davidwp — David Pederson 800.664.1614

I am a SaaS copywriter specializing in applications and services used in business intelligence.

Telecommuting Team Trust

December 1, 2018 By davidwp

So you’ve been telecommuting for a while and things shifted; the department is reorganized, your manager moves on, you are moved to a new project, or one of several other things change your cozy telecommuting relationship.

How do you maintain your status and reputation as the world turns? Here are five core steps to helping others see you from a distance.

BUILD TRUST FROM THE GROUND FLOOR . . . AGAIN

This one appears easy, but takes a different set of skills; build a repeatable process of trust. Start by knowing that when things change you can’t expect anything to transfer forward. Your new boss may not know you, your last boss may have left without detailing your brilliance in your personnel file or you may be the new team lead, except you aren’t known by the new team. So, like it or not, you need to start at the ground floor and build again.

Telecommuting adds a layer of challenge. People like to see the new person, to look them in the eye, watch them react with others, determine whether they are a kindred spirit or not. In short, they want to say hi and shake your hand. It is an unchanging trait of human nature, so face it. When the ground changes you can fast-track this process but you can’t ignore. So, make the effort to meet the folks on your team, even if that means you pay the ticket.

PLAN TO PAY FOR YOURSELF

Some telecommuting policies lack an allowance for impromptu travel. Prepare for this and sock away some of the savings you are getting from not commuting to the office for this occasion. Then when it happens make plans to meet the team at your expense. The company has already saved you money by freeing you from the office so don’t cheap out now and make expense demands. Step up and it will pay off.

SHOW LEADERSHIP WITHOUT SEEKING RECOGNITION

Use this as an opportunity to test out the new landscape. A new manager worthy of your respect will offer to bring the team together, but some don’t and have a variety of reasons for not doing so.

That cannot stop you from footing the bill and being in town. As a matter of fact, the process of organizing your trip will more than likely catch on and the team will self-organize.

Other new players will want to meet you and if your team is geographically split you may be the catalyst for a meeting of the minds. Don’t be surprised if this event turns into wholesale reimbursement for the team and translates into a very good experience for you.

If you plan your time in the office well you will leave with your manager’s appreciation and a check covering your expenses. If there is no check, suck it up and think of it as an investment in your career.

GIVE CREDIT TO OTHERS

New teams and new projects start with one common thread, insecurity.

Even the “Rah!Rah!Rah!” projects are really just railing against the fear that they will fail or be mediocre at best. Knowing this gives you a leg up. If everyone is insecure, how can you help?

Remember you are only in front of them for a short time before you fade into the background of your home office. So, find ways to give them credit for stuff you do while you are there. If you make them shine in the office they will remember you out of the office. Remember, you have already achieved telecommuting status. They have to face the coffee breath of their cube mates.

So give them some kindness – you will build your new relationships and set up the pathway to trust if they know that you aren’t there to stab them in the back.

WHEN YOU GO HOME, STAY AVAILABLE

There is a tendency in all of us to think once we’ve done a job it’s done. But for the telecommuter that is not true. Office folks turn up together the day after so the bonding continues. The telecommuter is not there so the bonds become more tenuous.

What people like after meeting you is to meet you again, a replication of their normal office experience. As a telecommuter you need to make that happen for them and you do it with the telephone, IM, and video chat.

Don’t rely on email during this time. Email is a cold task driver which has only three decisions for us; reply, delete or diarize. All of these are work related.

You are building bonds so don’t make work, make rest. Let them see you, hear you, and interact with you. It doesn’t take long to make a bond and only a bit of work to maintain it, so make the effort. The bond with your colleague builds trust. With it, you will become part of the new landscape.

Work as hard at rebuilding trust with your new workmates as you would if it was your first day on the job. Despite your tenure and accolades, it is your first day. Make it a great one.

Can You Stop a Data Tsunami?

September 13, 2018 By davidwp

So, Your Customer’s Data is Lying?

Most clients can tell you stories about their data. Sometimes you can’t solve them without asking your client to throw tons of money at the problem. And that can strain your relationship. Costs can threaten your circle of trust. Not good. You want to solve problems in ways fair to you and fair to them.

Your customer knows the day their first report gave them bad answers. That was “The Day.” They call you, you have a look, and tell them the cost of fixing it – a leaky faucet. They think they can manage it on their own, so they don’t have to pay to repair the root cause.

Instead, they hire someone to “manage” reports. But that new manager asks the staff to stop what they’re doing and ‘validate THE REPORTS.’

After a few days, they deliver. And, it’s still wrong.

It’s stopping your client from moving forward on a new idea. Now, their staff is behind in their work. Their HR person is looking for a root cause … in the employees who work for them. Some quit, some try harder. But the data is now a full-time job, and everyone hates it.

They’re at the edge of a Tsunami.

The leaks expand, the system slows down, and failure is just on the horizon. Their competitor beats them to market. They lose market share. Guess who they call? Yep, now it’s your turn!

Are you ready to face their tsunami? Do you want me to stand with you? I will help you.

With a 20 year career with both large and small players like JP Morgan Chase, Best Buy, Washington Mutual, Ford Motor Credit, North American Insurance, Hannon Technology, and Data Educators I know data. I know it better than most.

At the core of each of these problems is analysis and communication. That is the job I do well. I communicate solutions after I do my research. My analysis finds answers. Then I write:

findings and summaries
visualizations that show the problems,
white papers showing options,
case studies explaining how others solved their problems, and
recommendations for new software or consulting services, so the data stop telling lies.

We’ll Tame the Tsunami.

I solve problems for companies handicapped by their data. — Companies ready to grow but held back by the cost of managing their data problems. They’ve seen the tsunami. I write to show them the path forward.

I help companies change their data into a well-controlled stream, rich in resources. As a technical copywriter with 20 years of broad data experience, I make their data talk without you breaking a sweat. You’ll show them what it’s saying, and they’ll be ready for your next suggestion.

I change data into actionable information in simple and understandable terms. And quietly help you keep your customers keep you in their circle.

Let me help.

Published Article Sample – Three Myths You Should Know About Risk Management

January 6, 2015 By davidwp

Risk management takes real skills, developed over time, with tools to formulate options for any series of events that may occur during the life of a project. Those options range from negative risk, where an event will harm the project, to positive risks, where an event reveals a new opportunity to pursue.

But the real challenge is when a black swan appears. Black swans are big, bad, unanticipated catastrophes that force change. Sometimes referred to a VUCA and demanded a new way of thinking and responding to risk.

Black swans aren’t restricted to weather. In finance, they present mathematical challenges that earn Nobel Prizes for those who find new ways of modeling for the risks they represent, folks like Robert Engle.

The 2008 sub-prime mortgage crisis was a black swan. Recently, the graduate school at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby Canada took a deep-dive into how black swan events affected Value at Risk (VaR) strategy and published a case study on the top four methods used to set on a 10 million student services fund it has been building since 2003.

The study, while looking at the best of the best in risk management practices, pointed to three myths about which we should be aware.

One: Things Work When We Choose a Best Practices Strategy.

The low-risk model, HS, over-estimated Swan for one year. That means the fund didn’t take advantage of stocks that were actually in positions to increase returns.
73% of banks use HS – that activity holds back investments that could stimulate growth only because the model is deficient, not because the opportunity was bad.

Two: What’s Good For a Fortune 50 Company is Good For Us.

There is inconsistency even among the biggest players who are responsible for protecting the public from financial risk.
In a study of VAR among the “Big 5” Canadian banks, researchers Xiaoya Chen and Duo Zheng studied data from 4340 trading days, including the beginning of the black swan. During that time a total of 43 exceptions (days where losses exceed the VaR) were acceptable to regulators, but 47 exceptions were created. When they drilled down into each bank, they found larger variances with two of the banks (BNS and TD) very close to the norm and two others BMO and RBC) significantly exceeding it.
Even among the biggest players in the same industry risk is seen differently. To hold them up as a standard for project managers to use is foolhardy.

Three: Choosing a Well Engineered Best Practice Means We Can Short-cut Analysis

In the SIAS fund, the risk management strategy was weakened by the governance process focused on individual stock volatility rather than portfolio risk. They used seven teams to make strategic decisions which would go through a voting process resulting in a slow turnover and trading frequencies. The advisors, including three from top Canadian banks, tended to review the effectiveness of the team and how well past strategies held up. Rather than deep dive into the details of the chosen VaR, the methods used were accepted as industry standard.
It wasn’t until Hsieh and El-Hourani took on a more in-depth analysis of the portfolio for their thesis that it came to light that the ratios used for individual stock evaluation were flawed when looking at the collection. The short-cuts were taken, despite using best practices and industry standards were not good enough to optimize results and the black swan event pointed out the deficiency in the strategy.

Curation Sample – How Did An International Project Team Expose Corruption?

May 26, 2013 By davidwp

This is a curation sample of content I produced for a newsletter sent to senior level project managers. I enjoy curating content It allows me to share research about topics with readers who want to keep up with subjects in their field and benefit from the guidance of someone familiar with the issues.

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Center for Public Integrity — **Click on the image to go to the story.**

In April of 2013 the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) published the results of their exploration of the secretive world of offshore companies and trusts. This project team of 86 journalists worked together to expose correction and fraud. It’s an amazing story of what a good team can do, even with shaky stakeholders.

About the Team

The report itself is valuable, but for project managers the team has an inspiring story to tell. Many of us are given a project fraught with problems, short on budget, tight on staff, and shy on stakeholder support. And we’re expected to deliver.

This story is the story of such a team and how they overcame the problems, got on with the job, and not only met the challenge, but invented ways to exceed everyone’s expectations.

The ICIJ is an independent network of reporters in more than 60 countries who collaborate on cross-border investigations, as part of a project of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity. They are a complex virtual team with a mission that matters and a process open to inspection and improvement.

It’s real-life drama that inspired me. I think it will inspire you as well. Enjoy the story, but read it for the teamwork. It’s worth the time.

About the Story

Gerard Ryle, ICIJ’s director, obtained the data trove as a result of his three-year investigation of Australia’s Firepower scandal, a case involving offshore havens and corporate fraud. To cover the vast amount of information he engaged PICIJ’s 86 investigative journalists from 46 countries in one of the biggest cross-border investigative collaborations in journalism history. Unique digital systems supported private document and information sharing, as well as collaborative research. These included a message center hosted in Europe and a U.S.-based secure online search system. Team members also used a secure, private online bulletin board system to share stories and tips.

Here is a great detective story; by a great project team.

Detective Story: How ICIJ’s Project Team Analyzed the Offshore Files