This document discusses strategies for managers to stay plugged in using technology in the workplace. It provides scenarios for different work situations and asks the reader to choose options on how to address them. It also discusses three practices of plugged-in managers: stop, look, and listen. Graphs are included to illustrate different scenario options. The document is authored by Prof. Terri Griffith and provides additional resources including her website and blog.

1. Plugged-In Management
Prof. Terri Griffith
TerriGriffith.com

3. Plugged-In
or
Disconnected

5. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

6. http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/223220955/

7. http://openmriofne.com/index_large.htm

8. Zappos Warehouse
http://www.examiner.com/article/the-zappos-approach-to-employee-meetings

9. Scenarios

12. http://www.flickr.com/photos/calliope/223220955/

13. http://openmriofne.com/index_large.htm

14. Individuals
Managers
Organizations

16. Work
Teams
Organizations

18. Plugged-In Managers See:

19. Plugged-In Managers
Allow for:

21. 3 Practices of
Plugged-In Managers

22. Stop
Look
Listen

24. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

26. Mixing

27. Some rights reserved by advencap

30. Zappos Warehouse
TerriGriffith.com/blog

31. #1

32. http://www.flickr.com/photos/yto/6008588712/

35. Sharing

37. Facilitation
Scenario

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Be clear with stakeholders
that all formal meetings will
be held face-to-face.
Discussion between meetings
is supported by technology
with voting, chat, and
collaborative documents with
pre-set templates.
Face-to-face
presentations, discussion, and
voting will be used to make
your decisions. Stakeholders
with prior experience will
share their methodologies
and best practices.
Virtual collaboration will be
used for each stage. Formal
meetings will be held using
the online meeting tools and
communication in-between
meetings will be by electronic
voting and other collaboration
tools.
Highlight technology and
organizational options. Have
stakeholders identify their
communication and
collaboration preferences and
restrictions. First meeting is
face to face and next steps
will be determined there.
Schedule a conference call for
all stakeholders. Ask people
from prior projects to share
their experiences. Hold a vote
during this call to determine
how the group will
collaborate.
Experts
Novices

40. Collaboration
Scenario

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Let each employee decide for
him or herself which features
to make active. Employees
can make adjustments at any
time. Teams can make
adjustments as they work
through different stages of
their projects.
Take a viral approach to the
implementation of the new
tool. Make all the features
available to everyone in the
organization. Tell two of the
company's top collaboration
leaders about the tool and let
them spread word.
Provide detailed on-line
training covering all the
features and uses. Leave all
the options available. When
an employee logs on, they will
pick either "novice" or
"advanced" view so they see
expertise-appropriate options.
Activate the file sharing and
discussion features of the
tool. Cover uses of file sharing
and discussion in face-to-face
and on-line training. Hold
more training and activate
other features after the
employees have experience.
Provide detailed training on
file sharing and discussion.
Cover use cases for file
sharing and discussion. After
six months, review of the file
sharing and discussion
features and consider new
features and uses.
Experts
Novices

43. Social
Network
Scenario

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Contact the service rep and
ask him to stop until you've
had a chance to clear this
approach with the company
information technology
security department. Also
contact the marketing
department and ask for
guidance.
Organize and train a team of
customer service reps to help
the first service rep as public
interest grows. Have this team
create guidelines and tools
for other areas of the
organization to use.
Add a computer monitoring
tool to keep track of the
customer and service rep
activities on public social
media sites. Create an
automated policy message
that posts each time an
employee goes to a social
media site.
Take a "wait and see"
approach. See if new
techniques are developed and
what happens to the
customer satisfaction ratings.
Encourage other reps to try
new techniques.
Create a technology system
that automatically blocks
access to social media sites
from company computers. An
automated message will
appear on employee
computer screens if they try
to access social media sites.
Experts
Novices

46. Management
Consulting
Scenario

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Move up the pace of the
workflow automation
implementation. Use the pre-
configured templates
provided by the technology
vendor. These templates
include a full set of back-office
banking tools and the ability
to train employees using test
data from similar
Implement the workflow
technology given your best
analysis of how the work
should be done and based on
your extensive history with
similar organizations. Provide
training on how to use the
new tools effectively and give
case examples of how other
banks ha
Turn over the ultimate design
and implementation of the
workflow automation tool and
process to a group of
employees. They have heard
the assessment that there is
no creativity or motivation in
the bank and so understand
the difficulties they face.
Put the technology adoption
on hold. Work with a subset
of the back office employees
and salespeople via
workshops on workflow and
organizational process.
Facilitate their decision
making around new ways of
doing this work, but let them
drive the decision
Engage a recruiter to help you
hire five loan processing
employees from your
competitor where a similar
implementation has already
been successful. Implement
workflow management as it
has been done in their
organization. Provide training
to match this pro
Experts
Novices

49. China
Scenario

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Break the project down into
tightly defined pieces for
which clear start and finish
metrics can be identified.
Have small teams made up of
either all United States or all
China employees work on the
tightly defined pieces and
assemble at the end.
Let the workflow and process
emerge based on the
experience and training of the
engineers. Have meetings at
important milestones where
you assess the current
methods and consider
whether changes should be
implemented.
Require a “level playing
field.― All team members
will telecommute (work from
home) and use the
company’s sophisticated
technology tools to share and
communicate the work.
Everyone is working from the
same location -- the Internet.
Create sub-teams with
engineers from both the
United States and China. Give
these sub-teams tightly
defined projects; then put
them all together at the end.
Use video conferencing and
small group trips between the
full-team meetings.
Create one team consisting of
all the engineers at both
locations. Give responsibility
for the whole project to the
single team, but let sub-
groups emerge. Give the team
a budget that they can use to
fund travel or
communications tools.
Experts
Novices

52. Merger
Scenario

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Bring together
representatives from the
different functions of the two
companies. Give them a
budget, a target requested
time frame, information
about the square footage you
have, and the phone numbers
of the top facilities and
collaboration consultants.
Buy the "Innovation System"
furniture set from the world
leader in innovative office
space furnishings. This system
of furnishings has been
written up in your industry's
trade magazines and is being
used at a competing firm that
you see as having the most
Work with a merger specialist
who has helped many other
companies your size merge
effectively. Work with the
specialist to create a merger
taskforce made up leaders
from each of the functional
areas from both
organizations. Spend the
majority of your deci
Form a taskforce with people
elected from each of the
functional areas of both
organizations. Share the
merger goals with the whole
new organization and have
employees submit office
designs to support the goals.
Select office systems that
both support th
Use a merger and office
interiors specialist to assess
the new work space and new
ways of working. Have top
management from both the
merging companies decide
where different employees
will have their offices. Create
a system that that is both
efficient an
Experts
Novices

56. People
Technology
Organization

57. Stop-Look-Listen
Mixing
Sharing

58. Faster
Easier to Implement
More Effective

59. One More Scenario

61. BUILDER

62. -10 --- 0 --- +10

63. Your Situation

64. TerriGriffith.com
ThePluggedInManager.com
TerriGriffith