What if you could build software without writing a single line of code? That’s the premise behind no-code development, a software development method that has been gathering momentum. With the help of no-code platforms, it’s possible to develop software without writing any underlying code.
I’ve got a bit of experience working at large companies. IBM has around 430,000 employees. Salesforce has 35,000. And when I was at Adobe it had around 13,000. I’ve learned a few things along the way about working in a big business. What’s good? What’s not? How do you survive? And more importantly, how do you thrive? Feel free to add your own pearls of wisdom in the comments to inspire others.
The benefits of instant messaging tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom have become quickly obvious. There’s just one problem: We’re still figuring out how to properly, and professionally, communicate via IM. Organizations should begin to adopt best practices, such as carefully choosing which systems to use, ideally ones already favored by employees; setting ground rules around personal messages; respecting work-life balance by creating norms around appropriate response times; and encouraging face-to-face communication as well.
In almost every successful technology implementation, there is a very special profile of the person leading the effort. This Most Valuable Player of technology implementations is a boundary spanner. Boundary spanners cut across business and technology in their experience. They have empathy for the commercial mindset (“Get it done. Produce results”) as well as the IT mindset (“Design for long term. Control risk.”) Although our experience is with sales and marketing, we suspect this leader profile is critical in other domains as well. This article explains what boundary spanners do, how they do it — and how organizations can create more of them.
Increasing volatility, uncertainty, growing complexity, and ambiguous information (VUCA) has created a business environment in which agile collaboration is more critical than ever. Organizations need to be continually on the lookout for new market developments and competitive threats, identifying essential experts and nimbly forming and disbanding teams to help tackle those issues quickly. However, these cross-functional groups often bump up against misaligned incentives, hierarchical decision-making, and cultural rigidities, causing progress to stall or action to not be taken at all.
Virtual meetings can be challenging to run. Try these seven techniques to make them worth every minute.
Most employers lack an effective way to objectively assess critical thinking skills and most managers don’t know how to provide specific instruction to team members in need of becoming better thinkers. Instead, most managers employ a sink-or-swim approach, ultimately creating work-arounds to keep those who can’t figure out how to “swim” from making important decisions. But it doesn’t have to be this way. To demystify what critical thinking is and how it is developed, the author’s team turned to three research-backed models: The Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment, Pearson’s RED Critical Thinking Model, and Bloom’s Taxonomy. Using these models, they developed the Critical Thinking Roadmap, a framework that breaks critical thinking down into four measurable phases: the ability to execute, synthesize, recommend, and generate.
The 2012 publication of the New York Times multimedia story “Snow Fall,” about a deadly avalanche earlier that year in Steven Pass, Wash., was a watershed moment for Steve Clayton and Steve Wiens, two Microsoft employees looking to tell better stories about the innovations at their company.
Evaluate your journey map to identify low and high points, failures to set expectations, unnecessary or too long steps, channel transitions, and moments of truth. Use this information to find opportunities for improving the journey.
Product differentiation is crucial in our ultra-competitive world. So why do we leave treat culture ― your company’s talent “product” ― as an afterthought?
In ultra-competitive markets, product differentiation is crucial. Countless books, blog posts, talks, and trainings have been dedicated to product development — and with good reason. Without a product that serves a need for a specific target audience and stands apart from the competition, you don’t have a company. And even these factors aren’t enough — you also need to make people aware of your offering and communicate its value in a compelling way through effective marketing and sales positioning.