Inside Ultradent, a new team has been working on continuing to improve our new product development process. Ultradent already had a good process in place that withstands regulatory audits from national and international bodies, but upper management wants to ensure that we continue to develop quality products that are delivered to our market in a timely way and that function the way we intend them to, fulfilling market needs.

The new way of thinking is being developed by a cross-functional team called Delta Force. The proposed organization is shown in the chart below. Our existing organization is represented by the vertical columns. The functional vice presidents are represented by the different shapes at the top of each rectangle, or functional area (marketing, operations, QC, QA, etc.). Within that area, managers and other team members report to the vice president. However, in order to bring new products to market, these different functions need to work smoothly and efficiently together, so that all parts of a new development process are addressed by the experts on the Ultradent team.

The project team leaders, or core team leaders (represented by the shapes at the far left) lead the cross-functional teams to develop new products. We’ve always had these leaders, but the new element is the project controller, who coaches the core team leaders and ensures smooth communication across functional areas. This is the person who will help ensure ALL projects are resourced, and who will help management to understand where resources are going at any given time on new and maintenance projects.

Chart: Cross-functional Project Team Model: 

Tools are being developed and put into use by the Delta Force team to create this more robust product development process, and to strengthen the cross-departmental communication and working relationships. These tools and processes will ensure that Ultradent continues to develop robust, high-quality products that meet all of our customers’ requirements.

Remember when email used to be fun?  And the internet was so new and exciting?  I remember when my husband and I first signed up for AOL.  We had this great plan, where we paid a monthly fee and got 3 full hours of internet use PER MONTH!!  I was about the only one in my office that had this service at home, so I felt super cool and advanced.  

Another thing I recall around that time was that my friends were very concerned for me because I was buying Christmas gifts “online” and giving these cyber-strangers my credit card number.  And come to think of it, there weren’t even that many companies that sold products online back then.

Well, that was the ‘90s.  In 2008, we are still really having fun on the internet—some of us too much—but when it comes to email, especially work-related, we’re not as excited to open up that mail box anymore!

The email problem really started getting to me about 7 years ago.  I am the type of person who always has a cluttered desk - stacks of papers here and there, file folders on the floor—I won’t even tell you about my car.  Anyway, I soon realized that I now had an unorganized disaster on my computer, and it was driving me insane!!  I not only had an unkempt physical life, I now had the added burden of an overwhelming mess on my laptop.   If you don’t think this adds stress to your life, think again.

At some point, I knew I had to do something to straighten out the situation, so I went to the library and started reading a few books on email management and etiquette.  Most of the concepts were so simple I couldn’t believe I didn’t think of them myself.

I highly recommend a book I just read last year, entitled, The Hamster Revolution, by Song, Halsey, and Burress.  I have shared several tips from this book with my Ultradent coworkers, and think many businesses would benefit by implementing some of these concepts.  The main emphasis is managing your email, before it manages YOU!

Here are a few quick tips that I started using right away:

1.       Strengthen the subject line.  Always make it clear.  That helps others find the message later if they file it away.  Don’t say “hi” in the subject—even just to a friend.

2.       For super short emails, just write it all in the subject line, then end with EOM (End of Message)*

*Blackberry users will love you for this, I’m sure!

3.       In the subject line, you can also end the title with NRN (No Reply Needed)  That’s for messages that you don’t need any response to from your audience.  Saves a LOT of company time.

4.       Don’t use the Reply-to-All button, unless absolutely necessary.  Reply to the sender only.

Whether you are an Ultradent employee, or just trying to organize your personal correspondence, take action now to manage your email.  You will save yourself and your company hours of unnecessary time wasted on the computer if you just get a system into place.  Not only that--you'll feel just like you do right after you clean the garage or basement.

Happy Organizing!

I recently spent a couple weeks in San Francisco for two separate conferences. I’m thrilled to be home but the time was very productive.

itSMF Conference:  My first week was spent covering ITIL - the Information Technology Infrastructure Library. This is a globally recognized collection of Best Practices for IT Management.  With me was our ITIL Team – ITSM / IT Operations Senior Manager, Service Desk Manager, Change Manager, and Problem Manager. We participated in three days of courses and sharing experiences with other companies classes and sharing from other companies at varying stages of ITIL adoption. Notables included Toyota on Lean and Continuous Improvement processes applied to ITIL,  Barclays Global Investors on IT Budgeting and Costing, InfoGraphics for complex training illustrations, and many others. On Thursday we took a cram course and subsequently passed our fundamentals certification tests for the next major revision, ITIL V3. This is said to be the last “major” change – incremental refinements are expected going forth.

Oracle OpenWorld: My second week again in San Francisco was with our Oracle Apps Senior Managerfor this annual conference. With Oracle’s acquisitions of the last few years, they are now the world’s largest Enterprise Software company – and this meeting is insanely huge – fifty THOUSAND people. One of the great advantages however is the opportunity to rub shoulders and have conversations with many other customers, key consultants, as especially Oracle management. A great time to voice concerns, discover direction, and find solutions. Our plans for 2009 at Ultradent have changed based on some of these conversations, including chats with two separate Oracle vice-presidents and a key Oracle Product Manager. Interactions like this help us avoid jumping into an upgrade too soon, and are a good reality-check on the efforts we are putting into Business Intelligence and other key projects.

A very busy but productive two weeks!

This time I visited our branch office in Tokyo. My last visit was three years ago when our office just opened. We spent a great portion of our time working the website, customized CRM solutions and other support issues. I also met with one of our largest dealers. I have to say from a week of observation that the Japanese people are some of the hardest working and most professional people on the planet! I look forward to my next visit, and to success with the projects we’re now working together on.

As a  continuation to Becky’s last post about sorting email, I often find myself struggling when choosing the right book at the library…
So many times I buy novels that I never finish.
They all end up taking dust until the day I dare to give them attention… never most of the time!

I recently learnt from a friend the 4 easy steps to choose a book:
1. read the cover of the book.
2. read the back cover of the book, you will often find quotes there from other readers.
3. read the table of contents or index. The structure of the book shall be a good guidance.
4. read randomly half a page in the middle of the book. Feel the flow/the writing style of the author… That should really help on your decision making.


Those steps can really save you time and money. 

Of course, this comes in addition to recommendation from colleagues/friends.
The last management book that I read and would advise to you: “The E myth revisited” by Michael GERBER.
It provides lots of practical information on the do’s and don’ts about your business organization… Basic principles about systems that are essentials to success. It applies extremly well to Ultradent.

Happy reading folks!