Innovate It with Wade

Roll up your sleeves and work your tech and innovation management skills with me. Who should be involved, what can we expect, when will we see results, where can this work, and how can we be sure it's working? All illustrations created by me using Google Drawings.

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Meet Your Project Management Conflicts Head-on (Without Cracking Skulls)

Meet Your Project Management Conflicts Head-on (Without Cracking Skulls)

Now despite the premise of this post, not all conflict in a technical project is bad. Healthy teams resolve their conflicts through respectful discussion of the technical, practical, or organizational impact of each competing option. However, the emotional investment team members commit to their argument can appear to be based on personal prejudices. To keep the debate constructive, negotiations…

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Strategic Management Missing in Tech

Strategic Management Missing in Tech

Strategic management boils down to imagination and adaptation. Leadership forms a strategy using an imagined change they must believe will benefit the long-term viability of their firm. Guided by this vision, the thought leaders and subject matter experts combine their knowledge, motivation, and ingenuity to adapt their functional spaces to realize this plan. This guidance, once implemented,…

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The Best Kind of Project Team for Your Organization

A project team coalesces into one of four common forms. The most effective form within an the organization depends on the culture and interpersonal dynamics accepted and practiced across bounds of responsibility.

Where team dynamics are the exception and not the rule, problem-solving teams are the most effective form. Members have a specific problem for which they formulate a solution. Their…

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Where is the Control Data in Agile Projects?

Traditional project control requires the collection of different types of data. These types include frequency counts, raw numbers, subject numeric ratings, and indicator and surrogate measures. But where do we find these in Agile managed projects? (more…)

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Analyzing Uncertainty Inherent in New Projects

Analyzing Uncertainty Inherent in New Projects

To evaluate the uncertainty of adding a project to the firm’s portfolio, project managers conduct risk analysis activities such as simulation. Crystal Ball is a tool for conducting simulations quickly and with an appropriate level of frequency. Since comparable information is most useful when evaluating various investment options but many projects perform over varying durations, financial…

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Risk Management Techniques for Complex Projects

Risk Management Techniques for Complex Projects

The WBS is a Risk Analysis Tool

A work breakdown structure (WBS) is a coded and categorized view of the project as a group of well-understood deliverables. The WBS forms a concrete path toward meeting the high-level product requirements from the project charter. In its simplest form, one team member or a small group of close collaborators will accomplish the work items at the lowest level of…

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Quality Management Across Profit Models: From Big Splash to Long Tails

Quality Management Across Profit Models: From Big Splash to Long Tails

Conditions for business success changed from the industrial shops to the manufacturing organizations operating today. One particularly important condition for success is quality management in the creation and production of new products. There exist numerous scarcity factors that impact quality in the production process of slow time-to-market eras. These quality process enabling conditions do not…

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How to Make the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For: Hitachi Data Systems and Hasbro Compared

Two relative newcomers to the Fortune® 100 Best Companies to Work For, Hitachi Data Systems (HDS)…

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To Comply or Compete with Emerging Standards?

Be they in the cloud, on your mobile device, or embedded in your networking infrastructure, standards bodies are working feverishly to set the context for competition. But to decide whether your organization should try to ‘beat em’ or ‘join em’ will…

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Invest in Research to Innovate Successfully, But It's Not the Kind of Research You're Thinking

Directing resources away from research and development is a gamble for marginal and short-term revenue gains at the cost of eroding sound market foundations. Research and development are engines of technological innovation which is in turn much of the…

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Can You Make Out the Risk Behind those Clouds?

Don’t get me wrong, I use and rely on cloud technologies everyday. But I’m also not one to execute…

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Risk Aversion Syndrome AKA Cowardice

There is a new risk making it’s way to a project near you. The risk of risk aversion is motivated by the belief that it is better to never try than to try and then fail. This is the prevailing career protectionist attitude. It is based on the belief that…

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Corporate Social Responsibility and the Triple Bottom Line

To find an example of how profit-seeking businesses achieve their corporate social responsibility goals, look no further than the food and drink industry (FDI). Whether we agree or not, the social and government pressures on the FDI to address obesity in…

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The Importance of Leadership Competence and Integrity

Competence Is Not Optional

To develop confidence among stakeholders and team members, project…

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Get Your Tech Body Fit (Step 4. Time for Recovery)

Maintaining motivation to stay on a tech body fitness track requires proper recovery time. Staying ahead of competitors and keeping pace with collaborators is an endless struggle punctuated by pers...

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