When I was Organizing

Managing organization process takes time and careful analysis. One step and you’ll go back to check the first few steps of what you have missed and plot it there.

When creating a new organization, a core group must be created whose main concern is on building structures, department policies, manpower handling, etc. We have an executive team as the highest department in the organization. They have the highest power to dictate policies and make sure information between departments flow smoothly.

When I was tasked to take over a new responsibility that has not been existing then, it was a challenging job for me. I get no reference on how to start. All I know is that I will be taking over management responsibilities of a technical team leader so he can be 100% doing programming.

Structure wise, it was not difficult for me to step in the team as I was already acquainted with them when I was still working on a different task. I had to monitor the team progress weekly, or sometimes daily if I need to. Not only the team I monitor but the overall project status, it’s feasibility of release date and make sure it is not delayed. Project includes the planning, programming, testing and migration. Organizing really took me time. And well, add to that the bigger responsibility that I was carrying.

So when I started to work on this team, I had to create the schedule of deadlines for each modules handled by specific programmers based on the release date of the whole system I got from the Executive Team. The CEO is a part of the executive team and I report directly to him for the advancement of the team I am responsible with. Secondly, I meet the team every week to check on their progress and ask for concerns that might affect the development stage and the release schedule. If there are, I coordinate with other departments (planning, systems administration, testing) that may help their concerns. It is important that the team knows whom they are reporting to and follow orders just like I am following orders from the Executive Team.

When I was again given a new responsibility to take over a team specific to testing, I was in the challenging position to take care of a new group of people. This time it was different since I have to meet different staff from different regions I have not met in person. This new responsibility is more challenging because I had to create the policies of the division, the protocols, rates, structures, and many more, like a mini-manual of the organization. Since this division already exists but no formal policies and procedures were made yet, analysis was not really deep but that I had to be careful of writing down them down based on what is current and possibly patch things that creates issues or that have been a problem in the past. Protocols for them to be able to work effectively within rules of testing. Then inform or orient the team about the policies, new or updated, so they know how it works in the division. After which, comes the implementation. The most important thing for me in organizing is for the people to accept and follow the process. Else, it will just be a plan floating with barely noticing it was there.