The art of working~Strategy and keywords~

for salary man, start-up, even big company

NguyenHai MINHnguyenhaiminh@gmail.com

COO of FX, game venturesIT manager at World Mega BankSE at multination software vendors

Worked directly with line manager ex-CFO, 10B US$Sales man, 3B US$CEO of 100M US$CEO of 15M US$

Agenda

• Mindset, strategy• Logic thinking and effective communication• Strong spirit to solve issues• Understand your company– Project management– Operation Management

• Return to day 1’s orientation

Realistic life design: Lifetime salary

Peaceful life

Peaceful way is really peaceful?• May OK for normal expense: Food, house, car, …• NOK for unexpected: surgeons, restructured, …

• Question: Really Japanese/American/European love his/her company?

• Answer: NOPE, all people work for food because of suffer from being restructured in future

– 2008, 2012, 2013 and from now on

“no need to come tomorrow” is often used– Volume of restructuring: too many companies with

sudden death due to bubble, …– In general, 10 ventures established and 9 is in

bankrupt after 1 year, and 1 in ill situation– 3 years is needed to check survival of any company

Why 3 years: company balance• Revenue vs Expense: Simply +, -, and SUM

Question: Investors has enough money for 3 years from beginning? Or bankrupt on the way? Answer: Almost bankrupt

MINDSET as Maslow theory

• Love/belonging is too luxury• Only try to survive: Breath, food, water, sleep…

HOW to be SURVIVAL???

Strategy: work hard when young

• Salary = Value more value, more salary• Work hard, make value save time more work,

more experience, more value • Maslow’s 2nd : Relief, safety

– People love things “made in Japan” because of feeling safe

– Seek relief in food, business partner … and in WORK

working hard make supervisors feel relief.• Loyalty make belief and being assigned important job More value

Strategy: work hard when young

• Push pressure to PM: please give more works• Self PR with daily report

• Hard to study after 35• Time run fast from 25-35• Hard to get job after 35

Nor you will become window-side people

Additional reason

Try to logical thinking

• Salary = Value• Nothing is from GOD, all need long process of

saving Integration(Math is not too far from life)

• Believe on yourself and try to get relief from others

• Excel, balance sheet: only +, -, (money is not naturally generated, just transfered from one to other)

Strong spirit to solve issues

• Ignored issue will cause delay, loss … later on

• The day without issue is the day having issue Take easy to receive issue and solve it with strong spirit

• Same in work, issue in private life also often occur and you need to solve with strong spirit

• Methodology : Collect information and build up your own decision making standard

Effective Communication

Horenso

• When issue happens, need to report to your line manager first and if possible, propose your action at same time or later then get their instruction, then you solve

Way of working

• Propose some options and suggest the best based on some detail criterias

• You need work hard until enable to propose

• If you see your boss a little irritate, you need to be sympathized and work harder/quicker

When meeting

• Confirm your understanding is same with intention of speaker

• When talking with supervisor, you should respect them by compact time via focusing on keywords,… or talk faster

Meeting minutes

• Before meeting: needs agenda to focus on important points

• Meeting minutes is not description of meeting progress• Focus only on conclusions, how(if technical) , next

meeting(if having)• Conclusion must be “who do what until when”• Try to write MM within the day• Send mail to related people with correct manner of

TO/CC/BCC• Meeting minutes show the logic thinking of MM writer

and conductor

Reason

• 4 people with salary 5K US$/month meeting in 1.5hours, so the meeting value’s is

5000 US$ /168 hours * 1.5 hours* 4 people =178.6US$• If not recording, không ghi thì – Task is not implemented– Loss value– Loss time to brainstorm, cause stress, – Supervisor cannot follow

• Meeting minutes increase company value

Mail

• Top managers make decision: need information soonest and standard judge

• Collect information: Top managers can reads mails among end teams quick decision more works more value

• Mail subjects to attract and positioning “[company name][division][project][important] …abc”• Write conclusion numbers want to discuss first• Write conclusion first and explanation later

Understand a company

Running IT venture

• 15% for marketing, 300M$ for each year in case of DeNA, Gree, Line…

• Need enough money for 3 years if ventures• Need at least 40,000 new users for each month for

any SNS portal• Need focus on 1 field• Try and error until AHA moment of grow hack• Recruit 1.2-1.5 times than needed staffs due to high

human resource liquidity and high cost of OT /outsourcing and of course often underestimation

Managers who must know detail

• Can give decision and solve problem quickly• Study/Work hard to understand technical,

business logic, marketing, Business intelligent

No VIP but still smooth run• Ready for worst case: top managers resign any time– Password is secured in envelop

• Top managers’ duty: prepare successor

• Network system need high availability for down time zero

• All big companies has Business Continuity Plan by building back-up site

• 2 children …

Daily report

• A staff: Task 1: from 20% to 30% : 4h: delay• A staff: Task 2: from 0% to 100% : 4h: on-schedule• Action: xxx

So for 100% of task 1, A staff need 40 hours, 1 weekTeam leader need to check and adjust if A staff

work on performance or not.If not, criticize him/her immediately and ask

him/her to take action until delay is recovered

Level up SENSE• Project manager estimate correctly• Team leader correctly estimate, solve problems • Testers know difficult cases and where need to

focus• Business Analyst write detail to decrease Q&A• Marketing needs to know effective channel• …

These sense can be built only via daily hard work

4E + 1C +1Q

• Envision• Enable• Energize: not only incentive, need includes

empower• Besides, try to criticize once a week in private

or public• Question to make them thinking as your way

RUNNING PROJECT

Mindset

• In project, team should work hard and even tough together. That is better than getting claims from Customer and explain to supervisor

• Only 0 or 1; 0.99 will still be seen as 0• Award to winner is always double of runner

up, although the gap is 1-2 milisecond

Project management

• Task in schedule must be as detail as possible, even mailing, meeting,… all take times and belong project timeline

• Especially, purchasing of IT hardware is take 2-3 months

• High cost of OT fee and outsource in case of delay.• Check delay daily and try to action when being delay

nor PM has to work hard to re-schedule• team leader must re-arrange with others team to

take responsibility for delay.

Service design: code/test

• Focus on smoothness of functions– Sign up– Sign in– Sending mail– Sign out– Payment– Communication among modules, systems– Logs– And other functions

SRS, non-requirements

• Make clear definition of – Functionality– OS– Browser– Response– Stress– Security– …As detail as possible (Almost companies do not have detail design)

-Message is guide to action, not only display errorhaving message design from beginning

Design

• Nowadays, graphical design become more important after Apple’s rise, after of satisfaction to Microsoft’s functionality

• Not only end-user, back office staffs also need design to work all-day

Solve problem

• Make work flow and data flow• Check value at each node• Determine the fault area• Check value on setting, especially

environment parameters • Write logs• Check setting

Release

• Write to-do list and checklist• Focus on testing as service design’s main point

OPERATION

Interview• Background• Reason of leaving previous jobs• Logic thinking• Experience on big system• Understand of business logic• Biggest success/failure and his/her

contribution/responsibility• Less previous company• Spirit to solve problems• Review tasks if leader

Probation

• Need to fire some in probation• Give some bonus if good performance

Weekly PDCA

• What is done and what to do next• Try to keep weekly

Task Audit

X: change by PIC nameGrey out if done

Join activities as many as possible

• Lunch, tea-break• Sports: soccer, badminton, Ping-Pong• Entertainment: billiards, travel• Teambuilding

• Weekly free talk• All communication is in English• Meeting at morning for new inspiration

Sometimes need to remember feeling at DAY 1

THANK YOU

nguyenhaiminh@gmail.com