Results

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

(In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful)

(Results)

If you want to convince anyone regarding the success of any project, show the results of it. Creativity room achieved great results which reflected the success of the project.

I was really amazed when I was figuring out the result of the creativity room. These results are used for many purposes mainly for annual report to division head, evidences for different awards which the organization applies and for myself also.

People usually concentrate on numbers since numbers don’t lie as it is said. I’m concentrating on many results such as the number of workshops conducted in the room which reflects the utilization of it. These workshops are conducted and attended by different levels of employees starting from leadership down to lower grade employees which means that the room is highly recommended by all levels.

I become so happy when someone new books the room or the division leadership conducts workshops in the room or external visitors visit the room. This all will be part of the results which will reflect the success of the project.

Another type of the result is the training hours provided in the room. This is also important since these training can be conducted outside the organization which means additional cost. Instead, many trainings are conducted inside the room.  Around 100 training hours were provided. Again, these kind of results will show the success of the project.

Another result which I concentrate on is the brainstorming sessions conducted in the room and the number of suggestions generated. This is because innovation is an important factor for the success of organizations and brainstorming sessions is an important tool which shows that the organization is concentrating on innovation. The room is a very common place for conducting such brainstorming sessions. From the day of opening the room, more than 30 sessions were conducted with hundreds of suggestions generated which means that employees enjoys the room environment.

It is always important to show the positive trend of the results which means that when we compare one year to another, the results should be improving in the current year. This will ensure that the project has succeeded.

I thank Allah always for the positive results of the room and this is because of Allah support then leadership trust and another important factor which will be the topic of next post Insha’Allah.

See you in next post Insha’Allah J    

Leadership Support

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

(In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful)

Leadership Support

One of key success elements for any project is leadership support. Without this support, many obstacles will appear and won’t be solved.

We had a great support from all leadership levels for running creativity room project. Department head was first to support this suggestion. Actually, she requested section heads to establish a team for this room. Although there was no budget and tools were limited, Department head appreciated the team efforts and she – personally – opened the first phase of the room with all section heads. This was really a positive energy for all members.

She supported also the second phase of the room by communicating the issue of budget to division head and coordinating with other departments to get the requirement of the room.

Division head also supported the room. He personally opened the second phase of the room with all department heads. He appreciated the efforts of all team members and he attended a workshop with all department heads in the creativity room which means that division leadership were satisfied with the room.

Our MD & CEO supported the room by approving a special budget for the room although it was not planned in the year. This shows that leadership is fully supporting any suggestion which will achieve organization vision.

This leads us to important question. How can we get leadership support? In my opinion, it depends much on leadership personality and thinking style. Whoever supports improvements and innovation will support new suggestions. This is beside that these suggestions have added values and support organization vision and mission.

Also, it is important for the suggestor(s) to provide all details of the suggestions: Advantages, challenges and how they will be solved, budget – if required – and the most important thing is the results (Cost saving, revenue, time, knowledge, efforts…etc.).

Also, organization environment is an important factor in accepting or rejecting new suggestions. Organizations which seek excellence and winning awards will look always after new suggestions which will add value to them.

Leadership support provides a positive energy to all employees and this will lead to more new innovative suggestions and projects. We are proud to have this support for creativity room (Thank to Allah).

See you in next post Insha'Allah :)

Successful Marketing

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

(In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful)

Successful Marketing

It was not easy to convince our department staff about creativity room, however, I was amazed that this room was known by many other divisions in the organization although the room was not announced at DEWA level nor at our division level.

I think that there are many elements lead to reach to this situation. Marketing can be done in many ways. When a new thing or change is in place, people start talking about it in a positive or a negative way. This is considered indirect marketing and this is what happened with creativity room.

Something new will make staff talk and surely this talking won’t be only on department level, but on wider level. This is in addition to the power of social media which is another powerful way of marketing. I’m not sure whether anyone published any photos or videos for creativity room – I’m talking here about phase 1 because the story of phase 2 is something else – but I’m expecting that it spread somehow.

Another important element which supported the reputation of the room is excellence awards. The organization always shows the new things as evidences to win in excellence award and since the room was something new, it was used by different parties as evidence mainly for innovation and team work. I remember that a committee from Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP) visited the room – during phase 1 – and was satisfied about the idea of the room.

All these elements made the room more famous and encouraged us to think about improving the room not only by making small changes, but making a revolution!!!

It is important to say that if we had not succeeded in phase 1, the management wouldn’t have approved to go with phase 2. I’m sure that the management were satisfied with the idea more than staff, so it led us to start thinking about phase 2.

I’m sharing all these experiences in order to benefit anyone wants to apply any new project or implement an idea. In every post, I’m mentioning some success elements which I think most of them are common for all projects.

See you in the next post Insha’Allah J

Challenges - Part 3

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

(In the name of Allah, most gracious, most merciful)

Challenges - 3

In the previous posts, I mentioned two main challenges faced while establishing the creativity room: The location and the budget. In this post, I will talk about another challenge we faced after establishing the room. This challenge was to convince the staff about the purpose of the room.

It was really difficult to convince department staff that there is something called creativity room.  It might be because the design of the first phase was not that appealing.  Still, the creativity room was somehow different than normal offices and the name of the room was making the place different than others.  However,  it has always been said that changing the culture or what we are used to is considered to be one of the most difficult things to change.

It was a big challenge, so we started – as a team – to put solutions for this challenge. One of the solutions was to market the room. How? We agreed on several steps:

·         - Conduct different activities for all staff in the room.

·        -  Market and advertise the activities before and after conducting them.

·        -  Conduct dedicated activities for department units.

Our main target in this phase was that all staff in the department should participate in at least one activity. Other than that, we wanted all staff to know that there is something called creativity room.

It is also important to mention that the opening ceremony of the room supported marking of it so much since it was opened by the department head and almost all section managers were available in this ceremony beside many employees.

When we started our activities in the room, the number of participants were varying from one activity to another. Some activities were well advertised and marketed, so the number of participants were acceptable while others were not.

Still, not all employees in the department participated in activities even some employees didn’t enter the room at all!!!  This was realized after we conducted a survey among staff to see the utilization of the room. The results were not very satisfying.

Nevertheless, the good news was that although the room was targeting the department only, many external parties knew about the room and were amazed while visiting it. Does that mean that we succeeded in marketing the room? The answer will be in the next post Insha’Allah J