Image via Wikipedia

Back in Beijing for 2nd day – and busy like a beaver trying to get things organized.

My main thrust is to get a consistent and reliable system to ensure that:

1. Projects are captured
2. Projects are done.

Simple thing – and on the surface it would appear a thing of simplicity – however, with over 100 projects going at the same time, with various people, ensuring execution is a challenge.    In the days when I was doing 100 hour weeks – in some ways things seemed simpler.  I had my to do list, and I hammered at it till it went down.     When you now have others doing the work, the skill set to manage is significantly differently – it’s a game of tracking, measuring, etc.  

Currently my biggest issues continue to be Finance and  Accounting.   Its been a frustrating road, since we are almost at the place, ALMOST, where monthly P&L’s are issues, journal entries are done and reconciliations are completed.  ALMOST.    But, not quite there yet.   And so, every day that there is another finance issue that comes up, I find myself very short on energy to deal with.     But, I have now brought on a consultant to hammer out the SOP’s for Finance and Accounting, a calendar of reports and tasks is getting put together and procedures in place to make it all hum.   So, we have done well given how far back I was 2 years ago, and give the mess I had to fix.   BUT, ahhh – I want it to be just done and working.   I’m so looking forward to deep dive into RedStores Ventures but I continue to be pulled into the operational details of Finance.     Ok, deep breath!    Its coming and I will have it humming soon.  

On the up side,  Ventures is looking very hot.   We hired a new designer and have a very nice new

fresh design.  Its hitting the kind of look I would hope for.   Backend is coming along.    The current state of the site is here:

http://dev.redstores.com/xcart/Household/

On a personal organization note, I have switch my task tracking to a 4 tier tracking – Important/Urgent,  Important/NonUrgent, NotImportant/Urgent, Not Important/ Not Urgent.   I find it now, for the way I’m working, that this has better allowed me to focus on top priorities.    I have also been using the GTD outlook plugin, which allows me automatically setup follow ups and reminders for emails I send out – which has helped me a great deal in tracking things.    My item count is VERY small now, as I spend the day today putting all the tasks off my sheet into our Sharepoint system and assigning them.  

So, for this week –  my goals are rather simple –

• Set Goals and Expectations and tracking for Finance
• Setup a strong task/project tracking SOP/Policy and tie it to peoples compensation.   
• Revise the KPA – Key Performance Assessment System

If I can get these three things done this week, then the week will be a success.