- An IT professional: I have ideas, but management is not giving any budget to secure the IT infrastructure.
- An Internal Auditors: I want to experiment with data analytics, but management is not giving nay budget to procure data analytics tool.
- Management: I want to standardize my process documents, however there are more important priorities where I need to allocate budget.
The unstated truth in all these situations is there are more needs but less resources.
A small amount of creativity can help you overcome resource scarcity.
One of the best resources which is available to all are students. A bit of planning, a bit of preparation, a bit of vulnerability can help an organization to do more with less.
Case study 1: An IT professional: I have ideas, but management is not giving any budget to secure the IT infrastructure.
This person was working in an education institute. A solution had been co-developed.
- A system will be cloned with main server. This server will be isolated.
- A contest will be run for a week whereby kids are encouraged to break into the system.
- Parameter of successful break in will be decided.
- After the week, there will be evaluation of students.
- Students need to submit their report outlining what they have discovered.
- Students will be evaluated by their teacher. (an outside agency, dealing in security, can also be brought in to develop the strategy. This activity may get covered as their contribution towards social responsibility).
- Based on the outcome of the contest, student will be awarded certificate, prizes.
- This will give important intelligence to IT manager to patch the system and build a case.
Students: Gets a chance to discover and try out their potential. It will also help them in securing a better job offer in future. Students are full of energy. This energy need to be harnessed towards constructive purposes.
Teacher: They are able to create a live environment where student can practice what has been taught in class and what they might have learnt elsewhere.
IT manager: Students would have any way tried to hack in the system. Here their energy had been moved towards positive outcomes. Instead of breaking the system, they are helping in securing the system. A service which could have cost a good amount of money in consulting, is getting free.
School: They are developing students to be industry ready.
Outside Agency: It will help them in identifying potential talent and help develop the talent and community.
Case Study 2: An Internal Auditors: I want to experiment with data analytics, but management is not giving nay budget to procure data analytics tool.
There are number of tools available which are free to download, there is training video available which teaches how to use the system. Internal Auditor requirements are varied. By harnessing the system, they can do any amount of data analytics. In the absence of this experiments, they need to be dependent upon outside agency to develop reports.
Case Study 3: Management: I want to standardize my process documents, however there are more important priorities where I need to allocate budget.
Management in consultation with HR rolls out a trainee policy. They hire business school students as summer trainee where students needs to do some project related to business. In discussion with department heads, small projects were identified which can be completed in 1-2 months or need some skills which is not present in the organization. The trainees were given the project. Project outcome was monitored and reviewed by department heads.
Management: They are able to get the work done at a small cost. They were also able to identify potential candidate who can be hired in future.
Department: They were able to get work done which needed to be done but skill set were not present in the department.
Students: They were able to practice what they have learnt in the class and able to better appreciate putting theory in practice.
Organization: They were able to build better relationship with community at large.
Industry and institutions have come together to build future ready professionals.
4 Ways to Do more with Less:
- Harness trainee/ student: Hiring trainee for a short period to do your projects. This allow you to tap into latest thinking.
- Use freeware/ trial software: This allow you explore various tools without spending your budget. There are case studies which says that even large organizations have explored the trail version before going for full software. This allow you to build a case.
- Bug Bounties/ Bounty hunting: You can keep contest/ crowd-source solution to your problem. There are organization whose model is to take these challenges and using world to find solution at a fraction of cost.
- Use Technology: Develop templates, use technology to take care of repetitive work, shift controls to transaction originator to capture maximum data. E.g. give templates/ exception report to user department so that they take care of maximum errors.
Call for action:
Inputs/ comments/ suggestion: I welcome inputs/ comments / suggestions from readers on how to approach this issue. Feel free to correct me, educate me.
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(Disclaimer: The views expressed constitute the opinion of the author and the author alone; they do not represent the views and opinions of the author ’s employers, supervisors, nor do they represent the view of organizations, businesses or institutions the author is, or has been a part of.)
