I wonder if anyone told Vodafone that they’re supposed to be in stock too.

UPDATE: Better late than never…

In a nutshell I need to make sure that anything that leaves my desk doesn’t come back from the customer with spelling, grammar or formatting issues.  Simple right?  Far from it.

An experienced Project Manager has written and read many documents.  An experienced Project Manager knows what business writing is, and will make sure that formal documents are written in such a manner.  An experienced Project Manager does this by using their experience.  That’s part of the value we add (along side heading off problems and dealing with customer salvos - topic for another time maybe).

Easy things that bug me about docuemnts that I have to review are sloppy spelling, punctuation and grammar.  In most cases some of the simple problems can be easily resolved by a run through with the spell checker - believe me, this is the first thing your customer will do.  Harder to find things are the words that are spelt correctly, but are used in totally the wrong context (ever come across the word “manger” in place of “manager”??).

Another time consuming problem is Styles in Word.  If you don’t understand Styles, then ask else DON’T USE THEM!!  When you have a 200 page document with Styles all up the wazoo, its going to take someone the best part of a day to re-format the document.  This is a waste of effort and subsequently money.

You might ask why the customer would care about Styles?  Some might not, but if your document has a Contents Page, or makes use of referencing, a simple Update of these fields will reveal all sorts of gremlins.

If in doubt - don’t use Styles, but do ask your Project Manager for a lesson on them; I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to oblige.

If you’re anything like me you’ve introduced your son/daughter to technology as soon as they’re able to grab something without sticking it into their mouths.  You’ve bought them a little notebook mouse to fit their hand, and taught them the basics of drag-and-drop and double-click.

Little Techie jr is able to programme the MySky and can play a DVD (in fact even his mother comes to him for help sometimes).  You’re as proud as punch, and things just get better and better.

Soon junior is programming - they know their way around a computer better than you.  One day you’re teaching them the basics of window-in-window and the next they’re patiently trying to explain to you the benefits of Ruby over Java.

One day you find out that your child (who you swear only learnt to walk yesterday) is now contracting out their IT services to companies in other countries over the interest.  They’re making pocket money, but doing stuff that they enjoy and keeps them out of trouble; can’t be bad.

Next thing you know they have their own company and before you know it they’re offering you a job.  What would you say?

The scenario isn’t that far away from reality.  You’ve either got to be proud of your offspring, or proud of your parenting; either way - well done you!

Ruth won the Children’s Choice Award for her illustrated book The King’s Bubbles (of which I have two copies - one for good, and the other for reading, and reading, and reading…).

I love Ruth’s artwork, and am proud to say I have one of her illustrations hanging in my home.  Well done Ruth!!

One thing is always sure to sell though, and that is well considered design.  I’ve posted briefly about this before (http://moses.net.nz/2007/12/20/everything-coming-up-apples/) when I got my Mac.  Here’s a short follow up though.

It had to happen, but after almost exactly 5 months the batteries in my keyboard put up their virtual hands and I had to replace them.  Not bad really.  The Mini told me it was going to happen, and pestered me a little, but at least it was able to explain the outages I was experiencing.

Still, that’s not the cool design bit.

Today my Mighty Mouse batteries also needed replacing.  Did the Apple engineers purposefully design into the bluetooth keyboard and mouse some power usage that see’s them both need new batteries at the same time?!?!

The logic part of my brain says that would be near enough to impossible to not even warrant a thought.  But you have to admit its a pretty awesome coincidence from a company that doesn’t do things by accident.

The second (and last I promise) in my series of shameless self-promotion; I just can’t go by without mentioning that I passed my PMP exam and am now a qualified Project Manager.

Many PMs that I know don’t put much emphasis on the PMBOK saying that its over-engineered and in some cases pointless. In a way I understand some of their points, however I have to say that until you’ve actually read it and understood the phases, you can’t really appreciate the rigor that it mandates.

I’ll be apply all of what I learnt to my future project and management (within reason and with great dollops of common sense). If you are also considering getting qualified as a PM, my only recommendation is join a study group, read the chapters, and take the sample tests.

Congratulations to VUW for some fantastic organisation.  Unfortunately this is my last tertiary qualification in recognition of spending more time with my family.

If you’re wonder what I graduated with, its a Master of Information Management.

They’ve conveniently left a nice big link on their website inviting feedback or support queries; something like service@xyz.com or askus@xyz.com.  Sounds tempting, so off your queries goes into the wild blue ether.

One of a number of things could happen with your query now:

1.  XYZ has a customer contact centre (probably in India) who lodge your query into their system and generate a semi-automated but custom response within a short space of time.

2.  XYZ has an auto-reply rule setup on their email server which seems to reply to you before you remember clicking the send button.  The reply thanks you for your email and promises a reply as your business is very important to XYZ.

3.  A reply from your mail daemon telling you that that address couldn’t be reached (a subject for another time maybe).

4.  Nothing.

I was getting tired of number 2.  The automated reply back email would get on my nerves.  It shows some thought has been put into the need for communication with the customer, but that’s as far as it went.  It’s a very 80s/90s way of answering the whole instant customer service question.

In saying this however I have decided that 4. is actually much worse.  Getting no response at all is just disconcerting.  You know XYZ still exists because you didn’t get a 3., but now you’re in a position where you wait; it could be hours, it could be days.  You’re in limbo, and there’s little you can do about it.

Common methods of communication escalation in circumstances such as these are:

Google it: see if someone has had the same issue as you and resolved it.  Why bother the company at all if you can fix it yourself.  This seems to be a Windows-age mentality, Microsoft has done a great job of conditioning the world to understand that software has bugs – live with them.

Email XYZ: you can wait for a response, and you want to give them a chance to resolve it with as much information as possible.

Phone XYZ: an immediate response is needed and you want to talk to someone with a pulse.

Visit XYZ: you need to see some bricks and mortar to be assured that this company actually exists; put a face to a name.

So…is the automated response such a bad thing after all?  It is a lazy way of handling customer responses and shows a total lack of regard for a need for human contact.  But at the end of the day its better than nothing at all which leaves your customer waiting some arbitrary period before moving their way up the communication chain.

RIM’s recent announcement could open me up to the world of the Blackberry however.

Is it just me, or does the Bold look like a cross between the Centro and iPhone??

McDonalds has been using Windows Mobile devices for a while now with wireless connectivity. Staff run down the long lines, tap your order into the handheld, and give you a little number with your order on it. This number is then given to the person behind the counter and the order is underway once you’ve paid.

So far so good.

Then, because things are going so fast as front-of-house the kitchen gets a little behind. The serving staff are told to keep taking orders. This means customers who are waiting get pushed to one side and told to wait for their order.

I suppose this system works for the first couple of customers, but when you’re the 3rd in line to wait for your order the crush at the counter gets a little uncomfortable. You can’t take it out on the young girl behind the counter, but I’m not going to get pushed aside just so that more orders can get taken. WHERE’S THE CUSTOMER SERVICE ETHIC GONE???

This is a classic example of Fast Food gone wrong. It’s now more about the process flow than the people coming in through the door. Please McDonalds, Lambton Quay - rethink this strategy.