On May 8th, I had a chance to speak at the University of Maryland’s Project Management Symposium. They did a brilliant job of pivoting from a live event to a 2-day virtual conference. Over 100 people watched this talk and at least 12 of them asked really solid questions. I could not have asked for […]
Video: Reaching Consensus
This talk describes my preferred way of reaching consensus – private 1:1 conversations with a group follow-up. Why do I prefer this approach when it seems so inefficient and time-consuming? I often get more honest answers. Everyone is heard – not just the loud or bossy or extroverted or high-status ones. And I get to […]
Resilience – Differing Definitions
re·sil·ience /rəˈzilyəns/ noun1. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.“the often remarkable resilience of so many British institutions” 2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity.“nylon is excellent in wearability and resilience” Oxford English Dictionary via Google Chrome 2019 Resilience will be the scarce resource. Said during a […]
Appropriate Edge
In Yin Yoga, a common instruction is “Find an appropriate edge.” What this means – “Find a place where you can hang out. You are slightly uncomfortable, but you can sit with it a while.” Yin yoga has you stay in one pose for an extended period. It can be very uncomfortable. However, in this […]
Where to Find Data Scientists
Name a discipline where people are trained to ask questions about cause and effect, make sense of a ridiculous amount of information to help answer those questions, and leverage that information to determine likely scenarios. History. Yes – that class that you took because you had to, or you wouldn’t get your degree. The American […]
The Power of the Done List
Many of us are familiar with to-do lists. Over the past couple of years, I’ve become a big fan of the “done” list. The done list contains everything I have finished that day. It may be an actual “to-do” list item. It may be a smaller part of a “to-do” list item. It may be […]
The Window of Tolerance
The concept of Window of Tolerance is a useful one to help us understand why we feel so stressed in today’s working environments. The original theory comes from Childhood Development. I’ve observed the same behaviors in adults as well. Also, many of the same solutions. Are the environments you are creating around yourself safe or […]
Case Study: Advocates for Human Rights
Agile looks like people hunched over index cards. Thank you Michele, Rosalyn, Sarah, Jinath, and the rest of the Advocates staff for your hospitality. Last month, I had an opportunity to do some pro-bono work with the Advocates for Human Rights. They KNEW there was a better way to run their internal operations and become […]
Presentation: Leveraging an Implementation for Process Improvement
Back in May, I gave a talk at the TeamDynamix user conference. TeamDynamix provides project management and IT service management solutions for higher ed. I created a short movie of the 5 minute presentation. I’d like to thank Aaron Crane and Kris Kennedy (TeamDynamix) for encouraging me to speak. I’d also like to thank Sharon, […]
Remembering the Context of the Original Decision
I was talking with a colleague of mine about a communications system we put in place for compliance training. You know Wendy, the lesson here is that we shouldn’t be half- assing these projects. We should do this right the first time. I mean, we have this Talent Management thing that could take care of […]
