally different so the first thought would be that the software used to manage each type of projects to be different. The idea is that agile PM is not a method per se, but rather an umbrella term for different processes. In turn, agile processes are very different among them.

In Scrum there are small teams, usually collocated, no project manager, and very often there is no need for a software for the managing the project. The team is self organizing, team members are doing daily meetings, and the project is split in iterations that take maximum one month. At the end of each iteration it is decided the next one and so on… No one wants to loose time by updating a plan that keeps changing or to monitor the daily progress of the team with a project scheduling tool.

In other agile processes the iterations take longer but the main idea is that the project plan, the requirements and the product specifications are subject to change. So a traditional project management software does not solve these needs. Indeed it is necessary to have .a monitoring process for the project and the team, a system for client communication etc. but due to the dynamic nature of the processes there is no needs to have fancy or complicated features. An agile product should be light in functionality, easy to use, easy to access and highly portable.

In some environments like constructions and engineering the project plan must be well defined from the beginning and changes rarely occur. This is the case where the traditional PM methods are a good fit. Due to the complexity of the projects the tools need to be more powerful and to offer more features to support all kind of analysis and constraints, to offer strong resource management capabilities and why not users rights management modules. Since basically the plan is managed by a project manager or by a small subset of decision capable members there is no need for a high collaboration.

So why wouldn’t a traditional PM software be suitable for an agile process? Well… it can be used but it lacks efficiency by over complicating things with features that are not needed. On the other side a traditional PM tool lacks the flexibility in communication that is much needed by agile teams.

PM 1.0 and PM 2.0

Some named traditional project management as being PM 1.0 while the new and improved way of managing projects is PM 2.0. In latter case the accent is put on collaboration by the use of web-based tools in the detriment of more powerful features. By looking at the name PM 2.0 certainly seems better than PM 1.0 but the truth is that there is no clear answer regarding which one is better. It all depends on what type of projects someone is managing. More than probably PM 1.0 will still remain the preferred solution for traditional project management while PM 2.0 will be more suited for agile project management.

In the end it does not matter what type of project management software is used to manage projects as long as the objectives are met. Tools may differ a lot for agile and traditional project management but it is the managers responsibility to choose the right one.

Product Marketing Launch Plan

This is used to make sure everyone understands the scope of the launch, their responsibilities and due dates. It’s also used in cross-functional team meetings to go over weekly status updates. I use a simple Excel spreadsheet, but you can also use Microsoft Project or other web-based solutions if you’re more comfortable with those.

Here is a sample launch plan template I’ve used in the past. As you can see, there are many elements to the product marketing launch plan. For “minor” announcements or feature launches, your team can decide which elements are less critical and eliminate those from the spreadsheet.

Whether it’s a major or minor launch, I include FAQs, demo guides and Brainshark video presentations in our plans.

Frequently Asked Questions

FAQ documents serve two main purposes. The first is to clarify key questions for internal teams and the second is to provide them with talking points for their audiences. I think of this document as a complement to the sales training that marketing provides in preparation for a launch. It’s a shortcut for sales reps and other internal audiences to quickly review as they prepare to sell to and inform their audiences.

1. Typical questions addressed in these FAQs are:

2. What are we launching?

3. Why will customers/the market care?  What’s our value proposition?

4. When are we launching?

5. What are the key features?

6. How is this priced?

7. How are we communicating this (internally, externally to customers/partners/press and analysts)?

8. What resources are available for us (brochures, videos, email templates, etc.)?

Demo Guide

Because we’re in the business software market, a key element in our sales cycle involves demoing our applications. A good demo flows smoothly, highlights benefits that are important to the audience and differentiates your solution from the competition. A bad demo will likely hit the brakes on the sales opportunity.

To ensure that all your reps present your solution in the best possible light, you can create a step-by-step demo guide together with a script to follow.  We build our guide in Word with the following column headings:

• What you see – A screenshot of what the presenter sees at each step of the demo
• What you do – Instructions on what options to select or what to click on
• What you say – The script the presenter should follow
• Why you say it – A description of the benefits, competitive positioning and differentiation included in the script at each step. This is particularly helpful to ensure that advanced presenters who may not follow the script word for word still cover key value proposition points during the demo.

Once you have a demo guide developed, it’s usually very easy to modify it to accommodate new or updated features.

Video or Brainshark Presentations

The impact and versatility of on-demand video presentations allow us to provide content for SEO, sales enablement, customer and partner training, as well as PR and social media purposes. We create a two-minute teaser presentation –  an overview highlighting the benefits of the new product or feature. Teasers are used on our website, in email campaigns and newsletters, and social media posts.

We provide more detail on the feature in video tutorials, where we “walk through” the application.  These presentations are included in the blog article posted at the time of the launch and in the press release. The tutorials are also used for internal training and are posted on the Support pages of our website.

Other Planning Resources

I’ve adapted these templates over the years, but I’m always on the lookout for ways to improve them.  Here are some of the resources I follow for new ideas:

• Pragmatic Marketing blogs
• Demand Metric resources

We’d love to share your ideas on sales enablement tools and templates.  Do you have a different tried-and-true approach? Let us know in the comments below!

Introduction Stage

The introductory stage of a product is usually a new product. Since the product is new, it often has slow initial growth. This is because the marketplace needs time to learn and use it. Time and patience during this stage is all you can really do. Let the market decide whether to reward it or neglect it. It is important not to stress about it taking so long, it is normal.

The Growth Stage

Growth follows the product’s introduction and often means that the market has interest in the product and sales are beginning to increase significantly. It is in this stage where it is smart to introduce a line extension. This will help grow the market and increase market share. The growth stage is where you will see most of your sales.

The Maturity Stage

This is the third stage of the Product Life Cycle and is often the longest stage. The increased sales you get during the growth stage are not infinite and are bound to plateau. The maturity stage is where your sales figure reaches their ceiling and profit margins begin to narrow. This by no means translates to dumping the product. In this stage price reduction or discount can keep the momentum going. Also now is an ideal time to begin considering new products to launch in the near to distant future.

The Decline Stage

The final stage in the cycle, the decline stage is usually the most unpleasant. This is when you witness sales decreasing and customers moving on to other products. Some people choose to run the product to the ground, picking up as many sales until it becomes unprofitable. Others use this opportune time to introduce their new products they began drafting in the maturity stage. Then the cycle starts all over again with the introduction of a new product.

New product launches and your sales force

Companies in the B2B market develop a dazzling array of new products. Some are modifications or minor upgrades of last year’s offerings.

And some are extraordinary new products that are designed to be significant revenue producers or game changers or in some cases “bet the company” entries into the market.

Unfortunately all too often, even when the new product falls into the extraordinary category, the product launch to the sales team more closely resembles an escape plan than a product launch to develop market superiority. The investment in training the sales team to sell the new product is simply not commensurate with the importance of the new product.

This omission constitutes a strategic missing link. Even an extraordinary new product will not sell itself beyond the early adopters. The sales team needs a comprehensive body of product knowledge and they need to fine-tune and adapt their sales skills to the customer requirements related to the new product. The more innovative the new product – the truer this proposition.

The sales team will not accomplish this information acquisition on their own. Training is required and for an extraordinary product, it is only fitting that the training be extraordinary.

So let’s explore what extraordinary new product launch training might look like? The discussion addresses both product training and sales skills training. The ideas originate from our launch projects with clients in the B2B marketplace.

Product Training. As a baseline you have know the features and functions of the new product. But talking about a product and selling a product are two very different things. Therefore extraordinary product training must include more than information about features and functions. You need to know a second tier of knowledge that has to do with product application.

How do your products individually or collectively solve the various problems likely to be encountered by your customer base? How do they impact desired customer outcomes like: productivity gain, risk management, expense reduction and revenue generation? Can you delineate the research that demonstrates your solution does what you say it does? Can you fine-tune these narratives based on whether you are talking with a customer who is an engineer versus the CIO?

Sales Training. There are several baseline considerations for designing sales training that is commensurate with the importance of a great new product.

First, the sales training must be customized specifically for the new product. Second, all the players need to come to the party not just the account executives – for example the engineering/technical support people engaged in the sale, the marketing people who understand the customer profiles that are most likely to be good fits, and the sales managers who must provide initial guidance and coaching.

When it comes to specific design specifications a two-day program works best. The first day should be a highly interactive practice-based experience focusing on initial skill development in areas such as:

• Understanding the market forces driving the need for the product.
• Examining the customer organizations that are high priority prospects.
• Exploring the value propositions for the key players.
• Understanding the buying process and decision criteria.
• Overcoming unique obstacles and objections.

The second day should focus exclusively on providing practice and feedback in two fundamental skill areas – how to develop an account strategy for a targeted account and how to plan and execute face-to-face sales calls on the key players in the decision process. The idea is to drag the real world into the classroom so the participants can practice selling the new product before the product is launched. Sales simulations are a particularly effective instructional methodology for achieving the required realism.

Final Note. Each year a significant number of extraordinary new products are launched with great expectations. Unfortunately, far too many never live up to their potential. One way to minimize this maddening outcome is to make the investment in training the sales team to sell the product commensurate with the investment in creating the product in the first place.

In this post we are going to look at two individuals who first started with a blog of their own, then went on to release products that would sell well off their blog and relates to all of their content.

The first person on the list is John Chow from JohnChow.com.

The name is probably familiar and I’m sure the site is too.

John has been able to continually make $40,000 a month from blogging and continues to create products and services off the initial success he has found in the world of blogging. His latest project can be seen below.

John Chow’s Blog 

John Chow Product

Another example is Dan Adlington who has had a decent amount of success online and with the Empower network. To spread the word on his success he has created a blog and also launched a product focused around the Empower network as well.

Dan Adlington’s Blog

Dan Adlington’s Product

If You have a Blog You Need a Product, If You have a Product You Need a Blog!

It’s a winning formula for success and amazing way to grow your brand and audience in the process. A blog is one of the best ways to create free content that people find valuable and begin to follow your brand. Even if you don’t have a plan to start a product of your own right now, a blog is an excellent way to get your name out there and to start building an audience and eventually become an authority in your niche.

If you don’t currently have a web site, blog or product of your own, it’s very easy to get started. Best of all it won’t cost you much time or money either, I even offer a service where I can set it all up for you at no cost. Be sure to start your blog today and start reaping the benefits in the coming months and years.

In this case you’re not looking to catch a supplier on the hop so much as avoid any nasty surprises. Audits and inspections can ensure your manufacturing partner is up to the job before you begin working with them, keep production runs on schedule and ensure faults, fakes or fudged packaging don’t ruin your brand before it even gets established. Here are seven essential inspections you should consider ordering:

1. FACTORY AUDIT

Factory audits are an everyday occurrence in China, and any genuine company will be happy for you to send a third party inspector to give them the once over. There are many things on the auditor’s checklist, but number one is finding the factory. Small and medium sized buyers are prime targets for scam artists who might run a “briefcase company” where all the trappings of a real company are visible, but there’s no factory behind the front and the entire operation can be packed into an attaché case in seconds flat. Assuming your inspector finds the factory present and correct, they can go on to verify the production facilities and capacity match what you’re being sold and are suitable for producing your goods.

Depending on which inspectors you use—and how much you pay—they can also check into quality control processes, give their HR department the once over to ensure labour practices are up to scratch. “It’s a good overall service that large and small companies can consider,” says Andrew Reich, founder of Shenzhen-based InTouch Services, a provider of inspection services for overseas buyers, and the author of the Qualitywars blog. Audits can be conducted for as little as a couple of hundred dollars, but before going to low, you may want to inspect the inspector: “I’m personally wary of the lower budget services,” says Reich. “You don’t really know who you’re working with and they use outsourced contractors.”

2. SOCIAL COMPLIANCE AUDIT

A factory audit might make a cursory check of working conditions, and ensure the factory has an explicit policy against using child or forced labor, but is no replacement for a separate social compliance audit if you’re concerned about ethical sourcing. According to Reich, 95% of social compliance audits carried out in China are conducted on behalf of big retail brands worried about their image. “If it’s found that 12 year old girls are working making Martha Stewart’s cookware, it’s highly damaging for her reputation,” he says. The other 5% might not be under the same level of scrutiny, they just want to do the right thing.

3. FINAL INSPECTION

When it comes to inspecting the goods the factory is making for you, companies often start at the end with a final inspection. “The reason for that is cost effectiveness,” says Riech. “The final inspection gives the buyer the ability to look at all the goods, once they’re completely finished, in one shot, at a relatively low cost.” It also fits neatly with a common clause in contracts that demands 30% deposit with the balance to be paid upon a satisfactory pre-shipment inspection. In other words, this is the check you make before you legally take possession of—and fully pay for—the goods. If you don’t have that clause in your contract, or don’t bother with a final inspection and pay for your shipment sight unseen, then you’ll be left holding the bag if the goods you receive aren’t what you expected.

A final random inspection should use the statistical approach known as AQL (Acceptable Quality Level) developed during World War II by the U.S. military. The inspector will select random units to test, checking for everything from critical flaws to lousy packaging to ensure the goods are what you ordered and meet the standards your customers will expect. AQL allows them to be 99.75% sure of the cargo by testing just 5% of the shipment.

4. PRE-PRODUCTION INSPECTION

A final inspection may seem like the cheapest option, but if you have tight deadlines, and a marketing and advertising blitz paid for and ready to roll, finding out your goods failed an 11^th-hour check will have an expensive knock-on effect. If a smooth production cycle is vital you can begin inspections before the machines are even turned on. A pre-production inspection checks that the factory’s ingredients are up to scratch, so your finished product isn’t marred by cut-price components or shoddy raw materials.

5. DUPRO INSPECTION Shorthand for “during production” this is also known as an in-line inspection and is typically conducted when 20% to 60% of the run has been completed. That’s late enough to be sure the goods accurately represent the finished article but early enough to spot and address any problems. DUPRO inspections are suited to large production runs where you might reasonably expect some swings in quality from beginning to end, and can highlight bottlenecks or workflow problems that could be addressed to improve quality and efficiency.

6. CONTAINER LOADING CHECK

While it’s as close to a definition of pre-shipment inspection as you can get, a container loading check differs from a final inspection and is a lot less common. It involves monitoring the loading of your goods and is used when dealing with extremely fragile or high value goods, or in special cases where you’re worried the factory might not load the correct cargo, or the shipment is going directly to your client and you can’t afford any slip ups.

7. PRODUCT TESTING

Your goods might look, feel and work well enough to pass a final inspection, but you won’t know how safe they really are unless they’ve undergone product testing. Chinese factories don’t always have the best record on product safety (lead in children’s toys, anyone?) and tests carried out by third party companies can be vital in ensuring your products meet legal and safety requirements in your target markets. Inspectors can verify the factory’s CE, FCC, FDA and other certifications are legitimate and conduct category specific checks related to product safety and performance.

My take on this is simple: “If you can qualify to be a prospect for your product or service, then YES.  You should buy it.”

Once again, the prerequisite is that IF you can qualify as a prospect.  So, if you sell software services for Fortune 1,000 companies and you don’t own such a company; or if you sell Learjet leases which are slightly out of your price range and need, then by all means, you should not worry about being a customer.  However, if you fit the parameters of a qualified prospect, then you should definitely own what you sell.

Ask yourself these questions: Do you really believe in what you sell? If you do, then why don’t you own it?”

The objections you have for not buying the product or service yourself will be the exact same objections that prospective customers give you, and you will not have a believable answer.

But I Honestly Can’t Afford It

You may be thinking that you do believe in what you sell and that you will indeed buy it…soon, but not today.  I mean, come on; you just started the job and you have been out of work for months.  Bills are behind, money is tight and you have not even made a sale yet!  You honestly, truly cannot afford to buy it today.

When a prospective buyer tells you the exact same thing, what are you going to say? You have to believe that the prospect is telling the truth.  It is not a stall or an objection—it has to be a fact.

Come Back Next Month

You will invariably run into prospective customers that tell you that they have a ton of problems, bills are behind, money is tight and they just began earning money recently.  They truly want to buy, they really do.  If you come back next month, they will buy, and that’s a promise!

I Understand How You Feel

You HAVE to understand how they feel, because you feel the same way.  You may try to overcome these objections, but you will do so half-heartedly and it will show.  If you cannot convince yourself to buy the product even when the timing seems wrong, then how can you convince a prospect?

Also, ironically you will seem to get YOUR objection from prospects an inordinate amount of times.  If your objection is that it costs too much for you, you will get price objections all the time.  If you feel that you already own enough life insurance, for example, then prospects will routinely tell you they already have far too much life insurance.  You will reap what you sow.

Get In or Out

If you believe in what you sell, and are a qualified buyer, then buy the product.  That means, PAY for it!  I am not talking about getting some freebee from the company.  Aside from perhaps a small discount, you need to buy the product the same way your customers do or at least keep up the monthly instalments.

When you do this, the old tried and true, “Feel, Felt, Found,” answer to objections becomes real.  You will honestly be able to say to a prospect, “I know exactly how you feel.  I felt the same way. But I found that…”

When you make the sacrifice and sell yourself and buy yourself, your closing percentages will sky rocket, along with your income.   In addition to being a proud owner of the product and reaping the benefits, you get a raise.  Oh, and let’s not forget, that when you closed yourself, you got a commission too!

Image courtesy of Master isolated images at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Let’s look at the advantages of introducing your new product or service under your existing brand. The biggest advantage is that all the hard work has been done. All you need to do is to have your product or service ride on it. Also, managing just one brand is so much easier than two. There are some other possible benefits – rationalization of your marketing dollars, greater operational efficiencies as well as utilization of the same distribution channels. However, there are definitely times when a new brand becomes necessary. Otherwise, things may actually end up being detrimental to the existing brand. So when does it make sense to add a brand?

The biggest reason for adding a new brand is that the product or service is very different from the existing one. Another very valid reason is if your company is entering another geographical market such as a different country. Cultural sensitivities may necessitate bringing in a new brand as well. If market segments are very different, it might make sense to offer a new brand to prevent alienating customers from either segment. In such cases, the need to create new brands far outweighs the costs of starting from scratch and as pointed above, can preserve the sanctity of the existing brands as well. Hence, when it comes to a decision about adding brands, it is best done on a case by case basis.

Featured Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/deferrol/469918364/

To begin with, let’s introduce you with certain common Magento terminologies and their identities.

Interface:

The front-end functionality and visual output of an eCommerce store are determined by a collection of themes known as Interface. If a store owner wants to assign interface on either the store view level or website level, he or she can do it through the admin panel. The store inherits the interface of the website if the interface is assigned in the website-level. Similarly, if the site owner wants to assign an interface per store-view, their stores will carry a unique feel and look.

Website and store:

A website comprises of different stores. It shares the existing customers and also instructs information on shopping cart.

Blocks:

When Magento distinguishes a range of functionalities in the system and creates a modular way to manage it from the both the functional and visual perspective, it takes the help of Blocks. There are two categories of blocks. These include:

Structural Blocks:

These blocks are utilized to assign a visual structure to a store page such as columns, header or footer.

Content blocks:

Content Blocks generate the actual content inside the structural blocks. They represent each feature and functionality in a page. In addition to it, it also employs template files to generate (x) HTML which is inserted into the parent structural block.

Themes:

Themes are a collection of locale, layout, skin files and templates. They create visual experience of your store. Magento has the capacity to load multiple themes at a time. There are two categories of themes:

Default theme:

The primary theme of an interface is the default theme. If an eCommerce business owner assigns an interface to their store, the application spontaneously searches or loads the default theme to the front-end. Store owner can modify this theme if he or she wishes to customize the store design. In order to run an error-free store, the default theme must comprise of templates, skins or layouts.

Non-default theme:

Non-default theme contains theme files which the store can use according to the needs. Non-default themes are used for creating temporary seasonal design modification for a store instead of creating a new set of default theme.

However, as a Magento developer it is very important that you know as how to work with the Magento theme.  However, you need to check the theme management in order to maximize your workflow efficiency. This will take your creativity to a much higher level.

Multiple themes:

Working with Magento enables you to load multiple themes at a time. You can even swap between a temporary event design and a default store design.

Minimizing debugging time:

No longer have you had to waste your time looking for the unclosed mark-up scrutinized by a validator. A modular template system is being introduced by the Magneto’s modular backend that reduces the amount of (X) HTML you need to handle at once.

Maximum customisation power:

If the store owner wishes to update the look and feel of his store in the product and the category level, Magento can help to a great extent. Magento provides promotional and marketing power and can offer a unique design for an eCommerce store. Even the store owner can display each of his products in its own customized product info page through Magneto. It gives them the power to customize their product presentation easily on the basis of per-product and per-category.

Uninterrupted workflow:

Magento modules are accessible via template tags from the template file with the help of Magneto’s object-orientated programming. Moreover, as Magento has unique features, you never have to depend on any programmer to help you complete any simple task. In addition to this, you will never have to look for external help while working on this platform. Magento has an extensive network of knowledgeable community members.

Here is a brief idea about how the Magento theme is created.

The two major directories as initial base points:

 1^st Directory:

App/design/front-end/default/default – You can find the template materials, layouts and translation in this directory.

2^nd Directory:

Skin/front-end/default/default – You can find block-specific JavaScript, images and CSS in this directory.

During the theme development, you will have to use PHTML files to make any modifications such as adding divs. However, this might create issues especially when the theme has been developed. Therefore, it is better not to alter the Magento default class. The best course of action is to apply any modification in CSS. The biggest advantage here is that your design will never get affected even if there are modifications being done.

Magento as a powerful tool helps the developer create a flawless eCommerce website with the ability to customize and integrate several features. Reading and understanding the terminologies will help you get a smooth start.

• Design supply chains to be more risk resilient
• Work more collaboratively with suppliers
• Identify and resolve emergent supply chain risks more quickly
• Recover from supply chain disruptions more quickly

Which one should you choose? How do you know if your choice was the right one for your company?

Catastrophic supply chain disruptions occur so infrequently that preparing for the individual possibility of each of the 125 risk types doesn’t make sense.There is no way to prepare for all of them and there are no tools to prioritize which ones you should prepare for.

With two decades of lean improvement projects, every global supply chain is now at risk. Slack time and in-process inventories that could absorb the shock of disruptions in the past are now long gone.

1.  Adopt metrics that focus on the time-to-recovery associated with the suppliers and supply chains they manage. While there is some analytical and implementation complexity associated with TTR, the concept model is optimal.

2. Make selective supplier choices: Look at the simple supplier choice, two suppliers offer the same product values in terms of pricing, quality, design and order lead times. How should a buyer make their final selection? You have to choose the buyer that presents the least risk to the supply chain. Read more about our process of Advanced Supplier Management, here.

3. Implement a Control Tower approach: There is a lot of data, but it is not actionable. Using technology that can monitor and send alerts based on the incoming data can provide faster responses and faster response times. The concept is explained further in our recent webinar with SCDigest on Advanced Supplier Management.

To identify the incremental risk associated with a single supplier, you have to determine how that supplier would contribute to the supply chain’s responsiveness when a disruption crisis occurs. If the supplier has plans in place to recover more quickly, then that supplier is less risky.

Can we answer how much less risky? Yes, the difference in risk is related to the difference in time-to-recovery. You can report the difference in time directly, or you can quantify it by estimating the impact on revenue and profitability the longer recovery time would have.    How expensive is one week or two weeks of lost revenue?  Small differences across a supply chain end up making the supply chain fragile and make the costs and overall financial risks of a supply chain disruption higher for a company.

Written by Mike Romeri, CEO at OPS Rules Management Consultants

From managing accounts and payroll to even keeping on top of communication, without the right tools and strategies, it is easy to get bogged down in administrative tasks – which means you aren’t focusing your energy and attention on the areas that need you the most.

Here are three key tips to remember if you are looking to maximise your time at work – as every small business owner knows, time is money. A common concern is how much these strategies might cost to implement – but luckily, there are lots of inexpensive solutions you may wish to consider.

Payroll systems and accounting software

There comes a point in the cycle of every growing business when manually managing payroll becomes a cumbersome process.

This is where accounting software can be incredibly beneficial, but it is important to give the matter careful consideration to see which system is the best one for you. There are even software options designed specifically for growing businesses – you may want to consider a system that is able to accommodate any future expansion plans you may have.

You should also choose a software that has comprehensive reporting features – this will ensure you have the information you need at your fingertips and will save you the trouble of compiling these figures manually. Look for balance sheet reporting, revenue statements and perhaps even inventory or sales reports – all of which can give you an efficient idea of what is going on.

Account management

When you are first starting out, it is easy to keep track of your clients and contacts, ongoing projects and deadlines on your own – and maybe even in your head! But as your business grows, this is not a feasible or practical solution – you wouldn’t want to miss anything, and you will want to keep your client and contact information organised in a practical and more long-term way.

Therefore, the earlier your company adopts an organised, efficient customer relationship management (CRM) solution, the better. There are several different software providers that may have suitable offerings – you may prefer to use one that allows you to set reminders when certain tasks need to be completed, such as invoices, orders and even the occasional phone call or email to check in with your contacts.

Some systems have features where your staff can share calendars and tasks with each other for more effective collaboration.

Conference calls

There are plenty of great free services out there to help you run your growing business more effectively. For example, conference calls are an easy way to improve the way you communicate with your team members, client and suppliers, and some providers offer free calls.

These calls can be beneficial for ad hoc meetings, as well as weekly sales meetings, brainstorming sessions and team meetups. Whether you are running a presentation, carrying out a performance review or organising a scheduled meeting, free conference calling can help you save time and money, as travel costs and the expense associated with hiring meeting rooms will be eliminated. Click here to find out more about free conference call services.

The mistakes small business owners make in project management are the same basic mistakes they make when starting a business. Properly planning and understanding what makes a business work or a project reach a successful conclusion are similar. Here are four common mistakes and four accompanying solutions that occur during project management,

Setting Project Goals Supported by Clear Policies and Procedures

When starting your company on a new project the same steps that should have been taken to set up the new business need to be applied. A business or project both need clearly defined goals. To reach those goals effectively, plans and procedures need to be in place. Imagine the confusion if everyone working on a project used their own project management software, some of which had no business dashboards for project team members to refer to as the project continued. Too many business owners fail to do more than set nebulous project goals. They rarely take the time to set up project policies, standards and procedures that would allow the project to be completed more efficiently. Use some sort of project management that works for your size of company, and stick with it.

Failure to Pick Compatible Project Team Members

When starting your small business an owner must determine what jobs are necessary. Before employees are hired for the job, each employee’s job description and tasks must be clearly defined. Some business owners fail to think about the job that each team member of a project team will need to do. Every member of the team needs clearly defined tasks and responsibilities for a project to be complete on time and on budget.

Over Management of the Project

Micromanaging projects after a project team leader and members have been chosen has ruined many projects that could have been completed successfully. Set the project goals, set the procedures and policies, pick the team leader and members and then get out of the way. Do check in to see where the team is at periodically and adjust their course if necessary, but avoid being a helicopter boss.

Lack of Involvement When Asked

As much as micromanaging a project can ruin it, failing to participate when the team asks for input can be just as harmful. If you set up the policies and procedures for the project correctly in the beginning, you will know what is going on from required reports. If you see problems ask if help is needed. Step in when they need your management direction, fix the problem and leave the team to complete the task.

Showrooming is when a person goes to a traditional store to check out the actual product he or she wishes to buy but goes online to make the purchase at a discounted price. Online stores like Amazon can slash prices because don’t have overhead costs. Traditional retailers, on the other hand, spend money on their showrooms to display the products they’re selling. But due to reduced prices online, many consumers are showrooming instead. And traditional retailers like Best Buy, WalMart, and Target are showrooming victims.

According to reports, 43% of American adults have confirmed that they have showroomed. 24% of the survey respondents said they showroomed at Best Buy, 22% at WalMart, 9% at Target, 4% at Home Depot, and 3% at Barnes & Noble.

There is, however, a small percentage who said they didn’t purchase from online retailers. Instead, they ended up going back to the store they showroomed to make the purchase. 12% of the Target showroomers went back to Target, as did the 11% of the WalMart showroomers and 8% of the Best Buy showroomers who also went back to the respective stores to make the purchase.

Still, showrooming is huge threat to traditional retailers. So it’s no longer surprising to see Best Buy intensifying its advertising campaigns to face showrooming head on. 30-second ads on Super Bowl night cost around $4 million each and Best Buy was willing to shed this amount just to combat the showrooming “nightmare”. The problem is that not all traditional retailers have the capacity to spend on pricey advertisements. So what to do? The best strategy is to think outside the box.

Target, for one, has decided to skip Super Bowl and go a different route instead – mobile game. Target has come up with a mobile app developed called “Snack Bowl”. The game can be played on iPhone, Android phones, and mobile web browsers. If the game gets a bit boring, the game’s social media element will allow players to challenge their Facebook friends. Target hopes “Snack Bowl” will build strong recall for them during Super Bowl night since people can play it on their phones while waiting through halftime.

Target has definitely gone out of the box with this approach. But what happens after Super Bowl night? Showrooming will still be prevalent then. What traditional retailers can do is to make a “buy-online-pick up-in-store” option available for customers. This must be done correctly to help improve customer service and lure customers into buying from them rather than from online retailers. Effective and versatile business phone systems are therefore needed. Pricing and promotions must also be consistent. Showroomer-to-purchaser conversion must also be increased. Completing the transaction the same day a showroomer has entered the store will prevent him or her from leaving the store and making the purchase online.

One month ahead of the transition, the impression share of PLAs to standard text ads was 3.9% to 96% respectively. By the end of December, PLAs were receiving 60% more (6.1%) of the total impressions. This rapid growth in impressions share was not only due to more online retailers deploying PLA campaigns, but also the increase in product related searches during the holiday season.

However, the steady increase in click share from 2.1% in January 2012 to 6.6% (210% growth) in December indicates that shoppers are finding these PLAs, rather than standard text ads, to be more relevant to their search queries regardless of seasonality. The enhanced shopping experience and increase in relevancy is further supported by the gradual increase in click-through rate (CTR) from January 2012 through December. As seasonality became more of a factor in Q4, CTR for PLAs surpassed that of standard text ads in November and December.

This trend has far reaching implications as standard text ads cost more per click than PLAs during Q4 2012. For retailers, this means that PLAs are not only cheaper, but they perform far better than standard text ads during the busiest shopping season of the year. Of course, with the increase in PLA adoption by online marketers and increase in clicks by shoppers during the holiday season, the share of spend by PLA campaigns jumped from 0.36% in October to 2.5% (600% growth) in December. In fact, in Q4 alone many retailers allocated as much as 30% of their total spend on Google towards PLAs. This speaks volume to the incremental growth in spend on Google as a result of the Product Search transition. In 2013, online retailers will undoubtedly allocate additional budget towards PLAs, continuing to build on the momentum gained in 2012.

The key is to figure out an objective way to assess the attractiveness of alternative new product concepts so you can prioritize those first.  In this article, we will discuss the different types of new products and the process you should use to prioritize your new product portfolio.

Many reasons exist on why you need to prioritize your new product portfolio.  Some are:

• Not all new product programs are the same.  There is a big difference in developing simple model derivatives vs. “disruptive” new product ideas.  You need to tailor your new product process to match the types of new products being developed.

• You can’t do everything.  You have limited time, people and development dollar resources.

• While you might have a great new product idea, new functional technologies might not be developed enough yet to have it work.

• You want to be “first to market” vs. competitors. Studies have consistently shown leading the market with new products is more preferable than following.

• You need to make sure your new product development portfolio is aligned with business strategy and goals as well as being sufficient to meet new revenue growth expectations.

The first thing you should do is assess the strategic and technical difficulties in developing your new product ideas.  There are four major new product types groups:

Type 1: Derivatives/new models of current product lines.  They are just additional product features, color, flavor, scent or size products etc.  Easiest to do and low risk.  Examples include: 10 vs. 12 cup coffee-makers, diet sodas, or different cake mix flavors.

Type 2: Line extensions:  These are current product lines moving into an adjacent category based on the same branding or product platform.  Examples include:  Clorox disinfectant wipes, Velvetta’s cheese skillet dinners, or Kellogg’s Pop Tarts.

Type 3: New products in company’s core category: These include new platforms or delivery systems offering innovations in the company’s core business.  Examples include: Tide detergent pods, DeWalt cordless power tools, and General Electric compact fluorescent light bulbs (cfl).

Type 4: New platform in a new category (to the company):  These concepts have the highest risk, but have the most business impact — i.e. game changers or market category creators.  Examples include: Swiffer Quick-Cleaners, iPhones/tablets and Keurig K-Cup single serve coffeemakers.

These new product types have very different risk vs. reward profiles as conceptualized below:

[Click on visual to enlarge]

Thus, it’s important to know the new product type you’re considering so you can more accurately assess its attractiveness to the company.  Then you need an objective way to assess the attractiveness of alternative concepts since people, time, and dollar resources aren’t unlimited.  Fortunately, this step doesn’t need to be 100% accurate or highly complex.  A consistent qualitative ranking assessment will do just fine at this stage.

There are at least five major attractiveness criteria measures you should consider:

1. Consumer Interest:  Is the concept unique?  Can consumers easily see demonstrable results?

2. Design & Build Capabilities: How easy is it to design/build? Is engineering/R&D familiar with the technologies involved?  Should you make the product or source it elsewhere?

3. Market Size/Growth & Competitive Offerings:  How big is the market?  Is it growing and sustainable?  How many major competitors are out there already?

4. Financial:  What is the net margin $ potential?  Does the concept require substantial development dollars?  Will it require substantial marketing communication dollars beyond the launch?

5. Risk:  Is your concept patentable?  How long will it take to develop?  Will either qualitative and/or quantitative market research be required to help reduce business risk?

You should weight these measures and combine them into a new product ranking assessment tool similar to the one below:

[Click on visual to enlarge]

Then you grade each one of your initiatives and rank them high to low based on these concept attractiveness scores.  While you could use the above example, you should design your own new product ranking assessment tool consistent with your overall business model since attractiveness criteria can vary from industry to industry.

In sum, it’s not enough just to have great new product ideas.  You need to know what type of product and objectively assess its appeal relative to multiple ideas. You then need to prioritize your ideas so you can make sure your product portfolio is diversified similar to any financial investment.  This tool can help you and your company manage the “fuzzy front end” vs. its managing you.

Here are the three realities and their corresponding rationales of why an optimized order fulfillment process gives your company major payoffs:

1.    Optimizing your order fulfillment process cuts costs and inefficiencies.

By integrating your systems, order management eliminates manual data re-entry between web, fulfillment, finance and support departments. This, in turn, decreases manual labor, time lags and processing errors that result in unsatisfied customers and returns.

2.   Optimizing your order fulfillment process increases customer retention and order sizes.

When customers get their orders fast without hitch or hiccup, they’ll stick around. And with improved order visibility and easy tracking, they’ll feel safe ordering those big-ticket orders from you.

3.   Optimizing your order fulfillment process slims down risk (and cost) of fraud.

The Merchant Risk Council reports that fraud can swallow up to 1.5% of your revenue. End-to-end product fulfillment includes security checks, order screening and various fraud precautions at strategic points in the process to cut this risk and the costs.

But we won’t stop at why. Here are tips on how to optimize your order management and access those payoffs:

1.    Enforce end-to-end customer service.

Your customers are what keep your company running, so you want every point of contact they have with you to be a pleasing one. This starts with your website. It should be both robust and user-friendly, and it should not advertise what’s not available in your inventory! Offer notifications about product availability  – when something’s either running low or out of stock. There’s nothing worse than a customer excitedly awaiting the arrival of a product, only to be told that it’s not in stock or not offered anymore.

Customer service continues with customer service representatives who are committed to making your brand shine  They respond to your customers, and they respond promptly – answering all questions and alleviating all concerns, whether on the phone or via email.

2.   Detach pick from pack.

It’s crucial to assign separate teams to pick and pack your orders. With one task to focus on, the teams will not only be more efficient, they’ll also be much less likely to make mistakes.

3.   Enhance order visibility for the customer.

Your customer took the time and money to order your product. So give them some instant gratification and peace of mind by sending an order confirmation as soon as the order is placed. And when it’s shipped, the ship date and tracking information should be emailed to the customer immediately. This eliminates any doubts or concerns regarding their order and promotes a positive perception of your brand throughout the order management process.

For further reading, here’s a helpful tip sheet to learn more about optimizing your order management process.

That won’t likely happen unless what you are selling serves one of the seven core human drives of all humanity.

People are, at the core, the same all over the world. They want the same seven basic things. The only difference is in variations of culture, taste, color, size, delivery, approach, and so on, of those seven things. Yet they all want the same seven things.

You can say that almost all human needs, wants, and desires are connected to these seven basic things. That is why it is important that what you are selling connects and relates to these seven things, or you will have very little chance of making any sales.

What are those seven things?

1. To feel. We all want to feel something. Anything. Emotion. Any emotion, whether it is positive or negative, is better than no emotion at all. We live our entire lives driven by emotion. Whatever you are selling should deliberately make people feel something.

2. To defend and protect. We like to protect ourselves, our loved ones, our things, our country, our ideas, our feelings, our honor, and more. We are instinctively driven to protect. If you can connect whatever you are selling with this instinct of protection, you will have raised your chances of making more sales.

3. To bond, love and feel loved. This one is easy. We all want to belong. We all want to feel that someone loves us. And we love to love. If you can connect whatever you are selling with this core human drive, you will have again raised your chances of making more sales.

4. To acquire, possess, and collect. This drive is so manic that it dictates entire economies. Consumerism. Sometimes we even take it too far. People just want to have stuff. People want to posses not just things, but even other people. We feel safe, important even, when we collect, acquire, and posses. If you can connect what you are selling with this natural instinct, you will have raised your chances of making more sales.

5. To learn or satisfy curiosity. We are curious. We are nosy. And we love to know. That is why you buy books, watch TV, and use the Internet so much. You can’t help yourself. Again, if you can connect what you are selling with this core drive of all humanity, you will have raised your chances of making more sales.

6. To seek status. People go to extraordinary lengths for the sake of status. They build empires, kill each other, study for that doctorate that takes forever to complete, marry from certain families and not others, wear brands, and much, much more. Society is an invisible ladder. That ladder is called status. Everybody is trying, in one way or another, in one area of life or another, to climb that ladder and be higher than other people. Of course, some people care about financial status, while others don’t. Others care about artistic status while others don’t. We don’t all care about the same kind of status, but we all care about some kind of status. If you can find out what kind of status is important to your target customers and connect what you are selling with that status, you will have improved your chances of making a sale.

7. To avoid pain, discomfort or hustle. Another easy one. We don’t want pain, we don’t want discomfort, and we don’t want to be bothered or to struggle. What kind of pain, discomfort or hustle is your product saving people?

So now we can summarize the strategy. Connect to as many of these drives as possible, and then do a good job of telling your customer how your product connects to those drives. That’s it.

The festive season has just ended and inspite of buzzes that our world is going to end……We proudly step into 2013. Since celebrations are over and we are back into square four, let’s focus on hard core matters. Past few months has invariably been most busy time for all those involved in business and with remarkable technological advancement virtual stores are more popular than the real ones.

If you do own an online store it is the best time to go through those statistics and see what you gain in this festive season.

Oops! Is your balance sheet not that encouraging? Experiencing a set back is always better in terms of business…. You will search for the loopholes and try to work on it. A positive effort will improve your business perspectives.

There is a bombardment in the field of eCommerce and the graph is steeply rising. At present most eCommerce sites are designed in Magento platform. In such a competitive scenario it is truly a challenge to attract visitors and convert them into customers. The crucial session begins when a visitor is already there on your Magento commerce site. You need to master the skills and identify the tools to engage visitor’s attention on your site. This can be achieved by offering value to your customers and ensuring a superior online experience.

“Content is the king”: There will soon be a tussle between different features in online world and various arguments will come up in favour and in oppositions of the statement. Avoiding that tiff, we will focus on our topic and will surely stick to the fact that one of the valuable features that can help you to enrich your visitors’ online experience is unique content. Blogs, news, articles and an opportunity to offer their feedbacks will benefit in terms of engaging customers.

Including these features to your eCommerce store will come up with several advantages. Customers always prefer an interactive site and you can also modulate the site according to feedback received from them. On the more content plays a significant role to get ranked in search engine. However, you need to find out your target group and understand their interests in order to attract and entertain them. The added value is obtained from the knowledge you present through site.

Example:

A close look at jinx.com will let you know how to use content in ecommerce site. The customers of “Jinx” are usually gamers and geeks so they present materials in their site related to popular games and technologies. Customers enjoy blogs, post their comments and connect with people with similar interests through company’s own blogs. This unique approach of Jinx to promote their merchandise has become hugely popular.

Are you a little confused how to imbibe these facilities into the Magento platform?

Well there are numerous plugins present in Magento, but whether there is any appropriate plug-in and if there is one whether it will provide necessary benefits that you are looking for. Utilising plugins available in Magneto,you may easily integrate WordPress in your existing Multistore platform. A developer will simply find out and install an extension that support WordPress and uses same database as Magento.

While there are many simple ways to bring WordPress blog into Magento store, it becomes baffling when you will try to incorporate WordPress MU. Before we concentrate on the technical details of integrating WordPress Multisite in Magento Multistore; it is essential to know what this WordPress Multisite actually is.

It is actually a mode present in WordPress that allows creating network of multiple websites using same WordPress installation similar to that of Magento which can support multiple stores. This Multisite is a separate version from WordPress and is called WordPress MU (where MU denotes multi-user). WordPress MU makes it much easier to manage multiple blogs. You will require a single WordPress account, database and admin URL. Before the advent of WordPress 3.0 this multisite facility is available in separate software.  With the introduction of WordPress 3.0 it has become easy to set up multi-site facility as the feature is incorporated within WordPress.

Next and most obvious question that may click in your mind is that why should you join WordPress Multisite with Magento Multistore? In case you are using a Magento Multistore, you will need to install separate WordPress for each store. It is a terrifying idea to retain and manage WordPress blog for each store and the situation is even difficult if you want to include a new store. For every new addition you will have to create a blog. It is possible when the size of store is small but soon it becomes impossible to manage these blogs.

Introducing WordPress MU in your multi-store platform will let you create several blogs from a single WordPress administrator and merge each blog with respective stores.

Once you have understood the advantages of WordPress MU in your Magento platform, the following question will be how to install WordPress Multisite into Magento?  The most convenient way for a Magento Developer to integrate WordPress Multisite into a multi-store platform is to set up the extension.

This extension is available along with free WordPress integration plugin. Thus, it is apparent that you need to pay for installing WordPress MU integration extension. However, considering the benefits such an investment seems worthy.

After installing this WordPress MU integration facility you will be able to create several blogs as you may require and use the blog for store. You may also produce blogs which will not be needed by any store and can be maintained as a typical WordPress blog. If you wish, it is possible to link these blogs to any of your Magento commerce page using a method called semi-integration. This extension will also take the initiative to customise Magento platform a step further. Site owners are always in favour of customising their sites and it is advisable to do so.

However, integrating blog posts with stores will not end the job of a developer. Designing will no doubt be the most important that you cannot afford to overlook. Consider factors like

• How the customers will access the blogs?
• How to communicate new features in your site?
• How to promote new products?
• How to utilise review and tag features in Magento?

So, stress on the ecommerce site design so that customers find the information they required easily. These factors will definitely make the customers return to your e-commerce site repeatedly and even purchase items.

His email got me thinking about how usability practitioners can help clients stakeholders to see the world through a lens that is not just their own. Here are some thoughts on what seems to work.

“It’s low hanging fruit.”

Look for the simple tweaks that you believe will have the largest impact. Even if a stakeholder has not completely bought in to the value of a suggestion and can’t see beyond their initial lens, if it’s a small tweak that will take little time, they may be willing to do it or have it done anyway.

“I have years of experience.”

Although saying explicitly “listen to me because I know what I’m talking about” is likely to cause annoyance, sometimes referring to the many other usability tests and clients where you saw this problem emerging may help. In short, you can tell your client that (a) many others have had this same issue and (b) they fixed the issue and there was noticeable improvement in user satisfaction.

“It’s best practice.”

Sometimes noting that something is best practice is enough. Other times, clients want to see the documentation that this is, in fact, the case. If you make this claim, be prepared to back it up. Although this means being familiar at some level with the literature, things that truly are best practice can often be Googled on the fly (for example in a meeting) with a good resource uncovered very quickly.

“Let’s go ahead and check the readability of this page in Word.”

Although the Flesh-Kinkaid grade-level checker in Word is only a formula and not one that is necessarily absolutely precise, if I encounter a paragraph that users have trouble understanding, I may do a demonstration for the stakeholder, copying the text into Word and showing what the Flesh-Kinkaid grade level comes out as. Recently, a grade-level score of “22” (which can be interpreted as graduate level text) helped drive this point home.

“X number of participants experienced this problem in testing.”

Sometimes providing hard numbers or percentages from a usability test is a useful approach, particularly with clients that like to quantify problems. While usability testing is infrequently statistically significant, given what are often very small sample sizes, just noting that, for example, half of the participants that tried a task were unsuccessful may be enough to make a case.

“Let me tell you a story about this one participant.”

Sometimes it’s not hard numbers that matter, but rather the story of one participant. Telling the story, in effect presenting it as a case study, can present a justification for making a change. A single story told well can be as powerful, if not more powerful, than some generalized percentages.

“Let me show you a video to go along with my story.”

Tell your story, but if you have time, create some video clips to go along with it. I’ve seen articles written by well-known usability practitioners saying that picture-in-picture views that let you see the participants’ faces as they use the interface are not necessary. I strongly believe in capturing picture-in-picture since you’ll never know when that dramatic exclamation combined with a look of complete frustration will be captured on video. Use that clip to further enhance your story.

“You’re likely to hurt your sales.”

Sometimes you might not be able to convince your client or stakeholder to see things through another lens. So consider framing the story in their lens. If they are focused on sales or return on investment for making the change, then present your case that way and focus on how it’s good for their business.

Stakeholders will never buy into absolutely everything a usability practitioner has to say, but at least keep an open mind and a flexible approach on how you can most successfully make your usability pitch based on what might work best in any given situation.

Adapted from Cory’s DC Usability Blog.

In many cases, user research is not a project unto itself. Rather, it is part of a larger web-centric project effort. These larger projects often have a project manager. This person has the task of coordinating the usability effort into the broader project schedule. The project manager generally has some kind of technology management background, but is often not someone who has extensive experience with usability.

This lack of knowledge about usability isn’t inherently a problem, for this is the reason why my company and I are pulled into the project in the first place. However, based on my experiences and lessons learned, here is a “cheat sheet” of things the project manager needs to be thinking about.

“I’ve got an incredible design team. I don’t need to have anyone evaluate it.”

I never send out any kind of formal document without having one of my staff review it. No matter how good a writer I think I am, I am 100% sure that I’ll have typos in that document that I won’t find no matter how much I try to look for them. I’ll miss them because it’s my baby. Similarly, a design team, no matter how good they are, will not be able to see issues with something they developed. A design team may also wish to do their own testing, where the designers also operate as usability test moderators.

Recommendation: Don’t assume that a design team, no matter how amazing they are, will be able to see flaws in their creation. Although someone who is an interface designer can also be a usability evaluator, I’d highly recommend that they don’t evaluate a creation that they had a large part in designing. The risk of asking biased questions is much higher, and the risk of not seeing flaws all that much greater. Ideally, someone who has had no role in the creation should be evaluating the site.

“Usability testing is too expensive.”

I sometimes hear the contention that the budget doesn’t allow for usability testing. Once figuring in not only labor hours but also other direct expenses, such as participant recruiting costs, participant incentives, and facility rental, costs may seem like they are really starting to add up.

Recommendation: There are a number of arguments to be made for the cost-justification of usability testing. Even as early as the mid-1990s there were books and articles published on this very topic (Classic revised in 2005: Cost-Justifying Usability). In addition, usability testing doesn’t have to be terribly expensive. First, calculate out what a typical usability study might cost, with an optimal number of representative users in an optimal location with optimal incentives. Look at the final number: is it really too high? If so, consider reducing the number of participants; even if not optimal, at least a fair bit of valuable information is likely to emerge from testing. Similarly, I like to produce full written reports, along with a PowerPoint summary report, but if budget (my allotted hours) doesn’t permit, I might just produce the PowerPoint summary report and make certain to at least convey the general ideas of the findings. In the more uncommon instance that the budget is larger than the base optimal projections, a usability researcher can always add what I’d consider “deluxe” options, like a highlights video from the sessions.

“You’ll tell my team to scrap the site and start from scratch!”

In addition, the stakeholder may believe that inherent in any usability test comes a risk that they will be told that they should be starting from scratch.

Recommendation: In my experience, with a good development team that has a reasonably good sense of design principles, the testing often uncovers some larger changes but usually uncovers a number of problems that can be fixed with minimal impact to the development schedule. Even if the stakeholder sees some larger-scale recommendations, assuming that there are no show-stoppers, these should be cataloged and saved for a future release. All the minor tweaks and low-hanging fruit, however, could be done immediately, and the stakeholder could see a large value-add for minimal cost.

“But we really can’t afford testing.”

Sometimes the budget is really tight, and the client feels that they absolutely can’t do usability testing.

Recommendation: Don’t worry. Maybe it won’t be optimal, but at a minimum, consider a quick expert review. I’ve done reviews for clients with results given as quick bullet points in an email, which helps save time and thus cut cost. Also, consider a usability test with only a small number of users that is observed by the client. Instead of spending time writing a report or even a summary, consider a quick debrief meeting a day or two later to talk about trends and observations. Again, not optimal, but at least there is some evaluation time squeezed in.

“Our schedule is too tight for usability testing.”

Often, time tables are tight and stake holders may feel rushed. When stakeholders hear that a usability study may run over a period of three days, and that the report will take a few more days, they may get the impression that the usability evaluator expects all work to stop during this period. Stakeholders will express the concern to the project manager that there simply isn’t enough time for usability testing.

Recommendation: Let the stakeholder know that not only do you know that time is tight, but that the usability practitioner does as well. Work does not have to stop for the usability test to take place. Further, if the development environment is flexible enough, and ideally if there is perhaps an extra day or two between sets of participants, there may be enough time not only to make changes to a prototype, but also to test out some of the changes with the next round of participants or to adjust the test plan and drill down and zero in on key problems very rapidly.

“We’re already doing software testing – we’ve got it covered!”

Sometimes project managers are aware that there is this testing approach called “usability testing,” but they figure it’s not much different than the software/functional testing that they are already doing. They may have spreadsheets of actions that a user is supposed to be able to do, and they need to make sure that all of the design specifications are met. While this software testing is certainly important, project managers may not realize that usability testing is focused on the success of actual users using the website, instead of just verifying that the functionality exists and is working as initially intended. What if those initial intentions and assumptions were incorrect for the expected audience group?

Recommendation: Make sure to consider the needs of the actual users of the site, not just the specifications that have been handed down to you by the stakeholders.

“Usability testing will increase my project scope dramatically.”

You have a looming deadline and even if you do have time to squeeze in a usability test, you’re afraid that the results are going to be less than perfect. You’re envisioning at least one whopper of an issue and don’t want to have to delay the deadline in order to get that issue resolved.

Recommendation: You don’t necessarily need to resolve that whopper issue before launch. The deadline might be hard and fast, and that’s okay. It’s better to at least know going in what the major issues are. But more importantly, you’re likely to find a number of small tweaks that can be made quickly and won’t increase project scope. It’s okay to start your list of fixes for the next release, even before this one is out!

“I’ve done testing for my desktop web projects, but do I need to do testing for similar mobile content/apps as well?”

You have done a good job integrating testing into websites in the past. But now, you are doing a mobile project. Maybe it’s your first. Maybe you’re “converting” your desktop site to a mobile site or maybe you’re porting functionality to a new mobile app. Since things worked smoothly on the desktop version, do you need to concern yourself with mobile version testing too?

Recommendation: Absolutely. Usability is very much framed by context and audience. The context of desktop use is likely to be different than the mobile context. Users will be apt to have different situations when they use the mobile version than the desktop version. Also, the users are apt to be different, and only a subset of your desktop users are likely to be using mobile. It’s important to categorically understand these differences, which will inform both who you will be recruiting for your test and also what scenarios you might be testing with.

“I really do want to do usability testing, but the stakeholder is only permitting me one shot at it.”

A stakeholder may concede that usability testing is important but say that only one round of testing will be supported. At what point should the testing be done? At the beginning of development to get things off on the right track? Late in the development cycle? Right before launch to confirm things work?

Recommendation: If you only have one shot at testing, the best time to do testing is at the latest point you can where changes to the website would not be very problematic. At a minimum, I’d suggest that there be click-through HTML prototypes, but these do not necessarily need to have the actual polished look of the finished product. That said, if you have the okay to test with enough (perhaps 10 or 12) representative users, consider spreading these users out, maybe half at the HTML prototype stage and half once everything is more developed. Perhaps you could even divide your users over three points.

“Does Search Engine Optimization (SEO) matter to usability?

I’ve heard rumors that SEO is related to usability, but I think of SEO as a way to sell more products.

Recommendation: At its core, SEO is about getting found, and no product can be usable without being able to be found. Optimizing a page for search so the right users find the page at the right time can be critical. Also, keep in mind that users who already know a product or information is on your site will often type in your site (or brand) name into an engine like Google or Bing along with the associated keywords. So make sure that what they want to see actually comes up! When doing usability testing, consider including a search engine component. If there is already something that can be searched for (an old site), ask them to search for it. See what search terms they use. And don’t forget that internal SEO matters too. While some people will navigate through your site, others will consistently use internal site search. If appropriate, incorporate some tasks related to using the internal search engine into a usability study.

Usability vs. the three constraints of project management

The project management triangle has three constraints: time, cost and scope. It is important for the project manager to understand how usability relates to these three constraints.

Time: On the one hand, introducing usability evaluation would seem to introduce more time into the effort. On the other hand, just like spending time defining good requirements can improve the ability to stay on track later on, so too can usability testing make sure that things stay on schedule by reducing back tracking.

Cost: Any cost for usability evaluation would seem to make the overall project cost go up. On the other hand, though, like time, the cost is likely justified by the prevention of the need to spend labor hours later on fixing what turns out to otherwise not be usable.

Scope: Usability should be part of an initial project scope, and it would be wise for project managers to assume that usability testing will find some things that need to be changed. If the changes required are too significant, and the project deadlines can’t be met if certain recommendations are taken, then it would be better to place these (theoretically significant) recommendations into a future release than to avoid doing the usability testing at all.

Usability and Project Sponsor Buyoff

Project sponsor buyoff is critical for any project. How does usability fit into this important consideration?

Recommendation: Considering usability from the outset and including this into any project will hopefully show a sponsor that you are considering your end users and value project quality. So including it may be an asset from the start. If a project sponsor questions the usability evaluation efforts, be prepared to explain the decision and defend this approach, perhaps by explaining advantages to time, cost and scope. Try to help the project sponsor to understand that including a usability component doesn’t indicate a lack of trust in the team, but rather is an appropriate step for any project.

Adapted from Cory’s DC Usability Blog.

Structured Design

Structured Design is a method which conforms to a step-by-step advance which proceeds reasonably from one stage to the next. The works completed in each stage have to to be accepted by the project guarantor which is normally the customer or it can even be the business market analyst in an organization ahead of proceeding to the following development phase. The Waterfall development method can be assorted as this type of methodology. This strict and rigid mode makes this methodology susceptible to any business modifications that take place while the growth is yet on the way, as it is very intricate to go rearwards. This may necessitate repetition of the entire development process right from the beginning and cast away all that’s been achieved, and in the most horrible case it could source the alteration of project agreement or accord with the client.

Modes of Development

There are 2 modes of development by means of waterfall methodology that is process-centered and data-centered access. The process-centered approach tries to complete the work primarily from the viewpoint of the processes that subsist in the function of the system, which will possibly ensue in the system that is being built based on process-oriented mechanism. Conversely, the data-centered method focuses on the data utilized by and needed in the system.

Structured design methodology consists of some merits since the strict manner adopted in this method drives the developer that is the analyst and the team to well make out and comprehend system necessities prior to even beginning of the implementation stage. As a minimum it must have been accepted by the guarantor ahead of the developers starting to code any programs. Yet this approach has one negative aspect and that is the inability to go backward during the development phases.

In order to understand SDLC and all its associated aspects you will have to do complete research on the topic. This is just a simple overview on how the complex sdlc models work.

In some cases there can be several intermediary baselines. This happens when either the project was not well planned or when significant changes appear to the scope of the project. However the initial baseline is usually what gets budgeted in the company’s financials. All types of baselines are closely related and changes to one of them will result in changes to the others. If a change is made in the project scope baseline, the schedule baseline gets adjusted and hence the cost baseline will probably have to be changed as well.

How is cost baseline created

When it comes to computing the total cost of the project some estimates need to be done. Once the project schedule is ready and approved, a bottom-up procedure should be used where for each activity of the project it is estimated a detailed cost. This way a total cost for each major phase and for the entire project gets computed. These initial costs of all of the planned activities will become the initial estimated budget.

Cost Analysis

According to PMBOK the cost baseline is a “time-phased budget that is used as a basis against which to measure, monitor, and control overall cost performance on the project.” But many factors can affect the cost performance of a project so the above estimated costs established during the planning phase might not be estimated that well. The true costs of certain tasks may not be well known at planning time. If a given price for materials, trainings or travel costs was taken into consideration at planning phase but at execution time these are increased there is an unforeseen additional cost.

Time is another factor that can affect the costs. The timeframe for task execution may vary so this will have a direct impact over the estimated cost of that task. If a task duration was not well estimated and for certain reasons it is increased this will result in more work to be done and hence an additional cost. If budget is fixed for the project, the manager will need to find a solution to reduce costs in other areas of the project. One possible solution would be to remove other expendable tasks but in this way the project deliverables might get affected, resulting a change in the scope baseline and further more a change in the schedule baseline. Another approach could be to use less expensive resources. But there is a drawback to this solution: less expensive resources have usually less experience or a restrained skill set. Hence the result will be the same as in the first case because tasks might take longer than originally planned and will again affect the schedule baseline.

A certain degree of risk must be taken into consideration when building the cost baseline. The lack of enough money to get the project done is such a risk. Unidentified work is another risk that can affect the cost of the project. That is why it worth investing time in a well done project plan.

Using project management software is the indicated and the most efficient way to work on your cost baseline.

img via http://www.metro.co.uk

The busiest time of year for shipping and shopping is closing in. The holiday season offers unique challenges to supply chain managers and logistics due to the increased demand for more packages to be delivered to more places more quickly. While much of your work to prepare for this has already been in place, there are still some last-minute tweaks that can improve your supply chain to meet the demands of holiday shippers and distributors.

Improve Warehouse Space

Storage is one of the biggest concerns in managing an effective supply chain. Whether you need to store perishable items in a refrigerated space or stacks of Mattel’s new Monster High Dolls, keeping warehouses up-to-date and used is key to managing expenses. If demand has dropped and you’ve offloaded extra stock, try to hedge your contracts with empty warehouses to cut costs heading into an expensive season. Be sure that all regulations and EDI are met in your warehouses to keep workers safe and customers in the loop.

Check Existing Contracts

Prices for shipping and tracking your goods are expected to rise again this year. Check your existing contracts with partners to see whether you are locked into a price increase or if a discount can be negotiated – this sort of situation is why maintaining a good relationship with business partners is key! If a price increase is unavoidable, look around at other providers to see if costs can be saved elsewhere.

Tweak Promotion Processes

Promoting your supply of popular gifts is next to impossible if your information is outdated. Keep market segmentation reports up-to-date and tailor promotions to the most profitable and active segments. View your promotions as an extended process to drive up business – a simple mark-down is not enough. You must target customers with a reason to purchase your product. Evaluate your past promotions to find weak points and include marketing, pricing and other teams to make the process as effective as possible.

Update Social Networking Plan

Few companies use social networks for their real strengths, preferring to use them as an arm of their website instead of an actual social area. Whether you deal with the general public or work in a B2B format, update your company’s social networking plan to open a forum with your customers. Drive a discussion and use feedback to identify your weaknesses and implement improvements at all levels of your supply chain. Watch chatter for products that may be in higher demand than you originally expected. Including social-based promotions can also be a great way to build a lucrative relationship with customers for the future.

Analyze and Learn

In the aftermath of the holiday season, don’t relax yet. Now is the perfect time to check your metrics and reports to see how effective your supply chain was this season. Did transportation costs cripple your bottom line? Were there too many complaints from customers regarding shipping information? Did your LeapPad 2 Explorer promotion drive up its demand? Take cues for next season’s approach from your successes and develop a plan to address your weaknesses.

Preparing your supply chain for the holiday buying season is a year-long process. However, minor tweaks as the busiest time of year approaches can save countless dollars and improve your effectiveness. Always manage your risks and compare costs to the outcome when considering changes to your management plan.

Ensures Accuracy
Keeping track of a large and varied inventory of IT equipment can be a time-consuming and tiresome chore for an IT department, especially if it is short-staffed and overwhelmed. Additionally, with manual counting, there is always the potential for human error; Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) eliminates the potential for mistakes and makes counting assets an accurate, automated process.

The fact that items are accounted for will also mean that replacements do not need to be purchased as often. When IT assets do need to be replaced, they can be found easily with an FCC and CE compliant RFID reader, which makes the overall work of an IT department that much more efficient.

Factors to Take Into Account When Installing RFID Tags

• Location of the tag
• Orientation of the tag
• The range of your RFID reader

RFID tags that are designed for IT asset management will work with a wide range of materials, including the metals and plastics typically used in making servers and other electronic devices; and there are multiple options for installation. The tags can be read by a long range RFID reader from several feet away, which makes counting many pieces of equipment a faster and more efficient process.