Overview: Change & Project Management

despite all the talk about culture, many business leaders remain confused... organizational culture is “the shared basic assumptions, values, and beliefs... taught to newcomers as the proper way to think and feel...think of culture as a management system... makes the idea much more concrete...staff... make all sorts of decisions every day ... in a…

the best skill to teach children is reinvention... the author of Sapiens reveals what 2050 has in store for humankind...once technology enables us to engineer bodies, brains and minds... We don’t know what people will do for a living, we don’t know how armies or bureaucracies will function...too many schools focus on cramming information. In the p…

many teams ... have become obsessed with ... being agile ... But agile is not a strategy — it is a capability... cannot permanently affect ... competitive position unless there’s a strategy behind it... constant cycles of optimization... offers little more than diminishing returns... not considering the opportunity costs ... A good idea is not the…

The Theory of Constraints is deceptively simple... proposing a series of “obvious” statements... before you know it, you find yourself questioning the fundamental tenets of modern business and society...first statement ... every system has one bottleneck tighter than all the others... broaden the concept... to constraints of any kind... second sta…

managers often confuse a strategy’s design with its execution. Recognizing the difference between these two will have a major and positive impact... Strategy design involves detailing positions to take on ... strategic factors... decision criteria used by key stakeholders... the position that, for instance, Ford or Toyota as a company takes to woo…

CEOs and industry leaders all told me, “...Culture is the most important thing.” But when I asked “What exactly is culture, and how can I affect mine?” they became extremely vague.... I focused all my energy on “leading by example.”... did not scale as the company grew... became a hodgepodge of different cultures fostered under different managers.…

A brief summary of my experience in building company structures and supporting processes, role definitions, etc.

some practical tips on how to carry out moderated think-aloud usability testing. It’s based on what I’ve learnt from academic research and from practical experience, both inside and outside government.

novelty and newness of these teams has worn off... growing acceptance ... that these teams are useful tool in driving new practices ... Less clear... is whether these units can enable the deeper digital transformation... ~ two key pieces of the puzzle: ... creating common platforms to power governments services is key to digital transformation o…

a unique productivity philosophy called deep work. He carefully blocked out his day, and created space for long, uninterrupted hours to write ... tactics like travelling on foot to give himself more time in isolation and actively sought out isolated spaces to work... his latest book, Digital Minimalism... there's an implicit reward for the sha…

open-sourcing the tools we created to do Documenting Hate... writing a guide that will let any newsroom do crowd-powered data investigations... Documenting Hate came shortly after Election Day 2016, in response to a widely reported uptick in hate incidents... we decided to ask people across the country to tell us their stories ... organized a col…

many activists working to create positive change ... seem to think that if they just get their ideas to “go viral” they will ... dominate the discourse. The great lie of this approach is that no singular discourse exists! Each community is now capable of building consensus with itself, where the like-minded talk to others like themselves while fo…

a new idea has to replace an old one and the status quo has inertia on its side... to truly make an impact, you need small groups, loosely connected, but united by a shared purpose... start with groups small enough to convince a majority... We all have different thresholds for conformity ... threshold model of collective behavior... the exposu…

Any digital transformation includes the following core ingredients:Strategy — aligning vision, customer experience, processes and technology.User-Centered Design — mobile first and personalized.Agility in Delivery — iterative and adaptable.Integration of Software, Platforms and Technology — choosing environments and products that harmonize.Data, A…

when it comes to teams, many hands do not make light work... four to six members is the team best size for most tasks, that no work team should have more than 10 members, and that performance problems and interpersonal friction increase “exponentially as team size increases.”... if you are on a big team that keeps screwing up... try some subtract…

the GEM framework... to deliver value ... the company must never lose sight of ... growth, engagement, and monetization.... Growth is all about how a company finds new users or customers.... getting the right message in front of people who need what you have... “external triggers.” ... delivered through various channels.... The growth question to…

research aims to capture the shifts and trends that are shaping modern digital transformation.... 5 Key Takeaways: - A successful digital transformation is an enterprise-wide effort that is best served by a leader with broad organizational purview... - Market pressures are the leading drivers ... - growing acknowledgment of the importance of …

managers always have to balance the merits of teamwork... with the dangers of “groupthink”... Large groups are remarkably good, on average, at estimating such things as the number of beans in a jar or the weight of a prize calf. But that accuracy relies on the guesses being independent.... Modern communication methods mean that collaboration is mo…

In his new book, Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World, Adam investigates who comes up with great ideas, how, and what we can do to have more of them.... They often procrastinate, and that's how they incubate ideas.... Their parents focus more on values than rules... One of the risks is, you know, you have everybody marching in a different…

One of the most important things when working together is to be clear on who is helping who with what and why... I’m trying to make working together effortless by showing how easy it is to map what’s actually going on when people collaborate. You can normally draw it out on a page. It normally doesn’t take longer than an hour or two.... I call the…

The same amazing tech that enables people to forge deeper relationships, foster closer communities and give everyone a voice can also breed isolation, embolden racists, and empower digital bullies and nefarious actors.... used with great accuracy and potency “to assault... truth and trust... our personal foundations — our privacy and sense of ide…

... they have recently embarked on a journey to become “Agile.”... neither explicit support nor discouragement from senior executives... they are failing for the same list of reasons as every other team I have met with in the last 5 years. Here are those reasons:... 1. There is no clear vision for the product....The “idea” has been handed down …

GDS does have a clear function and is learning from its experiences ... struggled to demonstrate the value of flagship initiatives... or to set out key priorities.... Another criticism ... not sustained its framework of standards and guidance, with some being removed and web links broken... leave scope for interpretation and disagreement... somet…

Progress has been sporadic, but... plenty of observers wouldn’t have expected this much of GDS when it was set up in 2011... It made its mark largely because it had Maude, the senior minister in the Cabinet Office and a heavyweight in the Conservative Party, fully engaged and ready to back GDS chief Mike Bracken in inter-departmental tussles... i…

people started sharing selfies on Facebook and stories around the office. Participants gained new insight into the workings of other departments. People realized they faced common issues and brought new perspectives to problems. Ideas for future collaborations and projects took root. It was assisted serendipity in action... this evolved...into r…

it is important for change agents to identify and solve real problems by developing the important skills for collaboration, storytelling and influence... Although digital transformation is one of the biggest trends in business today ... many still do so as a grassroots effort driven by resourceful individuals — digital change agents ... Digital c…

In an era of “wicked problems” why are current leadership behaviours and culture apparently not fit for purpose? ... so many failures in policy and strategic forecasting? Are they human frailties? Or ... systemic?

appointing facilitators to help us make the most of each meeting....more effective, so you (and everyone else) can make the most of your time.more inclusive, because the loudest person won’t dominate the room.more fun. You’re digging into challenges, identifying what can actually get done, and moving on.Here are a couple of typical meeting challen…

to create a team that is collectively intelligent, you likely need to focus on three specific factors that he and his colleagues have identified in their research...

they had on-site Project Managers (PMs) and looked like a professional, full-service firm, but they outsourced the actual dev work to $5/hour shops and freelancers.... so-called “expert” firms and consultants only pretend to have in-house dev teams...Smart, experienced software engineers are keen problem solvers. They’re incredibly valuable... A …