Giving feedback - what I've learned from quilting

I took a quilt class spread over two Sunday mornings. The first Sunday, we learned the technique, and then went home and worked on developing the pieces of the quilt. The second Sunday, we came back with our ideas for our quilts and presented our quilts to the class. For the feedback process, the instructor suggested that instead of us criticizing what WASN'T working, we should talk about what WAS working. It was interesting for me, who is a person that finds lots of faults with my own quilts to instead hear what was working. I realize if I'm critical of my own work, I'm surely critical of others. I found myself being very thoughtful in providing feedback -- perhaps more so than when my feedback is critical. Thinking more about this feedback session, I realize that, of course, sometimes we need to hear what isn't working. But it seems to me that when our work is a "work in progress" hearing about what IS working encourages us to do even better. And, it was a really nice change to not hear from my left shoulder critic and instead to hear from my right shoulder supporter. Thoughts?

Oh...and here's the quilt in progress...obviously not finished. I'll post it again when finished.

Data analysis does not breed good writing!

My husband is really brilliant and a really good guy. He has a PhD in cognitive psychology, develops human cognitive measurement software, loves computer games, and is a really nice guy too. One of the things I've noticed over the years of being married to him is that I can't talk very coherently to him after spending a day doing deep data analysis which I need to do with our CedarCrestone HR Systems Survey . It's like my brain just can't go from number crunching to being verbal. But, after a day of data crunching if I play Bejeweled. I'm really good. I've gotten my best scores (over 500,000) on those days. Anyway...back to my really nice guy husband, in a roundabout way. Today, I actually got two comments about my blog and posts....both saying...do more! Thank you.... I mentioned this to my sweetheart of a husband, and he is so brilliant....he said. "Blog when you wake up before you do the data crunching." Duh..... So, maybe that's what I'll do. Blog first thing. What do you think?

The Value of Pre-built HR Analytics

It's a beautiful fall day in the Sierra foothills. We spent yesterday picking a neighbor's grapes and while I was tired and achy yesterday, I feel great today. Maybe it's because it's our anniversary and I'm looking forward to a wonderful day with my husband of many amazing years. I started the day in my studio, working on some little Japanese panels. But in the back of my mind was a work issue. I'm writing a white paper on HCM Analytics and one piece of the white paper is on the value of HCM Analytics. Personally, I think that organizations can not long survive and thrive without managing their business, and workforce, with metrics, but I am always challenged by readers and clients to "prove it." Fortunately, the CedarCrestone HR Systems Survey can show some strong and continued links to improved financial performance. And, we're certainly starting to see lots and lots of organizations report on the value they've achieved. Wait and see the white paper for some of those stories. But what I was thinking about this morning is "why pre-built." And what better place to think about this than in my studio where I build quilts.

When I first started making quilts, like most novices, I used patterns. Irish chain was my first, followed by Log Cabin, and some Amish patterns. It's only been as I've matured as a quilter and even had some coaching from incredible art quilt teachers that I've designed my own quilts. Even now, I return to patterns, but put my own creative color choices, or even break the pattern and just use pieces of a pattern, along with my own creative design. I value pattern makers for figuring out how to integrate a particular design piece (like a diamond, star, or other geometric design) into another piece. That integration is critical for merging pieces with the exact measures...and I don't like to take the time to do that engineering calculation all the time.

I think the value of pre-built analytics, such as those from Oracle's business analytics and specifically, the HR Analytics product, is similar. Oracle has done all the integration from a recruiting dashboard into the talent management applications, into financials, and into the system of record. In the learning arena, it has integrated from learning management, to financials, etc. as well as to display a learning dashboard with metrics valuable to the training department. It is not to say that technical resources couldn't do all these integrations themselves, but why take their time? All of those integrations come ready made.

There is another subtle value of pre-built. Here I have to diverge a moment to comment on how many analysts and pundits just love to criticize HR for not being good with numbers. So what? Are these pundits good with numbers? I don't think so! So, how does HR get started? Let them use ideas from others. I say, help HR out with some pre-built functionality and from these examples they can start to branch out to identify the metrics that will matter for their own companies. But starting with pre-built KPIs, metrics, reports, and dashboards gives them a big boost to get started.

Blogging every day??

I recently heard a motivational speaker who suggested that one should blog every day! I put it on my list of "to dos" about three weeks ago and you can see that I don't keep my commitments. So, I'm going to publicly renege on that one and promise to do a blog at least ONCE A WEEK on the survey, on HCM in general, perhaps something on BI (business intelligence and analytics), and, of course, quilting. I just don't know about these daily bloggers. What kind of life do they have? For me, I find that I just can't move from data analysis (my primary job) to writing. I think my brain just isn't wired for those cross modal activities. And, I also don't seem to balance my life interests very well. My quilting has gone down the drain the past month or so as I've worked to get the annual CedarCrestone HR Survey out the door, presented at several conferences, and set up for ongoing benchmarking.

But, at long last, I got back to my quilt room this weekend and am working to complete my UFOs. I did finish a baby quilt for a baby born a bit ago. And, on my list of to be finished: a Japanese kimono triptych -- just need to bind, last year's Christmas quilt, the hers to the his and hers comforters, and then on to the new one using the Kingyo, Red Rooster fabrics. I'm going to adapt that pattern, using the panel in the middle but my own blend of fabrics from my stash. Stay tuned on that one.

And, I'll post the triptych by this weekend -- my goal for finishing it! Let's see if I can start keeping my commitments to me again!!

My first quilt show

It's been way too long since I thought about blogging and I'm not sure I really will get back into it now, but here goes. After what seems like months, I've finished the 12th annual HR Systems Survey white paper and presentations that I'll be giving over the next month or so at HR Technology, some private shows, IHRIM, and OpenWorld. Anyone reading these that's interested knows more about these shows than I. Got some good material for this year: my recommended technologies: HR help desk, absence management, compensation management, and a BI tool set, and, of course, anything to do with social networking and SOA. The formal survey goes out two weeks from today.
In the background of this work, I've been gardening and quilting for sanity. Our garden has produced a ton of food...feels like literally. I've canned tomotoes, made Barefoot Contessa's tomato soup...yummy, made our pasta puttenesca sauce. I feel like quite the country lady!
And...best of all, I'm having my first quilt show with six of my quilts at Cafe Vista, here in Meadow Vista. And, on day one, sold my first quilt! I guess that makes me a professional now. Here's one of them...yours for just $350.

Quilting and HCM

It's been way too long since I've written. I've been busy and distracted, but with good stuff. I've actually been quilting up a storm...made a quilt for our bed, redid one I made 20 years ago for Jess, made a baby quilt, and have started a triptych of wall hangings. But this morning, I need to work and given that I'd rather be in the garden or quilting, it got me thinking about my work and quilting and I've decided to explore the intersection of the two. Do you know if you google HCM and quilting that the link you get is to the Horry County Museum:) Those two phrases don't go together. If you google human capital management and quilting, it gets slightly more interesting. There's a link to a Business Week article on the "crazy quilt of rules" and another with similar title on Workforce Management referring to an SAP site that has an article on the "crazy quilt of wage laws"... HCM and crazy quilt...hmmm This could be on the right track. For some reason, Wikipedia is not available this morning, but on the Free Dictionary, the definition of a crazy quilt is: 1. A patchwork quilt of pieces of cloth of various shapes, colors, and sizes, sewn together in an irregular pattern. Seems appropriate for HCM as does the next definition: 2. A disorderly mixture; a hodgepodge: But, both our strategy work with HCM and our quilting turns both the concept and the art form into a thing of beauty, eh? Ah...finally, wikipedia is "up" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_quilting. Look at that amazing old crazy quilt. These are not my cup of tea, but many value these wonderful quilts. I can see some similarities between quilting and pulling talent together in an HCM talent management strategy, stitching it together with processes and technology, but most importantly, the seams of change management, create both a thing of symetry and of beauty.

Competencies -- I must be missing something

For several years, the one talent management application most frequently correlated with the best financial performance, has been competency management. It has always made a lot of sense to me: if an organization knows the competencies it needs for the future, it can assess what it currently has and if deficient can either train or hire. And, I'll make the assumption that if they know the competencies it has, then it knows which ones deliver the best performance. See: www.cedarcrestone.com/research for the latest research reports.

Today, I came across this competency list from Harvard University. It sure seems to me that these are awfully generic. Doesn't every organization have people with these competencies? Don't organizations really need to have information on the competencies that make them unique?