I spend a lot of my time in design reviews or business reviews. Either highly technical and engineering-focused, or strategic and business-focused. The goal of these review meetings is for me (as one of a group) to look at the document, artifact, plan, or whatever, and decide whether the quality is sufficient for it to […]
Have you heard of the Hawthorne Effect? It’s based on a study done at the Hawthorne Works factory in the 1920s and 1930s, where researchers tried making changes to workers’ environments to try and increase productivity. Things like making lights brighter or dimmer, making it hotter or colder, etc. What they found was there was […]
So I like measurements and KPIs as much as the next business manager but I am always concerned about being too overly-reliant on metrics, especially along the lines of whether the right things are being measured and optimized. It’s not even whether or not you are measuring the right things, it’s also understanding that when […]
I’m going to do something I think I’ve never done before…I’m going to make a video game analogy. So unless you’ve played Starcraft or Warcraft or some other strategy game, you might want to go watch a YouTube video on the game. Alternatively, I think you can use chess or checkers as an example, we […]
So I was looking back at the blog post I did after my extended hiatus, and I realized that it is almost identical to the blog post I did the previous time I took an extended hiatus. This in itself is (to me at least) highly amusing, because I’ve literally written blog posts on writing […]
I have yet another new term I’ve started using lately. It’s called, Tightening the Vise. So what does it mean? If you know me by now, you know what I’m going to do. I’m going to tell a story! So once upon a time, there was a recurring business process in a medium-sized organization. Let’s […]
As a leader in an organization, a concept you need to become familiar with is that of, “High quality, high velocity decisions.” Many, many decisions pass in front of me every day. As I read my emails, watch my text messages, and attend my meetings, there are either specific decisions asked of me, or opportunities […]
Lately, I find myself saying a specific phrase more and more often. If we are deciding whether to take on a new project or start a complex effort, it always seems to come back to this: “Yes, if we can find the right person to do it.” I’m starting to believe more and more that […]
Balancing Freedom of Motion With Guardrails Reviewing my last two blog posts, I realize I still have more to say on this topic. I am greatly challenged by this idea of guardrails and business rules. Generally speaking, I am a fan of The HP Way of management, where the idea is that you empower people […]
Looking back at last week’s blog post, I realized that I’m not done talking about Good Intentions. If you can’t tell, I’m not a fan of administrative controls. If you have business rules, you can’t just tell people to follow them and expect it to happen. There will always be a moment where someone is […]
Knuggets of Knowledge 