Management Category
Do you have a real deadline?
Posted on May 27, 2016 1 Comment
The first written record on the use of the word “deadline” was in 1864. It was a the term to describe the line over which prisoners were forbidden to go – Along the interior of the stockade, 19 feet from the stockade wall, was a line of small wooden posts with a wood rail on top. […]
Leaders need to focus on providing Clarity and Competence, not control
Posted on March 2, 2016 Leave a Comment
Self-organising teams is the antithesis to hierarchical structures that exist in many organisations. Traditional leadership required a strong leader to take control, attract followers and make it happen. Modern leadership is about leaders giving control and creating leaders. Self-organisation requires autonomy and control to be given to teams. This includes trusting individuals to figure out how to solve problems, make […]
Leadership Debt
Posted on October 29, 2015 2 Comments
For the past 10 years I have been working with various organisations to humanise the workplace, help improve the leadership capability and dampen the toxic culture that may currently exit. A recent article (28 Oct 2015) in the news has provided no relief. The article indicated that the thinking and culture of tomorrow’s leaders being taught at school’s […]
What is the relationship between Systems Thinking, Lean and Agile?
Posted on April 24, 2015 1 Comment
I was recently approached about the relationship between Systems Thinking, Lean And Agile. Without going into too much depth and using too much terminology I have tried to summarise it in the following diagram. Agile Agile is an iterative and incremental approach for developing product and services through collaboration between self-organising, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive […]
Quotes from Taiichi Ohno
Posted on March 5, 2012 1 Comment
I came across a great article by Masaaki Imai on Gemba Panta Rei celebrating Taiichi Ohno’s 100th Birthday which contained some of his brilliant quotes on management and thought I will re-post them: “Let the flow manage the processes, and not let management manage the flow”. In the lean approach, the starting point of the […]
Leadership styles
Posted on November 30, 2011 Leave a Comment
Donald Gray has written a great and interesting article on Three Leadership Styles, based observations on managing traffic at an intersection. In the article the most successful leader is the one that sees people as “adults that most of the time they can take care of themselves, and that the role of a manager is […]
Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius
Posted on June 6, 2011 3 Comments
“Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius” is a quote from a great video demonstrating how teamwork and agile concepts at IDEO is used to successfully deliver innovation and solutions in a non-IT environment in just 5 days! Some highlights which I thought were pertinent to agile: The people are […]
Lean and Agile – Doing more with less
Posted on February 15, 2011 Leave a Comment
Have you been in a similar situation as the above Dilbert? Lean and Agile is about doing more with less. Lean and Agile doesn’t focus primarily on cost reduction, but more on strategic alignment around enterprise agility – reducing waste and simplified processes which then could have an impact on cost reductions. Furthermore, for comparable […]
Cost Center Disease
Posted on December 8, 2010 Leave a Comment
I recently attended the local Melbourne Agile user group meetup where Mary Poppendieck gave a couple of great presentations. I have watched many of Mary’s presentations over the Internet so it was a welcome change to hear her speak in person. It was also good to hear two presentations that I haven’t seen or heard […]
As Work Changes, So Must Managers
Posted on April 28, 2010 Leave a Comment
Here is an article published in The Wall Street Journal earlier this year which is very relevant to today’s rapidly changing environment and the role of managers on Agile Projects. (Mark Hurd who was my former CEO at HP is mentioned in the article) What is a manager? In simplest terms, a manager is someone […]
