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CHAPTER 1: WHAT’S INVOLVED: DEFINING THE POSITION ■
5. Now the fun really begins! Sort through your lists of user-based and management-
based tasks, and look for any tasks that are similar. For example, a user-based
task may be to “provide training,” whereas a management-based task of “make
users more productive” may involve training. It always helps to look for win-win
scenarios when combining tasks: for example, users may feel they’ve received
great training, while at the same time management thinks they’ve received a more
productive work force. If both users and management are happy then you’ve
completed two tasks for the price of one.
6. Unify your task lists to reflect any symbiotic relationships between tasks. You
might, for instance, combine “provide user training” with “make users more
productive” to make a single “raise user productivity through effective training”
task on your simplified list.
7. Repeat steps 5 and 6 as many times as required, and keep looking for tasks that
have interdependencies.
8. Finalize your new, simplified task list. Put it aside for a day or two, and then
come back and review it to make sure you haven’t missed anything.
Exercise Conclusions—and Expansion
You may have spent several hours on this exercise, but it was time spent in quality
thought. You should have a single reduced or simplified list of tasks (the variables in
your CAD management equation) and should now be able to manage the tasks more
easily (because there are fewer variables to deal with).
The only thing that remains to be done is to sort through your list of CAD tasks
and decide where management-based tasks must take precedence over user-based tasks.
Remember that management is more concerned about strategic use of the resources you
have while users tend to focus on making this more optimal for themselves. Resolving
the two, sometimes, competing areas of interest can be a tough balancing act. At the
end of this (possibly laborious) process you’ll know the following things about your
CAD management job equation:
• You’ll know which variables drive the equation: the ones with highest priority.
• You’ll know which variables are interlinked, thus giving you the extra economy
of solving multiple problems at once.
• You’ll know which variables are less important than you may have thought—
and which ones are more important than you thought.
• You’ll have a thorough understanding of how to solve your CAD management
job equation from both user and management perspectives—and how to achieve
balance between the two.
Take whatever time you need to refine your list now, even if it means closing the
book and coming back later. You may need to do this exercise away from the office
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