It has been a while since I posted a blog entry directly to blogger.com (though I hope that some people are enjoying my weekly roundup of interesting findings via diigo.com).
I finally have the beginnings of a plan for a bunch of entries that will hopefully say something interesting about the connections between systems thinking, design thinking, agile methods and business modeling.
I suspect that it is going to take quite a while for me to formulate this out (think years rather than months), but I just watched a talk by Tim Harford (known from the "undercover economist" books and newspaper columns) at TED Global 2011, that I think is a good way to kick things off, since it made a lot of sense to me and brings together the iterative and exploratory methods of both agile and design thinking for innovation with a degree of structure:
The basic premise is a simple one; the world is too complex for us to be able to find solutions to issues by thought and analysis alone, we need to accept that we do not understand everything and, more importantly, accept that trial and error is a valid way to find solutions. As Harford says, this is obvious, but not accepted (check out some of my earlier posts on common sense solutions not necessarily being applied).
Having accepted this premise, the key thing in my eyes is to work out how to become great (and efficient) at trial and error - that is, learning incrementally from what we do and the agile, design thinking worlds have a lot to offer on that front, be it sprints, retrospectives, exploratory design, customer centric learning. Add to this the rigour of systems thinking approaches to build better understanding of complexity to building or support decision-making frameworks and you have a winning combination.
More to follow.
Here is the video:
Showing posts with label management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label management. Show all posts
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Sunday, 9 January 2011
And so the year begins..
Sitting in Heathrow Terminal 5, waiting with a growing sense of gloom as the Departures board stubbonly refuses to post the gate to Duesseldorf, I think that I need something to take my mind off the delay to my flight that is inevitably coming; some New Year resolutions.
Some may recall, that last year I resolved only to improve the quality of meetings that I organised. Though it is for others to judge, I feel that I have been reasonably rigorous in applying the common sense rules, that we all know, but fail to apply to make sure that meetings are not a waste of time:
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Some may recall, that last year I resolved only to improve the quality of meetings that I organised. Though it is for others to judge, I feel that I have been reasonably rigorous in applying the common sense rules, that we all know, but fail to apply to make sure that meetings are not a waste of time:
- No meeting without an agenda in advance (and that means with owners, objectives and timings - see entries on the Manager-Tools effective meeting protocoll, EMP for short - see here for previous posting on this).
- Prepare for meetings, thinking about what it is you actually want to achieve.
- Start and finish on time (and postpone/rearrange if necessary)... OK, this is one that I have not been entirely successful with for other peoples' meetings, but my own I have pretty much kept in plan.
- Meetings without agreed actions are just nice chats - "who does what by when?"
- Follow up on actions consistently ("duh, of course", as my younger brother would say, but if we are honest, it is this point that is almost always lacking).
- Apply the principles to all meetings I attend rather than just my own - I think this is going to be really tough, but hopefully worth the effort.
- Use the time available to me for work effectively - As with the EMP, it is a "no-brainer" to wish this, but how many truly prioritise work items appropriately consistently (I consider myself to be pretty good at this, but I certainly cannot say that I *always* apply rules a la Drucker's "The Effective Executive" - see also previous postings from me on this) and perhaps even more critically in the consulting industry, how many properly plan enough time for the different types of activity (and in particular thinking time)? A smart colleague picked me up on this last week - when do you do your thinking, he asked. My immediate response was, "19:00-20:00 and after 22:00". Though accurate, I do believe that a better response would involve some working hours and this leads to point 3.
- Sleep more ... see the recent TED posting on this topic.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Twinstan's interesting links roundup on Diigo (weekly)
-
the perfect tool is not yet there,but this shows a good selection of free web drawing tools
-
Before You Think Outside the Box, Think Inside of It
Refreshingly obvious!
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Thursday, 17 June 2010
Communicating strategy - a book review
I've been having an unlucky streak with my reading recently (see here and here). So, I am pleased to say that the latest read, "Communicating Strategy", by Phil Jones, was pretty good, though not great.
As with my previous reviews, I am bound to state upfront that I had high expectations of this book. I really enjoyed parts of it; Phil Jones clearly has a huge amount of experience as a coach and performance consultant and the book contains many interesting examples of how to approach strategy development and communication. The style is easy and I liked the fact that he did not provide a simple checklist reminding us to think about the audience, build a compelling story, consider the mode of communication etc. (see here for a posting on my aversion to checklists!), but rather opted for a more rhetorical approach (putting out questions without direct answers at the end of each section to make you think).
I particularly liked the second chapter, which describes "Ten Heresies" in his own thinking towards communicating strategy. That "people are not stupid", that you can "trust people" and that "you can over communicate" are certainly positions that I entirely agree with.
But what I liked most about the book was the constant reminders it contained to think consciously about what and how you communicate to whom.
It is easy to get into a rut in communications - everyone has a style they are most comfortable with and tend to use it irrespective of audience and need (I personally find it very helpful simply to try different communications techniques/modes just to force myself to think consciously about what it is I want to communicate from as many different stakeholders' perspectives - even if you end up shifting back to your comfort zone - as I personally undoubtedly often do - the act of considering things from multiple angles typically gives you insights that improve your thinking).
This is a good book with a lot of simple advice. Beware though that it also contains considerable references to NLP techniques - certainly interesting but not everyone's cup of tea.
As with my previous reviews, I am bound to state upfront that I had high expectations of this book. I really enjoyed parts of it; Phil Jones clearly has a huge amount of experience as a coach and performance consultant and the book contains many interesting examples of how to approach strategy development and communication. The style is easy and I liked the fact that he did not provide a simple checklist reminding us to think about the audience, build a compelling story, consider the mode of communication etc. (see here for a posting on my aversion to checklists!), but rather opted for a more rhetorical approach (putting out questions without direct answers at the end of each section to make you think).
I particularly liked the second chapter, which describes "Ten Heresies" in his own thinking towards communicating strategy. That "people are not stupid", that you can "trust people" and that "you can over communicate" are certainly positions that I entirely agree with.
But what I liked most about the book was the constant reminders it contained to think consciously about what and how you communicate to whom.
It is easy to get into a rut in communications - everyone has a style they are most comfortable with and tend to use it irrespective of audience and need (I personally find it very helpful simply to try different communications techniques/modes just to force myself to think consciously about what it is I want to communicate from as many different stakeholders' perspectives - even if you end up shifting back to your comfort zone - as I personally undoubtedly often do - the act of considering things from multiple angles typically gives you insights that improve your thinking).
This is a good book with a lot of simple advice. Beware though that it also contains considerable references to NLP techniques - certainly interesting but not everyone's cup of tea.
Monday, 24 May 2010
Blue ocean strategy in 8 slides
Another short posting today.
When I first read "Blue Ocean Strategy" a few years back, I was not so impressed - it was a good synthesis of thinking that had preceded it, but I failed to see what is new...
Several years on, I haven't really changed my mind about the content - it isn't new - but I guess I have gained an appreciation for what a professor during my undergraduate days used to call "masterful synthesis" ("there are no new ideas, just new configurations of old ideas", paraphrasing Audre Lorde) and I suspect I am a good deal more open to the fact that even small changes and innovations in business can be truly difficult to achieve.
BlueOceanStrategy.com is a really nice website that covers the core tools and techniques from the book; the strategy canvas,the "four actions" framework and others. If you haven't read the book, go here first!
And even "better", there is an 8-page summary deck. Now all that I have to do is work out where the blue ocean is in the IT consulting space.. which turns out to actually be quite difficult even with the nice tools.
Darn!
When I first read "Blue Ocean Strategy" a few years back, I was not so impressed - it was a good synthesis of thinking that had preceded it, but I failed to see what is new...
Several years on, I haven't really changed my mind about the content - it isn't new - but I guess I have gained an appreciation for what a professor during my undergraduate days used to call "masterful synthesis" ("there are no new ideas, just new configurations of old ideas", paraphrasing Audre Lorde) and I suspect I am a good deal more open to the fact that even small changes and innovations in business can be truly difficult to achieve.
BlueOceanStrategy.com is a really nice website that covers the core tools and techniques from the book; the strategy canvas,the "four actions" framework and others. If you haven't read the book, go here first!
And even "better", there is an 8-page summary deck. Now all that I have to do is work out where the blue ocean is in the IT consulting space.. which turns out to actually be quite difficult even with the nice tools.
Darn!
Thursday, 6 May 2010
Why checklists aren't all bad!
Just a short entry today...
Let me start with a bold statement; I hate checklists - people begin to rely on them and then stop thinking outside the lists....
However, at latest since Atul Gawande's "Checklist Manifesto" the checklist is back in.
I have been reminded over the last weeks of how useful a few simple checks are when you are in a hurry. More than this, checklists can be used to enforce standard behaviours - perhaps not the most up-to-date and empowered management thinking, but effective.
The key is to keep them lightweight, keep them simple and keep questioning them - they are the armbands for swimming and do not replace kicking your feet!
A useful link to finish: a checklist for checklists.
Let me start with a bold statement; I hate checklists - people begin to rely on them and then stop thinking outside the lists....
However, at latest since Atul Gawande's "Checklist Manifesto" the checklist is back in.
I have been reminded over the last weeks of how useful a few simple checks are when you are in a hurry. More than this, checklists can be used to enforce standard behaviours - perhaps not the most up-to-date and empowered management thinking, but effective.
The key is to keep them lightweight, keep them simple and keep questioning them - they are the armbands for swimming and do not replace kicking your feet!
A useful link to finish: a checklist for checklists.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
"The" 3-Ps of entrepreneurship
I finally caught up with a few of my podcast subscriptions this weekend. One that got me thinking was from the University of Stanford - the "Entrepreneurship thought leadership" lecture series. I have been following it for several weeks; each lecture is with another entrepreneur and, it being Stanford, they have had an impressive collection of names, but the last week's with Steve Case (ex-CEO of AOL) was particularly interesting.
He spent most of his time talking about his "glory years" (though of course he did not formulate it quite like this) and came across as an authentic and reflective guy, but I particularly liked the structure of his overall talk - his 3-Ps for entrepreneurship: People, Passion and Perseverance.
Working for a fairly large organisation, I was pleased that he tipped his hat to the entrepreneurial spirit that can be achieved in the best big companies and reducing it to passion and persevance with the right people is a nice simple formula.
Listen in if you get a chance.
The title of this entry is "The" 3-Ps (with the "The" in inverted commas) because a short search of the web reveals that there appear to be dozens of 3-Ps (of success, sales, business etc. - most often they seem to be People, Process, Product...)
Case's flavour seems more immediate and actionable than most, and it also mirrors my own thinking on hard work, coaching and enthusiasm in the workplace. Perhaps this makes me biased but I am going to stick with Case on this ;-).
He spent most of his time talking about his "glory years" (though of course he did not formulate it quite like this) and came across as an authentic and reflective guy, but I particularly liked the structure of his overall talk - his 3-Ps for entrepreneurship: People, Passion and Perseverance.
Working for a fairly large organisation, I was pleased that he tipped his hat to the entrepreneurial spirit that can be achieved in the best big companies and reducing it to passion and persevance with the right people is a nice simple formula.
Listen in if you get a chance.
The title of this entry is "The" 3-Ps (with the "The" in inverted commas) because a short search of the web reveals that there appear to be dozens of 3-Ps (of success, sales, business etc. - most often they seem to be People, Process, Product...)
Case's flavour seems more immediate and actionable than most, and it also mirrors my own thinking on hard work, coaching and enthusiasm in the workplace. Perhaps this makes me biased but I am going to stick with Case on this ;-).
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
Tribes & leading vs managing
Over Christmas I finally got around to using up a couple of Amazon vouchers that I have had for a while... OK, it was well over €500, which means that I have got enough in the way of business reading material to keep me going for most of the year (I try to balance my reading by cycling through 1x professional book, 1x non-fiction, non-business, 1x fiction and back to 1x professional book etc., but now have far too many in the professional category to make this work this year!). As such, you should expect to see a few reviews, or at the very least references to books worth checking out.
The first two books on my backlog this year were "Tribes" (by Seth Godin) and "Building great customer experiences" (by Colin Shaw & John Ivens) and I have to admit I was slightly disappointed with both:
Having seen a few talks by Seth Godin, following his (unbelievably popular) blog and enjoyed "Permission Marketing" immensely, I was really looking forward to Tribes. The underlying premise (that in the "new world" organisations need leaders of "tribes" of interest to innovate, make changes happen and to create new value and that these leaders are not the managers of old, but rather thought leaders) is potent and attractive - especially for someone working in a professional services organisation that lives from subject matter expertise alongside management competence ;-), but the book failed to deliver any "meat" to back this up.
That said, the book is a quick and easy read. Its appeal to individuals to be passionate about things that they believe in - and to channel this passion into a community to effect change - resonates.
"Building great customer experiences" has the same informal journalistic style as "Tribes", and lays out a set of "philosophies" for delivering customer experiences across channels. To be fair, the book is several years old and may at the time have been innovative, but today it seems to reflect the received wisdom - the power and importance of emotions in customer experience, designing processes "outside in" (rather than "inside out") etc.
The authors are clearly very experienced (and the case-studies within the book are certainly interesting and varied), but the frameworks that they provide are rather generic.
Nevertheless, there were definitely a couple of points that they really hammered home -
The first two books on my backlog this year were "Tribes" (by Seth Godin) and "Building great customer experiences" (by Colin Shaw & John Ivens) and I have to admit I was slightly disappointed with both:
Having seen a few talks by Seth Godin, following his (unbelievably popular) blog and enjoyed "Permission Marketing" immensely, I was really looking forward to Tribes. The underlying premise (that in the "new world" organisations need leaders of "tribes" of interest to innovate, make changes happen and to create new value and that these leaders are not the managers of old, but rather thought leaders) is potent and attractive - especially for someone working in a professional services organisation that lives from subject matter expertise alongside management competence ;-), but the book failed to deliver any "meat" to back this up.
That said, the book is a quick and easy read. Its appeal to individuals to be passionate about things that they believe in - and to channel this passion into a community to effect change - resonates.
"Building great customer experiences" has the same informal journalistic style as "Tribes", and lays out a set of "philosophies" for delivering customer experiences across channels. To be fair, the book is several years old and may at the time have been innovative, but today it seems to reflect the received wisdom - the power and importance of emotions in customer experience, designing processes "outside in" (rather than "inside out") etc.
The authors are clearly very experienced (and the case-studies within the book are certainly interesting and varied), but the frameworks that they provide are rather generic.
Nevertheless, there were definitely a couple of points that they really hammered home -
- that brand and customer experience must be aligned to be effective and
- only by seeing customer experience as a central part of one's overall strategy (complete with a gimmicky, but helpful "customer experience statement" a pinnacle of a "customer experience pyramid" (TM), will it be possible to truly deliver a customer-centric service
Thursday, 21 January 2010
What about an effective meeting?
Like so many others, I made some resolutions at New Year and will probably only manage to keep to them until the middle of February, but one of them was - how predictable - to rejoin the gym. In fact it was not just to rejoin the gym, but to actually go to it several times a week too and therein lies the challenge!
To keep my motivation, I am combining the gym attendance with working down my backlog of podcasts (I have about 100 hours of "stuff" that I want to get through). This evening one cast really stuck in my head - "Timely meetings" from the manager-tools team.
Admittedly, I have written about manager-tools' "Effective Meeting Protocol" before (see here for links and a brief overview), but I think it is worth reiterating (at least for myself if not for others!). In this latest cast they focus on the timeliness element of effective meetings - starting on time, having the agenda out in advance (and with time allocations for each discussion item).
18 months ago, when I first wrote about this, I was humble enough to admit that I am not the best at this (humble not necessarily being a trait that I am really known for, I think it worth mentioning). Today, I find I have to admit that I have got worse. It is frustrating to recognise how easy it is to slip on very simple things when under time pressure and when it is seen as nothing unusual.
So it is time to "get back to basics" and that is, in fact, my small business related resolution for the year; be on time to meetings, no meeting without an agenda, define goals upfront, seek to have actionable results leaving the meeting.
I remember well one of my first managers when I started in the consulting industry; a charming man, but ruthless in the workplace and the lesson I learned from him (though I admit, I find myself getting sloppier over time) was that simply keeping meetings running on time has an enormous effect on increasing focus and raising the sense of urgency within a project.
For that I thank him, (though we never did see eye-to-eye on my belief that it is possible to achieve the same effectiveness in meetings with a "light touch" (i.e. without forcing the formality of a meeting structure artificially and cutting off fruitful discussion - do "timeout" and "take that offline" sound familiar?).
Good luck to us all on improving our effectiveness with simple small steps this year!
To keep my motivation, I am combining the gym attendance with working down my backlog of podcasts (I have about 100 hours of "stuff" that I want to get through). This evening one cast really stuck in my head - "Timely meetings" from the manager-tools team.
Admittedly, I have written about manager-tools' "Effective Meeting Protocol" before (see here for links and a brief overview), but I think it is worth reiterating (at least for myself if not for others!). In this latest cast they focus on the timeliness element of effective meetings - starting on time, having the agenda out in advance (and with time allocations for each discussion item).
18 months ago, when I first wrote about this, I was humble enough to admit that I am not the best at this (humble not necessarily being a trait that I am really known for, I think it worth mentioning). Today, I find I have to admit that I have got worse. It is frustrating to recognise how easy it is to slip on very simple things when under time pressure and when it is seen as nothing unusual.
So it is time to "get back to basics" and that is, in fact, my small business related resolution for the year; be on time to meetings, no meeting without an agenda, define goals upfront, seek to have actionable results leaving the meeting.
I remember well one of my first managers when I started in the consulting industry; a charming man, but ruthless in the workplace and the lesson I learned from him (though I admit, I find myself getting sloppier over time) was that simply keeping meetings running on time has an enormous effect on increasing focus and raising the sense of urgency within a project.
For that I thank him, (though we never did see eye-to-eye on my belief that it is possible to achieve the same effectiveness in meetings with a "light touch" (i.e. without forcing the formality of a meeting structure artificially and cutting off fruitful discussion - do "timeout" and "take that offline" sound familiar?).
Good luck to us all on improving our effectiveness with simple small steps this year!
Sunday, 19 October 2008
Manager-Tools podcast
Following on from last week's post on @Google videocasts at YouTube as a source of training materials (with a bit of inspiration thrown in for free), here is another installment on free online progessional learning resources; www.manager-tools.com.
Manager tools is a weekly podcast, accompanied with handouts and additional resources to practice.
Now, in the same way that I don't like the title "The effective executive" (see post), I don't like the name "manager-tools". Many of the podcasts provided at this site (and there are several hundred!) are of value to anybody working in a professional environment and the name detracts from this and puts many people off.
What I like about manager-tools is that it is conversational in tone (the two co-presenters are always very well prepared, but do the podcasts in a 1-2-1 informal kind of manner) and this makes it easy to take in.
And what I really like about manager-tools is that they focus on providing actionable behaviour-driven advice. They try to answer the how as well as the what (and to a lesser extent the why) of being effective.
Over the last year or so the number of really interesting podcasts from manager-tools has significantly decreased, but this does not detract from the core casts that they produced. In particular I would recommend the following sets (easily found at www.manager-tools.com):
Manager tools is a weekly podcast, accompanied with handouts and additional resources to practice.
Now, in the same way that I don't like the title "The effective executive" (see post), I don't like the name "manager-tools". Many of the podcasts provided at this site (and there are several hundred!) are of value to anybody working in a professional environment and the name detracts from this and puts many people off.
What I like about manager-tools is that it is conversational in tone (the two co-presenters are always very well prepared, but do the podcasts in a 1-2-1 informal kind of manner) and this makes it easy to take in.
And what I really like about manager-tools is that they focus on providing actionable behaviour-driven advice. They try to answer the how as well as the what (and to a lesser extent the why) of being effective.
Over the last year or so the number of really interesting podcasts from manager-tools has significantly decreased, but this does not detract from the core casts that they produced. In particular I would recommend the following sets (easily found at www.manager-tools.com):
- The original series on "The effective meeting protocol (EMP)" - nothing you haven't heard before, but nicely packaged and let's face it, practically every meeting we attend is ineffective in some way (and I say that in the knowledge that I am as poor as the next person on this front).
- The introductory set on "The management trinity" - their basic framework (1-2-1s, feedback, coaching and delegation), this resonates with me and fits in very well with my own organisation's approach to performance management.
- The DISC series - five podcasts focusing on the use of behavioural stereotyping to improve personal communications.
Monday, 15 September 2008
Peter Drucker & Agile
I just spent a delightful weekend in Scotland. Having travelled via Heathrow, I was, of course, delayed by several hours. This gave me a chance to revisit one of my favourite books of all time - "The Effective Executive" by Peter Drucker.
I have to admit, I don't like the title - most people are put off, thinking that it is only a book for wannabe CEOs when in reality it is about how to work effectively at all levels (Drucker himself defines the executive as pretty much every knowledge worker). But that is the only criticism I have of this book.
What is his key advice?
I have to admit, I don't like the title - most people are put off, thinking that it is only a book for wannabe CEOs when in reality it is about how to work effectively at all levels (Drucker himself defines the executive as pretty much every knowledge worker). But that is the only criticism I have of this book.
What is his key advice?
- Focus on one (maximum two) things at a time.
- Prioritise the item you are working on based on the impact it will have on the company (i.e. business value).
- Know what you spend your time on and manage your time agressively.
- Focus on opportunities and on the impact that you can and others make to the organisation.
The book was first published in 1967 and reads in many ways like an agile approach; it is refreshing to reflect on the fact that all of this agile stuff really is just a continuation of management practices that have been recommended for years. It is simply the IT discipline that is finally maturing and catching up with other disciplines.
If you haven't read it already, then go out and buy it - it is a book you can read in a few hours. There probably won't be any real new ideas if you have read anything about effectiveness (or indeed agile and/or lean management), but Drucker puts it together really well (there is a reason why he is the grandfather of modern management!).
Monday, 8 September 2008
The Andon line and agile
I read an interesting article this evening on the use of the lean practice of Andon systems and their applicability to agile projects - Andon is a manufacturing term refering to notification systems (at least that is what wiki says!). When a factory worker identifies an issue that will cause a problem meeting quality demands, or similar, down the line, he pulls a cord and a problem solver literally runs to him to resolve the issue. In many ways, the agile practice of impediments resolution through the daily scrum and the scrum-master role is quite similar.
Once again, the parallels between general lean-management thinking and the software development world are striking. Slowly people are beginning to understand that software development may be special in some ways (more to follow on that topic!), but that standards and practices developed for other environment really can be applied to improve results! It is about time!
The (short) article can be found at: http://pm411.org/2008/09/06/how-to-avoid-stopping-the-line-on-deliverables/
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