So many thing to do, which one should you do first?
I met an Grab product guys recently to discuss about a brilliant idea that MauKerja and Grab can work together. Personally he love the idea, but he worry it have to be wait until next year, only can implement it. I am curious, isn’t Grab have thousand plus engineers and why it take so long? He share that every day they have new proposal within the company or from partner, TODO list is so long until they need to queue to be implement. For brilliant idea like I proposed, there could be something more brilliant and more important for them to do.
Last month I also have the opportunity to meet with Jobstreet Head of Engineering. He told me they have about 300 engineers working in Jobstreet. I so impress and say:”Woww, thats a lot. You guys can rollout many cool thing!” He response:”Not really. You will never have enough Engineer. When you have 300, you want 1,000. When you have 1,000, you want 2,000. The work to do is never ending”
This is the same happen to our company. Even we have grow our engineering team from 10 to 40 plus people, yet the work is never done enough. Same for marketing, content, video, sales, customer care and all other team.
Conclusion: For a growing company, your TODO list is never ending, regardless how big is your team. Resources is always a limited regardless your size of company.
Then what can we do?
Since God only give us 24 hours a day, we have no choice but to PRIORITIZE.
Prioritize, ya, most of us know this word. BUT in actual implementation, which task should we prioritize?
- Task that impact your KPI?
- Task that your manager ask you to do?
- Task that can help our employer to find workers?
- Task that can improve our sales?
- Task that can help our jobseekers to find jobs?
- Task that CEO ask you to do?
So which task is priority now?
Few days ago I spoke to Ricky. I ask him the progress of AJobThing-Sonar integration that I ask him to work with Jawaid. I also ask him about the status of UniEnroll — MauKerja partnership. He told me that both task are not done yet, he need to put it on hold. I am shocked and ask why? You know, Ray Teng ask you do work and you never do, you want to die?
Ricky responded: “Currently there are few Sonar campaign on fire. My team and I need to focus to rescue those project first. I personally think success of Sonar campaign is very important to us. If customer not happy, they won’t buy from us again. I am sorry Mr Ray. Once the Sonar project complete, I will re-look into the 2 matters immediately”.
I am stunned! I am stunned not because he don’t do the work I asked. I am stunned is because I am so happy to see Ricky have growth to become a mature leader. Comparing to a young chap that always like to joke when he joinned 3 years ago, he is now a true leader that can lead a team, and make wise decision. I am so impress by his decision to delay the 2 task I assigned him and put customer as no 1 priority. Ricky, I am so proud of you!
Last week when I was in Jogja, during the last day when I ready to fly back to Malaysia. Afin come and speak to me.
Afin:”Mr Ray, I am sorry I cannot send you to airport. I know mathematics now. It doesnt make sense for me to spend 1 hour send you to airport while Grab only cost you 20,000 rupiah (RM6).”
Again, I am stunned! In my heart, I am so happy that our people understand the theory of mathematics now. I am happy that Afin know what is important and what is not important (https://medium.com/ajobthing-avenger/basic-mathematics-a192d2ef8559)
FYI, Indonesian is a very polite community, they will feel very bad if not able to host the guest nicely. I know Afin will feel bad in heart, but let me re-assure you Afin, what you did is right! I leave Jogja with happy heart seeing our Indonesia team are growing, mentally. Yes, I means mental maturity, which is what I always hope our people able to growth them-self when working with us, skill wise, mental wise, maturity wise. Mathematics article is not wasted :)
Let go back to the topic we discuss above, how should you prioritize when you are swamp with hundreds of things to do? First, I want you to accept the fact, this will happen in our company, it will until maybe one day we become corporate (which i not sure is good thing or not until now). Ray Teng will still pop up suddenly and ask you to do some mission impossible.
So, how should you handle?
Here I try to provide you some guidance on how to handle this situation. Hope it can help you to make a better decision.
Assuming that you have 10 task on your hands now, how do you prioritize?
First, ask yourself what is our company priority?
To cut story short, our company priority are
- Make sure Employer, able to find workers, successfully, using our platform
- Make sure Jobseeker, able to find job, successfully, using our platform
- When you done 2 thing above right, Traffic will come. Sales will come.
Once you understand COMPANY PRIORITY, then is very easy for you to make decision. Out of the 10 task you have on hands now, which task can help company achieve 3 objective above? Put those task as higher priority.
What if there are some task that have a fix dateline and it is near?
Example Task A: You need to submit the report to Ministry of Human Resource by 30th this month.
Example Task B: You commited to roll-out this function by 30th this month.
When you have 10 task to handle, and 2 of those task have hard deadline like above, then this is time for you and your manager to re-evaluate. Which task can contribute more to our company goal above? Compare those task to Task A and B,
- Is task A or B deadline are fix? Is it extendable? Can the stakeholder accept with your new propose date? Let say stakeholder accept new date, can you commit to new date and assure them it will be deliver?
- Is it really a must to complete Task A or B above? Maybe the important of those task have change? What will happen if we do not complete?
I suggest you discuss with your superior for scenario above. Some times, the task can be cancel or postpone. Sometimes it can’t, then we have no choice but to do it. I am not encourage you to ignore what we committed, but I just want to let you know, nothing is fix. So, please discuss with your superior to re-confirm the priority. [This is why, we always stress on CLARITY as our core value]
How about KPI? If I do this task now, my KPI will be impacted! Boss will angry!
As mentioned in previous article, KPI is like a compass that guide you and your team towards our company goal. (https://medium.com/ajobthing-avenger/why-we-need-kpi-eae40ae770c6)
However, if you think your team KPI does not actually help the company to achieve it’s objective, it means something wrong. What you suspect could be valid, because the KPI defined previously may have outdated and no longer apply to the company anymore. This is possible as we are startup and we growth fast.
Recently I have meeting with Nikki about Social Media team KPI. Nikki suggested to add User Sign Up and Job Application as part of KPI. Previously, their team just focus on number of people reached. I think her suggestion is very good because it will make the team not solely focus on brand awareness (KPI: People reach), it also guide the team to focus on success hire (KPI: User sign up and Job application). By re-adjusting the team KPI, it make the team work more align with our company goal and their everyday more relevant to company focus.
Everyone. KPI will change over the time, especially when company growth. It is not hand crafted and fixed. KPI should always be adjusted to align with company direction and objective. If you notice your team are moving in opposite direction of company goal, or if you start to confuse what your team is doing; it is time for you to bring this up to your superior, and together re-align the team KPI. KPI is like compass, when compass function well, it will bring you to the destination you and your team want to be.
What if I was ask by Project Manager to help other team?
Once you understand the company priority, you will know whether you should accept the new task assign by the Project Manager. FYI, Project Manager is not God. Ray Teng is not God. They do make mistake.
So when you are assign to help other team (example, Team Y), please ask yourself, for those new task you were newly assigned to, does it help the company to achieve the company objective?
Or simply because the Team Y deadline is near, they are in urgent mode, need some extra hands to help on some task so they can deliver on time. In this scenario, you should ask your project manager, is Team Y task more important than your current task in Team X?
Don’t blindly accept the command just because it is from Project Mabager. Nor I am not asking you to simply challenge your project manager. Everyone here are adult and you should aware of what you do and how does it align to company goal. You have to remember when you help Team Y, you are actually sacrificing Team X, because God only give you 24 hours a day.
So when you face with this difficulty, ask yourself, task in Team X are more important or task in Team Y? If you unsure, please bring it up and discuss with your project manager. [First principle thinking: https://jamesclear.com/first-principles]
What if the task is directly assign by Ray Teng?
Look at how Ricky response to Ray Teng above. If you think there are other task that are more important than Ray Teng task, it is ok to postpone Ray Teng task. If you think Ray Teng task doesn’t bring any value to the company objective, you can inform him and discuss with him. Remember, Ray Teng is not God.
Some of you may misunderstand when Ray Teng stride you, it is a task you must do NOW. Let us establish a agreement here. I will stride you when I need, regardless is weekday, weekend, day time, or night time. This won’t change. But I will let you decide when to response, when to implement. Because I know if it is urgent and I need immediate implementation, I will whatsapp, call you and walk to you, NOT Stride. In other word if I whatsapp / call you, I expect fast response. Else I will use stride.
OR if is really urgent, I may stride with extra wording “I need it now, today”. Without this word, means I actually leave to you to decide the timeline.
Conclusion: You do no need to please Ray Teng. You just need to please your customer. Make sure you customer, your user are happy. Again, don’t misunderstand happy means give them free gift, free credit, free money. Happy to us means our users, like to use our product or service. They feel our product is useful and able to help them compare to others competitor in the market. In other word
- Employer, able to find workers, successfully using our platform
- Jobseeker, able to find job, successfully, using our platform.
This is what we call Happy Customer.
