Insights
Writing from members and the council on complexity, execution and management in service and knowledge-work organisations.
Why Actively Managed Processes Tame Complexity and Empower People.
How hard is it to get things done in your organisation? Are your people relaxed and enjoying the open road or up to their ankles in complexity and ambiguity? Much…
Why Todays Problems Often Come from YesterdaysSolutions……..and How to Break that Vicious Circle!
If you ask the people in your organisation, “how easy is it to get things done around here”, what would be the answer? Recent research at Arizona State University found…
The Futility of Planning for Certainty in an Uncertain World
Most, if not all modern organisations inhabit a VUCA world (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) but persist with using old style business tools and methods that were designed for more stable and certain…
The Pitfalls of Being a Results-Driven Organisation.
Organisations often boast about being, or aspiring to be, a results-driven organisation or having a results-driven culture, not understanding its pitfalls. Results are outcomes and when organisations focus mainly on…
Performance assessment: IT PMO
Facts Results The assessment was concluded with following recommendations What was at stake? The IT Management of the company wanted deeper understanding of the work done by their Project and…
IT Support team transformation
Facts Results What was at stake? The IT Management of the company wanted deeper understanding of the work done by their technology services teams and help them identify opportunities for…
Entanglement: The Core Driver of Frustration and Poor Productivity in Service and Knowledge-Work Organisations!
Globally, the low productivity of the service and knowledge work sectors is causing governments and economies a major concern, given that they now account for over 80% of GDP and the bulk of…
Quality versus quality? Why knowing the difference can help change your organisation for the better.
I recently came across an article proposing that “It’s time to stop measuring productivity” by Dominic Price, the resident “work futurist” at Atlassian. His “5 second summary” is: Unfortunately Dominic is perpetuating…
The 4 Root Causes of Poor Effectiveness and Efficiency in Service and & Knowledge-Work Organisations (S&KWO)
Background Work teams or front-line teams (to distinguish them from project teams) are responsible for executing the day-to-day transactions of the organisation and are usually found at the lowest level…
Without Substantiated Reasons, Can Managers Really Ask for More?
For those of us who have worked in the manufacturing and industrial sectors, the question posed in the headline would seem strange if not bizarre. Managers in those sectors take…