The Lean Restaurant
Go to Boston. In the Beacon Hill neighborhood, you will find the Paramount Restaurant. The Paramount is both a great eating experience and a fine example of Lean production. The […]
Tag: Management
Scrum vs. Kanban: What to Choose?
Organizations starting their Agile journey are confronted with an array of choices. One early decision is, what methodology and process to follow? The authors of the Agile Manifesto represented many […]
Culture and Successful Projects
Project management has a consistent and unimpressive performance record. The Standish Group’s on-going survey of project performance finds the percentage of projects that were deemed “successful” has hovered in the […]
Eliminating Waste in Knowledge Work
Many of us are “knowledge workers.” We do not physically create a product. We work in areas that are important to our enterprise, but do not directly serve customers. We […]
Effective Communications = Productive Project Teams
Effective communications are the cornerstone to successful projects and productive teams. The Agile Manifesto extolls the virtues of collaboration, individual interactions, and face-to-face communications. Projects represent our ability to coordinate […]
Stakeholder Management: A Key to Project Success
Projects with involved stakeholders are far more likely to be successful. But many projects suffer from low engagement from executives, users, and key stakeholders. The PMI’s Pulse of the Profession […]
Project Management: Centralized vs. Decentralized Delivery
There is an ongoing dialogue in many enterprises: Should project management be a centralized, shared-service? Or, should project managers be decentralized and embedded within their functional organizations? The answer is, […]
Powerful Words, “I Don’t Know”
“I don’t know” are three words that most people dread saying. The need to know the answer has followed us from school into the working world. We are loath to […]
Controlling the Runaway Meeting
It is a common phenomenon. Something happens, usually something bad. Daily meetings are organized. Anyone connected with the event is there—from senior executives to junior staff. There is incredible focus. […]
Agile Transformation—It’s About the People
The Agile Manifesto declared independence from constraining, process-centric software development methodologies. The Manifesto advocated for a product-focused, team-centric approach. As Agile has moved mainstream, it has spawned its own industry […]