If you don’t feel like reading, you can watch my video by clicking here.
When you’re feeling the overwhelm, the pressure, and you need a way to make projects run better in your organisation…who do you turn to?
Matthew MConaughey of course!
Hang with me here – check out the below, McConaughey from an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast, with my emphasis:
Read more…If you don’t feel like reading, you can watch my video below or by clicking here,
Three things all clients want from strategy days, which I know because they tell me when we meet.
There is a simple word I use which gives us all three of these, and that’s
manoeuvres.
I first heard this word in the context of strategy from Lucy Loh and Patrick Hoverstadt, authors of the brilliant book Patterns of Strategy, and for me it was a game-changer.
Let me elaborate.
Read more…This time I go through a scene from the TV show Andor…so it’s better to watch me do this on video. To do that, click here.
And if you can’t…I’ll go through it now.
Have you seen the show Andor? I’ll bet you didn’t know there’s a lesson in there about organisational structure!
The show is part of the Star Wars pantheon, but it’s different. Deeper, and goes right into the effects of colonisation, imperialism and how that can turn individuals.
And…we get to see what’s called the Imperial Security Bureau in action, which we can picture as an Executive Team of an organisation. Here they are:
The scene I go through is a meeting of the ‘Supervisors’, who are the equivalent to Executives, with the boss being Major Partagaz who we might say is the CEO.
Read more…Prefer to watch rather than read? Click here to watch the video – 4 mins, with captions.
Air Traffic Control has it’s act together. Because if it doesn’t, things go wrong. Really wrong.
Here’s four lessons we can pick up that are easy to apply in your organisation to lift your performance in getting strategy delivered.
Read more…Prefer to watch rather than read? Click here, five minutes, with captions.
Last time I went through the principles which simply let you deliver more projects with less stress.
Yes, totally true. Read it here.
The super-short summary is that by lining them up and focusing on finishing instead of starting, you get benefits earlier which lowers stress and interruption, while also reducing switching cost. It’s one of the key aspects of the method I call The Project Factory.™
Here’s a picture of the principle:
I finished by saying: “I know what you’re thinking – ‘great, but that’s not how the real world works’.
I know – I live in it too. Which is why there’s a Part II to this article coming soon…”
Which is what you’re reading right now.
Read more…Prefer to watch rather than read? Click here, five minutes, with captions.
There’s so many projects on, it’s overwhelming. Yet, when we look at the total work and the total salary budget…we should be able to get it all done! We get the seemingly absurd situation of not being able to spend that very capital or project funding we worked so hard to get!
What’s going on here? Luckily…it’s something quite natural…and quite simple. And it’s also one of the key aspects of the method I call The Project Factory ™
Goes like this:
We’ve got three projects, Blue, Red and Green. All equal value. All due the same time. All break down into four parts, each part takes one month. This isn’t a trick, they’re all equal.
Read more…Prefer to watch rather than read? Just click here, under 5 mins with captions.
In office work the queue doesn’t snake out the door. Its piles up emotionally in the form of the ever-expanding Inbox, and the increasing rates of friendly-but-scary “where’s my thing?” It feels like there’s no way out….but it turns out just a spoonful of capacity goes a long way.
Read more…(Prefer to watch rather than read? Click here, 5 mins, with captions.)
“We need a retention strategy”. A common cry.
The thing is…you don’t. What you need is to set things up so talented people want to stay. And the good news is…they are the same things that make your organisation productive.
Which is good.
There are just two things:
That’s it!
Read more…Prefer to watch on video rather than read? Click here, 5 mins with Captions.
I often help growing organisations that have been successful, yet are starting to feel like they are overwhelmed as well as grinding to a halt. This often comes with a feeling of failure in the CEO and perhaps the Exec team, with good old imposter syndrome usually raising its head.
The good news is…. the situation is not a failure at all. It’s completely normal.
And to explain this as well as to know what to do, I often lean on the brilliant work of Dr. Ichak Adizes, in particular his Business Lifecycle.
Read more…Prefer to watch rather than read? Click here – 5 mins with captions.
You don’t want to waste your money and your people’s time by not working on the highest leverage point of the system. Here’s how to make sure you get this right.
In a previous post I went through the importance of Not Bothering the Barista. I know I’m a broken record on this, but once again:
If a process must go through A, B and C to get to the customer and the number in each box represents how many they can do per period, then the system can’t go any faster than B. And rather than using the term ‘constraint’ or ‘bottleneck’, I use ‘Pacesetter’ because it’s, well, nicer.
And conveniently B is the first letter of ‘Barista’, which will always be the Pacesetter in a café. Therefore, Don’t Bother the Barista!
All of this comes from Eli Goldratt in his book The Goal, where he even lays out five steps for improvement, the first of which is of course (in my words)
Identify the Pacesetter.
Here’s some ways to do that.
Read more…