led zeppelin, project management, hindenburg, Toby Elwin, blog

A Led Zeppelin page of project management

Time impacts a project business need. How a project team identifies the impact decides if time is a resource waste or resource investment.

Before you sink costs into a project and well before your project looks more like sunk costs invest time for a better appreciation.

A review of what was, what is, and what should never be, is critical to identify risk to resource commitment.

Take a page from Led Zeppelin, who borrowed heavily from others, at times, without acknowledgment, to create something grand from what was tried.

social media, strategy, cover, design, Toby Elwin, blog

Social media strategy review for Project Management Institute — New York

Yesterday worked with Project Management Institute New York City chapter in an all-day retreat with focus on communication and collaboration.

Offsite objectives included how the chapter shares events and activities that improve community persona need.

The presentation is included within and was used for discussion on integrated communication and what social media support might look like.

riddler, batman, knowledge, Toby Elwin, blog

Who knows? Many times not many people do

In a healthy environment, admitting what you don’t know is part of the process to come to a shared understanding.

In an unhealthy environment sticking to a point you think you know, but do not really know, drives people to defend positions from a point of weakness that can easily turn into an indefensible point of embarrassment.

The separation from noise to decision is about want to know and who you know. Here are 8 steps to go from noise to decision.

oliver twist, buyer persona, strategy, development, Toby Elwin, blog

The pain with change management

A leader’s job is to not create a space that causes so much pain that people must move, but to create a compelling future vision people are drawn to.

If leadership starts their focus on what did not work or what you do not want to happen then effort goes into putting procedures in place that constrain. If leadership focus starts on what worked or what it looks like when it worked and the focus shifts to how it worked to and what is achievable, what is possible.

Appreciative Inquiry, as a principle for design and change management, allows organizations to change the focus. Where we inquire, we move and Appreciative Inquiry changes the change.

tasmanian devil, strategic plan, Toby Elwin, blog

The devil in the details — the strategic plan

I find people have a tendency to become too involved too quickly with tactics. Tactics include what to buy, what to build, what to move. Strategy is why build, why buy, why move.

Much of your organization is involved in the detail of execution, it is illogical they are not strategically aligned. When your team discovers tactics they deliver align to organization goals there is clear purpose in what they do.

Purpose provides motivation.

The meat of the strategic planning process is the goals-objectives-actions value chain. People may have other definitions for goals, objectives, and actions, and bristle at the rigidity of the definitions, however, a single use for each term will remove interpretation and confusion.