Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with management

Sharing photomanagement tags and goodies in a network

lifeonholidae — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 08:27:01 -0800

I know this was previously discussed in two posts, but perhaps there are updates. I need photo management software that will allow me to view tags, updates and edits within an network. Scene: Network of about 11 computers, a shared hard drive with all of our photos. I use Picasa and love it. How do I use Picasa in all of these PCs and share the tags, face identification etc.?

I know little about networking. But I follow instructions well!

Can not, can not, can not be online (liability and privacy issues)

How should I describe, modify, and measure an organizational process?

pbh — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:58:45 -0800

What resources can I read to understand topics like scientific management, organisational workflows, and other ways of describing and monitoring processes made up of actors communicating amongst themselves to produce an end product? My current project involves describing, modifying, and measuring processes (at a low level) by which (knowledge) workers perform heterogeneous tasks to produce some end product. In particular, two aspects I am interested in are the ways in which intermediate results/products move between workers and how the workers communicate (e.g., Bob paints a smile on the action figure, Joe determines if the action figure has any defects, if there are defects, he returns it to Joe). Unfortunately, this is such a general description, and the problem itself is so multi-disciplinary, that I am having difficulty finding what I want.

So far, I've found:

Scientific Management: There is a variety of "management science" type work which stems from work by Taylor which coincided with assembly lines which attempts to measure and describe assembly lines and similar processes. However: (1) I haven't been able to find a good summary of this work at a survey level and (2) most of this work seems to be focused on physical assembly lines and quality assurance of physical products, whereas my processes are knowledge processes.
Oracle Workflow (and similar): Various software products seem to allow the user to graphically map out a "workflow," though I'm not sure what academic or organisational theory is used in these cases.
Coordination Science: Work by, for example, Prof. Malone at MIT seems to look at attempting to catalogue business processes, but what I was able to find seemed too specific (and a little dense).

Less specifically, I've gotten suggestions that operations researchers and political economists probably have a bunch of work on this as well.

In any case, I would love to get any names of topics/products that might be relevant or surveys/(text)books of particular areas' approaches to this problem. I am especially interested in approaches that use some sort of formal description language like a graph or a programming language or otherwise and approaches that apply to or are designed for workers who might be remote or communicate only electronically.

Help me find a good online project management system

peripatew — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:18:48 -0800

What is a good online project management system? I'm trying to find an online project management system that will work for our organizations. We have a LOT of volunteers helping out on committees for various things, and different areas of our organization have projects that need to be completed by these volunteer committees.

I'm looking for something super simple, as the people who will be using it most likely won't be techno-savy, and I don't want extra clutter to make it more confusing.

I need:
To be able to have priorities
Have specific people assigned to projects and that will be notified of changes
A way to include time and money estimates
A way to update the progress
A way to tag/organize projects for different areas within our organization
A way to "hold" projects, IE for when funding isn't yet available, or to say that the project is waiting on someone, something, or another project

I don't need to track time spent on a project.

I just want a way to manage a large number of projects, and to communicate what's going on with a large number of people.

Online is a must, free would be great, but I'm willing to pay for great functionality.

What can you recommend, what have you used, what do you like/hate and why?

What's the best agile project management tool?

bshort — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:24:47 -0800

What's your favorite agile project management tool? I'm looking for something that allows tracking of backlog, user tasks, developer time for tasks, and provides reporting for sprints, projects, and user stories on a daily, weekly, and sprint-level basis.

I've looked at AgileBuddy, which is pretty great, but the reporting isn't very good. I need to be able to see who did what 6 weeks ago, and I need to be able to do it without referring to the "activity view", which shows every action by every team member.

Is there another tool out there that I should be looking at?

Oh, and it needs to be web-based.

In Search of Events Management Software

redarmycomrade — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:09:55 -0800

What are some good software platforms/services that will help us run our conferences? My company runs a number of small conferences, and we're looking for an events management software platform to handle session content, agendas, registration, and call for proposals. Looking for suggestions along the lines of ExpectNation and Cvent. Hopefully cheaper!

How to be a good "new boss"

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:00:47 -0800

I am your new boss. How can I get our relationship off to a good start? I am starting in a few weeks. I'll be starting work as the "new boss" supervising a current staff member. I'll also be beginning to hire two more staff at that time.

In the meantime, we're going to spend a few hours together next week touring their geographic area. (I just happen to be in town for a conference, so I won't officially be "the new boss" at that point, since I won't be on the payroll yet.)

I would appreciate any suggestions you might have for getting this relationship off to a good start, both during the tour and as I officially begin work. What have past "new bosses" done that particularly worked well for you?

I saw this question and will read this book. What else?

How to bulk rename itunes files from external data source.

jlowen — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:10:40 -0800

How can I bulk rename files in itunes according to data contained in a separate file? I have 4000-some .wav files in itunes that are essentially field recordings of people talking. The files are named with a 10 digit unique id number and the date acquired. Example: 1234567890_11122009. In a separate csv file I have the identifying information of the individual with the same unique ID number.

I have rated all 4000 recordings based on quality and want to maintain those ratings, but would like to rename the files to drop the unique ID and instead insert the person's name from the csv file. I.e. 1234567890_11122009 becomes Smith_Mary_123_Fake_Street_Anytown_STATE

Can anyone picture a workflow that would accomplish this mass filename change while still maintaining the ratings?

I use a mac and have a decent understanding of automator, grep, csv files etc, but have no real programming skill. I am willing to convert recordings to a different format (mp3 etc.) if that would help. Any ideas?

Document Management for Small Company

bananafish — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:10:08 -0800

Document Management Software? I work in a small (less than 10 ppl) company. We all save documents to a common drive. Of late, this has become a problem because we have multiple people working on different versions of the same document. So for Example person A may save a document to the common drive and also send copies of the document to persons B and C to review. B and C will make their edits save the edited documents to the common drive. It's gotten to the point where no one can locate the latest version of a document or find the copy of the document they were working on. When it's time to present a document, no one knows which document is the latest version. We've tried saving documents with initials and the date, but that hasn't worked. Any software or system recommendations to solve this problem would be much appreciated. Thanks.

How can I rate abstracts for relevance and quality?

Herkimer — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:03:26 -0800

I'm looking for ways to rate abstracts for relevance and quality so that I can filter out the best ones. I'm going to be doing a very large literature review. In preparation I need to set up a rules-based system for filtering through, or triaging, the abstracts I retrieve, in order to select a subset (those articles I'll actually retrieve and read). Ideally this system will allow me to rate abstracts for quality and/or how well they match the topic of concern. (This is all work-related, so I can't be more specific, but the topic is generally in the social sciences.) There might have to be some qualitative or subjective aspect to this ratings system, but there are a lot of ways to rate abstracts more objectively as well (breadth of study population, number of search keywords "hit", etc.).

I'm not formally trained in information science, but I suspect such systems have already been created and used, and I don't want to reinvent the wheel. I know there are specialists in information science here that might be able to keep me from doing so. Could you point me to projects where something similar has been done, or places where such systems have been reviewed, described, or codified? Can you suggest any other resources that might be of use?

If it matters, I think I will have around one or two thousand abstracts to filter through.

Life management iPhone apps?

badish — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:25:05 -0800

Is there an iPhone app that is similar to Jakob Lodwick's Standards Project? I want something a little more comprehensive than just a to-do list.

What's a good way to collect rent online?

getupandgo — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:52:34 -0800

Would anyone have recommendations for a rent payment website? I'm looking for a good solution for simplifying rent payments for a few out of state properties. I have talked to all of the tenants and they are pretty much all in agreement that they would use it if it were available, rather than sending checks in.agreement

I need the service for 8 units currently, are there any websites that people have experience using that they'd recommend?

User friendliness is a priority; something that tenants can just enter their routing number and link it to their bank accounts for either one time or automatic payment. Additionally, cost is a factor, although not as much as reliability and simplicity (I'm guessing that the fees wouldn't be excessive, hopefully I'm correct in that assumption). I don't need anything ultra fancy, just easy and secure. It would also be great if I could expand it at a later date if I end up adding more property.

Looking for Decisonmaking Style Selection tool

Susan PG — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:01:25 -0800

I am looking for a leadership tool I used to use back in the late nineties, but can't find anymore. It was a flowchart intended to help a person determine which decisionmaking style to use in a particular set of circumstances. Essentially it takes the D1-D5 framework (where D1 is highly directive and D5 is highly collaborative), and sets up a flowchart process that helps the person determine which to use. So for example it would ask “Will other people be affected by the decision” (yes argues for collaboration) and “Will other people's acceptance of the decision be required for implementation” (yes argues for collaboration). I am specifically looking for a flowchart; I already have a description of the decisionmaking styles and the contexts for which each is appropriate. Thanks for any help you can provide :-)

Need software that does project management, email marketing and advanced analytics

Incy — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:26:33 -0800

I am looking for an email management program (like campaign monitor) that also includes email analytics (like google analytics) and project management tools (like basecamp). I am in a small marketing department at a non-profit that relies heavily on email (100K+/month messages sent). My google-fu has failed me so far, I can't find anything that has all three components. Does anyone know of a one stop shop that does this? Also open to a using several programs as long as we can get them to work with each other.

Library book inventory management that's not library elf

Lucinda — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 05:20:22 -0800

I'm looking for a computer program to keep track of the library books I have taken out. Difficulty level: Can't use Library Books. I've tried Library Elf and I hate it. I loved, loved, loved Library Books for the Mac - just click the star in the menu bar and every single book you've taken out from the library is there, with the date it's due next to it- but I recently switched to Linux.

I tried putting an RSS feed from Library Elf in my Firefox bookmark bar, but when I click on it, I still have to log into the Library Elf website (it doesn't keep my user info, even though I've told it to), and then I have to pick "daily snapshot" (and hope that it's been updated in time) to see what library books are out, and which are due.

I know that I can have Library Elf send me e-mails; I have that set up with my library system directly. I end up ignoring them.

So I guess my questions are: am I doing something wrong with Library Elf that's making me jump through so many hoops just to see what's due, and, if that's the way Library Elf runs, is there another program that will give me the "one click and you see EVERYTHING" list I crave?

Help me rebuild my office helpdesk/workflow setup.

de1mar — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:09:29 -0800

TechFilter: I'm part of a medium-sized IT support company and we're looking at some new helpdesk/workflow management software. What advice can you give on your setup or software you are currently working with? I am currently looking at Heat from FrontRange Solutions, but it looks like it will take some time to setup. Here's some features that I am looking foward to:

• Workflow Management
• Call Logging/Tracking (most likely part of Workflow Management)
• Workflow Reporting
• Asset Management (to include hardware, software, Blackberries...etc)
• Knowledge Base

Any ideas will be greatly appreciated!!!

Theories/discussions about corporate inertia

runkelfinker — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:43:27 -0800

I'm looking for interesting theories/discussions around the phenomenon of corporate inertia I'm trying to find out as much as I can online about corporate inertia - in other words, how companies and management get bogged down, fail to innovate, make stupid decisions etc, because of internal issues which may be organisational, cultural, attitudinal or similar.

So far I've found a few things - e.g. Warren Buffett's "Institutional imperative", as well as the Peter Principle and Parkinson's Law, but am eager to hear of more!

Lemme aloooone!

Tequila Mockingbird — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:51:06 -0800

My apartment management has started to drive me nuts. For a month now they've been claiming that my August check has bounced - except it very clearly hasn't, with bank statements shown to them to back it up. Yesterday, I was told that I'm still on their late list for payments. Argh! How the bloody hell do I make this go away? It's ridiculous! I send every check using certified mail, so I know exactly when the company receives it. First week of August, they got the check and my bank processed it and withdrew the rent amount from my checking account. It was all standard, I kept track as I always do, and thought nothing of it.

Then on the 11th of September, a whole month later, I get a letter stating that this particular (numbered) check bounced. Impossible, right? It was already processed a month ago. I print statements, that very check as scanned by the bank, etc. and bring it to my manager, who lives within the building. She looks it over, agrees it makes no sense and promises to talk to the company on my behalf.

And then we go in circles that have not yet broken. They say the check was returned, I say the evidence to the contrary is conclusive, they tell me otherwise, on and on and on. I really can't deal with this anymore, because it is so senseless. I have never had bounced check fees on my account, I have never put a stop payment on a check, and I just don't know what else to do.

What would be the best next step, to make them understand what I'm telling them? I'm flying out of the country on Saturday, for a week, and the fact that this hasn't gone away yet is maddening.

(From southern California.)

Six Elephants and a Blind Man

alms — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:47:15 -0800

Is there a fable or proverb that expresses the inverse of the blind men and the elephant? In the famous fable, six blind men each think the elephant is something different. They do not realize that they are all talking about the same thing.

I want a fable or proverb that expresses the inverse: several people think they are talking about the same thing, but ultimately find that they are talking about completely different things.

I've experienced this most often as "the six programmers and the underspecified project." Each one thinks they are working on the same thing. They talk about it; it all makes sense; everyone is sure they are in sync; they are happily programming away.

How does it end? If they're lucky, eventually someone writes up a detailed spec, at which point everyone else says, "whoa, that's not what I'm working on." But then they go on to work out their differences and refine the spec. If they're not lucky... well, you can imagine.

I've also seen this situation arise as "six negotiators and an agreement," where the moment of truth comes in the form of a draft contract.

So. Is there any succinct expression of this pattern in Western culture? I'd love to be able to refer to it with a half dozen words, rather than three paragraphs that won't make sense to many people.

What's my (potential) job title?

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:09:46 -0800

Another "what's my job title/description" question. Difficulty level: yet to be created, largely secular position within a religious community. A local religious congregation with far more financial resources than actual congregants is looking to create a position to address its shrinking, aging membership. I imagine this would involve some marketing, some outreach, some "relational organizing"* (though not all members may be comfortable with the seemingly politically tinted term "organizer," at least without some sort of modifier).

Are there precedents for this kind of position in other congregations? What kinds of job descriptions are out there? What kind of job titles would be appropriate?

More personally, as a possible candidate for this position (who doesn't foresee a long-term career in religious/faith-based management, but would like to transition into non-profit management or academia after my education is complete), what kind of title do I want to make this position seem relevant to the unchurched?

If you yourself do this kind of work (either as a minister, lay leader, or staff), I'd welcome any ideas or resources as well on where one might start.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_meeting

Project Management Technologies Needed!

Dr.James.Orin.Incandenza — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:29:00 -0800

I'm working on a group project that will involve quite a bit of research, scheduling, collaboration and communications and need a centralized, web-based platform to make the job easier... Any recommendations? I'm a B-School student that is currently enrolled in a course that contracts our services out to private clients. We're at the beginning of a 12 week project and the volume of email I receive on a daily basis from my teammates is already unmanageable. My team will be doing a great deal of research and needs a structured system to build upon. I need a solution!!!

Needs:
- Shared calendar for scheduling meetings, teleconferences, etc...
- document storage
- task assignment / management capabilities
- messaging / email integration
- must be web-based
- must be verbose
- can share links, data, notes
- User friendly and intuitive

I've already spent a fair amount of time exploring:
- Google apps and, unfortunately, think the structure too diffuse for our needs. THis includes, Google groups...
- Yahoo Groups is even worse.
- Basecamp looked promising, but because the service lacks an integrated calendar (what planet are they living on?) it's falls short of our needs.

Any thoughts? What do you use for these kinds of projects? Please remember that I'm on a student's budget!

Leadership in Film and on TV

oflinkey — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 17:24:57 -0800

Examples of leadership on film (or tv). I have to give a presentation to resident advisors who have been RAs for at least 2 years. In this presentation I need to show warm-up clips from film or TV that demonstrate good (and bad) leadership. These examples can be serious or funny, but I do need to have this in mind:

".... these are the students that mentor the new RAs and that are given more responsibility than the RA, they advise hall council and occasionally lead staff meetings. So with leadership we would be highlighting being a good mentor, managing a staff, how to hold people accountable and how to clearly articulate what you want from the team, but also how to lead by example (such as, making sure that you are taking care of yourself and your classwork before attempting to be that superstar RA. This tends to be an issue with some of our RAs that want to do everything and easily overwhelm themselves)."

I plan on showing sections of the Futurama episode "Brannigan Begin Again" (where Zapp leads a mutiny against Leela), sections of To Kill A Mockingbird, something from Star Trek: TNG, but I have to admit, I am coming up a bit blank on this. Any help would be appreciated, especially if you think I could find the clip on youtube or Hulu. Thank you in advance!

Alfresco or no alfresco

london302 — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 03:48:53 -0800

I want advice on setting up a basic, password protected, document management system to host pdf documents and pdf forms. I am inundated with terms like Joomla, Drupal, Alfresco each one with its pros and cons [similar questions on askmefi havent helped much] I am looking for a quick implementation of a server based system which people from the organisation and outside (who have access via username and password) can download them for their use.

What we need it for: We have to submit reports monthly for the projects we do and currently we manage this via an informal mailiing list but everybody else in our industry has not migrated to 'document portals' and the ability for the clients to have all documents in one place is the most requested feature.

'Must Have' features:
1. Different levels of access depending on the level of user
2. Company logo and branding to give it a professional feel
3. A left pane with a folder tree and when a folder is clicked it brings up a list of documents with a short description of the document and a link to download.

'Nice to Have' features:
1. Ability to upload documents via email
2. Ability to fill and submit pdf forms
3. Advance printing features
4. Email users when a new document is uploaded.

The options I have been offered are:
- commercial document management systems hosted for a monthly fee
- joomla hosted on a third party server
-alfresco hosted on a third party server

Usage:

1. We do not expect for the total amount of data held on the server to be more than a few gigabytes.

2. Total number of users (including all categories) will not be more than 10 and at maximum can rise to 50 if we really really push it.

I am told that Alfresco is the all singing dancing platform for something like this but takes a higher level of skill to deploy than joomla which is not really a document management system but can function like a basic one.

I am looking for advice on the above or any other ideas. Thanks

Reporter's notebook

Brittanie — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 07:07:27 -0800

Journalists' notes: how do they take them, store them and reference them later? I am looking for resources and tips on how journalists take and manage notes, especially how they store them for later reference.

I've read this question but specifically I'm looking for info on the actual taking of notes and then organizing/filing them away once the story is finished.

Help me get this job!

Bageena — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:35:48 -0800

I have an interview for a Dialer Admin II position at a huge collections outfit in four hours. Although I have about 10 years of collections call center experience and have worked extensively ON a dialer, I've never actually done any Dialer Admin-type work. What can I say or do to help me get this job? I've already landed a position as a collector for said company, but this could make the different between a job and a career. I feel like I have enough experience in collections to do the job right, even if I don't know much about building a dialer campaign specifically. So yeah - hoping there are some dialer admins, HR or manager-type people who can give me some good advice on how to win this possibly life-changing interview.

Can the ED legally run the board?

Anonymous — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:07:28 -0800

Can a non-profit executive director refuse to allow the board president to run meetings? The board president has been told this isn't kosher, but she's a friend of the ED (which is why she was chosen for the job) and feels too intimidated to argue the issue. (She also may be uncomfortable asserting herself in this role as she has no white collar job experience herself; the ED has stacked the board with college students and members of her fraternal organization as more experienced members have resigned in frustration over the years). ED treats board members as employees (instead of vice versa) to be micromanaged (we've been told we shouldn't be emailing each other without her permission on board matters, for instance) and is easily threatened.

Said ED is very competent at running the day-to-day operations at this 6-figure-budget, human services NPO. She is a nightmare to deal with at the board level, having no management or prior NPO (or corporate) experience herself. So let's say that removing her from her position is not in the best interest of the organization at the operations level. What other recourse/legal responsibilities does the board have to reassert its proper role? Is it legal for her to be running meetings?

This is a weak BOD (obviously) though patience is wearing thin. One member has told the Board President she must be running the meetings, but again, the ED said no and the BP is unwilling to press the matter.

(Asked because I was one of the people brought onto the board who had no prior experience--I didn't realize any of this wasn't normal until recently. There's an awful lot online for EDs dealing with dysfunctional boards, but I've found very little on the opposite scenario.)

Throwaway email: tinpotED@gmail.com