Operation Improvement Inc.

Dr. Charles Hobbs, the time management guru of the 70’s, was quite clear that “prioritization” of tasks was a process. He advocated a daily review of things to be done - anticipating the context of the next 24 hours. “What should I work on today?’

Perhaps a copy of a copy isn’t a sharp as the original. After Dr. Hobbs ideas were popularized by Franklin Planner, and then Franklin-Covey enthusiasts - the notions of “priority” and “prioritizing” took a different direction in their popular usage.  Apparently, many folks began to think of priorities as intrinsic properties of action items, and this created a conflict.

Contrast this: “Working out tomorrow morning is my top priority.” (The Dr.  Hobbs “daily prioritization” approach) with: “Working Out is my top priority.” Do you see the difference?

The first and proper approach is the product of a frequent process of assessment immediately before opportunity for action. The second is an attempt to assign a priority to an action as an intrinsic characteristic of that action. This essentially elevates that action to the essence of virtue, regardless of time and situation. This second approach inevitably leads to daily conflicts between what I “ought to” be doing, and what I -must do- today.

Apparently, a lot of folks have made this mistake, because the web is buzzing with a “new” approach to time management called “Getting Things Done”. (Here is an Amazon book link to the author, David Allen.) Open Source developers have developed an an Android app called “Shuffle” and a web based app called “Tracks” that implement one important concept from the GTD portfolio.

You are no doubt familiar with the basic task list. Evey Desktop email & calendar program seems to have them. There is a field to describe the task, enter a note, a due date, and (sometimes) a “task becomes active after…” date.  Tracks and Shuffle builds on this common structure.

Instead of adding a priority field (leading some down the wrong path), Tracks and Shuffle require that every task be placed in a “context”; a “when” or “where” describing the situation that action is appropriate. People have used “When I am Fresh”, “When I Am Tired”, “Weekend”, “Errand Day”, “When I See Jim”, and so on.  This helps to automate prioritization. The software creates short, relevant, and “dynamic”  priority lists appropriate to the context.

Both Track and Shuffle support tagging tasks with Project Name, to organize tasks that cumulate in an an objective or sustain a capability. This creates a task matrix and you can shift perspectives with a mouse click. You can view tasks by project, or tasks by context.

There is much more to the GTD methodology, and other programs have attempted to automate other aspects of David Allen’s materials. However, I am a fan of the “small sharp & simple tool” approach to automation. Shuffle and Tracks both have very easy learning curves. You use these tools without a lot of preparation, and without a lot of system housekeeping. Both have made the entry of new tasks a simple and fast process with a minimum of extra returns, tabs and clicks to get the task into the system.

iPod users should search for GTD, and may want to settle on an app  that “syncs” tasks, contexts and projects with Tracks,  as Shuffle does. Visit the Tracks developer site, and in the support documentation you will find free Tracks hosting services from small companies that hope to be the next “Twitter”. (Be cautious about storing passwords and other sensitive information in these public systems.)

If you are a small business,you may want to look into setting up a TRACKS server for your employees. Just remember, these are tools for personal task management.  They do not replace other collaboration tools such as Google Apps, Zimbra, Drupal, Sharepoint, etc.  A new tool to organize and manage one’s personal To-Dos is often the jump start people need to follow through on those new year resolutions!

I don’t plan to watch “Undercover Boss“. I work in the “red zone”. Nevertheless, it is a brilliant idea. This may or may not turn out to be “good television” - but it is absolutely vital that business leaders validate their notions of how their people work.

The “red zone” is that gap between what management imagines, and what actually happens. It is the gap between the IT department  and its users, between engineers and operators, between training departments and customer-facing work-centers, between metrics and reality. It is the realm of strategy, or business architecture.

Job swapping is a clever way to  uncover dysfunctional red-zones, but businesses are complex systems where every action has a reaction.   Red-zone surprises are often the result of adaptive behavior on the part of well intentioned “Good Troopers”. A reactive response (”Fix it somehow”) is a recipe for unintended consequences. Operators, supervisors, and tactical managers only understand “how” in a correct and consistent process.

Competently transforming “somehow” into “how” is the essential red-zone activity. A sequel to Undercover Boss might be titled “How Hard Can it Be?” - as many red-zone problems begin by management failure to appreciate the importance of  establishing clear methods for work.

It is counter-intuitive, but clearly defined methods for work (exactly “how”, and not “somehow”) is an essential ingredient to empowering employees. Incentives and bonuses to the good trooper who “figures it all out” is an abdication of a critical management activity.

Successful delegation requires independent thought. If we want our employees to be more than just obedient arms and legs while we “bottleneck” decision-making; then we must “set the table” by establishing strategically correct processes. This objective realm allows associates to confidently make decisions that they will be able to defend as rational.

The following information was gleaned from a “Black Hat” security briefing on the web, and I composed these notes to put the vulnerability into the context of our typical call center client. - Ron.

Most companies have dozens, hundreds, or more phone numbers provisioned by the phone company for use with their telephone services. Unfortunately, most companies do not manage these numbers as a corporate asset. There is an important reason to actively manage a short, “defined purpose” (e.g. ’support’, ‘advertising tracking’, etc.) set of numbers, and to publish only the necessary and few numbers  for use by the calling customer.

Scam artists can rent and use the same, inexpensive SIP trunk, Voice over IP, and “Asterisk software-as-PBX” technology that we use to lower phone costs and improve call center metrics. If they can get your customers to think -their- 800 or local telephone ’scam’ number is really -yours-, then this is what happens.

1. The scammer leaves a “please call me back” voicemail or email. (”This is YourBank”. Please call our fraud department at 800-xxx-yyyy). “RoboCall” technology is a potential delivery method to spread the scam quickly to as many people as possible.

2. The caller calls the number and is connected to YourBank Fraud =ROUTED THROUGH= the SCAMMER systems. Every word of a conversation can be recorded, or a scammer IVR can be inserted in front of the bank IVR to ask for credit card and other information.

3.  The caller is unaware they are being monitored, because the number they dialed connected them with an authentic bank call center - who has customer records and can verify their authenticity. Both caller and call center are (by now) familiar with the need and methods to verify identity over the phone.

4. Thanks to “cloud” computing, where all of the components to execute this scam is available as a utility service anywhere in the world, the skimming of information can take place anywhere in the world. A scammer anywhere in the world can remotely set up the necessary systems at any service provider and skim calls without ever leaving their desktop computer!

Like webpage fraud, this kind of scam can run until it is discovered and shut down, but a company’s “telephone identity” is often not managed as carefully as its web domain name. Since Direct dial to individual desks is so common, and since most companies have large inventories of phone numbers that they do not manage - most customer service people cannot answer this question.

“I dialed 800-xxx-yyyy. Is that a valid YourBank number I should have called to reach -your- desk?”

Since most call centers have over-enthusiastically embraced tools to create impossibly complex “skill” and “load balancing” routing, and almost NO tools to predict where individual  calls actually go, it is rare to find -anyone- who can assure management and customers that a short published list of phone numbers AND ONLY THOSE NUMBERS terminate in authorized customer facing call centers.

Finally, companies that actively drive customers to self service by -failing- to prominately publish voice service phone numbers may be -more- vulnerable as the means of entering the voice services process are not prominently displayed.

Summary: Make sure that you inventory EVERY phone number that your company owns. The purpose and termination point of every number should be clearly stated and this information is kept current and accurate.  The list of numbers which may be dialed by customers should be accessible and well known to customer facing employees, and the list of numbers published for dial-in use should be as few as possible.

Although everyone likes to be greeted on the phone by a live voice, one published number that becomes identified with a company’s brand coupled with a simple and well-planned IVR may be in your customer’s best interest.