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the perfect tool is not yet there,but this shows a good selection of free web drawing tools
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Before You Think Outside the Box, Think Inside of It
Refreshingly obvious!
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Showing posts with label book reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book reviews. Show all posts
Saturday, 13 November 2010
Twinstan's interesting links roundup on Diigo (weekly)
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Saturday, 25 September 2010
"Thinking in Systems" - my favourite book this year
As some of you may have noticed, my reading this year has largely been around systems thinking (see here and here for earlier book reviews and thoughts on the topic).
This is largely a result of my ignorance regarding this approach to analysis and modeling, combined with a gut feeling that it is a "must-have" capability for a really good business architect or consultant.
Having been disappointed thus far by the competition, Donella H. Meadows' (sadly deceased) introductory book, "Thinking in Systems - a primer" has really impressed me.
Her book starts as a relatively dry introduction into some of the key concepts in systems thinking (she calls it the "systems zoo" - stock and flows, stabilising vs reinforcing feedback loops, response delays), but then moves on to describe some typical system archetypes in the real world (from business to government to the environment and back again) that really show how the thinking can and should be applied.
Even more interestingly, she then moves on to describe typical system traps and then defines her personal list of "leverage points" to address them.
As a consultant, this initially feels like it could be the holy grail of business architecture; it provides a lexicon to think about problems in complex environments, recurring patterns to look for and a process for identifying a solution. But, before you all run out and buy the book, let me bring you back from your euphoria; Meadows is smart enough to drag expectations back down - understanding is just the start, enacting the change necessary to move forward is the next challenge.. and enacting the change without building in more counterproductive issues to boot. On this topic, Meadows has little to say.
This notwithstanding, let me be very clear - this is the best book I have read on systems thinking (please note, there are still a load of books on my list, including the seminal work, "The Fifth Discipline", so this could change ;-). It is short, well structured and keeps you interested throughout.
So impressed was I that I actually ended up reading it twice. Indeed, this is the first book in a long time that I have added to my Amazon must-read list for business analysis and architecture.
As I have already talked about in a previous posting, I am convinced that the combination of systems thinking and visual thinking is a winning recipe for the consulting industry and this book has already gotten me thinking about how that might look in practice (hopefully more to follow on this soon, time permitting!).
Now go and buy it.
This is largely a result of my ignorance regarding this approach to analysis and modeling, combined with a gut feeling that it is a "must-have" capability for a really good business architect or consultant.
Having been disappointed thus far by the competition, Donella H. Meadows' (sadly deceased) introductory book, "Thinking in Systems - a primer" has really impressed me.
Her book starts as a relatively dry introduction into some of the key concepts in systems thinking (she calls it the "systems zoo" - stock and flows, stabilising vs reinforcing feedback loops, response delays), but then moves on to describe some typical system archetypes in the real world (from business to government to the environment and back again) that really show how the thinking can and should be applied.
Even more interestingly, she then moves on to describe typical system traps and then defines her personal list of "leverage points" to address them.
As a consultant, this initially feels like it could be the holy grail of business architecture; it provides a lexicon to think about problems in complex environments, recurring patterns to look for and a process for identifying a solution. But, before you all run out and buy the book, let me bring you back from your euphoria; Meadows is smart enough to drag expectations back down - understanding is just the start, enacting the change necessary to move forward is the next challenge.. and enacting the change without building in more counterproductive issues to boot. On this topic, Meadows has little to say.
This notwithstanding, let me be very clear - this is the best book I have read on systems thinking (please note, there are still a load of books on my list, including the seminal work, "The Fifth Discipline", so this could change ;-). It is short, well structured and keeps you interested throughout.
So impressed was I that I actually ended up reading it twice. Indeed, this is the first book in a long time that I have added to my Amazon must-read list for business analysis and architecture.
As I have already talked about in a previous posting, I am convinced that the combination of systems thinking and visual thinking is a winning recipe for the consulting industry and this book has already gotten me thinking about how that might look in practice (hopefully more to follow on this soon, time permitting!).
Now go and buy it.
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.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Systems thinking - book review
Another short post. As mentioned earlier this year, I am merrily working my way through the enormous backlog of books that I built up over the Christmas holidays.
The latest book was "Systems thinking - managing chaos and complexity: a platform for designing business architecture". Just from the name, I had high expectations. Add to this the author, Jamshid Gharajedaghi, a protege of Russell Ackoff (Mr Systems Thinking) and I was really looking forward to this book.
I was disappointed. Now, the difficult thing is that I am not sure whether to be disappointed with the book, or myself; I did not understand half of the thinking in the book. Every time I thought I had a grip on a concept and how it related to the other parts of the frameworks presented, Gharajedaghi applied it in a way that I could not follow.
I am intuitively drawn to systems thinking (with its emphasis on the whole, on the interdependence of working parts in a system, organisation or problem and the analysis of their relationships with one another) and am sure that this book does provide lots of good material for those that have truly understood the basics, but as a primer, I have been defeated.
Next on the list: "Thinking in systems" - perhaps I will have more luck with this one - post to follow later this year.
The latest book was "Systems thinking - managing chaos and complexity: a platform for designing business architecture". Just from the name, I had high expectations. Add to this the author, Jamshid Gharajedaghi, a protege of Russell Ackoff (Mr Systems Thinking) and I was really looking forward to this book.
I was disappointed. Now, the difficult thing is that I am not sure whether to be disappointed with the book, or myself; I did not understand half of the thinking in the book. Every time I thought I had a grip on a concept and how it related to the other parts of the frameworks presented, Gharajedaghi applied it in a way that I could not follow.
I am intuitively drawn to systems thinking (with its emphasis on the whole, on the interdependence of working parts in a system, organisation or problem and the analysis of their relationships with one another) and am sure that this book does provide lots of good material for those that have truly understood the basics, but as a primer, I have been defeated.
Next on the list: "Thinking in systems" - perhaps I will have more luck with this one - post to follow later this year.
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.
Saturday, 20 March 2010
Design thinking & strategy - a book review
As threatened in an earlier post, this entry is another book review.
"Design thinking; integrating innovation, customer experience and brand value", edited by Thomas Lockwood (of course, available via amazon), brings together a bunch of big names in design management and provides a nicely balanced overview of current ideas about the role of design in innovation, service delivery, but in particular in developing brands.
I especially liked the contributions by Kevin Clark & Ron Smith from IBM Corporate Markting (on the value of leveraging design professionals and skills to provide insights in all aspects of the business), Erik Abbing & Christa van Gessel (who provide a 4-step method for brand-driven innovation) and Mark Jones & Fran Samalionis from IDEO (who have put together a nice framework to design new service innvoations).
Despite the many interesting essays, I was underwhelmed by the book as a whole. I guess it is my nature (or background, or both), but I was looking for a more complete answer, showing how design thinking can be applied / integrated into the business - beyond the straightforward application of ideation and visualisation techniques to the product and brand development process.
Using design thinking (and at the very least design techniques) combined with more analytical/structured methods in the business strategy space to bring the "outside-in approach" into an organisation and to give those ideas traction feels like an idea on the brink of maturity - in a couple of years this is going to be entirely mainstream.
Nevertheless, if this book was anything to go on, there is a lot of work to be done before then. The tools need to mature to be applied in the broader business strategy arena (ie. outside of the product development space where they are most at home). It feels like progress is being made quickly (with new blogs and companies popping up daily) - it is a fun time to dig into this space!
Given my own more analytical background, I personally find it rather frustrating trying to create rather than deduce, but also all the more rewarding when it pays off - I hope to be posting later this year on the topic of design thinking in the context of business architecture as my ideas mature.
As such any help that can be found in books like this on methods and approaches are thoroughly welcome!
"Design thinking; integrating innovation, customer experience and brand value", edited by Thomas Lockwood (of course, available via amazon), brings together a bunch of big names in design management and provides a nicely balanced overview of current ideas about the role of design in innovation, service delivery, but in particular in developing brands.
I especially liked the contributions by Kevin Clark & Ron Smith from IBM Corporate Markting (on the value of leveraging design professionals and skills to provide insights in all aspects of the business), Erik Abbing & Christa van Gessel (who provide a 4-step method for brand-driven innovation) and Mark Jones & Fran Samalionis from IDEO (who have put together a nice framework to design new service innvoations).
Despite the many interesting essays, I was underwhelmed by the book as a whole. I guess it is my nature (or background, or both), but I was looking for a more complete answer, showing how design thinking can be applied / integrated into the business - beyond the straightforward application of ideation and visualisation techniques to the product and brand development process.
Using design thinking (and at the very least design techniques) combined with more analytical/structured methods in the business strategy space to bring the "outside-in approach" into an organisation and to give those ideas traction feels like an idea on the brink of maturity - in a couple of years this is going to be entirely mainstream.
Nevertheless, if this book was anything to go on, there is a lot of work to be done before then. The tools need to mature to be applied in the broader business strategy arena (ie. outside of the product development space where they are most at home). It feels like progress is being made quickly (with new blogs and companies popping up daily) - it is a fun time to dig into this space!
Given my own more analytical background, I personally find it rather frustrating trying to create rather than deduce, but also all the more rewarding when it pays off - I hope to be posting later this year on the topic of design thinking in the context of business architecture as my ideas mature.
As such any help that can be found in books like this on methods and approaches are thoroughly welcome!
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
BA Body of Knowledge 2.0 available online for free
OK, I admit it; I am a little miffed that the IIBA has released the latest version of the BABOK (see also previous entry) for free at Google Books, but it is definitely a good reference.
Beyond the convenience of the whole online book experience, I like the fact that book comes with a neat little web-cloud that gives you an immediate overview of the book. Once this is expanded to work across all the books and into a snazzy visual navigation widget I will be more than happy ;-).
Beyond the convenience of the whole online book experience, I like the fact that book comes with a neat little web-cloud that gives you an immediate overview of the book. Once this is expanded to work across all the books and into a snazzy visual navigation widget I will be more than happy ;-).
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
Saturday, 8 November 2008
Business model design & another disrupted flight
Predictably enough, I had another problem with flights today (see previous posts for the saga of my experiences on a weekly basis on flights between Germany and the UK). Today's installment was the diversion of my flight from Duesseldorf to London Heathrow to Amsterdam. In fairness this was due to a medical emergency and I was really impressed with the way the staff on board handled it, but nevertheless I do begin to feel ever so slightly unlucky with my air travel!
I am now at Heathrow slowly getting into holiday mode and was just checking through the latest feeds on netvibes when Osterwalder's busines-model-design blog jumped out at me again. I already wrote a little bit about this blog a while back (see here) and I have been really impressed with the clarity of his approach of using a simple framework to inspire business model innovation. His latest blog entry is on google book search (which is in general a really cool and interesting thing!) - he does a really good job of simplifying down the motivation to this new product and what it could mean in a highly competitive industry. Take a look here.
My flight out has just been called, so wish me luck.
I am now at Heathrow slowly getting into holiday mode and was just checking through the latest feeds on netvibes when Osterwalder's busines-model-design blog jumped out at me again. I already wrote a little bit about this blog a while back (see here) and I have been really impressed with the clarity of his approach of using a simple framework to inspire business model innovation. His latest blog entry is on google book search (which is in general a really cool and interesting thing!) - he does a really good job of simplifying down the motivation to this new product and what it could mean in a highly competitive industry. Take a look here.
My flight out has just been called, so wish me luck.
Monday, 27 October 2008
Tom Peters & blogs
The other day, I finally got around to cleaning out my "filing cabinet" (others might refer to it as a cardboard box, but I prefer to think of it as a filing cabinet) and came across an essay assignment I wrote in my final undergraduate year at university.
The lecturer was fantastic and the material interesting - Organisational Change & Design with Ian Colville. In retrospect, it was in fact, one of just three courses that were of any lasting value from my final undergraduate year, but that is something for another post.
The essay task was to write an imaginary obituary for the Economist on Tom Peters (management guru and co-author of In Search Of Excellence - and a good deal more since). The trick was that we had to be innovative. My innovation was to write the obituary as a first draft by the writer that had subsequently been edited (lots of redpen) by a feature editor with a quite different opinion of Peters.
This rediscovery resulted in two things; firstly I was reminded why I didn't go into journalism (so apologies for this blog once again!) and secondly I got interested in Tom Peters again.
If I am quite honest, I don't think he ever really matched In Search of Excellence with any of his consequent books (and if you are really interested in some of the underlying thinking, you are in fact better of going for the more substantial writings of Weick - see also my books list at Amazon), but he remains a fantastic speaker and has - unsurprisingly - become a prolific blogger.
His own blog, http://www.tompeters.com/, is average, but he has a whole range of interesting links to further resources and other bloggers, and it is this resource that I would recommend; he knows everyone it seems and I spent ages browsing blogs that he links to.
His presentations are almost certainly the nastiest, most unclear powerpoints I have ever seen, but if you can get beyond the colours and to a certain extent the hubris, there are some interesting points on the need to constantly challenge oneself and the organisation.
One of his most recent posting caught my eye - Peters participated in a podium discussion with Seth Godin (I have a posting on him planned already) sponsored by American Express. It can still be viewed online here. He has some good things to say about the world at large (politics, entrepreneurship, the internet), but I was particularly taken by the pair's discussion of blogs, according to Peters the single most important and transformational tool he has used in his own professional life in the last 15 years. That said, I must confess that I am not 100% convinced just yet. Indeed, Seth Godin's view of the blog seemed more plausible to me - it doesn't matter if people are not reading the blog, it is the act of putting your thoughts down in writing that provides the value.
I hope he is right, looking at my reader statistics ;-).
The lecturer was fantastic and the material interesting - Organisational Change & Design with Ian Colville. In retrospect, it was in fact, one of just three courses that were of any lasting value from my final undergraduate year, but that is something for another post.
The essay task was to write an imaginary obituary for the Economist on Tom Peters (management guru and co-author of In Search Of Excellence - and a good deal more since). The trick was that we had to be innovative. My innovation was to write the obituary as a first draft by the writer that had subsequently been edited (lots of redpen) by a feature editor with a quite different opinion of Peters.
This rediscovery resulted in two things; firstly I was reminded why I didn't go into journalism (so apologies for this blog once again!) and secondly I got interested in Tom Peters again.
If I am quite honest, I don't think he ever really matched In Search of Excellence with any of his consequent books (and if you are really interested in some of the underlying thinking, you are in fact better of going for the more substantial writings of Weick - see also my books list at Amazon), but he remains a fantastic speaker and has - unsurprisingly - become a prolific blogger.
His own blog, http://www.tompeters.com/, is average, but he has a whole range of interesting links to further resources and other bloggers, and it is this resource that I would recommend; he knows everyone it seems and I spent ages browsing blogs that he links to.
His presentations are almost certainly the nastiest, most unclear powerpoints I have ever seen, but if you can get beyond the colours and to a certain extent the hubris, there are some interesting points on the need to constantly challenge oneself and the organisation.
One of his most recent posting caught my eye - Peters participated in a podium discussion with Seth Godin (I have a posting on him planned already) sponsored by American Express. It can still be viewed online here. He has some good things to say about the world at large (politics, entrepreneurship, the internet), but I was particularly taken by the pair's discussion of blogs, according to Peters the single most important and transformational tool he has used in his own professional life in the last 15 years. That said, I must confess that I am not 100% convinced just yet. Indeed, Seth Godin's view of the blog seemed more plausible to me - it doesn't matter if people are not reading the blog, it is the act of putting your thoughts down in writing that provides the value.
I hope he is right, looking at my reader statistics ;-).
Sunday, 28 September 2008
Visual problem solving on the "back of the napkin"
I am just back from a weekend in London. I left the office really early on Friday (around 12:30) because I had hoped to get to the opening of a friend's new office in Notting Hill in the evening.
Unfortunately, the airlines conspired against me once again (see also my earlier posting on reading a Peter Drucker classic whilst struggling to get to Scotland a couple of weekends ago). I ended up flying to London Heathrow, rather than City from Duesseldorf via Stuttgart.. not the most direct route one can imagine! I arrived at the restaurant around 21:00. I suspect this will also not be the last time that I start a posting this way.
But there is a bright side. As with my trip to Scotland, the delay was not a complete loss as it gave me the opportunity to read another book from my backlog; "The Back of the Napkin - Solving problems and selling ideas with pictures" by Dan Roam. Given all the hype surrounding the book, I had high expectations that were only partially fulfilled.
Don't get me wrong. The book is well constructed and provides lost of thought-provoking examples of using visualisation to identify, frame, explain and sell ideas (much as the subtitle promises) and - even better - it provides a conceptual framework for structuring the analysis and visualisation of problems. However, it did not blow me away with its insight as I had been hoping.
Either way, it is well worth reading. For those not inclined to invest the 2-3 hours, Mr Roam has kindly produced a cheat-sheet for the key ideas and provides it for free on his website. And being the master presenter that he is, there are also a couple of presentations of his ideas on youtube (here is the 5 minute primer and here is an hour long presentation for Authors@Google.
Unfortunately, the airlines conspired against me once again (see also my earlier posting on reading a Peter Drucker classic whilst struggling to get to Scotland a couple of weekends ago). I ended up flying to London Heathrow, rather than City from Duesseldorf via Stuttgart.. not the most direct route one can imagine! I arrived at the restaurant around 21:00. I suspect this will also not be the last time that I start a posting this way.
But there is a bright side. As with my trip to Scotland, the delay was not a complete loss as it gave me the opportunity to read another book from my backlog; "The Back of the Napkin - Solving problems and selling ideas with pictures" by Dan Roam. Given all the hype surrounding the book, I had high expectations that were only partially fulfilled.
Don't get me wrong. The book is well constructed and provides lost of thought-provoking examples of using visualisation to identify, frame, explain and sell ideas (much as the subtitle promises) and - even better - it provides a conceptual framework for structuring the analysis and visualisation of problems. However, it did not blow me away with its insight as I had been hoping.
Either way, it is well worth reading. For those not inclined to invest the 2-3 hours, Mr Roam has kindly produced a cheat-sheet for the key ideas and provides it for free on his website. And being the master presenter that he is, there are also a couple of presentations of his ideas on youtube (here is the 5 minute primer and here is an hour long presentation for Authors@Google.
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!).
Wednesday, 10 September 2008
Business analysis basics - library
Over the last few years I have collected a list of key books that I think provide a basic primer for the business analysis discipline - it is a mix of software engineering, user experience, business administration and psychology. It can be found at the following link on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Business-nbsp-Analysis-nbsp-Basics/lm/RLA7LQ1I97H2W/ref=cm_srch_res_rpli_alt_2
Enjoy!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Business-nbsp-Analysis-nbsp-Basics/lm/RLA7LQ1I97H2W/ref=cm_srch_res_rpli_alt_2
Enjoy!
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