Stand Up Meetings

(Courtesy www.collaborativeciriculum,ca)

There is nothing like a meeting to prevent real action or progress on an issue.  Most people can attest to the fact that meetings often go off on tangents or don't conclude with any real decisions.  Many meeting invitees are not really necessary, only attending because the boss is requiring them to go.

The stand up meeting is different.  It is usually a daily meeting held in the operations area (i.e. factory floor).  It is usually held early in the morning as the first (day) shift is starting operations.  It is successful for the following reasons:

• It is held with all meeting participants "standing up".  There are no chairs or tables to rest or get comfortable.  
• It is short in duration (usually 5 - 10 minutes) depending on the topic.  By standing the entire meeting, it ensures the meeting will not go too long.
• The meeting involves different functional groups and brings them together to work issues.  No waiting for someone to answer an e-mail or leave another meeting.  Collaboration happens immediately.
• The meeting happens early in the morning before people get pulled away to solve other emergent issues,

If you haven't done so already, consider having a stand up meeting to improve focus and get real results

(Courtesy en.wikipedia.org)

Transferable Skills

(Courtesy keithparnell.com)

With many out of work or looking to find a better position, it is one of the busiest hiring periods in recent times. Those working in Human Resources (HR) know all too well that the sheer volume of resumes for just one position can reach well over one hundred resumes.  So in order to narrow the possibilities, the HR professionals word the job posting so that no one really has all the "minimum qualifications" that the hiring company is seeking to find.

Not to be overlooked are transferable skills.  Here are some of the common mistakes found in hiring and what fixes the issue:

• "No experience in our industry".  I was once told I didn't have any food industry experience for a manager's position at a local yogurt plant.  What I did have was many years experience in a manufacturing operation.  My experience was in a regulated industry (FAA) that is comparable to another regulated industry, food manufacturing (FDA).  So the skills I learned at Boeing (management, dealing with machines that go down, raw material issues, etc) are transferable to other manufacturing industries.  In fact an outsider may very well bring fresh new insight to the position.  In addition, the learning curve is not so steep that an experienced person can quickly get up to speed.
• "You aren't experienced in our 3D CAD system".  If you have had any training in one  3D CAD system, you can easily learn another.  The commands for doing operations are different but make sense once you get into the nuts and bolts of the CAD system.  In fact with many icon based programs like CATIA V5, all that is required is to know the icons.
• "You have never been a manager before".  Maybe not but every manager out  there was working at a staff level before being promoted.  They were not managers before either.  Many managers join a company with preconceived ideas on how things should be run in the new company.  Often it is better to take an inexperienced face and  mold that person into the leader your company deserves.

(courtesy:csuitementor.com)