Distilling information for impact
This skill goes hand-in-hand with budget but it is also an excellent standalone skill. Operations deals with complex implementation of technology. To the non-technical person, the architectural diagram on the whiteboard looks like a Rube Goldberg machine.
The further up the management chain, the more distilled information should get. Senior leaders do not usually need or want deep technical detail. When presenting a complex solution, it is fine to have one diagram that is completely unintelligible to them as long as it is only used to to demonstrate that operations did more than throw a blade in a rack and spin it up to achieve the solution. The most important part of the presentation is the part where operations answers the questions in the heads of senior leaders even before they ask them.
What are their questions?
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What are we trying to accomplish?
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What do we do today and how is this better?
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How do we know this is the best solution?
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Do we have the right people to make it happen?
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How much will it cost?
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How long will it take?
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What is the benefit if we do it?
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What is the risk if we don’t do it?
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How do we know if it worked?
Exercise
Take an idea you have and use the questions above to try to build a case for senior management to fund this idea.
Specific Examples
Below are some specific examples to demonstrate the importance of soft skills in operations. In each example, soft skills closed the deal because they enabled the operations person to see the situation from other perspectives and communicate the needs of operations in terms of the organization as a whole.
Selling system changes and new proposals Negotiating Budgetary Constraints & Need vs Want Requirements