# POWELL .plan

This document will be the "Master Plan" to derive other plans from, and stick to.

From the master plan, develop other sub-plans and initiatives, and projects.



## Summary

An initiative to organize and streamline all of CLOUD BU's work.

An attempt to find a working system to manage and optimize and monitor all work
done in the BU.

The initiative is not trivial, and might be difficult to get off the ground, but
we need to start. It will not be a straight forward approach, there will be a lot
of confusion and uncertainty .... but it's the nature of the beast.

I've been observing, and have done this 3 or 4 times before.

We will be working on high-level, very little detail, on strategic goals first ...
and work the detail as we go.

As the company rapidly grows, internal organization and streamlining business
processes will possibly be the biggest bottleneck. So this initiative is an
essential component of the company's growth.



## Writing own success story

From the beginning, write your own success story, while working on the thing,
keep a log of things to write in a success story, to later publish or present.

Start with where we were, what problems we needed to overcome, what we did and how
we did it, and the new result.

There will be a thing about process assessment, and re-engineering .... which will
be part of out method of overcoming problems.

* Our problems to overcome are not unique, ... every enterprise suffers from them.
* Possibly add some AI and ML and Analytics into the mix.



## High-level goals (needs revision)
* Unify as many systems as we can (reduce duplication and silos).
* Get away from silos in terms of data, systems, people's own knowledge ... etc.
* Embrace knowledge management.
* Have complete transparency on all levels.
* Have continuous feedback on all work being done (and complete, up-to-date reporting).
* Business Process Optimization (for speed, cost saving, ... etc. essential in acquiring new customers, keeping existing customers happy over the long term, all while reducing expense)
* Identify and remove bottlenecks in everything
* Have historic data that will assist in future improvements, if we record everything from beginning to end.
* All are key to competitive success.



## Answering the hard questions
We want to answer the questions (I would encourage to write down all kinds of
questions like these to guide us through the initiative, but not generic
open-ended questions)

* Who is working on what?
* What is related to what?
* What's the status of everything?
* What's blocking progress?
* Who deserves a promotion?
* how loaded is each employee?
* What are all the metrics for performance ? projects, tasks, employees, customers, business numbers ... etc.



## Identified Shortcomings

It's good to identify and acknowledge shortcomings to properly address them, or
work around them.

* Not enough timely reporting
* Not enough clarity on what's going on overall
* Too many silos
* Too many screens/systems we are working on
* Not very streamlined business flow
* Need an ULTIMATE system (software and otherwise) to organize all this



## Enhance Internal Communications and Transparency

**Vision and mission are not clear to everybody**

For people to work efficiently, they have to have a clear mission and a sense of
direction.

**Initiative: Management Spaces**

Start with THIS initiative and make it into a live document, outlining all the
goals and stuff. Outlining each stage or initiative on it's own.

* Have spaces on our Enterprise Wiki where everything is laid out.
* Have spaces for VP and department heads where they share information on what is happening with their departments and write everything they wish to communicate with our BU.
* Of course, all Cloud BU personnel have to be in a group for access control.
* The idea of having spaces for managers that are
  * regularly updated
  * people subscribe to
  * helping with transparency
  * gathering feedback, quick and simple
  * Cloud BU Management space(s)
    * A space or a bunch of pages for Cloud BU management team
    * [Management Communications Spaces - Hani A. Alarifi - Confluence](https://confluence.stcs.com.sa/display/~halarifi.c/Management+Communications+Spaces)
    * [Live Documents - Hani A. Alarifi - Confluence](https://confluence.stcs.com.sa/display/~halarifi.c/Live+Documents)
    * All employees and stake stakeholders under our management are required to keep reading the spaces and are accountable for everything on them.

Will make a single page for this document, and with any modification made,
notifications will be sent for managers to read ... it is easy to see what changed
(have some instructions), ... then invoke comments and discussions afterwards.

To read confluence on mobile, use the new mobile application, but needs a server
version upgrade.

## Assessment
* Assessment, (see "EW" page I've made) [BU Questionnaire Template](https://confluence.stcs.com.sa/display/~halarifi.c/BU+Questionnaire+Template)
* After assessment, we will what to tackle next
* Making a working organizational model
* implementing a software solution
* Monitoring and keeping running
* Improvements and new initiatives

## Organize Internally

This is a big one, for the organization to be efficient and flexible enough, we
need some form of organization.

* Should develop a set of rules and guidelines and strategies
  * because with no rules and guidelines, nothing can be achieved.
  * must align those rules and guidelines with a strategy and long term goals in order for them to realize them.
* Should develop internal and external policies.
* Starting with business policies, then technical ones.





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## Far goals to achieve
* Will have an organization-wide open tasks and issues list

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