It’s All About Projects (Sticky)
I show clients how to create thriving projects and teams that get essential work done better. This blog is about projects and the teams that do them.
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Don’t Cheerlead During a Crisis
Instead of a call to action, in times of crisis people need “holding” – guidance on how to move with purpose. Holding acknowledges difficulty without giving in to powerlessness. Here are some pragmatic ways you can hold your organization.
How to Love Your Fuzzy Front End
The messy, uncertain time at the start of a new project can be a swamp – or a time of powerful innovation. Here’s how to take advantage of it.
Looking for a Goldilocks Decision Moment
The timing of a good decision is like a Goldilocks moment – not too soon and not too late. A technique called the last responsible moment can help you identify when that is.
How Managers Can Help During Change
CLARC spells out the kinds of help that managers and supervisors must provide during change.
Step Up, Step Back
“Step up, step back” is a way that a facilitator can give give a group long-term ownership of group dynamics.
How to Manage a Portfolio: Separate the Best from the Rest
Spreading your organization’s precious resources thinly over too many active projects is a recipe for lots of disappointment. It’s better to do fewer projects well by concentrating effort on them, even if that means fewer projects.
How to Manage a Portfolio: Air Traffic Control
An effective portfolio manager is like an air traffic controller, ensuring that all projects in the portfolio are monitored and managed together.
Forward Progress
Facilitators use the consolidation technique to intentionally build up a series of small agreements, like a bricklayer laying a sturdy foundation brick by brick and layer by layer.
Painful Meetings
We’ve all suffered through bad meetings. We all know the standard list of things to do to make them better. And yet they persist, or perhaps have gotten worse with […]
Why Can’t We Learn?
Dr. Katrina Foxton at MicroBiomics – a rising company in the biotech sector – knows her team is highly talented. Yet on project after project she sees them fall into the same pitfalls. Katrina wonders, “Why can’t they learn?” Here’s a technique I use to make team learning fast and easy.