Many years ago, I had a chance to visit a friend’s farm on a weekend. My friend owned a huge farm on the outskirts of the city where they had employed farmers. A farmer’s outcome was quality of the crop. To ensure this, the farmer worked the soil, got the best seeds from the marketplace, […]
Have you ever experienced the following? You complete a project and then do a small ‘post-mortem / retrospective analysis’ of what went well and what did not. You then document these lessons in a nice looking template and share it with all stakeholders before getting onto the next project. Next project looks exciting in the […]
I love quotes because they inspire and ignite a thought process. Today, I read this brilliant quote from Steve Jobs: “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” ~ Steve Jobs Loved the first part. Be a yardstick of quality. As professionals, we can only differentiate ourselves […]
Most organizational/team improvement initiatives we undertake involve change – from current state of affairs to desired state. Change is hard and painful and necessary for growth/survival. Process improvement is all about managing change – and in my view, change (and its respective benefits) does not happen when you: Keep thinking big without starting small: It […]
I wrote earlier about “11 Things Project Managers & Leaders Should Never Do” and then continued the chain of thoughts with another post titled “7 (More) Things Project Managers & Leaders Should Never Do. This is the final part of this series which is compiled to form a handy and portable summary “25 Things Managers […]
Yesterday, over a cup of coffee, my friend asked me about my first book and what was my approach towards writing it. I said that I took “project approach”. This lead to an immediate realization that everything we do is a project, be it loosing your weight, writing a book, painting your home, getting a […]
June 2010 – a brilliant month as far as blogging is concerned. I wrote on a wide variety of topics and a lot of my writing was recognized by the blogosphere. That was satisfying. Recognitions raise the bar and help us to do better. June was also a month of anticipating some respite in heat […]
We live in a hyper-competitive world. Students are anxious about their annual results. Professionals are anxious about their next appraisal. Business owners are anxious about their bottom lines and so on. You get the point. This anxiousness does not allow us to enjoy the process. Sure, goals are important and attaining them is even more […]
As a leader, you can lead others with a belief that “people are good” – or with a fear that people will default. Your belief is reflected in the way you structure up your leadership team, set up governance processes and treat people. You can choose to provide space and freedom for people to perform […]