Project X Discussions

Great Logical Consequence Example

2008-08-11T23:42:00-04:00

One of the important principles in training children is to help them learn that actions have logical consequences. If you do X, then logically Y follows. Child does X, then Y logically follows. X and Y must be logically connected.

I just heard of a great example. The parents of my two year old grandson wanted him to give up his soother but wanted him to make the choice. They suggested that he might want to use his soother to buy some toy at Toy R Us. At one point he decided that was what he wanted to do and off they went. He cased the whole store and finally decided on a power washer. He carried the big box to the cash himself and passed the cashier his soother. Home he went and played with it. Then went for his nap with no real problem. Now he also had a night time soother as well and the next day he decided he wanted to go back and buy another toy. Again he followed same procedure and he went to bed without a fuss. He did not get to sleep quite as well but never asked for his soother.

I thought that was a great example of logical consequences. He certainly learned lots of different lessons about life and the consequences of his decisions. Really neat. I just had to share this great example.

Habits

2008-08-05T18:48:00-04:00

Blogging is a habit. Once out of your regular routine it is hard to get back into it. Some people not me say the same thing about excercise.

So I am going to kick back into the habit of blogging.

So hopefully the last 6 months have given me some good subjects.
:)

Methodology Versus Creativity

2008-08-04T18:45:51-04:00

In my consulting practice, I have not developed many methodologies and notice that many people create methodologies and I wonder why. I know with my approach I look at each situation as unique and use simple principles and checklists. The main idea is to assess the current situation and the desired future state and develop an approach to deal with the issue. Based on my experience, I have many different approaches I can propose but I avoid trying to shoe horn my ideas into a formal methodology.

One of the most difficult things for a consultant is to avoid using your last approach on the next project. I believe we need to use our creativity to develop a approach that deals with the issues of each situation uniquely.

However I am firm believer in checklists to use a guide in considering the way to approach any issue. I think the term methodology is the problem. Checklists and guidelines are extremely useful and help deal the many difficult issues we encounter on projects.

Another use of a methodology is for training. Without a structure, training is not difficult. The difficulty in such training is to help to student understand that these are checklists as opposed to steps in a process. The use of case studies in training is an excellent way to teach how to deal with consulting and project issues. If the methodology is applied rigorously, following the steps in the methodology becomes the project as opposed to dealing with the issues that arise. We can follow all the steps and check all the boxes and the issue is unresolved because of some factor which was not considered in the methodology. Good training will help students cope with circumstances that do not fit into the methodology.

I have written several blogs on hidden factors and readiness in consulting and these factors can rise up and bite your project at any time. Good consulting and project management must cope with surprises without losing site of the goal.

I recall a project that had as one of the early steps a risk assessment. The assessment came up with some substantial risks associated with the project but did not suggested a method of managing these risks. However the report was ignored by the project manager. The reason the assessment was done was because it was part of the methodology. That project had huge risks and in the end was not successful. The methodology was followed but the risks were not addressed. An example of checking off the boxes but not addressing the issues.

Methodology and creativity can coexist on a project but requires leadership and sound management. We must all encourage innovation and not allow a methodology to stifle creativity.

Inspirational People

2008-07-21T10:33:00-04:00

I recently had a meeting with a fellow I respect and admire and I was truly inspired. I will call him Fred.

First I will give some background. Fred was a Chartered Accountant who had been Chief Financial Officer of a large company with head office in Toronto. The company decided to move head office to the west. He helped the organization move but decided for personal reasons not to go. The next job he took really surprised me when he became Chief Administrative Officer of a large law firm. At the time several law firms were hiring non-lawyers to do the back-office work. Most of these people were not successful. Supporting a group of high-powered lawyers with outstanding administrative support is a big challenge.

Fred was a star and supported the law firm in amazing ways. He was the model of a person who does excellent staff work but does not get involved with the work and management of the firm. I really am impressed when people adapt to different circumstances and do a great job. The story does not end there.

About nine years ago, he was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. About the same time his firm was having a sporty outing of golf, tennis and bicycling. Fred described himself as a couch potato and did not play golf or tennis and had not ridden a bike since he was a teenager. He decided to do the biking and the firm provided a famous biker as coach. Fred took to biking like a duck to water. He now bikes all over the world and at age 62 he completed an Iron Man Triathlon. The event consists of a 2.4 mile (3.8 km) swim, a 112 mile (180 km) bike ride, and a marathon (26.2 mile, 42 km). How amazing is that.

I think Fred is a great example to making the best of significant challenges, from being a very successful CFO to an outstanding CAO to now a very fit bike rider, who sees the world on his bike. How many of us can say that we took an apparent setback and made it into a real opportunity. Well done, Fred.

Change Management

2008-07-16T13:59:22-04:00

Recently I was chatting with somebody who is involved in a project which involves a huge amount of change. We were discussing the change management process and the assessment of readiness of an group to change. I was recalling several process I have been involved with that involved significant change.

In my recollection, the biggest factor was the serious commitment of the senior people to push the change. I recall one important project involving a completely new system for billing and customer service that was running into significant resistance from the manager of customer service. Each week the sponsor would meet with the manager and the delivery leader and discuss the issues and set out an action plan. After a few weeks the manager simply ran out of excuses and switched over to the new system. The sponsor made it clear that we were going to switch to the new system and the manager had no place to hide. In addition the senior person took real leadership on the issue and suported his manager. I saw a great example of leadership and tenacity.

One factor in change is the reluctance of people to spend the time to work on the change versus doing their day to day job. Most people's day to day job really is a full time job so finding time to work on the change is a problem. Again the person must be given direction on how to spend time on the change. The most effective is to have somebody more junior take over their day to day job so that their time is freed up temporarily. Again their manager's participation and support is really key.

One problem with introducing a new procedure or system is that it does not work perfectly. These flaws can give people lots of excuses not to use the new system. The flaws give people a place to hide. The key is for the delivery people setting expectations that things will not be perfect initially and be available to help people through the difficulties. In addition, the person's supervisor must also be determined to work through the difficulties and treat things as a challenge. I often have said that as we learn a new system, we learn what does not work and do not use those things. These items can be fixed later.

As people work though the challenges of a new system, the determination of the organization to make it work is key. This determination can overcome many setbacks which inevitably occur. The most successful systems are those where people believe they must work for the organization to survive. People can do heroic things when their backs are to the wall.

Underlying many of these items is the readiness of the organization to embrace change and make it work. More about that in future blogs.

Rushing to Solution

2008-06-20T09:35:51-04:00

One of the things I noticed in myself and others is how quickly we rush to solutions. In a business intelligence project, rather than finding out the business questions the client has, we rush to designing reports. In the process we narrow our solution much to quickly. If we explored more fully the questions the client might have the solution might be able to answer many more questions than the initial report we design which will then reflect how we structure the underlying data.

I think one of the difficulties is thinking in a multi-dimensional world. The exercise of thinking of information organized by multi-dimensions is difficult for people to visualize. However a report format is relatively easy to visualize.

However the report is not the only problem. Most of us in the IT business are great problem solvers and love to solve problems. Unfortunately we sometimes are already designing a solution before we really understand the business requirement. In addition the client thinks of his issue in terms of what kind of report or spreadsheet I need. Unfortunately a report or spread sheet in two dimensional.

I think before we rush to designing reports, we should work on a logical data model which deals with the multidimensional nature of the business problem and questions. We can consider how these things fit together. The next step would then would be to think about how to answer the business questions.

How many of us have rush to report layouts or demo reports before we understand the business problem? I think we are so attracted by the lure of the technology we sometimes end up in the wrong place. However using agile methods can really help us avoid getting stuck on the initial solution.

I do not think there is any simple solution to the lure of rushing to solution. The main idea of this blog is to make us all more aware of the temptation to rush to solution. Let us all resolve to understand the business questions more fully and help our clients think about questions and not reports.

The Mushroom Farm

2008-06-12T08:54:00-04:00

A friend of mine was describing the experience of her son who was an intern to one of the senior people in government. It was a great experience for the person and he was included in many meetings and activities that regular employees would never get a chance to experience. In addition he sat at his desk working while listening to music on his earphones to cover all the distraction around him. Apparently this was tolerated for him but would not have been tolerated by other employees.

I have been mulling this over and looking for the lesson. The expression that comes to mind is that many people feel they live on a mushroom farm. "They keep us in the dark and feed us s*#t." I have always wondered if that is really one of those cultural things. Maybe somebody tried get off the farm and was giving a whack like the whack a mole game.

Another counter example was a friend of mine who was an executive director of a social service agency who said he always encouraged people who asked the difficult questions as opposed to shutting them down. In many organizations many of the sacred cows discourage innovative thinking.

Another important idea is for the organizational leadership should encourage open communication up and down the organization. Leadership by example really can overcome many cultural taboos. If we all in the organization working towards the same goal, more communication can only help not hinder.

Innovative ideas can really create rapid results and can come from anywhere in the organization.

Whack a Mole Culture

2008-06-09T08:55:00-04:00

I was reading an article about the danger of your hidden culture called "Executives Beware -- Your Culture May Be Deadly by Peter De Lisi. If you recall the kids game, when the mole sticks his head up out of the ground, you try to whack the mole. In many organizations, anybody who sticks the head up with an idea or concept which is outside the box is given a whack. How many times in a meeting somebody asks a questions that we find challenging and the questions is push aside? I think it is very easy for an organization to have a "Whack a Mole Culture."

I find that the best way to stay engage in a meeting is to actively participate and ask questions. I expect at times I get whacked and do not even notice.

I think this sort of culture develops in a very subtle fashion and really stifles innovation. Notice at the next work session you attend, how few people ask the hard but obvious question or make a suggestion which is "outside the box."

Many subtle things reveal the culture and underlying assumptions of an organization. However they are very important and very difficult to change. However with a concerted effort on the part of the group, they can change. Often I think culture change is the reason a new CEO is bought into an organization from outside the industry. The hope is that he might make a culture change. Usually he has to change many of the senior team. Even then these silent assumptions are very tenacious and hard to change. Of course they are always replaced by new ones, maybe even better ones.

Shared Vision

2008-06-05T11:48:00-04:00

As I continue to discuss planning, a common item that comes out of strategic planning is a vision statement. These statements are usually repeated frequently in posters and speeches. I recall in Senge's Fifth Discipline, one of the key disciplines of a learning organization is shared vision. I think that is why the vision statement gets lots of press inside an organization.

However we all have the common experience that these vision statements sound very hollow. I think the reason is that they are not shared in the sense of me owning the vision, the vision is shared in the sense that my boss is sharing it with me by telling me his or his bosses vision. I think that Senge meant that we all share a vision. I am sure we all do have a vision but it is a far cry from the official vision statement.

One of these vision type statements that one organization had was to be the best employer in their industry. I would think that would mean that satisfied employees would be a high priority. I think those things are not preached but practiced by example right from the top. In that organization I saw no evidence that this vision was practiced at any level.

Senior management would love to find a way of developing a shared vision throughout the organization. I think that is one of the most difficult things. Maybe the BHAG, the Big Hairy Audacious Goal, might qualify or at least the criterion of being simple, compelling and demonstrated. (See a previous blog)

Shared vision often exists in the underlying assumptions of an organization. These assumptions are often unspoken and run deeper than the culture. The only way you can discern these assumptions is to watch what an organization does rather than listen to what they say. Even then it is hard because these assumptions may not be a consistent set. Underlying assumptions that conflict can really cause an organization to sabotage itself. An example of an underling assumption might be we must make a profit at all cost. Nobody would admit that but often it is there if you watch what people do.

When an organization is stressed by hard times, their real character and vision are revealed. Not always fun to watch.

Situational Leadership

2008-06-02T09:57:00-04:00

This item in my series on planning is about leadership. I think that often circumstances dictate the kind of leadership needed to make progress. An organization that has the flexibility to select the best leader for the current issue is really healthy. Often however the most senior person in the group is given the leadership role even if other skills are needed and others defer to the senior person. I think many organizations miss some real opportunities with a lack of flexibility.

The most extreme examples of this are the difference between an emergency and a slowly deteriorating situation. The leadership in an emergency must be very action oriented but calm and very authoritarian. There is no time to develop consensus. In a slowly developing situation requires many people working on different aspects of the issue using initiative and innovation. The leader would be someone who can coordinate a variety of activities while allowing for individual initiative. This leader has quite a different style from the leader in an emergency.

I think in all our projects we look for various members of the team take leadership and initiative. We then build of the individual strengths of all the team members.

Building Teamwork and Understanding

2008-05-30T09:20:00-04:00

This blog is another entry on the theme of planning. One important aspect of planning is how the team of people doing the planning work together. The fashion for some time has been to take the planning group or the executive team out on an exercise the help them learn how to work as a team. The team has an opportunity to learn how to work together on some task that requires teamwork.

After the exercise the group is then asked to reflect on the lessons learned from the experience. I have been on several of these exercises and have found them quite fascinating and have learned lots of things. However I generally do not find they help the management team work better. The reason I think is that many of the issues going on in the team go well beyond an understanding of how to work as a team. People in organizations work together because these are the people you happen to end up with. The unifying item is the success of the organization and for you, in particular, success in your job. Creating an artificial environment will not unify the team. However working together to solve the real pressing issue will overcome many people's inability to work in teams.

I think that the building of a team is best done in the context of the tasks at hand and creating some momentum and results. Success will bring a team together better than exercise. Structuring the planning work in a way that creates early success and some good learning on how to work together is the best way to build the team. Then working with team to reflect on what they learned in the process is an excellent way to reinforce the experience.

I suggest the team look for early wins for the team that really improve the bottom line. Then learn form the experience.

Core versus Context - A Planning Taxonomy

2008-05-22T10:01:00-04:00

In this note I continue my ideas on planning. I am always looking for new mental models to help me understand issues a business faces. In a book by Moore called "Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution" he makes an interesting distinction between various activities of a company which might be of help in setting company strategy. He defines Core activities as the activities your company does that has potential to differentiate you from you competition and Context activities as those activities which you must do well to keep up to or ahead of your competition but will not differentiate you.

For example, personnel support is a very important activity but is not one that will differentiate you from your competitors. Often customer service falls into that category. Certain aspects of information processing can also be a context activity. If you are looking for resources and money to invest in your core activity, these are areas you might consider improving your productivity through outsourcing. Remember these are things you must do well to stay in business but will not differentiate you.

However he does point out the people working in these areas may not be suitable for innovative activities. He does suggest they may be used for managing an outsourcing and in the more routine work in a core activity. This would free up resources more suited for innovative work.

Analysis of your core and context can be very helpful in considering where you should be applying money and resources. How can you differentiate yourself and which way should your business evolve? Sometimes you need money and resources just to keep up with the competition and the business environment.

In his book he also talks about the type of company you are and your stage of growth. I did not find those models as helpful as the ideas on core and context.

Big Hairy Audacious Goal - BHAG

2008-05-19T00:04:00-04:00

This is a continuation of my series on planning. One of the salient characteristic or habits of visionary companies identified in the book, "Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies" was the setting of a bold mission. I would like to discuss it because it is one of the tools I use in my planning. I do not apply it often but I am always looking for opportunities.

Big hairy audacious goal (BHAG pronounced bee-hag) is a bold mission that a company sets out to achieve. Not all the companies in the book adopted BHAGs but there were some great examples.

In 1952 Boeing set out to build a large jet aircraft for the commercial market. At that point Boeing had no presence in the commercial market and previous attempts had been failures. Management decided to defy the odds and establish themselves a major player in the commercial market. Boeing built a jet and called it the 707. In contrast Douglas Aircraft, the comparison company, decided to stick with piston propellers and wait and see. Douglas waited and saw Boeing fly right by them and dominate the commercial market. Boeing has had a history of taking on these BHAGs. They developed the P-26, B-17, 707 and 727. Then Boeing takes on the 747 that almost killed the company. Douglas in comparison never attained the market position of Boeing.

Another example is General Electric goal to "become #1 or #2 in every market we serve and revolutionize the company to have the speed and agility of a small enterprise." In comparison, Westinghouse came out with a vision statement of "Total Quality, market Leadership, Technology Driven, Global, Focused Growth, Diversified." Not either was right or wrong, GE's was compelling and clear.

Another BHAG that comes to mind is Kennedy's "man on the moon" mission. Clear, simple, compelling and inspiring. Gets the juices flowing.

When you consider BHAGs for your organization here are some key points to keep in mind. These are from the book:

A BHAG should be so clear and compelling that it requires little or no explanation
A BHAG should fall well outside your comfort zone
A BHAG should be so bold and exciting in its own right that it will stimulate progress even if the leaders disappear
A BHAG should be consistent with the company's core ideology

For more information see the book "Built to Last", a business classic.

Porter's Competitive Analysis

2008-05-15T11:39:00-04:00

This is another blog in my series on planning. Michael Porter's books on Competitive Strategy are a business classics and really have some good models in helping to analyze your situation in your business environment. As Senge says, the ability to have good mental models is one of the key disciplines of a learning organization.

Porter's model envisioned your company in the context of many factors influencing your situation. The first two are your customers and your suppliers. These two exercise significant influence how you set your strategy. We often forget how dependent we are on our suppliers. In the consulting business, much our supply for our services comes from the supply of people in our field and subcontractors. A change in the local economy can have a huge factor the availability of people in our field.

Another force on our business is our competitors and alternative suppliers. Competitors are obvious but what about alternative suppliers. For example in the software development business, an obvious alternatives is packaged software suppliers and outsourcers. In the telecom business, the Internet is becoming an obvious alternative for voice services. In the personal computer business, hand held devices are becoming an alternative. Another factor are new suppliers entering our market space. Somebody who supplies another product to our customer may decide to enter a product space. Porter suggest we consider the barriers to entry of the suppliers and alternate suppliers. One of the key barriers to entry is the cost of entry. Also another factor of a similar nature is the cost of exit. These factors are important in considering whether you want to get into a new product area.

In the consulting business, specialized expertise can create a barrier to entry to a potential competitor.

Another factor in the setting of competitive strategy is the environmental factors. In his initial book, I think Porter did not include these in his model but I think are very important to consider. These are factors which exist in your business space that you have little or no control over. These can included economic conditions, government rules and regulations, tax laws, environmental issues, and the business climate. In the telecom business, the regulatory environment is changing every day and reducing the barriers to entry. Tax law related to capital and operational cost are very complex and an important factor in investment decisions. The regulatory regimes of different jurisdiction are a key factor in the competitive environment.

An example of an alternative supplier in the last twenty years has been the oursourcer and particularly the offshore outsourcer. The cost of entry of these suppliers was very high initially. Now that these companies have establish the infrastructure they are a viable alternative to more conventional services. The outsourcing deal often includes services which are offered by more traditional suppliers of services.

These ideas help organizations consider their business environment and their competitive strategy.

I have always found Michael Porter's model a great help in understanding a business and assisting in helping clients and our company set strategy. A good mental model can help one get our minds around a situation which is very complex. Things are never as simple as the models but they help promote discussion and analysis.

Cognitive Dissonance

2008-05-12T10:16:00-04:00

We all participate in an exercise called by psychologist called cognitive dissonance frequently and I find it a fascinating mechanism. Before I define it, I will tell the story of an experiment I learned about in one of my psych courses.

In order to test the mechanism, a research group designed the most boring and tedious experiment that they could think of and asked students to participate. The experiment as I recall was simply moving blocks around and over a long period of time. When the experiment was finished, the subjects were approached and asked to recruit other subjects. Some were offered one dollar for each new subject, others, ten dollars and others, fifty dollars per subject. Each group agreed to the deal and went out seeking new subjects by selling how interesting the experiment was and how important. Afterwords the sellers were asked about their view of the experiment. The people who were paid one and five dollars said it was a really interesting and worthwhile experiment. The people paid fifty dollars per subject said it was really boring and tedious. The conclusion was that the one and five dollar people did not feel it was worth lying about the experiment so they convince themselves so they did not feel they were lying. The fifty dollars people felt that fifty dollars justified them lying and so they could maintain the dissonance.

The experiment demonstrates our ability to make our private logic to be consistent with our belief. We cannot maintain cognitive dissonance. In academic literature, the term refers to attempts to reduce the discomfort of conflicting thoughts, by performing actions that are opposite to one's beliefs.

However in more general use, cognitive dissonnance is a psychological state that describes the uncomfortable feeling when a person begins to understand that something the person believes to be true is, in fact, not true. Then a process begins to eliminate the dissonance because it is not a comfortable state.

I have heard that the purpose of many of the automobile ads on TV and print media are to reduce the dissonance or uncertainty that people feel after they have bought a particular vehicle. If you analyze most of the ads they really are good feeling ads as opposed to information about the selling features of the vehicle. The person viewing the ad feels good about the decision they made and dissonance is reduced.

I would like to hear some other ideas and point of views on cognitive dissonance.

Actively Engaged

2008-05-09T21:51:34-04:00

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about the old fashioned conversation.

Lately I have been seeing in myself and others a challenge to stay actively engaged.

What I mean is on conference calls and in meetings we get distracted by things - email, phone calls and other items(shinny objects).

Sadly though we are multi-tasking, the task we are supposed to be at is suffering. So if you should be elsewhere and you are not needed, don't waste your time go do the other thing. If you need to be there, be there! Be engaged, be involved and pay attention.

Acting "As If"

2008-05-08T09:55:00-04:00

I was just reading something that reminded me of a great bit of advice I once received. If you want to take on a new role or a new position, act as if you are already in that new role or position.

In Gellman, Hayward many people wanted to become partners and my best advice to them was to act as if they were partners. Do the things you would do if you were a partner. Interesting that people did not find that helpful.

So let me try to be more helpful. A person might say "If I were a partner, I would be more confident and acknowledged." So I say, act as if you were a partner and see what happens.

Now to be more specific for your current situation, what do you want to be when you grow up? Consider the answer carefully. After you have given an answer, now consider if were what you want to be, what would you do right now, and right now and right now? The answer is very revealing and will give you clue on how to become what you want to be.

Another way of thinking about this, you are not your job. You are you and you are doing this job the way you would do this job, not the way somebody else would do the job. Do not do the job the way somebody else would do the job, do it your way. So act as if you were the person you want to be and you will be that person.

So the next time I play golf, I will act as if I am a great golfer. Won't that be fun?

Planning - Issues Oriented Approach

2008-05-05T09:29:00-04:00

One approach to planning that I like is an issues oriented approach which includes the ideas of readiness and rapid results. Let us imagine we have been asked by a management group to lead them in a planning process.

The first step is to interview each of the participants and ask each one what are the burning issues the planning process must address. Likely in a team of five members you will get likely fifteen issues. As a general rule I like to limit the process to five issues so the first step is to get the group together to decide on the highest priority issues. This step really is the first step in planning and is an agenda setting exercise. When we have narrowed down the issues we ask for one person to be the sponsor of an issue and do some pre-work on the issue. If you cannot find a sponsor then you need to wonder "Who Cares?" The pre-work is to do some research on the issue and produce a brief paper describing the issue by answering the question "Where are we now?" The author can also take the liberty of adding ideas on how to address the issue. Prior to the planning session we ask that these papers be sent out to all the participants for their review.

Now we are ready to set an agenda for the planning session or sessions. A good idea to have a meeting with the management team to get agreement on the agenda and the timing for each issue. For each issue, we will have three items on the agenda:

General Discussion with the sponsors paper as the starting point
Discussion of solutions or approaches to dealing with the issue
Selection of an approach
Identification of some immediate next steps that can be taken in the next six weeks to improve the situation
Initial assignment of responsibility for action on each issue for the next six weeks

After all the issues have discussed the facilitator will then summarize the commitments to action over the next six weeks and seeks agreement by the team that these are realistic. The actions should be modified based on reluctance or practical factors.

The next step is the facilitator produces "An Agenda for Action" by the team and works with each member to help them make progress over the six week period.

A new planning sessions is convened to discuss progress and to revise any aspects the team wants to change. During this session the management team will reflect on any learning that has taken place in dealing with these issues. In addition, the team will now make commitments to take actions to get some bottom line improvement on each issue quickly.

As time progresses, the monitoring of progress becomes part of regular management meeting with planning work sessions with the facilitator every two to three months.

Several factors are included in this design. The readiness of the management team to deal with the issues is being tested at every step in the process. If a lack of readiness is detected, the issue needs to be discussed to try to uncover the hidden factors that are influencing the readiness. The achievement of rapid results is designed in the agenda and the early review of results. The team needs to be challenged by the leadership in the group to produce rapid results.

In addition to dealing with burning issues facing the organization, the team has a great opportunity to learn about how the effect change quickly in their organization. The facilitator leads a sharing of reflection of lessons learned regularly with the group and individually.

Planning - WWHWW

2008-05-01T02:22:00-04:00

I have been thinking recently about the various approaches I have taken to planning project throughout my consulting career. Over several blogs, I will describe some of the approaches I have used and know about. Each new project presents its own unique set of conditions and I adapt my various planning tools. The first one I will talk about is one Harvey loved to talk about because it was very simple.

A planning project needs to answer three key questions:

Where are we now
Where are we going
How do we get there

Simple as all that. My friend, June Ross, added two additional questions which I think really help:

Who is going to get us there
When

Now isn't that the neatest little taxonomy of questions which clearly are embodied in every planning project. How about we refer to this methodology as WWHWW. I wish I could pronounce that and then we would truly give this methodology a life of its own.

I think I have used this as a basic framework in many planning projects. We take these basic questions and superimpose some other ideas around the core. More on these other ideas in later blogs.

Centralize versus Decentralize

2008-04-28T09:10:00-04:00

Most organizations struggle with the centralization versus decentralization regularly and make changes frequently. Often the IT organization is a central part of the discussion, if you pardon the pun.

In several consulting assignments we have worked through this issue with organizations. We have found that dividing a function into three distinct activities very helpful. You might use the requisite organization way of thinking about the issue. Thinking about the time frame of an activity helps. In the operational activities, the function deals with day to day issues. In the project part of the function the time frame is three or six months. In the planning and strategy part of the function the time frames are usually a year or longer.

Taking each of these activities and the question of decentralization versus decentralization, the answer is often quite different. The most likely candidates for decentralization are the operational activities. The most likely candidate for centralization is strategy and direction setting activities. The projects can fall in both camps.

Each organization must deal with these question for their unique situation and the current issues the organization is facing. At different stages in an organizations development the answers can be quite different.

I am reminded of a characteristic of lasting organizations mentioned in the book "Built to Last". The book states that one of the characteristics of lasting organizations is the "Genius of the And versus the Tyranny of the Or." That means that the lasting organizations do not decide on decentralize versus centralize in a simple way but decide that they have some of both. Using the division of a function the way I described it above, is one way of doing both, some centralization and some decentralization.

How have the functions in your organization been organized? Are they centralized or decentralized? Often revisiting this question can be helpful.