Managing Technology

Workshop Follow-Up - GE Leadership Values in Action - Washginton DC

Thanks so much to everyone who participated in our first public offering of this workshop Hosted by American Office at the impressive Herman Miller showroom in Washington, DC.  Below, attendees can find a link to download the presentation slides and other materials from the workshop at our protected file site. 

Workshop Materials for Download

The information is protected with the password distributed at the meeting (found on the bottom of the Team Assessment Tool).

Feel free to use this site to make any comments or ask follow up questions for continued group discussion under this blog entry or in the password protected area (link above).  You can also e-mail me directly (e-mail link to the left) with follow up questions if you'd prefer.

I thoroughly enjoyed the excellent discussion and appreciate your active participation in the session.  Don't forget to do your quick and easy follow up homework!

The GE Leadership Values In Action - at the John Deere Project Management Forum

Deere PM Forum participants:  below you can find a link to download the presentation slides and other materials from the February 2010 workshop at our protected file site.  The post is protected with the password distributed at the meeting.

Workshop Materials for Download

Feel free to use this site to make any comments or ask follow up questions for continued group discussion under this blog entry or in the password protected area (link above).  You can also e-mail me directly (e-mail link to the left) with follow up questions if you'd prefer.

Thanks for your participation in the session!

Every company should have a Master Calendar

Rhythm of Review was one of the most important management concepts I learned while at GE.  Every manager (and most employees) knew the dates of the monthly financial closes as well as when the major strategy sessions with corporate were scheduled.  These were big events where success or failure was objectively measured and the future of the company was energetically planned.

Regularly scheduled rigorous reviews of results against plan (finance, sales, project status, inventory, etc.) are critical to ensure companies stay focused on their most important metrics.  In particular, your IT department needs this rhythm to align their efforts well with the business strategy and flow.

In my years as a consultant, I've been surprised to find that many companies of all sizes have no single calendar that shows when all their important management meetings are scheduled.  And often these aren't planned at the macro level at all, so there is no communicated rhythm of review in place. 

If you're doing everything ad hoc, then chances are you're missing some necessary disciplines around both strategic planning and tactical execution.

I've searched several times for a good calendar template and found none, so I created this Excel tool and have used it for several clients and my own consulting practice:

Download Visular - Company Master Calendar Example - v02

This example is populated with dummy data for demonstration purposes - feel free to customize to meet your needs.  Read on for instructions:

Startup Company Planning - Questions to Ask

I've consulted with many people who were either considering starting their own business or had already done so recently and were planning their next steps.  I realized that I end up having the same conversations with potential business owners over and over again, so I began to capture all the questions I'd ask to help them plan in one document.  I've shared this with many people over the past 5 or so years and it constantly evolves - I'll keep the latest version posted here.  Comments are welcome and I'll use them for future updates.

Download Visular-Startup_Planning_Overview_v05

One caveat - I'm not a multi-millionaire from my own high-tech startup that I launched before Visular, or I probably wouldn't be working as a consultant or writing this blog, so alot of this is in the spirit of "learning from your mistakes"!