Keeping the Hale in Shape

“Hale” is another Hawaiian word. It means house. We are talking about housekeeping here. There are a few items that must be done that are chores for all of us but are simply needed to operate the business.

ClockWork Timesheets

We need to keep track of our time for two reasons. First, we need time sheets to know how much to bill our customers. Everyone working on billable tasks must enter those tasks into Clockwork with appropriate start and end times and a description. Note that the customer can see that description, so please be aware of this and keep it professional. This is not the place for silly jokes. 😶 Second, we need the time logs for our own analysis. Think about it like this: we can either do a lot of micro-management and be on everyone’s case all the time and constantly look over your shoulder, or we can rely on time logs and get the information we need for analytics that way. We think it is much better to do time sheets, isn’t it?

Be aware that we need your time sheets first thing every Monday morning. This goes for everyone! You can make Colleen’s job much easier by submitting your time sheets in Clockwork on time. Think about it: We have a bottleneck there, since many tasks, like invoicing, cannot happen until we have all the time sheets. So just one missing timesheet is really a problem that keeps people from doing their jobs. So, don’t be surprised if Colleen turns into Pele, the goddess of fire, and comes down on you like a ton of lava rocks, if you do not turn them in. You do not want to mess with Pele!

Timesheets are required from everyone who expects to receive money from the company; employees and contractors. The only people exempt from this are CODE Magazine authors.

Three Wins

Another long-time management staple at CODE is the concept of “three wins.” The idea here is that everyone should think of three things they want to achieve in the coming week. Three is a nice number, because it keeps things simple and achievable. So every Monday morning, we want you to send an email with your three wins for the week. We also want to report on whether or not you achieved what you had aimed for in the previous week.

Again, doing the “three wins” allows us to get away from micro-management and instead allows people to self-manage. Management stays informed of your goals for the week, which allows us to re-prioritize if need be. It also gives us an idea as to whether we achieve what we set out do to.

“Three wins” are required only from EPS employees.