AUGIWorld Magazine - March/April 2008 - (Page 5) Here are a few rewards that can come about when you start running your CAD environment as if it were the direct moneymaker for the firm. • You increase your credibility with the business leaders. • You gain closer alignment between CAD and business objectives. • You improve teamwork between CAD and internal business partners. • Your efforts are seen as company-wide successes, which are highly visible to others. • Your environment is supported and infused with budget line items because of the achievement of company goals. The kind of alignment needed in your CAD arena is different than your car. You need alignment with the firm’s goals. created by taking into account the firm’s resources, financials, opportunities, and challenges. Working these all together, the top “think tank” folks at your firm come up with the objectives for the firm’s year. Firm Goal: We will extend our ability to deliver project expertise by sharing staff among offices. Each project will be staffed with the best talent from different offices. The reality and workflow of this goal means that office staff will be relocating between offices, sending project files back and forth, opening CAD files from remote servers, and possibly storing files on laptops. If you fight these issues, then you will have trouble getting things done. You could try to get them to not do some of these things, but the reality is they will happen in spite of you. You should try to manage these kinds of things no matter what and get others to agree that some data exchange and storage methods are not safe or effective. Let’s see how embracing the goal would work, and better yet, what we can do to enable it. CAD Goal: We will enable secure file sharing between offices by establishing guidelines for file transfer, remote file sharing, laptop storage, and backup requirements. To assist knowledge workers in traveling between offices, we will standardize folder structures and system setups so that they can use any machine in any office and see the same setup. By setting your goal in alignment with the firm’s goal, you stand a much better chance of getting yours done. This does not mean that you have to throw out all of the stuff you want to get done. It just means that you need to rethink what the focus of your efforts should be. If you find that everything you want to do does not even come close to what the firm wants done, then you will soon find yourself at odds with most of your coworkers. Firm Goal: We will reduce our project delivery time 10 percent by increasing employee productivity. Hidden in this goal is a wealth of opportunity. The CAD environment is one that is primed for productivity and poised for enhancement. Here are a few goals that will support the firm’s efforts. CAD Goal: We will customize our interface to boost the speed of users’ processes by 15 percent. CAD Goal: We will create custom content that will alleviate the need for each project to create content, which will reduce production time for CAD files. CAD Goal: We will unify the support folders on the server so that every project can reuse existing project details that have been reviewed and approved. These three are a good start. You can most likely think of several more. By bringing your purposes in parallel with the company’s objectives you will make it possible for others to rally around the efforts. Where to start Your main CAD initiatives, in terms of budget and resources, should be directly linked to business goals and objectives. This means that when you articulate your objectives they should reflect the same targets as some of the business goals. The business managers should drive major CAD initiatives in conjunction with you. So when you develop your goals you should be working with the front-line and upper-level managers. This would be done by running your ideas past them. Get their input as you develop your approach and the end results of your efforts. Solicit their agreement as you move forward. Ask them to assist in your efforts to convince others. Your IT strategy and planning must be directly linked to your firm’s strategy and planning processes. You need to get involved with the process of plan creation or at least get your hands on a copy as soon as possible. If you have direct input you should try to get your agenda items discussed in the company’s strategy and planning sessions. If you cannot do that, you should wrap your goals around theirs. What should be on your strategic plan? Get your hands on the firm’s strategic plan. Review it and formulate your CAD objectives that fall in step with that plan. Look for anything in the firm’s goals that is related to CAD such as productivity, time savings, design processes, standardization, or improvements. Start thinking like the top level managers and leaders of your firm. Getting aligned What does alignment look like? Understand that not all of the goals that your firm develops will be connected to CAD. In fact, there may be very few that really can be used to create alignment. The point is not quantity, but quality. If you can align to several specific strategic goals, then others will be able to help you achieve them. Let’s take a look at how we can match up your CAD goals with the firm’s goals. We will do this by taking a company goal and developing a CAD goal from that statement. Most firms go through a yearly process of creating strategic goals—goals that they hope to achieve in order to better serve their customers, gain market share, control spending, and more. Each of these goals is M a r/A p r 2 0 0 8 Alignment is not something that comes overnight. It may take years to get your efforts in line with the firm’s goals. It is also not a once-a-year effort. You may dedicate yourself to an annual strategic planning effort, but you should think “alignment” at all times. It is not too late or too early to start. If you have not done so, take the time now to review the firm’s goals and see where yours might intertwine. If a new initiative starts midyear, then see how you can come alongside. Getting in alignment is something you can do at any time. You can also use the process to “align” people to your way of thinking. You don’t have to just follow the leaders on these kinds of things. You can take the lead by encouraging everyone to think CAD. By steering the process, you may actually have some in your firm aligning themselves to your goals. Whether leading or following, alignment is critical. Mark W. Kiker is a member-at-large on the AUGI Board of Directors. Mark is a National CAD Standards Project Team Member and team member of the National BIM Standard. He is the General Editor of BLAUGI and also publishes caddmanager.com, the CADD Managers Journal, and the caddmanager.com blog. He is a returning faculty member at Autodesk University. He is currently Chief Information Officer for HMC Architects in Ontario, California. 5 http://www.caddmanager.com http://www.caddmanager.com http://www.caddmanager.com
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