PERT! The simple technique to make projects go better

Prefer to watch on video?  Just click here.  5 mins, with captions.

We’d all like projects to work better in our organisations.  Whenever we try to do this, however, it ends up in a template-infested swamp of mediocrity. 

Sometimes the smallest things can make a huge difference.  Even things you’ve maybe heard about before.  So, I’d like to (re)introduce the PERT Chart as a simple technique that can make your projects just go better.

Work Models You Need To Know Ep.2 – ZONE TO WIN by Geoffrey Moore

Video embedded below if you prefer to watch rather than read. 5 mins, has captions.

(If you don’t see the video embedded above, go to it here)

Today’s article is Work Models You Need to Know, Episode 2.  The model is Zone to Win and it’s by Geoffrey Moore.

Why do you need to know this?  It’s a way to organise your entire enterprise, your division or your team to both deliver for your customers today, while ensuring that the strategic innovations needed for success and viability in the future are discovered and brought into the mainstream.

It’s how to do strategy right.

The Basics

The full title of Moore’s book is Zone to Win: Organizing to Compete in an Age of Disruption.  This title is spot on. 

The starting point is the classic consultant’s four-box model, where we divide the world into:

Parent or Partner? The deep reason behind getting KPIs to work

Prefer to watch on video?  Click here – 5 minutes, with captions.

‘We need to get KPIs sorted’ is a common refrain, which carries with it the assumption that it is the lack of these things that is constraining performance.

Unfortunately or fortunately…there’s deeper stuff going on that we need to be aware of if we want this sort of thing to work.  And if we’re not aware of it, sorting the KPIs will actually make things worse!

You’d know from your own experience that when the next initiative is introduced, including KPIs, the sensible response is to smile politely until it blows over, then get back to work.  This is a deep issue of ownership, and to understand it, we need to go deeper into working relationships.  And for this, we’ll use the work of Peter Block.

Compression! Fix a major source of pain in your organisation

Want to watch this on video rather than read?  Just click here.  5 mins, with captions.

Today’s article goes through one of the most common causes of organisational pain.  A sore back is guaranteed to make people grumpy, and compression is a great way to give your organisation some proper spinal issues.

Now, a big proviso.  Organisational hierarchies are very out of fashion right now.  Here’s three things though:

1. You’re in one, changing them is hard, and you might as well make the obvious changes to make the thing work properly
2. There are many, many situations where a well-run managerial hierarchy is very much the most appropriate organisational design
3. Hierarchies get a bad rap because of the exact sort of issue I am going to go through in this article.  Fix these, and….hierarchies might just work fine!

OK, let’s get on with it.