August 2009 Newsletter

August 2009 Connections Online Newsletter

Connections Online 4.0 Migration Webinar I

This 30-minute training webinar highlights the new functionality of Connections Online 4.0.  To listen to a recording of this session,  Click here

Connections Online 4.0 Migration Webinar II

Wednesday August 26^th
at 1:30 EST

This 60-minute training webinar dives deeper into an overall “how to use” Connections Online 4.0.  Click here to register…

Jim Cardwell’s Educational Webinar

Thursday, August 27th
at 1:30 EST

In this 30-minute discussion Chris Cardwell will share his presentation from the Users Roundtable on “High Impact Rewards”.

Click here to register…

Past Educational Webinar Recordings

Click here

Training Library

Click here to link to our Training Library

Jim Cardwell’s July Educational Webinar –

Supercharging Your Performance Connection

In our July 2009 webinar focusing on supercharging your credit union, we discussed further how Connections Online’s innovative and efficient processes are ideal for building a high performance organization – even during times of a recession.

Using each of the elements of the Connections process (the Organization, Department, Project and People Connection) does improve organizational focus, teamwork, communication, and productivity. The purpose of our session was to share some thoughts (and some lessons learned) about tightening the performance connection.

Some of the webinar’s highlights included:

Connections provides a way to build a great organization

·   The Organization Connection clarifies the concept of the business.  If everyone ‘gets’ what you are trying to do, they will help you.

·   The Dialogs build a culture of discipline and provide a forum for confronting the brutal facts.

·   The Individual Connection clarifies and reinforces Role Expectations and Personal Accountabilities – which helps to get the right people in the right seats.

·   Connections provided a way to practice Level 5 Leadership – Especially the setting of performance standards the drive and determination to “achieve” them. And the fortitude to not settle for anything less.

Today’s environment has been challenging

·   A silver lining of this recession has been the opportunity to stop and reflect. One question CEOs and their teams are asking is:  How can we increase our horsepower during this challenging time?

Where is the biggest opportunity to improve your organization’s horsepower? 

The answer is to strongly focus on your BHAG.

Improve the BHAG impact of projects by:

·   Focusing on first things first – move beyond legacy or pet projects; go after high-impact projects now

·   Thinking through the Business Case behind each of your projects to ensure you are truly building value

·   Stopping old bad habits

Add horsepower to your BHAG’s critical measurements by:

·   Ensuring everyone understands the Core Drivers behind each metric

·   Building stronger feedback loops by adding Monthly Projections for each number

·   Finding an improvement theme – and then amplifying it through Multi-Dialog Reinforcement

·   Providing Education on each metric so everyone actively participates in the dialog

To improve the BHAG impact of the Department Connections, align and clarify the Department Scorecards:

·   Create organizational pride by clearly showing how Department Scorecards roll up to Corporate performance

·   Ensure Department Scorecards include both Leading and Lagging Indicators

·   Make sure you have established Department Metric Owners Clear

·   Manage Communications to celebrate “wins” and solicit help in “problem-solving”

To improve performance on the Individual Connection:

·   Add Individually-Based Year-End Goals

·   Reinforce Metric Ownership on Individual Scorecard

There is a lot more!  For further details on Supercharging Your Performance Connection, Click here to see the webinar in its entirety.

August Educational Webinar

This month’s Educational Webinar will be on Thursday, August 27^th at 1:30 p.m., so please mark your calendar.  Chris Cardwell will share his presentation from the Users Roundtable on “High Impact Rewards”.  Chris has some interesting and timely information on current trends in executive compensation.  He will also outline how Connections fits into the design and implementation of an incentive framework. Click here to register.

Client Care Notes

To view previous Connections Online Newsletters, Click here for the link to all of our past newsletters.

4.0 Tip of the Month

The Resource Utilization Report in the Organization and Department Tabs can be exported into an Excel file to allow for additional data sorting.  Go to this link http://www.connectionsonline.net/docs/ResourceUtilizationRep ort.doc  for specific instructions regarding the export.

Informational Webinar

If you know someone outside of your company who may be interested in learning more about Connections Online, we have an informational webinar scheduled on Tuesday, August 25^th at 1:30 EST.  Please pass this link on to them:  https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/857253506  to register.

Presentations

CUNA Technology Council Conference, Are Mergers Something to be Feared?, August 7^th – Jim Cardwell presented on how to create a culture that will significantly improve the credit union’s outcome for a successful merger.

CUES Execu/Net 2009, Strategy Execution for Long Term Strength, August 25^th, Jim will be speaking to help organizations maximize their strategy execution results.

The Software Business 2009 Conference, September 29-30^th, Karla Norwood will present on migrating customers to a SaaS version of software.

Article

“How to Manage Change Inside Your Credit Union in Today’s Environment” by Jim Cardwell.  With all the changes occurring within the economy and adversely affecting CUs, change inside your credit union is inevitable.  See entire article in Credit Union Journal,
July 20, 2009 issue, page 8.

Connections Online Migration

In January 2009, we announced the migration from Connections Online 3.2 to 4.0. Since that announcement, we have completed a number of upgrades and are scheduling more.  In fact, between new users and migrations, the number of users has doubled in the past five months.  Our clients are very happy with the new features and functionality.

If you have not already done so, and are ready to migrate to 4.0, please contact Karla Norwood at 800.395.1410.  For more information regarding what has changed with 4.0, you are welcome to join one of our Connections Online 4.0 Migration webinars. (See Monthly Calendar of Webinar Events link below.)

Monthly Calendar of Webinar Events Link:

http://www.connectionsonline.net/ShowNews.aspx?id=245 

Connections Online
24481 Detroit Road, Suite 300
Cleveland, OH 44145

(440) 892-1410 or (800) 395-1410

www.connectionsonline.net