Agile is more than a technique to increase speed-to-market. Done well, it’s a complete reboot of IT mind-set and behaviors.
Author: Robert Crouch
AgileFall describes a situation in which project managers attempt to shift to Agile methodology, but are forced to continue operating under many of the rules and practices of traditional Waterfall development. This piece describes a client where this is happening–and how the company worked to reduce the paperwork and slow review timing that was hobbling progress.
Billionaires Warren Buffett and Bill Gates both agree “Business Adventures” by John Brooks is best business book ever written. Published 50 years ago, it still remains relevant today. Here’s why it’s a must-read that offers valuable lessons in both business and life.
In the 20th century McKinsey created a model called the Three Horizons to explain how businesses must invest in current products, incremental innovations, and breakthrough innovations. The framework relied on time as a guiding factor; it assumes that truly breakthrough innovations will take years to develop. Technology has made that assumption incorrect: Today innovations like Uber and Airbnb can be rolled out extremely quickly. Because established companies tend to move slowly and must invest resources in existing products, this means that unlike in the 20th century, attacking disruptors now have the advantage.
Disruption, which happens gradually then suddenly, is both a risk and an opportunity. In her important new book about strategic agility, Seeing Around Corners (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, published today September 3, 2019), Rita McGrath shows us how Agile firms must not only see around corners. Even more important, they must take action.
Every successful company has a vision statement. Vision and business go hand in hand. The best entrepreneurs are the ones who can set an audacious goal, inspire talented people to pursue it with them, and build a business that achieves that vision and makes a lasting impact.
“So, what do you do?” “Where do you live?” “How do you know [Name of Host]?” are some of my least favorite kind of questions, because they don’t elicit interesting answers. If you want to get to know someone, you’ll have to do a lot better than this.
Helpfully, the Harvard Business Review has now published 8 great questions to ask at any kind of networking event. They’ve also written up their findings on how colleagues get on better, enjoy work more, and stay connected for longer if they share common experiences outside of work. Sociologists refer to these connections where there is an overlap of roles or affiliations from a different social context as multiplex ties.
Planning was one of the cornerstones of management, but it’s now fallen out of fashion. It seems rigid, bureaucratic, and ill-suited to a volatile, unpredictable world. However, organizations still need some form of planning. And so, universally valuable, but desperately unfashionable, planning waits like a spinster in a Jane Austen novel for someone to recognize her worth. The answer is agile planning, a process that can coordinate and align with today’s agile-based teams. Agile planning also helps to resolve the tension between traditional planning’s focus on hard numbers, and the need for “soft data,” or human judgment.
As the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States continues to grow, the number of people working remotely will rise exponentially. But working outside an office can be a challenge. What are the best ways to set yourself up for success? How do you stay focused and productive? And how do you keep your work life separate from your home life?
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How to Tame “Automation Sprawl”
Companies are being overrun by automation tools. Dozens of vendors offer systems to automate various tasks and business processes, and countless companies have developed their own tools. Many of these tools are growing and overlapping; this is called “automation sprawl.” There are several ways to get sprawl under control. One is to create a classification system for different automation types and how you will use them. Another is to create a dedicated organizational team to help business units and functions figure out what type of automation tool best fits their needs. However a company manages automation sprawl, it’s important to let employees know what the plan is for these technologies, to alleviate fears that automation will take their jobs.