The Manager's Resource Handbook
Tools, Resources and Guides for Managers and Business Leaders. Real Advice from Real Bosses.
How to Make Sure Customer Requests Don’t Eat Up Your Profits When you bid on a new project, you make assumptions, estimate your costs, factor in some potential risks and contingency funds, and add profit. But inevitably, your customer asks for more and the scope, schedule and requirements begin to drift, increasing your costs and resource demands. If you try
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What to Include in a Business Operating System A business operating system is a comprehensive, cross-functional framework that helps managers standardize and execute their organization’s mission. Further, a business operating system, or BOS, creates a unified way of doing things, from product development, to marketing activities, to how the organization interacts with its customers. An effective BOS will also define
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Don’t Let Your Project Fail: Practical Solutions for Small Business Even with a strong business case and what may be a routine scope, there are several pitfalls that can ruin great projects at any time. These challenges can adversely impact projects led by both first-time program managers, who may not be prepared enough for what lies ahead, as well as
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Is Managing Change The Ultimate Program Management Challenge? For 18 months now, my team has been negotiating scope changes with a given client to offset our increases in cost. Per our contract, we have the right to seek commercial coverage and have the ability to charge the customer for change. We went into this particular business deal expecting delays before all was said and
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10 Essential Project Management Resources If you think about the best project manager you know, chances are he or she shares some common traits. For starters, successful project leaders are typically very well organized. Additionally, they are often great communicators, and they can remain calm under pressure. Despite these great talents, though, even the best project managers need help to bring about
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10 Management Decisions That Drive Business Success Making financial decisions is not limited to just those managers who work in the Accounting department. For both small business and large corporations, whether we realize it or not, every manager and business leader makes decisions on a daily basis that affect their organization’s costs, finances and performance. We at MRH like to refer
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10 Easy Steps to Estimate the Cost of Risk Whether we are developing something new for a customer, or leading an initiative to improve the company, every project we undertake contains some level of uncertainty. Because of this, and particularly when the stakes are high, some level of risk analysis is always a good idea. However, managing risk means more than
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What to Consider When Downsizing Your Team It might be the most delicate and sensitive topic that you as a manager will face in your career: selecting the names of those people to let go or make redundant. The context here is reducing the size of the organization to maintain profitability, or improve efficiency, not firing someone due to misconduct. From
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One of our most popular articles here at MRH discusses a basic strategy that we’ve used to justify an increase in staff. And it’s no surprise: based on our research, 50% of managers say the biggest challenge they face is the size of their staff. We’ve said it many times, but will mention it again. Between salaries, benefits, insurance and other
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3 Resource Planning Methods to Help Predict Staffing Needs Most businesses and organizations go through an annual headcount planning process for the upcoming year. We all know that such activities are important to running a productive organization. And yet, while resource management is critical, doing it well and doing it right is easier said than done. There are a number of methods
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How to Save Your Small Company’s Hard Earned Cash As all business leaders know, when a company becomes strained and pressed for cash, we need to look for ways to reduce our costs and expenses. While cost control is always important, we naturally spend more during periods of growth to support the increasing size and momentum of the organization. The
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How I Cut the Cost of Training My Employees in Half Many managers are familiar with the old 70, 20, 10 Rule for employee development. The Rule suggests that 70% of an employee’s development should be learning-by-doing while 20% should be through mentoring. According to this principle, the last 10% of an employee’s growth and development should be the result of
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A Detailed Account of Downsizing a Team By One Manager at a Fortune 500 EDITOR’S NOTE: The following comments chronicle a layoff event that occurred at a Fortune 500 Company, as recorded by a manager in the organization. This is the first in a 4-part series. Key details are omitted to keep it anonymous, however the timing, details and commentary are factual.
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Estimating the Cost of a New Hire Fighting for resources is a frustrating problem we’ve all dealt with as managers and business leaders. Every one of us has said it at one point or another: ‘Too much to do, not enough people to do it.’ Justifying more staff is certainly difficult, but it is possible when you create a
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Is Your Training Plan Being Cut Year After Year? Read On… It’s a battle out there, folks. Between a fragile economy, steep competition, and the rising costs of business, it seems like we as managers spend as much time cutting costs as we do planning our budgets in the first place. The first step in trimming a budget, of course, is to limit what
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How to Build a Department Budget If you’ve ever had to build a budget for work, you know the stress, headache and aggravation it often entails. If you have not, well, consider yourself lucky. Either way, every leader knows that fiscal management is important and that our stakeholders depend on us to manage within a budget – our team, our shareholders, and in some
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Overcoming the Frustration of Being Under Staffed How many times have you seen a colleague ask for more resources? After all, their team was very busy and they could really use some more people. You’ve probably witnessed that discussion more times than you can count. Now, how many times have you heard the person they were asking – their own manager,
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How to Estimate Hours for a New Project How many times have you been asked the question “It’s going to take you how long?” when you present an estimate of hours required for a new project? Regardless of whether it is your customer or a fellow manager, the conversation is often the same. As the expert, you anticipate the project will
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How to Create Business Metrics Our world revolves metrics. Businesses track financial investments to see how they grow. Professional and weekend runners alike continually push themselves to shave seconds of the time it takes them to run a mile. And some people monitor their vehicle’s gas mileage to help determine when they need an oil change. Metrics, after all, are used to measure
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