We’ve observed two types of project environments; one where people seem to have their head’s in the sand; they try to avoid looking into the future for fear they may find potential problems, and another type on fast projects where they design-in an “early warning system,” so they can quickly identify future failures while they have time to prevent or fix them.
Read MoreA senior executive asked us, when presenting our portfolio modeling system, “What business problem does this solve?” She then made the comment, “All my projects are important and therefore are all the top priority, we have to do them all.” Good questions that required a thoughtful response.
Read MoreWhen are you able to predict a project end date, with confidence? Of course it depends on the specific project, the quality of planning, the experience of the estimators, the experience of the team, what is known or not known, the degree of innovation/invention required, the fluidity of requirements, and sufficient historical trend information with which to forecast forward.
Read MoreWe have been experimenting with using Pixar's Braintrust idea to conduct critical project reviews.
Read MorePerhaps the hardest part of planning a technology development project is to answer these rather basic questions.
Read MoreProfessor Pólya makes some interesting points about teaching and learning. He said that teaching (and learning) is a process of helping students "discover things by themselves" and that all great scientific discoveries were conceived by "First guessing, then proving."
Read MoreThere are subtile differences in thinking when trying to make a development project go faster. It is important to understand them because they a so very different from one another.
Read MoreA target date is a point in time, in the future, that something is needed. It is essential for measuring the performance of a project. Is the project getting closer to hitting the target date or is the project trend showing that a team is predicted to miss the target date? And by how much time? It only works if the target date is real, and one that the project stakeholders agree to, in advance.
Read MoreOur Critical Thinking workshop (also called Challenge Workshop) has generated a number of breakthroughs from the project teams engaged to date.
Read MoreDr. Russell Ackoff'sshort lecture on Systems Thinking is one of the best simple descriptions of the concept.
Read MorePowers of Ten takes us on an adventure in magnitudes. Starting at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago, this famous film transports us to the outer edges of the universe. Every ten seconds we view the starting point from ten times farther out until our own galaxy is visible only a s a speck of light among many others.
Read MoreHigh performance teams reach Maturity Level 3 (ML3) in 3-4 months.
Read MoreDetermining the process maturity level for you team using the FTTM System is critical in order to drive continuous improvement towards continuous schedule acceleration.
Read MoreA summary of scheduling best practices.
Read MoreWhat’s the difference between training and coaching? We try to explain using an analogy.
Read MoreSimon Sinek’s “Start with Why” concept works well to describe the three elements of a decisionAccelerator model.
Read MoreThe ongoing challenge when managing real innovation projects at the bleeding edge of technology is,“To improve the project planning and tracking system in order to better predict schedule performance.”
Read MoreOur matrix organizes root causes of poor time-to-market performance. It is a result of our ongoing research and is a composite of our work in many different client environments.
Read MoreSuccessful teams use the "do-it, try-it, fix-it" cycle. Slow teams typically spend long periods of time trying to "get it right" for fear of failing. Some corporate cultures tend to punish for failure rather than reward for success. They don't make the trade-off between long duration and that last 10% to make something "perfect." They default to getting it right over getting it done (soon). This model means that you had better be right at the end of the cycle. If you have to rework then this will take even more time.
Read MoreBreaking-set is a key technique fast teams use to reset and accelerate.
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