Your Personal Board of Directors – Geof Lory
In 1999 I decided to go a more individual route and became an independent. I enjoyed the freedom and responsibility of making sure I was regularly billable and keeping my clients happy. However, after about a year of being on my own, I missed the candid and objective feedback loop I had as part of
Read MoreThe Do Over – Geof Lory
Growing up I played a lot of sports, both official and unofficial. I remember spending hours with my older brother in the front yard playing catch. We’d make up big league games, pretending we were throwing someone out at home, turning a double play, or catching a fly ball at the fence. It was great
Read MorePeople Before Work – Geof Lory
My daughters, Jenna and Erika, were nine and eight when Beth and I were married and she came into our lives as wife and stepmother. We had dated for a couple years, so the family situation was not entirely new to any of us. However, the subtleties and nuances of everyday living together are different
Read MoreThe Bozo Bit Dilemma – Geof Lory
Several years ago I worked with Jim McCarthy (formerly of Microsoft, now of McCarthy Technologies). Jim was one of the first pundits on the Microsoft Solutions Framework, Microsoft’s iterative approach to creating software. His book Dynamics of Software Development proposed more than 50 rules for developing great software on time. A big part of what I found valuable
Read MoreSay Yes to the Communication Mess – Geof Lory
If you’re like me, you spend a large percentage of your day in meetings or on conference calls. While this can be frustrating because it leaves little time to get real work done, it would be even more wasteful if all that time in conversation resulted in marginally useful information exchange, miscommunication and poor decision
Read MoreCreating Alignment – Geof Lory
In the last article, How Guided Team Autonomy Drives Successful Agile, I presented a simple matrix that highlighted how alignment enables autonomy. High alignment, whether through coercion or collaboration, practically guarantees everyone on the team will be pulling in the same direction and producing results. However, while short-term achievements might be gained with Theory X approaches,
Read MoreHow Guided Team Autonomy Drives Successful Agile – Geof Lory
One of the things I talk with organizations about when they are considering agile is the way in which the culture supports teaming. Agile is intentionally light on processes and requires strong self-organizing teams to replace the externally governed processes of more traditional approaches. If you remove the processes without adding the teaming, you can
Read MorePlanning Horizons – Geof Lory
I recently read an article that suggested, “The ability to focus on a subject or a task and the ability to give something or someone your full attention are the new currencies of effectiveness.” Focus requires the ability to work on a single idea, a single task or a single project to completion. Focus requires
Read MoreThe Drunkard’s Walk, How Randomness Rules Our Lives
Dear Fissure Friends, I recently read the book “The Drunkard’s Walk, How Randomness Rules Our Lives”, By Leonard Mlodinow. In the book, Mlodinow introduces many real-life situations and then talks about the odds or probability of the potential results. He actually gives a great history of the development of mathematics and how much of it
Read MoreA Few Words From Jesse
Many years ago I was working with Michael Krzmarcik and Best Buy to provide project management training. Mike was responsible for IT training and I’ll never forget the sign that Mike had hanging in his office. It said: “Train them and they may leave, or don’t train them and they’ll stay.” I really like the
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