Great White flashback to 1987 – Is he wearing a robe? To my wife’s dismay, this is not a post about the 80’s hair band, Great White. (Thank goodness!) This is about project communication and estimation. Mark had done his best. Being new to project teams, he tried to estimate his tasks as well asRead… Read more »
Getting the right answer is important. But it is impossible to get the right answer unless we ask the right question. Time and effort invested in better questions pays off in better answers. There used to be a zebra crossing across the main road. Pedestrians could get across easily and motorists were discouraged from usingRead… Read more »
Which risks can be managed using a compliance model vs. which risks need other approaches? Robert Kaplan and Anette Mikes provide a framework in a great Harvard Business Review article. In their HBR article, “Managing Risks: A New Framework,” Kaplan and Mikes say: “risk management is too often treated as a compliance issue that canRead… Read more »
“I don’t know how much more emphasized step 1 of refactoring could be: don’t touch anything that doesn’t have coverage. Otherwise, you’re not refactoring; you’re just changing shit.” – Hamlet D’Arcy It’s no secret that Agile and Lean methodologies have a lot in common. At Code for America we try to apply them both: inRead… Read more »
Today on the DorobekINSIDER BYOD — bring your own device. It is something that could be possible, but there are issues. We’ll talk to somebody who is actually doing it, Kimberly Hatcher at EEOC. Click here for the full post. There are challenges facing federal agencies, but there are many challenges facing cities and countiesRead… Read more »
I’m going to make a very specific case today. Let’s review the Theory X / Theory Y models, knowing full well they are just models. There is no purely Theory X or Theory Y manager. Theory X Assumes project team members: are lazy by default will avoid work if they can inherently dislike work willRead… Read more »
According to Wikipedia, “strategic planning is an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy.” This process – or a key component of it – often entails long-range planning as a way of carving out your organization’s seat at the table of our sharedRead… Read more »
The Strategic Foresight Initiative (SFI) is a project managed by FEMA whose goal is to engage the diverse emergency management community in a collective exploration of issues, trends, and other factors that could impact the future environment, and to support expanded strategic thinking and planning for the future. Following is information from the June 2012Read… Read more »
I have never been on a Segwaybut they look like a fun way to get around. On vacations to various islands it seems that one of the things you can always do is rent a Segway to go exploring around town. While they look like fun, Segway’s have been a failure as a commercial product.Read… Read more »
Here’s a terrific checklist of questions managers should be able to answer as they undertake a consolidation of infrastructure or management functions. It is buried in a new report by the Government Accountability Office. Sometimes GAO does terrific work but couches it in ways that its value may not be immediately obvious to busy readers.Read… Read more »