For those of you who need a little summary of what WE blogged about in January 2008, here is a month-end sum up of projectmanagement411. There are many excellent comments/points of view on these topics- check THEM out and add to the conversation! (The topics are arranged to be sung, with appropriate breathing- first three words very slow and the rest “rapid fire”):
We… wrote…. about….. living standards, innovation, carbon trading, collaboration…..(breath), strategy mapping, tech trends, role of commitment and preparation…..(breath), social security, business leaders, statesmen, project queues…..(breath), language barriers, PMOs, BI drivers, and swamp draining.
Just click on the topic and …read more

The McKinsey Quarterly reveals household consumption statistics in India in their article on “India’s Rising Middle Class Wants a Better Life“. Whenever someone complains that India, and other countries, are taking jobs away from the US via “virtual” business processes enabled by technology, I point out the inevitable rise in living standards that will result and the costs of doing business this way (miscommunication because of culture and language, technology, customer frustration/perception). The article shared this information on the changes forecast:

The composition of the spending patterns reveals the trend toward expecting to be paid more:
“…discretionary outlays (such as mobile phones) …read more

Innovation. Seemingly a magical, creative art where ideas pop into the mind of relaxed and receiving brain cells (the hilarious “ideation” commercials come to mind where an incredulous manager says, “What are you doing?”, and the existential group leader responds, “Ideating”). Actually, there are NOT many NEW ideas and the “innovation” comes with successful market penetration, as it applies to new products, and with successful implementation, as it applies to new business processes. I tend to focus on innovative business processes.
Once more an innovation article failed to mention business process innovation. Times OnLine, a British publication, treated the subject with …read more

With global warming firmly pointed at the US wealth generating industrial machine, federal schemes for regulating carbon producing industries and an emerging carbon trading system impact all companies. CFO magazine lays out the pros and cons of all of this in it’s article on “Carbon Trading“. The message is clearly to be aware and start understanding this area or be left behind having to purchase expensive carbon offsets combined with costly carbon-reducing improvements.
The mind-numbing uncertainty of this area, combined with a need for action, is leaving many confused. On one hand CFO says:
“When federal legislation hits, the clutch of credits …read more

Collaboration reaps many benefits but there are still many frustrations with the process and with the technology. Manufacturing Business Technology magazine reports on a survey of just over 400 (about 1/2 design engineers and 1/2 production/project managers) about collaboration as it relates to design and manufacturing improvements.
Only 20% were “satisfied” with current collaboration efforts citing two key areas of frustration:
1. Slow responses from those to whom communications are sent.
2. Clarity of communication.
90% regularly collaborate with internal to company people with only 30% going outside to customers and suppliers on a regular basis. This surprised the reviewers but seems to make …read more

“Companies should devote R&D to new business models just as they do to new products. A new CEO today will need to preside over a changed business model three or four times in his career, but no one really knows how to do it. It’s not taught in business schools, and there is much to learn about how to manage a workforce that is no longer just within the four walls of an organization”.
AMEN!…and AMEN! This quote by Saul Kaplan, executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, from CFO magazine’s “Gaming the System” article, is fascinating because of …read more

Think of a business model where a firm provides services with a global freelance resource base: is it writing? editing? software development? CFO magazine’s article on “Gaming the System” introduces TopCoder, not only as a global freelance software development operation, but one that has participants compete on providing the best code for it’s application work. This is business competition where you have to finish before knowing whether you will be paid or not, because you have to win.
It seems that TopCoder’s success and growth is based on the fact that they were more of a non-business community in the first …read more

Reading Miki Saxon’s post on her blog at Ramp Up Solutions about how customers reduce communication with vendors in hard times made me think of lean environments and the tech boom and bust of the late ’90s through 2001. It’s true that customer to vendor communication tends to stop in hard times- my take is that the relationship is the culprit. Here’s my comment to Miki’s post:
Miki- it’s fascinating to observe what “hard times” do to relationships, from marraige to business partnerships. The JIT relationships are often formed based on who is in the power seat vs. “how can we …read more