Hi this is Oscar, and I am writing essay for AAS application. For background information, I will apply for MBA course to shift career into managerial position in technology startup. I plan to develop micro sectors using digital technology. Can anyone please kindly help me on my essay, and thank you very much in advance.
(Be specific and include: what aspect/s of your leadership knowledge, skills and practice you consider to be well established and effective; which people or organizations you worked with to solve the problem; and what creative methods were used.)*:
In 2014, when I was still working for PT Astra Otoparts, my manager and I realized that the research center was in disorganization, partly owing to its documentation system. There were total of six independent departments in the building, each with their own way of reporting studies, and this had been resulting in barrier for communication and collaboration between them. Apparently, a small team of seniors had been appointed once before to resolve the issue with integrated reporting system, but the reformation was unsuccessful.
My new team had representatives from each department, and the first and most difficult task was aligning the needs of them. I built a closed, one-to-one communication with the team members and trying to group their requirements based on level of importance. Empathy was key, and negotiation as well to rule out less important prerequisites. I was quite new to leading, so this process alone took weeks, but paid off with more commitments towards the goal as the needs were aligned and satisfied. We finally decided on 14 master documents in the system to cover all reporting needs of every department, down from about 46 before the integration (many were overlapping).
In the implementation, I introduced partial locking to master documents to prevent unnecessary modifications by users, and kept it consistent. I appointed the teams not only to oversee the adoption process in their own department, but also accommodate identified concerns and suggestions for improvement. For regular monitoring, weekly team meetings were held in the first month of the implementation, and later reduced to monthly basis as users had become more familiar with the system and there were less issues. This documentation system was still in use until major organization restructuring in 2019, five years later, not long after I left the company for good.
How have you contributed to solving a challenge and to implementing change or reform?
(Be specific and include: what aspect/s of your leadership knowledge, skills and practice you consider to be well established and effective; which people or organizations you worked with to solve the problem; and what creative methods were used.)*:
In 2014, when I was still working for PT Astra Otoparts, my manager and I realized that the research center was in disorganization, partly owing to its documentation system. There were total of six independent departments in the building, each with their own way of reporting studies, and this had been resulting in barrier for communication and collaboration between them. Apparently, a small team of seniors had been appointed once before to resolve the issue with integrated reporting system, but the reformation was unsuccessful.
My new team had representatives from each department, and the first and most difficult task was aligning the needs of them. I built a closed, one-to-one communication with the team members and trying to group their requirements based on level of importance. Empathy was key, and negotiation as well to rule out less important prerequisites. I was quite new to leading, so this process alone took weeks, but paid off with more commitments towards the goal as the needs were aligned and satisfied. We finally decided on 14 master documents in the system to cover all reporting needs of every department, down from about 46 before the integration (many were overlapping).
In the implementation, I introduced partial locking to master documents to prevent unnecessary modifications by users, and kept it consistent. I appointed the teams not only to oversee the adoption process in their own department, but also accommodate identified concerns and suggestions for improvement. For regular monitoring, weekly team meetings were held in the first month of the implementation, and later reduced to monthly basis as users had become more familiar with the system and there were less issues. This documentation system was still in use until major organization restructuring in 2019, five years later, not long after I left the company for good.
