David Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) system is designed to bring peace of mind as well as productivity. Recently, after sharing this information with a client, I got the most interesting phone call. “Kuty,” he said, “I’m sitting on the train and something amazing is happening. My mind is at peace. I’m juggling tons of tasks, but my mind feels unburdened.”

A phenomenal benefit of this system allows you to free up your mental bandwidth and as a result handle more with less stress.

GTD step by step

1. The first essential habit is what David Allen calls “ubiquitous capture.” What does that actually mean? Grab the task as  it goes by. E-mails, letters, information, phone calls, ideas — all of it needs to be collected somewhere. Once you trust yourself to capture everything, you won’t need to waste mental energy on remembering, “I need to answer that letter” or “Where did I put the notes for that meeting?” or “I wonder whether the Cincinnati office has solved that problem with their database.”
2. The second essential habit is thinking in terms of next actions or project lists. If a task is more than one action, then it is a project and belongs on a project list. When you review all the items you captured –  file them as a project or as a next action. If an item is a project, add the next action to move that project forward.  If it’s a next action, attach a context or due date so you know where and when this task can be done. (Read more about contexts below).
3. Third, you need to ensure regular processing. If you can’t trust yourself to process all the things you capture on a routine basis, then you’ll have your urgent tasks in the back of your mind, affecting your concentration, or you’ll stop one task to deal with things that arrive, affecting your efficiency. Instead, set aside time to process everything you’ve captured. The flowchart above shows a method for GTD processing. Ask yourself these questions:

• Is this actionable?  That is, does it require action? If not, file it or toss it. If it requires action, move on to the next question.
• What’s the next action? If there’s more than one step involved, then the item is a project, and it should go to its appropriate project list. If it’s a single step, then do it if it will take less than 2 minutes, delegate it if it would be a better use of someone else’s time than yours, or add it to your to-do list or calendar if it should be done at another time.

By this time, you have nothing left but action items. You don’t want an enormous to-do list to plow through, so you’ll need to identify contexts for your actions. The context of an action is its setting. Some things need to be done at home, some at the office, some online, some by phone, and so on. Sort your action items according to their context by labeling them “@office,” “@computer,” as the requirements of the task demand. Labeling them with @ means they’ll be listed and sorted together automatically if you use electronic tools for this step.

Here’s the beauty of the context sort: next time you’re waiting somewhere, with your phone but no computer, you can check your @phone list and take those essential next actions, instead of getting stressed over having to wait. Next time you’re doing intensive work online and need a break, or have to wait for a response before continuing, you can choose an item from the @online list.

You can use web 2.0 tools to make this process accessible and practical wherever you are. Remember the Milk is a tool that we like. Here are a few of the benefits of using RTM for GTD:

• Capture, sorting, delegating, and processing can all be taken care of directly in RTM.
• RTM can be accessed from your iPhone or your Twitter account, your Android or Blackberry or your Google account, as well as from the website.
• You can rely on RTM to text or email you when a deadline or meeting is coming up, so you don’t have to keep things in the back of your mind.

RTM and GTD fit with the big picture of how we do things at Clevertech:

• Let technology improve your life.
• Work in ways that fit the way you like to work, instead of making your work habits fit the convenience of your hardware or software.
• Use smart systems to make your workflow more effective.

Recently, we’ve been working on a system that allows companies to have hundreds of people input data immediately for processing by Sage accounting systems. Instead of sending data from multiple users to a central user who then has to input that data — with multiple points along the way at which miscommunication, human error, and data loss could take place — we’ll allow ubiquitous capture and regular processing. It’s like the difference between carrying buckets from a well and having central plumbing. But a little higher tech.

In other cases, we’ve added sms texting functionality to allow access on our client’s terms, improved user interfaces to streamline the GUI experience, and created rich applications that are aesthetically pleasing. In every case, we’re making the systems work better for the people who use them.

Contact Clevertech to discuss how we can bring these principles to your company, to make life better for your staff, stakeholders, and clients.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy, Technology Tactics

When we’re all in the same office all the time, it’s easy enough to collaborate. In the real world, we’re on the go, or in different time zones to begin with.

Collaboration can be synchronous, with everyone sharing a screen and chatting. It can also be a matter of giving everyone access to a file so collaboration can take place over time as each member of the team adds and adjusts. Too often, though, it ends up being a matter of multiple iterations and emails, .27 of which get lost.

Take advantage of the technologies that make remote collaboration work better.

Here are some options:

• Adobe Share (Acrobat) and ConnectNow are easy to use and have an interface familiar to Adobe users.
• GoToMeeting is another way to share screens, with voice or chat.
• Dropbox is an easy way to send files. FileReplicationPro is the powerhouse alternative.
• Google Docs can feel clunky compared to some of the others, but it’s free and everyone has access.
• SimpleGroupware is an open source option with email, CMS, and other components. There’s a mobile version now, too.

If you try out a few possibilities and they don’t fit your needs precisely, we can build something that’s exactly right for your workflow and setting.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy

Every company has at least one: the experienced manager we all like to go to for advice and decisions. He knows it all, because he’s seen it all. He listens, thinks… and gives us the wisest course of action. It looks like magic – or, if not magic, at least an amazing and inexplicable insight into situations and people.

In fact, the wise manager is using rules. From his experience, he has learned that if this happens, that will probably follow. Multiply this simple pattern by dozens or even hundreds of rules in multiple situations, and it all happens so fast in his brain that he isn’t even aware that he those rules operating.

The rules are trapped in his head, as tacit knowledge. He couldn’t explain how he makes those decisions – so he can’t pass on that knowledge to another manager.

And yet, that knowledge is part of the the capital of your company. We recognise that information is an asset. You know that your data, your special processes, your innovative ideas are part of the intellectual capital of your company, creating value that’s potentially negotiable. Read the artilce »

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We’ve completed another piece of a hypothetical trading system, Overcollaterization Ratios, for the Clevertech Portfolio Management System.

In today’s market, we need to give  our clients the ability to make safer and stronger decisions in their businesses. The add-on tools we’re working on right now are allowing our clients to gather the kinds of data they need to simplify the decision-making process while making it stronger and more certain.

As developers, we find it exciting to see a system start in its infancy and grow into the trusted foundation of a business.

It begins with listening to the client’s needs. With our business training and problem-solving skills, we can see into the heart of the challenge our client is facing, and reframe that challenge in a way that allows us to meet the need in the most cost-effective and efficient way, saving the client time and money. Let us do this for you. Contact us today to begin the discussion.

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While we have discussed the many flaws of human data management, the troubles of excel and the many advantages of custom databases, we now have the data to back it all up. No pun intended…

In a survey of fund administrators conducted by the software company “Confluence”. 115 respondents were polled on their data management habits. A whopping 84% of fund administrators are worried that manual processes are hurting their ability to control errors. As a result, senior management at these companies wisely invest in all sorts of technology solutions, all in an effort to eliminate the risks of manual error.

Manual data management in excel files or through other means is certainly more time consuming than the automatic nature of a custom database. 77% of respondents expressed concern that manual processes affect their ability to meet reporting deadlines.

Yet manual data management is still pervasive. 26% of respondents said that they use spreadsheets for more than half their fund administration processes. Another 25% said that they use spreadsheets for a quarter to a half of all processes.

Perhaps what is most striking is a Coopers & Lybrand study that found that 90% of spreadsheets with more than 150 rows contained errors. With that level of error, the risk in fund management becomes exponential. Most managers recognize this and 52% of respondents planned to centralize fund administration within the 12 months following the survey, with 62% of respondents selecting “replace manual process with technology” as their goal within the next 2 years, all in an attempt to reduce operating costs, improve scalability, and minimize risk.

A custom database that integrates data flow with data providers sounds pretty good about now, doesn’t it?

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy

In life, you have to make very important decisions. When you make important decisions in your business, you often need the answers to complex questions based on your data. How is one fund performing as compared to all my funds? How much money do I expect to bring in over the next three months based on existing contracts? Based on a multitude of variables, how can I determine which investments are at risk and therefore need my attention? Using your current data management tools, can you produce the answer to these questions? Without having an analyst spend all day trying to find the answer? Custom databases allow you more control by providing the answers to these and more complex questions instantly.

Database: The Movie

Databases have many advantages. For one, it becomes easier to access data in more complex ways than are possible in Excel. In Excel, all your data is displayed on one big spreadsheet. Relationships between data subjects are clearly discernible, and business forecasts based on the changing of a single variable can be instantly produced.

But if your data grows to be more complex, and you want to see the relationship between three or more data subjects, excel cannot handle that sort of a broad view.

An Excel file is like taking a Polaroid. It’s fast, easy, and gives you a quick snapshot of the data. But if you want to view data relationships over time, to get a better sense of your information so that you can make more accurate decisions, you need to get a broader view. Using your Excel file is like piecing together Polaroids to create a slide show of your daughter’s piano recital – something that looks laughable to the father next to you who is using a video camera. Databases reflect the constantly changing nature of your information and display data relationships in real time.

Have Your Data Manage Itself

Perhaps you are interested in tracking an investment and its relationship within a larger context. You may want to group your data into funds, display two, three or maybe all your funds at once. Data therefore needs to be stored properly on the investment level and grouped into separate funds.

Databases make it possible for you to store your information by using a complex data structure. This allows you to specify data types and relationships, organizing your information for easy retrieval and preparing it for accurate manipulation. When you take a hand in customizing your database, your business rules are the blueprint for your data, categorizing and funneling your information so that your data interprets itself. A custom or semi-custom database therefore allows you to be more in control of your business.

Multiple Users

In Excel, many users store or access data in a single file. This leads to possible errors and overwrites. However, Databases can handle multiple users. They can cause users to take turns and to track changes to ensure that these mistakes do not occur.

Perhaps the most important feature of databases is that the nature of their storage allows data to be recorded once and then repurposed in many different forms. One can view the data, edit it, or produce reports through the web, email and other outlets restricted to internal use, or edited for external reporting.

Make Your Business More Valuable to Buyers

An added bonus of using a custom or semi-custom database is that if gives you a piece of intellectual property that you now own. Since you encoded your business logic into the database, its special nature increases the value of your business if you ever want to sell. Furthermore, it instills buyer and client confidence when you display such control over your own data.

Have it your way

Maybe a custom-built database is the right tool for you. You gain more control over your data, moving from seeing things in two dimensions to 3D. Databases can save you time and money, cutting the number of analysts you need to maintain your information, and producing accurate reports on complex matters instantly. Where it might take you days or weeks to compile the data contained in different Excel files, because the structure in a database is arranged correctly, your data will be pre-arranged for fast manipulation and reporting even in complex situations – something that is impossible in Excel.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy

The Beauty of Excel

Who doesn’t use Excel? It’s a flexible versatile tool that allows you to easily manage diverse data sets and produce meaningful results through formulas in a sort of complex simplicity. I’ve always thought of it as a chef’s knife, taking simple ingredients and producing fine cuisine.

But take this one letter from a small business owner in Chicago.

“Dear Excel,

We love you so much. You make it easy for us to arrange our information into neat little boxes and to run our entire business from hundreds of spreadsheets with complex formulas and data galore.

But sometimes you are mean. We were trying to ensure that interest is calculated consistently across all our different spreadsheets, and after many weeks, my analysts still found inconsistencies.

Why do you hate me?”

-Anonymous in Chicago

The Beauty of Excel?

It’s true. When managing for consistency Excel may not be the best tool. All of your business logic is expressed in complex formulas encased in teensy weensy cells directly next to one another, depending on human diligence for accuracy. Sheer human fallibility guarantees mistakes and out-of-date information when using many Excel spreadsheet and this leads to wasted hours of cleanup duty.

Your Business Logic is At Risk

Perhaps the most severe issue is the lack of control of your own business logic. Maybe things were great when you were in charge of the files. You had your own set of rules and policies for the specific way you manage your data. But you got busy, the data grew, and new files needed new analysts. As a result, your files are not all being managed the same way. Since the data is too large or complex for many business owners to handle alone, they rely on human help, and when different analysts are managing different files, uniformity is impossible. The end result guarantees discrepancy, and discrepancy means that the rules by which you run your business are at risk.

What is even more puzzling is that many business owners know that Excel is unwieldy and merely shrug it off as the cost of doing businesses. Businesses employ analysts to maintain and correct the files, without noticing the lack of productivity, the higher costs and the big ol’ waste of time. Frustrated by their lack of control, businesses throw money at the problem in the form of their analyst armies, who just don’t have the right tools to apply the business logic uniformly.

Man Rules Machine, Not The Other Way Around

Once a company reaches a certain size, its business logic no longer belongs in a formula in Excel. Business rules should be written once and applied many times. These rules should be easily accessible, auditable and clearly articulated.

Software tools and database engines are more effective than Excel.  By using the wrong software, you are simply living in the past.

For fans of the tv series: 24, take a look at what would happen if it took place in 1994.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMLH_QyPTYM]

See? If you let fear of updating to the fastest and easiest technology govern you, you too may be struggling with a 56k baud modem while others are in the fast lane.

Permalink  |  Published in Business Strategy