There’s been quite a lot of debate in recent years related to the need to take risks and have the courage to innovate. There is a concerted push for us to escape entrenched thinking about incremental change and take more plunges into the unknown in order to really differentiate and succeed. Coupled with this view is the idea that we need to embrace failure and, in fact, wear it as some sort of badge of honour. This seems especially popular among the budding entrepreneurial set. Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way.

“I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” – Mark Twain

PostedAugust 27, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsRisk, Innovation, Planning, Failure, Success

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In a recent article in Management Today, Lynda Gratton offers three keys to building a sustainable working life – deep mastery, building a posse of associates and being part of the ‘big ideas’ crowd. In principle I have to agree and, in fact, these ideas seem pretty obvious at first glance. It makes perfect sense to keep up to speed with the latest thinking and to position yourself to be part of the conversation. It also makes perfect sense to build and maintain a responsive network of colleagues and advisors – who’s going to argue with that? But it is the idea of ‘deep mastery’ being an essential component for success that made me think twice.

PostedAugust 20, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesInnovation

TagsGeneralist, Specialist, Perspective

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I’ve heard a few stories of late from people unhappy with the level of interference they are experiencing from managers who insist on particular ways of working. Ranging from detailed lists to hourly check-ins, this micromanagement undermines trust and subtracts value from both people and processes. It brings to mind several quotations but this one serves my purpose eloquently:

“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” – Theodore Roosevelt

PostedJuly 24, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsDelegation, Management, Motivation

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Music has many rules. Most of the time these rules provide invaluable scaffolding that supports the development of emotive ideas. Sometimes, however, the familiar framework gets in the way and stifles creativity. My jazz guitar coach often used to espouse the virtues of deliberately limiting your options to encourage a creative fluency. He’d say things like “now you can only use the D and G strings” or “riff on 3s, 7s and 9s only” or “play a substitute for every other chord”. It’s tricky of course because it means you’ve got think more instead of relying on well-rehearsed patterns. Having said that, the result is usually worth it. They say that ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ so why not consider deliberately constraining your choices and see what that inspires for you.

PostedJuly 16, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesInnovation

TagsConstraints, Creativity

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A little bit of a rant this week. Recently there’s been a fair bit of chatter on LinkedIn and elsewhere debating the differences between a manager and a leader. It seems important to some people – typically those that see it as some sort of hierarchical transition. I have thrown my two-cents worth into the ring by stating “good managers lead and good leaders manage”. Surely it is an anachronistic folly to think that a manager can somehow be effective without demonstrating leadership qualities and, likewise, that a leader can get away with ignoring sound management practice.

PostedJuly 9, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsManagement, Leadership

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Organizations are complex systems that encapsulate interactions between people, processes and enabling infrastructure. It might seem reasonable, therefore, to manage innovation within organisations using some of the key principles that emerge from systems thinking and other disciplines associated with multi-disciplinary design. However, this is not as commonplace as might be expected. I suggest that integrating systems thinking with other change and project management techniques is key to ensuring a well-rounded approach that covers all the bases critical to successful innovation.

PostedJuly 2, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesInnovation

TagsSystems Thinking, Architecture, Change Management

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It’s pretty easy to observe expenditure, velocity and resourcing. It’s easy to measure these things and create impressive charts and graphs. It’s easy to set targets for manufacturing cycle-time, mean-time-between-failure for a product and response-time for a call centre. It’s pretty straightforward to assess customer opinion, supplier conformance and an increase in sales. So what?

Well, if you’re measuring these things and not doing anything about the insights gained you are just ticking boxes. If you are measuring these things and they do not align with a coherent vision or game plan then it is difficult to determine what the best response should be.

PostedJune 25, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesInnovation

TagsMetrics, Projects

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I often meet people who claim to be overloaded – too much work, no resources, no time. I also meet people that get extraordinary things done whilst somehow cutting through the noise of overload.

The secret is simply a matter of priority, focus and commitment. What is important is to focus on what matters most and deliver that. Of course, ascertaining what matters most is influenced by context, objectives and the needs and support of other stakeholders.

PostedJune 18, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsPriority, Projects

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How much do you enjoy going to meetings? In my view meetings can be the second biggest time-waster after email. I’m sure you’ve been in a meeting where it seemed there was no clear point, no end in sight or where no decisions were made. Maybe you’ve got a meeting like that today. Anyway, despite our regular participation in meetings day after day, it amazes me how poorly organized and managed they can often be.

We put up with much and seem to apply little of what we have learned when it comes to our turn to lead a meeting. So here I am sharing a few of my golden rules for meetings in the hope that they inspire some more productive meetings down the track…

1. Compelling Reason – the first and most important thing is to make sure that you really need to have a meeting at all. There are only a handful of good reasons to have a meeting – to give or receive information, to build engagement, to develop options or to make decisions.

PostedJune 11, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsMeetings, Productivity

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According to Wikipedia, strategy is “a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under uncertain conditions”. Something most of us need to consider on a regular basis right?

Interestingly, I read recently that only 44% of strategic initiatives are successful and that 58% of projects are not well aligned to organizational strategy [PM Network, April 2014]. To me, this suggests a lack of proper focus.

Creating an implementable and coherent strategy should be a critical front-end step in any innovative process; and by ‘innovation’ I mean any change that adds value.

PostedJune 4, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesInnovation

TagsStrategy, Priority, Focus

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Innovation is the new black. But what is it? Innovation is simply a change that adds value. Ok, so what’s coaching? In my view, coaching is a facilitated growth process that helps individuals develop and improve under the guidance of an objective 3rd party – clearly, a change that adds value.

Starting from this premise, it should be easy to spot the overlap between managing innovation and coaching an individual or team.

In both cases we’re trying to get from A to B. From our current state to one perceived to be significantly better (or at least better enough to justify the effort and expense). In a nutshell we’re talking projects.

PostedMay 27, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsProjects, Coaching, Frameworks

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I was recently involved in a research project looking at complexity in project/program management. I will briefly share my views on the subject here.

For me, complexity is a function of having many elements interacting in a multitude of ways with the level of complexity increasing exponentially with increases in either factor. By elements, I am referring to the full range of contributors – technology, people, information, processes and other enablers (eg finance).

Some elements that come to mind as especially important contributors to complexity in this context are: diverse stakeholder interests, ambiguity in objectives, geographically dispersed locations (incl. timezones, regulations etc), cultural/linguistic differences, novel technologies or solution architectures, the degree to which legacy systems are being modified or replaced, deployment scope (incl. volume and locations),

PostedMay 19, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesInnovation

TagsComplexity, Systems Thinking, Risk, Project Management

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This week I have just jotted down a few key things to watch out for when letting subcontracts for outsourced services. This is not meant to be exhaustive but it does cover the seven most important blunders that I have come across…

1. Contract does not reflect the proposal – although seemingly obvious, I have seen subcontracts that omit or contradict parts of the original proposal or neglect to properly deal with exclusions. In many cases the contract replaces the proposal as the definitive statement of the agreement. Where the proposal becomes part of the contract it must be properly referenced by date and version.

PostedMay 14, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesCommercial

TagsContracts

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If you’ve read Running Lean by Ash Maurya you’ll have encountered an important message about building new products and services – the thing that needs to be tested is the whole business model and not just the enabling product.

I was reminded of this again yesterday while discussing some new business ideas with a previous client. It is easy to get drawn into the features and exciting technology that might be necessary to deliver a service but that is only a small part of the story and, sometimes, it can be considerably less risky than many of the other imperatives.

PostedMay 7, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

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I was fortunate enough to be able to attend TEDx Sydney 2014 last Saturday and participate in a number of innovation exercise that were organized during the breaks. In doing so, I became aware that, while most of the participants were advocates of innovation per se, many were not particularly familiar with one of its key facilitators – Design Thinking.

PostedApril 30, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

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Earlier this week I watched a webinar discussing the use of Kanban for Portfolio Management. Basically it was being used to add a structure to the process of prioritizing projects for an organization.

It seems that Kanban is enjoying a new lease of life with an ever-increasing range of applications. It really is quite a simple idea and one that started out in supermarkets (shelf-stocking) and became popular in the manufacturing space thanks to Toyota.

PostedApril 9, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

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Essentially, the level of engagement exhibited by an individual is predicated on both their capability and their motivation. BJ Fogg’s behaviour model suggests that these two factors must both be present at the time of some trigger event. The Fogg model is typically used by designers to influence the flow of user interaction with software. Of course, it can also apply to behaviour in a variety of other situations.

If we start from a position that an individual, team or organization has the necessary capability to act in a certain way (often the case) then the driving factor that will influence any behavioural outcome will be their motivation.

PostedApril 2, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsEngagement, Motivation, Feedback

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There are a number of ways for generating great ideas. The key is to create an environment for divergent thinking and most often this is down to the types of questions that get asked.

Every time there will be an underlying theme that can be explored by applying the right levers to get “out of the box”. Typically the theme will be a product, process, service or experience. There may be a specific problem to solve or you may be exploring the landscape for opportunities to add value through change (in a nutshell – ‘innovate’).

PostedMarch 26, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesInnovation

TagsDesign, Thinking, Divergence, Ideas

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This week I thought we’d take a look at what I believe to be the seven biggest mistakes related to dealing with risk (and opportunities):

1. Ignoring it – this is the biggest mistake of all – if you do not have a process to anticipate and manage risk properly then something unexpected can cause delays, overspend or worse. There are five simple steps: Identification, Assessment, Design Response, Implement Response, Review (and adapt); ignore them at your peril.

PostedMarch 20, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesInnovation

TagsRisk, Projects

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Recently I met with some Lean practitioners and we spent some time discussing the use of the Five Whys questioning technique for discovering to a root cause or underlying reason. It is a form of laddering interview technique.

The idea is derived from six types of Socratic questions [Paul and Elder] that: (i) clarify thinking, (ii) challenge assumptions, (ii) probe reasons and evidence, (iv) examine alternative viewpoints and perspectives, (v) examine implications and consequences and, also, (vi) ask questions about the question.

PostedMarch 13, 2014

AuthorTrevor Lindars

CategoriesBehaviour

TagsNeeds, Requirements, Values

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Don't plan to fail. Plan to adapt.

Deep Mastery – it’s not for everyone

Don't be a micromanager

Constrain Your Way to Creativity

Manager or Leader? – what the?

Modular Innovation – a systems approach

Metrics that tell you something useful

Overloaded? - propose an alternative

Meetings – make them productive

Effective Strategy – it’s a matter of focus

Coaching is Innovation Management

Project Complexity – causes and cures

Subcontracts – avoid these 7 blunders...

Prototyping – it’s not just for products...

Design Thinking - a recap for some, a revelation for others

Kanban - managing your ideas portfolio

Engagement - motivation and feedback

Divergent Thinking - getting creative

Risk - the seven biggest mistakes

Socrates, Ladders and Chains – what do you really want?