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  • Albert Sampietro 10:09 am on October 31, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , , , , projects,   

    What major companies can learn from the SMEs 

    Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

    A few weeks ago I decided to leave my position as Chief of Technology and Operations at Zyncro and join the 15th largest company worldwide in order to help implement its “digital strategy”.  Although it was a tough but exciting decision to make (given the many days and nights I have lived through with Zyncro and its great people), I leave satisfied with the work I have carried out. I’m sure that the new CTO, Susana Duran (with whom I have worked for the last 10 years) is the best guarantee for the continuity and growth of the company.

    Not a single day has gone by in the last 3 years at Grupo Inspirit (Spamina, Zyncro…) when I have not learned something new and now the time has come to put it to use within a multinational company where keeping freshness to ideas and the pace will be a whole new challenge.

    I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that major corporations (and I have worked in one for 8 years) have a lot to learn from SMEs and startups.

    The way that large projects are handled is probably one of their weak points and where the small company has a lot more to offer and teach. On the whole, big strategies that involve hundreds of people from diverse departments and various external providers end up in chaos due to communication failure, a lack of involvement from key people and an excess in the documentation generated.

    … and it is at this point that Zyncro proves a winner. Imagine a major project within a multinational with its own web page, with a people directory of all of the people involved (50 or 100 or 200 or…), with its suppliers, with all of the information in a well-organized manner, accessible and with a “comments wall” that keeps us informed of all updates that arise when it comes to meetings, documentation, etc.  Imagine all of this and what’s more, the possibility of setting it up in less that a day, and paying for one service - giving savings on hardware, data centers, licenses and systems administration.

    If we consider the level of security, there is probably more protection and control in a cloud infrastructure than in a corporate data center where access to your information is no longer in the hands of your programmers and administrators. All you need is to leave behind your old prejudices and your great new project will begin to take off.

     

     

  • Albert Sampietro 9:00 am on July 27, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    8 keys points for being happy at work 

    Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

    We spend a third of our lives in the workplace, so being happy is a must for us to ensure a healthy lifestyle.  Here are a few keys points to help you achieve this:

    1. Have a list of goals.  We all know that working in vain leads to a lack of fulfillment. So it’s essential to establish clear and concise goals for the short to medium term.  These goals should be achievable, measurable and you must be determined to meet them.  In fact, you should have a list of weekly, monthly and yearly work goals: to reach a number of sales, to achieve or learn something, to obtain a promotion, finish a tedious task…

    2. Control the outcome.  Everything that takes place depends on you, so don’t blame your boss or your colleagues or partners.  You must be in control and aware of all of the variables within your work. Plan tasks, have key documents at hand and know what is going to happen tomorrow before anybody else does.  Prepare meetings and avoid surprises: don’t make excuses and try to make sure you are not taken by surprise. One of the most common factors that leads to unhappiness at work is probably that feeling being out of control when many tasks and responsibilities have been handed to you, leading to feelings of being overworked and that you are not controlling the situation.

    3. Build a team and have fun.  Surround yourself with a great team, a great manager, great colleagues. Be loyal, provide help to all, be generous and all of this will be reflected in your work.  Feel like part of the bigger picture and live by it: the feeling of belonging to a group united by one objective is priceless. Communicate in an open manner: don’t keep information to yourself, be transparent, have a coffee or lunch with people.  Everything you give will come back to you.

    4. Learn something new every day.  Make an effort to learn something new every day, soak up the daily experiences, watch clients, read the newspaper, analyze the reasons behind your manager’s decisions (as well as those of the politicians in the newspapers).  If you don’t evolve and continue doing the same work day after day for the rest of your life, you will never get a raise.  The day you stop learning, leave the company.  Do it in a quiet and peaceful manner.

    5. Make decisions, take action.  Avoid thinking too hard while going over things constantly in your head.  Forget the research studies and take action: don’t be afraid to make decisions or mistakes. Don’t stop when faced with complicated situations, just make a decision and act quickly but don’t be complacent that you are always choosing the best solution; though it will certainly be better than not doing anything.  What could happen is that you make a mistake. Could it really be that bad?

    6. Don’t complain.  Stop complaining.  If you don’t like your boss, leave the company.  If you think your salary is poor, make an effort to improve and learn.  Deal with your issues discreetly; don’t defend your extra efforts whether you work nights or weekends. Deal with it or enjoy it by yourself; don’t send emails at night or at weekends to demonstrate that you work during all hours.  Complaining about what happens to you is a weakness of the soul.  If you aren’t happy with your salary and you have made an effort to improve and learn and have not received any recognition, leave your job but please, don’t spend a lifetime wining at the watercooler about how unfair it all is.

    7. Practice sports.  If you work hard, you will need to carry out some sporting activity in order to handle pressure and clear your thoughts.  You can do this at lunchtime or in the evenings, but remember that you need to work up a sweat and reach exhaustion.  If you also do long-distance (running, swimming or cycling), you will be training a number of skills that you can use at work: endurance, perseverance, the warm up prior to challenging situations…

    8. Earn.  If you are over 28 years old, the honeymoon period is over and it’s time to focus on earnings.  If you do not earn, you will not be happy.  If you do not feel compensated, you will not be happy.  If you cannot go out for dinner or go away for the weekend, you will not be happy.  If you follow these points carefully, you will be likely to be more efficient at work, be more valuable and your value (your salary) will increase.

    … ok then, now we know the 8 key points but how can we put them into practice?  Zyncro can help you plan objectives, organize information and have greater control over activities and decisions.  You will also see your team united and working in harmony like a band sharing experiences, decisions and discussions that you can make use of time and time again while you create a unique and recoverable knowledge base that you will be able to use for more effective decision-making at any given time.

     

     

  • Albert Sampietro 11:53 am on June 3, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ,   

    The problems (and solutions) of internationalising 

    Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

    Nowadays, internationalising is top on the agenda; if we want to makes sales abroad or if we need to outsource and manufacturing processes due to production or if we are simply looking for the best professionals, we will probably end up with a multinational, multilingual, multicultural and “multi-casuistic“…

    Despite the technological advances in existence today, (be it reading e-mail, videoconferencing, intranets…) communication continues to be the main concern above any others.  At Zyncro we have worked with scattered teams for over 4 years with teams across the world in different countries (since a while back in USA, Argentina, Spain and Andorra and from more recently in Japan, Peru and Brazil) and these are the main issues we have had to face and how we have resolved them.

    • Corporate Identity.  People must feel they are part of the company and in order for this to be apparent, it is very important to reinforce the corporate identity of the teams that work from a distance.  We have achieved this by using specific logos and signage for the different teams even if they are not commercial offices, unifying e-mail signatures, sending items bearing the logo (t-shirts…) and by periodically sending formal written communications.
    • Feeling “I have no say and nor would it count”.  This is one of the main problems when the head office is in your country and that is where most of the decisions are made for later execution in each of the other offices.   That feeling that “we don’t understand this decision”, “they are not thinking about our opinions” and “nothing gets decided here” are at the top of the agenda and arise mainly from a lack of involvement in the decision making process.  In order to resolve this, we have implemented diverse measures: weekly communication meeting and discussion on corporate decisions (via telephone conference), the creation of various work groups on Zyncro for putting together the feedback, relaying important decisions via Corporate News (also on Zyncro) with an explanation as to the reasoning, ideas competitions and a possible improvements session every trimester followed by a follow up.
    • Unknown people.  Mobility between countries is a key factor.  It is not the same discussing issues 8 thousand miles away whether you know the person you are speaking with personally or not.  Team managers fly over to our head office at least once or twice a year and in the same way from Barcelona, we go to work bases outside Spain in order to get to know all of the people that make up the company.   Another important factor is to be able to see the “faces” by means of the Zyncro people directory and whenever possible, the participation in videoconferences via Skype (also integrated into Zyncro).
    • Lack of control.  Not being able to physically see the people you work with, not knowing whether or not working hours are being adhered to, not knowing if the team is stressed out and not having first hand information about advances or diversions from set objectives gives us a feeling that things are “out of control”.  in order to minimize the impact of this, we have implemented a series of tools: SalesForce as an integrated CRM at all levels of the group, SpiraTeam for the entire management of the development cycle and of course Zyncro for keeping in touch, reporting advances, storing documentation in a centralised manner and for hearing news in each one of our offices.
    • Time difference.  We have a 5 hour difference with Argentina and Brazil, 7 with Japan, 8 with the U.S and there is a 12 hour difference between Argentina and Japan.  This is a small example of how complicated it can be sometimes to organise a meeting with all of the teams.  The solution is not easy because in Argentina’s case, the country with which we have the closest relationship, we only share 4 hours in common during the working day; despite this, we have managed to have a fairly good communication flow thanks to delaying the start time in Spain and bringing it forward a little in Argentina.  We have also installed a good VoIP telephony system on our mobiles so that we can speak directly at zero cost even when we are thousands of miles away, just by dialing four digits.  Zyncro also helps us in this area as we are able to carry out a themed follow up directly via the wall instead of resorting to dozens of e-mails that just build up in our in-boxes.

    These are just a few of the things we have done in order to continue to internationalise our company.  We have done many more things such as dealing with the language in some cases (even in Argentina and Peru, the Spanish is different to that of Spain), the cultural differences (an e-mail cannot be written in the same manner when requesting something in Brazil and Japan for example), etc.  Good faith on everyone’s behalf and the variety of viewpoints are necessary in order for an organisation  of these characteristics to function but it is not entirely sufficient: to have normalised processes and common tools that support these processes are the key to differentiating the efficiency of an international organisation and that is where tools such as Zyncro or SalesForce with a fast and uniform implementation become indispensable.

     

     

  • Albert Sampietro 11:00 am on March 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: installation, , ISO 9001:2008, quality, ,   

    How is Zyncro put together? 

    Estimated Reading time: 4 minutes

    In order to offer a service such as Zyncro, we rely on a team of strong professionals based in Spain, Argentina and the USA.  Our “home base” is in Barcelona’s city centre from where the product is designed (in conjunction with our USA office), version planning takes place and the actual service is coordinated.

    The data processing centres where we have our servers and data storage are in Girona (Spain) and North Virginia (USA) from where we assure a high level of availability (99,98%) thanks to the redundant and replicated processing system.  In addition, we also rely on a network monitoring for services and servers that notify us in real time when an incident could occur: from Spain we supervise the USA, from the USA we supervise Spain and a second independent network of waves allow us to know how Zyncro is responding over more than 30 cities all over the world.

    We offer user support jointly between our team in Girona and the team in Argentina, based in the beautiful town of Tandil, in the province of Buenos Aires.  It is from here that the product is developed having previously been designed in Barcelona. Upto 20 people work with a focus on:

    • programming,
    • quality assurance,
    • and Zyncro installation

    Programming

    The software Development process, based on Scrum, ensures that we can generate new versions every 6-8 weeks and that the ISO 9001-2008 certification (obtained at the end of 2009) guarantees a high level of quality in each one.

    Quality

    In line with the ISO regulation, apart from programmers and designers, a group of quality managers form an essential part of the whole team. They are responsible for verifying that requirement specifications and its later development in the form of new functionalities is carried out in the correct manner, free of errors and securely.

    Installation

    The systems technicians who carry out the important mission of product installations on the servers also form a part of the whole process, ensuring that the physical infrastructure (between USA and Spain) works in a fast and synchronized way, supervise the performance indicators and design and unfold new processing nodes.

    However, what is more potent than the quality system we use, more than our high availability data processing centres, is that we have a robust architecture upon which to develop Zyncro – we are very proud of and delighted with the people that put Zyncro together. Proud to rely on a professional and committed team, almost a family, focussed on offering a high quality service,  very secure and overall very reliable for our clients and users.

    In the coming weeks, we will introduce you to each one of this great family’s members. :)

     

  • Albert Sampietro 12:28 pm on March 10, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ,   

    Zyncro V2.3 in depth 

    Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

    1.- New Zyncronizer. We have made the application simpler and clearer by installing a small programme (available for Windows for the time being) that allows the synchronization of files in Zyncrowith your computer.

    • You will now find two tabs, one called “Groups” where you will be able to select the groups (with their folders and files) you want to synchronise with your PC and the other called “Zync” to see the synchronization status.

    • The “Force synchronisation” button allows you the application to start synchronizing immediately, no need to wait.

    • With “Allow P2P transfers”, within the configuration panel (the cogwheel icon in the top right), we can indicate to the synchronizer whether or not we want to make use of the function to synchronize directly within the group members (via the P2P protocol).  In offices or local networks, this function greatly speeds up the synchronisation task and it is no longer necessary to stay online to download files.  This way the files move directly from one PC to another.

    1.- Automatic updating of the wall.  New corporate news updates, personal news or private messages will automatically appear on the wall each time they are produced.  In the top right part, you will see an indicator showing the number of updates.  In this way, it will not be necessary to keep refreshing the page to learn about any new events within your company.

    2.- Automatic registration in the domain. In order to easily create users within organisations and only for Business accounts, all users should sign up with an email domain that already exists on Zyncro and they will automatically become part of said organisation.   However, the initial validation of a domain will be done manually to verify that the client does actually have rights to that domain.

    The organisation administrator will then receive an email informing them that the users are signing up with that domain and will be able to decide whether to keep or remove them.

    3.- Recovering deleted files. If you have deleted a file or folder by mistake, you can now recover it by clicking on the link within that element on the wall.  This action can only be taken by the person that has deleted the item.

    4.- Integration with Twitter. To use this function, you should configure Twitter access beforehand from Profile > Edit my Profile > Integration with Twitter and click on “Connect to Twitter“. From there onwards, you should follow the instructions from Twitter itself to give Zyncro access permission.  Having finalized the configuration, you will be able to send Twitter updates and Zlinks from Zyncro when publishing on the wall (Personal News) or also within a group using the “Send to Twitter“option.

    In addition, with this native integration, you will be able to publish personal news on Zyncro from Twitter by adding the hashtag “#zyn” in the tweet.

    We have also improved some parts of the application visually and we have also resolved a few minor bugs.

    Sign up for your free account and try it for yourself!

     

  • Albert Sampietro 10:30 am on March 3, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , selective synchronization, sync,   

    Zyncro V2.3 

    Reading time: 2 minutes

    What is new in version V2.3 of Zyncro?

    I would like to consider the most interesting points:

    • New synchroniser. We have completely redesigned this function which is installed into the user’s computer and allows the synchronisation of data with the server.  The interface is now simpler and clearer.
    • Selective synchronisation. Users will be able to configure groups and files they wish to synchronise locally on each computer independently.  This new function allows you to have available for example, a new global repository for the organization with 500 GB of space and in a local terminal have synchronised only the 2 most used GB.
    • Automatic updating of the comments wall.  Automatically and with no need for refreshing the screen, on the top part of the wall an indicator will appear showing the new notifications.
    • Automatic registration on the domain. To make the creation of users easier within organisations, all the users that register using a domain of a company already using Zyncro will become members of the same account of that organisation automatically.
    • Recovery of deleted files. File and folder deletion in version 2.3 will be reversible.  A user having deleted an item will be able to recover it by clicking on a link of that item on the wall.  .
    • Integration with Twitter. Activating this new option beforehand, users will be able to share updates and Zlinks from the wall (“Personal News”) in their Twitter accounts and vice versa, publishing from Twitter on the Zyncro wall using the hashtag “#zyn”.

    As with other versions, we have also improved a few things visually within the application and we have resolved a few minor bugs.

    Keep a look out as we foresee the launch of version 2.3 during next week.

     

  • Albert Sampietro 10:30 am on February 9, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , , ,   

    Managing large projects with Zyncro 

     

    A few days ago we spoke about managing small projects with Zyncro and some of you asked us how to do the same with larger projects.  Such as if we work with PMI, PRINCE2 or any other methodology, Zyncro offers us a whole series of tools that will help us achieve a more efficient Project management.  The main advantages can be summarized as follows:

    A Project = A group.  Within Zyncro and accessible via the web, we can find the documents we are generating in a centralized manner, along with the people involved in the project and any news and comments regarding the activity of the project.

    Open and secure environment. All of the project documentation is accessible via the web in a secure and confidential manner.  All of the project members need a password to gain access and communications are coded at all times by means of SSL.  It is a good solution when we have people working for example, at a client location without access to our company’s corporate network.

    Access for clients. There are two ways in which we can grant a client Access to specific project documentation:  via user and password or directly via a coded zlink.  This way, a public documentation area can be created and our clients can access this in a fast and convenient manner.

    Meetings and task management. Within the same project, (in Zyncro this is a group), we can centralize all the meeting notes as well as the tasks derived from them.  This function is ideal for your project to ensure things get done

    A less complicated ISO-9001. Thanks to the automatic auto-version system and the version history, the time needed for generation and maintenance of the documents is drastically reduced.  The author history, changes and renaming of documents is done by Zyncro itself.

    Email Integration. We can configure the way we want to receive notifications and reminders via email.  There are various options:  publishing new versions of documents, news, comments and group activity.  When answering an email related to a document or news item, a line is automatically added to the project comments.

    Searching for something was never this easy. By entering the name of a person, the title or a keyword, we can obtain the results in a clear and concise manner, grouped as messages, files, groups and people.  Zyncro is capable of finding results within MS Office, OpenOffice, PDFs and TXTs documents.

    And all this in 10 minutes. It doesn’t matter if you are not a Zyncro user.  In less than 5 minutes, you can get your account and in another 5, you can create your project, folder structure, project members, have added logos and favourite colors and be operative online.

    How do we do this in Zyncro?

    Firstly. we create the project and assign the people that will form part of it:

    1. We go to “Files and Groups” then to “Create a new group”.

    2. We add the group details and select the members of the project team who will have access.   We will add the clients later.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    3. The next step consists of creating the project folders using “Files and Groups” and “New folder”.  For example, if we follow in the footsteps of PMBOK®, a good way to organize directories could be:

    From here, we can then start to work on the project as normal, generating the corresponding documentation in each of the folders.  For each new version generated, the author will be able to add comments at the same time as other members of the group, complementing these with their contributions as long as they have permission to do so.

    Another aspect to bear in mind is the possibility to follow up on the project by using the minutes management and allocation of tasks system with the project team members.

    How can my customers access the project documentation?

    We have two options: the first consists in identifying the project folder that contains the information we want our client to access (in the previous example it could be “03.Execution”), then, we should create a zlink to that folder (“Generate Zlink” icon –the chain- on the right of the folder name) and send it to the client using email or instant messaging.  In this way, the client will have access to the contents of this folder in read-only mode without needing to be a Zyncro user and will be able to download the latest published versions.

    Another option is to invite our clients to become part of Zyncro, this way we can invite them to become part of the project as a member.  Generally, we will be creating two projects (groups), an internal one and a public one (where our client will be), this way the restricted or private documents (quotes, hours registers, etc) continue to be accessible by ourselves only.

    As Zyncro’s CTO, I use all these functions everyday and recommend this solution for Project Managers within any sector.

     

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