Saturday, December 14, 2013

From Asia to Africa

“Let’s start working immediately, Asia is waiting!”

Luxury Christmas Gift

The elves are starting to work immediately. Nearly every worker, who was engaged in one of the frozen projects, gets a new job in project Asia. Most of them already know what do to, because it’s the same they did for America, Europe and the other jobs.

Project Asia proceeds in no time.

But suddenly the Elves have to stop working. What happened? Why can’t they go on?

After a while the elves realize what’s causing the downtime

With great horror, they have to admit they lack some important preparations. The wish list from the children from Beijing is missing, the consent of the parents from Mumbai are lost and delivery addresses from Istanbul are missing too. How could the elves complete the project without such essential information? It’s impossible.

“What shall we do now?”

“We have to get the missing data as soon as possible!”

“We could ask Father Christmas!”

“I’ll have a look in the office. They have to be somewhere.”

Luxury Christmas Gift

The chaos is perfect.

“Wait”, one of the project managers says. “I’ve got an idea: We send out a Taskforce! Call all the employees from project America, who are available at the moment.”

Done as said. Only a few minutes later the Taskforce gets its job.

“The preparation is bad, because we are missing important data. Your task is to get them as soon as possible. Once you have all the missing data, please check the other projects in unfreezing order, and also complete the preparations. This way we will lose less time."

The Taskforce is on the way immediately to find the missing wish list from Beijing, the documents from Mumbai, and then to search for the addresses in Istanbul together.

This still takes time. And as long as it takes, project Asia is at a standstill.

Luxury Christmas Gift

“We’ve got the missing data!”

Finally, project Asia can be started again. But where are the project managers now?
While no one could work on project Asia, the managers started to work on project Africa. In order to do so, they had to get used to a completely new situation. The requirements for Africa are completely different to Asia. In order to get project Asia running again the project managers have to switch it back now. The machines are again adjusted to Asia, materials are replaced and all the data changed again.

While everyone concentrates on finishing project Asia, the Taskforce checks all the other projects and makes up for the lack of preparations. Africa, Australia and New Zealand, then Europe and finally America. As soon as the next project is going to be unfrozen, the preparation is perfect. The employees can start right away, there are no interruptions and the projects can be completed quickly.

However, despite all efforts, the projects are still in arrears, and Christmas is on the brink.

Luxury Christmas Gift

What can be done to get all projects done by Christmas?

Nothing To Lose

Frustration spreads among many employees of Santa Claus. They had been looking forward to moving all the projects for America. Finally they had some breathing space and could work more productively. While Father Christmas is still very enthusiastic about his idea, the elves are starting to discuss the matter:

“We’ve always said, we are working on too many projects at the same time. And now Mr Top-Manager realizes it and takes action, and then, a moment later he chickens out and backs down“, the employees say.

“If we would freeze all America-projects, we would at least have a chance to finish all the rest until December 26th. But in order to finish by December 24th we have to freeze more projects now.”

“Indeed, that would be sensible, but how are we going to do this? I doubt the boss will agree.”

“We have to talk to him!”

“Agreed”

“Yes”

“True”

While the elves are cheering, a silent voice says: “But who’s going to tell him?”

Silence.

Luxury Christmas Gifts

Finally, the employee representative starts to speak:

“Let’s face it. We won’t finish all projects until December 24th. Even if each and everyone of us is going to work twice as long, it won’t be possible. In addition, the costs would soar.

But if we freeze America, we have a chance to finish the majority of non-America projects until December 26th.

The main reason is that we need to focus on fewer projects simultaneously, and therefore work more effectively with less multitasking. ”

Luxury Christmas Gifts

The Project Manager of the America-Project adds:

“If you do a few extra hours, we can finish America. But therefore we have to start going back to work immediately! We are without any work now anyway!”

Father Christmas nods in approval.

“We are going to do it this way!”

But next to Father Christmas someone says silently: “No”

Mrs Christmas doesn’t usually take part in her husband’s business, as long as he didn’t ask for advice. Everybody looks a bit confused now.

“What would happen, if we would act contrary? We freeze a few more projects. We are going to start working on Asia and all our employees will help to finish it. What would happen if we would do it this way?”

“This way we could avoid multitasking. This way we would be able to get it done in no time. We could use the help of the elves working on other projects now, where it’s useful.”

“And after finishing with Asia, we do exactly the same with the next project.”

“Yes, and the last projects we will work on, are those, that haven’t to be finished by December 24th anyway.”

“This could work out.”

Luxury Christmas Gifts

Father Christmas scratches his chin. Maybe his wife and the elves are right. Maybe he really messed it up. But should he take this risk? Should he really freeze all projects except Asia? What will happen if it goes wrong?

Luxury Christmas Gifts

“You have nothing to lose, darling”, Mrs Christmas whispers in his ear. It’s just like she can read his mind.

“Well then, let’s give it a go. What else can we do?”

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Father Christmas Takes Action

”Dear Father Christmas,

Are you kidding me? Maybe you should have noticed that on March 28th Easter is about to start. How do you think this will work out? Should we just cancel Easter? Or maybe celebrate it 3 months later?

You mustn’t delay Christmas. Under no circumstances. I don’t care how you are going to manage it. But bring things to order!

Respectfully,

The Easter Bunny“

”Oh my – what did I do?“ Father Christmas asked himself. ”Everyone is mad at me, all the people, the Easter Bunny, the industry. I never would have thought that my idea would lead to such serious consequences. I have to act now. Christmas has to take place as usual. Maybe I should ask my elves for help.”

Father Christmas takes immediate action. He calls all his elves to a crisis meeting.

“Dear employees and helpers.

The idea to delay Christmas in America led to a lot of negative consequences. Thus we have to meet the date for Christmas. After we experienced problems in previous years, we made some new arrangements. Only with enormous effort, due to overtime and significantly increasing costs, were we able to meet the deadline.

Although we already took appropriate action this year, we are delayed.

Now it is on us to save Christmas!”

But how exactly does it look like? 120,000 reindeers were flying for Father Christmas last year. Every single employee helped wherever he could and a lot of work was in progress at the same time. But that clearly wasn’t enough. That’s why Father Christmas made a new plan for 2013:

Start early: Up until now work commenced in August. The supermarkets were selling sweets for Christmas and the gifts industry started advertising in September at the latest.

Father Christmas started working on projects in May, straight after his holidays.

In addition Father Christmas employed more project managers. Skilled managers who were very successful in helping companies to finish their projects on time. Nothing can go wrong with such highly qualified managers – Father Christmas was sure about that.
Every single employee and external helper was told to keep to all deadlines as projects would have not been completed on time otherwise. Delays were to be avoided under any circumstances. High contract penalties were set and the consequences for the one responsible would be devastating. Everyone was made even more responsible for the success of projects this year than they were the years before. That would work out for sure. Father Christmas had no doubt about it.
Last but not least the budget was smaller. The exploding costs of the last years weren’t sustainable any more. Father Christmas didn’t want to ruin himself.

This is how everything will work out. Father Christmas was sure about that.

“The well planned multi project management, which we had made up for this year, doesn’t seem to work out. Our WorkInProgress is higher than ever, each of us avoids delays and everyone gets help if needed thanks to our perfect multitasking abilities. Reliability is our top priority, and due to the earlier start of the projects we should be on schedule.

But even though we give our best, are working day and night and are available for every single project, we are in this dilemma.

This situation in which we find ourselves can’t be changed now. But I firmly believe that there is still the chance to finish all projects on schedule, because we have no other choice than to save Christmas.

Therefore, I suggest to skip the weekends, increase the daily working time to 20 hours, and anyone who is not a 100% involved in a project will spend the rest of the time helping with a different project.

This is the only way, we are able to save Christmas!”

Pleased with himself Father Christmas sits down and waits for thunderous applause.

Instead, a general murmur ends the silence.

“When will we have time to eat and sleep?”

“Who will be taking care of my kids?”

“How do you want to pay for overtime?”

You can tell the elves aren’t pleased. They protest and call out on strike. External helpers want to quit their contracts.
Ever though Father Christmas doesn’t have the faintest idea how to save Christmas, he dares to stand up again:

“We have to take action.
Let’s see if we can solve the problem together.”

What can we do?”

A message from Father Christmas

It’s a Christmassy morning after the first Sunday of Advent. People spent a contemplative Sunday with sweets and songs. The first Christmas decoration finds its place in and outside the houses and the Christmas markets offer treats and gifts for sale.
But suddenly special editions of newspapers are distributed and all radio and television stations have only one topic.
A press release:
“Dear ladies and gentlemen, dear people of the world, children and parents.
With great regret we have to inform you that Christmas this year will be different than it was planned.
Despite careful preparation and a wonderful team, it’s not possible for me to complete all my projects and tasks until Christmas Eve.
For this reason I have decided that Christmas in the countries on the continents of North and South America will be scheduled to the 25th March 2014.
The feast takes place in its entirety in these regions with a delay of 3 months.
Thank you for your understanding,
Father Christmas”

The whole of North and South America is suddenly going crazy. Children cry, families argue and businessmen show their anger. It almost looks as if a civil war was about to start. The President of the United States of America calls a state of emergency and calls for the immediate resignation of Father Christmas and the elimination of Christmas in Asia. Asia responds more than angry and threatens the USA.
Many businesses are afraid for their existence. If no one buys gifts and Christmas items in the next 3 months, they will go bankrupt. The preliminary expenses are so high that running costs without the Christmas season sales cannot be covered.
The sweet goods industry is facing tons of chocolate and other confectionary that is no longer sold and will be out of date by March. Where should the manufacturers of the gifts store the goods? What happens to all the items that will already be replaced by a new model in March? Who is going to buy these now?
And what about all the people who took their holidays to decorate their houses with millions of lights? Should they redo it all again in 3 months? Keeping the decorations would cost a fortune on the electricity bills. This would ruin them.
The chaos is perfect.

All this does not remain hidden in the cold north and Father Christmas instantly calls all employees for a crisis meeting.
Why did the plan not work out? After the problems of recent years, the exploding costs and the excessive labour, Father Christmas has already taken action:
• Instead of September they started to work in May.
• All participants had clear deadlines and a fixed budget.
• Multi-project managers were appointed.
• Cost have been reduced.

What went wrong?

And how can you save Christmas?

Saturday, November 30, 2013