Aligning Your Focus with Your Vision
What are you trying to accomplish with your business?
Making money is every business’s objective so that doesn’t count.
What are you creating that will create value for others such that they are willing to give you money? How are you going to make a difference in the world, or at least a part of it? What is your vision? What are your short and long-term goals to achieve that vision?
Everything that you do that does not take you closer to your vision is a distraction.
Don’t try to fluff up a distraction to look like you are achieving your goals […]
Transitioning Between Iterations
I’ve noticed one mistake that is easy to get into with agile project management and that is to not properly close off one iteration and then to seamlessly start the next iteration.
The biggest problems with this are:
- This gives the illusion that a project is just one giant iteration with work broken into a sequence of steps,
- There is no sense of completion or accomplishment along the way,
- Code is left in an unstable state longer and the customer does not see as much value,
- There is little to no effort going into re-evaluating priorities and involving the customer in decisions,
- There is little […]
Bite-Sized Iterations
Time and time again the wisdom of having a good release and iteration planning methodology comes to the forefront. This becomes incredibly important on a large complex project or one where the sky is the limit on what the project could cover (i.e. client is coming up with new ideas daily).
The reasons are simple:
- Focus, and
- Reduced complexity over the short-term.
Worrying about the design of the entire application up front is time consuming, likely to become dated and most significantly contributes to lack of focus and stress for a development team… where do you begin?
The solution is conceptually simple but […]
Raising the Retirement Age
I read an article a little while back that Cuba was planning to raise the retirement age for workers by 5 years to try to cope with an aging population (60 to 65 for men and 55 to 60 for women). Cuba estimates that 25 percent of its population will be over 60 in the year 2025. Government leaders are also studying ways to increase the birth rate.
If the rules of the game suddenly changed, how would it impact your business? Better yet, how can your business change the rules (not break the law) so that you are playing a […]
The Art of Procrastination
As they say, "to err is human". To procrastinate is definitely a human error condition.
Yes, I am human. In fact, that is why I am writing this post, I just had a recent incident caused by waiting too long and then running into problem. I lucked in and had a really good experience with a very helpful service desk. It doesn’t always work out like that.
It’s interesting that about 40% of our PenForms (an application we built) users were completing their annual returns to the government in the last week (or later in some cases), even though they […]
Fortune Telling
A week ago I read a forecast saying oil is heading to $200 per barrel this year. Today I read a forecast saying that oil is heading below $100 per barrel this year.
Reality… the only thing guaranteed about the future is we don’t really know what it holds. The past is easy and hindsight is 20/20.
So make sure your business vision and model support both up and down markets. I predict lots of both in the future.
King (or Queen) of the Mess
The other day I watched a program on TV where they took a look at people who were extremely “messy”. The people they interviewed were the opposite of everything the Martha Stewart brand stands for. Picture rooms stacked to the ceiling with vast accumulations of “stuff“. In some cases the rooms were so jammed you could barely move around. One guy had four apartments just like it in different cities.
Some made the argument that the time others spend cleaning and tidying they spend on being productive or creative. Others claimed they were highly visual people and needed to “see” […]
Who’s In Control?
In business, you have to realize you cannot control everything. You cannot control your employees, suppliers or customers for example. All you can do is put the culture, systems and processes in place to attempt to guide things to your chosen destination.
Most businesses are actually organized chaos. Lots of things going wrong all the time but somehow things generally work out in the end. There is a point of diminishing return for effort invested in perfection (reducing problems to zero). Ideally the system is built to deal with the things that derail and then to get things back on […]
Who’s The Boss (Anyways)?
Tired of having a boss? Quit and start your own business, right?
Sounds great! No one to answer to but yourself. Call you own shots. Master of your destiny. Top dog. Ah, life will be great….
Unfortunately, being your own boss is a not a good reason to go into business, especially if it’s the main or only reason. It’s an especially bad idea if you can’t work for someone else (anti-social, argumentative, can’t take criticism, etc.) because you need those skills in business.
Assuming that: you are actually trying build a business; you are ethical; and “you” are filling the top […]
The Right Thing is Smart
There is a small vendor in downtown Calgary that normally makes excellent Montreal smoked meat and Reuben sandwiches. In fact, after going there a few times I became a regular customer. The owner is really personable and the walk is a nice break to the day.
Yesterday, I ordered the “regular”, a Reuben. I also mentioned that the last couple of times, the sandwich had not been quite up to par. Without a moment’s hesitation, she refused to let me pay and insisted this sandwich was on the house. A free lunch was not my goal, I just wanted what I […]