Are you a core process worker or do you support them (think of Handy’s model)? Do you agree with Handy’s ½ x 2 x 3 rule of corporate fitness? Are you in the inner, middle or outer ring of the Handy model? Are there any middle ring consultants who are paid a premium in your …
The lifelong project career path is evolving inside and outside organizations. We may be professionals, specialists, or craftspeople. What characterizes us is we have portable and marketable skills. We are becoming itinerant professionals. A software engineer learns new software languages and goes where the market is. A lawyer with special skills, such as environmental law, …
Luddites were British textile workers in the early 19th Century, who protested the changes and even destroyed the mechanical looms that threatened their livelihoods. Some of the brightest soothsayers say the e-world including the Internet will change the fundamental ways we work and live much like he Industrial Revolution changed work in the 19th century. …
The external customer in varying degrees is usually the driver of either a transformational or an incremental process change. A radical transformation may ensue if the customer is very unhappy with a product and may litigate because of health, safety, or environmental concerns. Or, the customer is simply unhappy with performance or product quality. Or, …
Your elevator pitch is a concise description of your value offering or proposition. The joke about the elevator is that you can pitch it to an executive you meet in an elevator. Each of us needs a compelling ‘elevator pitch’ for time of transformation. Our ‘hard money’ business is Critical Infrastructure Protection: Forensics, Assurance, Analytics. …
I’ve been searching for the meaning of management and specifically middle management. Some consultant gurus believe that management, specifically functional middle management, must fundamentally change. They’re not talking about around the edges change. They mean dramatic, breakthrough change, not incremental change. Managerial jobs will require three skills, which don’t have much to do with traditional …
Quality + Engineering – our company – is a virtual organization. What do I mean? We pull professionals together to do different jobs. We pull engineers to together to work on a project with a firm beginning and hard ending. We’re seeing more virtual organizations and you’ll be working for one soon. What is a …
Michael Porter, a Harvard Business School professor, coined the term ‘value chain’ in the 1980’s. The concept and term took off. The value chain is one of the must-know business concepts for everyone. Every organization performs a sequence of activities to produce a product or offer a service. These activities add value to customers who continue …
When I started working, I thought that most work rules are defined in policies, procedures, and work instructions. They are often found in a manual are more often than not are used as a doorstop. So, how do work place develop rules for work. Implicit rules are important as the rules that are written down. …
We are looking for the right organizational metaphor in this terribly competitive climate. What’s the best structure and process for getting work done? It may be an orchestra. An orchestra is used as a metaphor for organizational and project process excellence. The orchestra is a group of individuals, each of whom is gifted, has a unique …