Regarding workplace and project management approaches, Richard Sheradon and ken Rogers have provided a benchmark from which many can learn and adopt in their organizations for positive improvements. The workplace environment plays a huge role in enabling the innovation and creativity of employees. It is essential for management to create an environment that makes employees love their job, increasing their commitment to the organization’s success. Menlo and Sheraton’s office space was designed to resemble more of a workshop than an ordinary office space (Purkayastha & Faheem, 2008). There were no walls or doors; there were only desks, and sharing resources was highly encouraged. Sheradon also sat on the same floor as employees and shared a table with some, bringing himself closer to the employees. This closeness helped foster greater sharing of ideas, and employees can feel free to share what they think, regardless of whether it is wrong or right. It opened avenues for correction and reduction of errors.
At the Menlo Software factory, exercised extreme interviewing techniques were adopted. The candidates for the interview were interviewed in pairs. The employees already working in the organization were trained in interviews and enjoined to help identify candidates with the most suitable interpersonal characteristics to join the organization. After shortlisting, recruits were put in pairs, which was already the organization’s culture, so they would begin working and participating immediately after being hired. When a software project was initiated, the managers sat and planned how the project would be handled (Purkayastha & Faheem, 2008). It is then led to the execution phase, where employees are informed of all the plans and requirements for the project’s outcome. They are assigned duties according to their skills as per project requirements. It is where they are made aware of their roles in the project. A supervisor is placed in charge of the project to ensure that everything is going smoothly and that employees have all they need for the required result.
The model of the organization was designed to foster cooperation among employees. Employees were not given personal computers and were put in pairs where they shared a single computer. This sharing ensured that no employee worked in isolation. Working pairs were shuffled after every project; this ensured that an employee would have a working experience with at least a majority of their colleagues in the organization (Purkayastha & Faheem, 2008). It also encouraged the participation of all employees in a project at any point in time. The benefit of this was an increase in the knowledge base of all employees and a sense of belonging as they all felt their contribution to the organization. This organization created an environment where employees worked under no pressure and were given ample space to strike a balance between personal and professional lives. They were given enough holidays and few working hours which played a role in revitalizing their creativity and innovativeness.
Menlo was involved in creating many products, but some did not appeal to the customers because they were hard to use. Sheridan thought it was a stupid syndrome, where he thought the users were incompetent in using the software products but later realized that their products were the problem. In 2003, Sheridan and his team shifted their organizational culture, which changed their operation direction. It was informed by the need to understand their customers’ needs to incorporate into their plans when creating a software project for a customer. They looked for information on people and businesses related to theirs to gain an edge against their competitors by being the best software company (Purkayastha & Faheem, 2008). They learnt that their employees did not understand or put into consideration the capabilities of the customers they were building this software for. There was a need to adopt a different approach to create the programs to be user-friendly. Sheridan introduced a new approach and involved all employees in revising their processes, techniques and practices to improve them to be customer friendly. The new approach was based on the capabilities of their customer base rather than their computer sciences. This new approach became the most significant success as they increased the consumption of their software programs and reduced the cost and time taken to train customers to adopt them. As a result, Menlo achieved revenue of US$ 2.7 million by 2007. In 2008, Menlo and Sheradon’s organization made it to the 5000 list and grew 72.3% between 2005 and 2007.
Effective project management is critical for an organization that handles many projects concurrently to promote efficiency. It gives a small firm the ability to maximize the potential and abilities of all employees. Project planning ensures effectiveness and the easiness of execution as everything has been preplanned, thus not affecting the project’s desired outcome. It ensures that time is adhered to, and the project coach ensures that milestone objectives are achieved at every stage. Project planning fosters teamwork and encourages information sharing (Purkayastha & Faheem, 2008). It helps individual employees to learn from each other and constantly engage, thus reducing errors and improving the quality of the work output. Menlo ensured that no one owned a code that they were working on. They all own the code, and each would work on the other code. It was different from other companies because programming was traditionally a very personal thing. It builds a sense of ownership for all employees because they participate in the organization’s success.
The organization used the pairing principle, where two employees were put together in one team to work on a Software project. There were single-use stations shared by the pair, reducing the chance of working in isolation. Resources such as computers were required to be shared. It made it easy to share knowledge and know-how among employees with different skills. Additionally, it would ensure reduced errors as one committed by one would be corrected by the other partner in the project. It increased the quality and reduced the defects of the codes. Menlo stewardship also brought onboard customers in the project development to work closely with the employees in the software development. The customers could articulate their needs and wants as early as the development stage (Purkayastha & Faheem, 2008).
Furthermore, professional analysts made part of the team to offer a better understanding and interpretation of the customers’ needs to the software developers. Notably, a project coach was available to oversee the whole project, so everything ran as per the plan. This teamwork was a crucial component in increasing the quality of work by involving various levels of the organization’s hierarchy. A team’s involvement allowed me to spot any errors that might have been missed at any stage of the project implementation.
References
Purkayastha, D., & Faheem, H. (2008). Menlo Innovations: A new approach to workplace and project management. IBS Center for Management Research. https://casecent.re/p/85814.
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