A great Digital Business cannot sustain itself when it relies on one or two key people that have all the magic; it is a connected, engaged team of people that come together, with a shared vision , to deliver results.
... and suddenly you're not there any more." - The Ghost of Christmas Present, enjoying a memento mori moment A repeating theme in my feed reader has been the drive to "work different"; clunky grammar aside, we need to change the way we communicate and collaborate, increase our focus on innovation, and spend less time in pointless meetings. On that latter point, I read this article on my latest flight; Mankins talks about the galling amount of time spent in…
There is a flaw in my simplistic story of the Three IT Archetypes - if/when someone points it out, I will openly admit it, but would also insist on a follow-up conversation. Strictly peer-to-peer [regardless of title], one part technique and one part philosophy - and preferably over a suitable beverage. The problem is the oversimplification - although the diagram hints at it, you typically need to point out that there will always be some overlap. eCommerce is a classic…
I'll tell you about this visualization from a recent internal conversation, but I may end up aggravating some career IT people out there. Yes, I have massively oversimplified things - but I'm trying to develop a broader understanding, and I think it's a good first step. The original question was "How do I manage IT?", but it quickly morphed into "how can I drive / derive value from IT?" (note the powerful difference that a single letter makes - derive sounds sustainable)…
Deriving information out of raw data involves seven separate, dependent processes - the Data Value Chain. Your team needs to have a multi-layered ecosystem of skills and experience required to effectively extract the most value.
I'm working this holiday week to get the majority of the written work completed for my 2013 Performance Reviews; I realize it's something that folks do not enjoy doing, but I see it as an incredibly important effort. I like to think my organization and I are doing a fairly good job of communicating on a regular basis, but the structure and the formality of the annual Review process ensures that we are "on the same page" regarding the critical…
Like most organizations, we are talking a lot internally about Innovation - the Great Ideas that will transform the company and deliver top-line revenue and high-value earnings growth. The trick, of course, if figuring out how to make that Innovation happen - as if you could plan it out in advance, on schedule to make your quarter-end. It's not that easy - but then again, maybe it's not that hard. Check out this video from Steven Johnson - another terrific…
Three good stories from the past week - great for me, since I am hearing feedback and "remixing" for things published here on this blog. But good, because they are nice examples of people taking ideas and tweaking them to fit their particular situation: Phil saw my presentation earlier this year on IT Strategy, and latched on to the bridge between the tactical "run the business" (RTB) work (for IT, operational support tasks), and the strategic "enhance the business" projects…
I've noticed a definite trend in the "best practices" wing of the Productivity building; it goes by many names and takes on a few different forms, but the idea is rooted in a few simple concepts: Focus on the Critical Few: Multitasking does not work - plan for doing three things per day, and allocate your time accordingly Done is Better than Perfect: Learn to recognize "good enough", perfection is the enemy of progress. Ignore Details Early On: Get a skeleton out…
A true-life story of collaboration in action; social media done right, with plenty of lessons learned. Because coffee!