Month: September 2010

Implementation, Measurement1 Comment

Some downloadable notes on estimating

James King

One of tha participants from a course asked for some more information on estimating – so here is a downloadable copy of my mimi-ebook with some rough notes on estimating.  Most of the material also appears in this blog somewhere and I have since updated some of my thinking (as I am continuing to do).  So it would be great to get suggestions/challenges or comments for me to use in the future. Estimation toolkit – June 2010 v1.0 Continue reading Some downloadable notes on estimating

Measurement, Observations, ReflectionLeave a comment

Unusual predictors of team success

James King

I was reading Daniel Pink’s book “Drive” and I came across a passage about predicting which teams are likely to be successful.  It describes a guy who counts the number of times he hears people use the word “we” and the number of the times they used the word “they” when referring to their own company. Apparently the “they” teams are likely to fail and the “we” teams are generally successful. This made sense to me because when I have always listened when managers use the terms “we”, “you” and “I”. The dodgy managers I have worked for tend to use pronouns like … Continue reading Unusual predictors of team success

Decisions, Investigation, Observations1 Comment

The one thing you can’t outsource is innovation – or is it?

James King

This blog is normally a collection of my own thoughts rather than a source for links to other people’s thinking. But it seems a lot of companies are now deliberately asking others to do their thinking for them, so it seems fair enough for me to do the same. Here is an interesting link to an article on crowdsourcing. http://knowledge.asb.unsw.edu.au/article.cfm?articleId=1202 So my question is – if you can even outsource your thinking, what does it mean to be an organisation in the new world order? Continue reading The one thing you can’t outsource is innovation – or is it?

Investigation, MeasurementLeave a comment

Should measures be “SMART”?

James King

I was having a debate with a friend of mine recently.  He said that all measures should be “SMART”. The term is usually used for goals and says that the goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely (or something similar). The problem I pointed out was that the M in SMART means measurable so the concept of SMART measures is a bit redundant. He responded that in his experience many of the “measures” he saw in place were not actually being measured and so, he claimed, it would be good to remind people to actually have measures that they will measure. I am … Continue reading Should measures be “SMART”?