Strategies, Benefit and Alignment HT2019

Hi all. Today I want to talk about system thinking. What is system thinking ? Systems thinking is a holistic approach to analysis that focuses on the way that a system's constituent parts interrelate and how systems work over time and within the context of larger systems. The systems thinking approach contrasts with traditional analysis, which studies systems by breaking them down into their separate elements. According to systems thinking, system behavior results from the effects of reinforcing and balancing processes. Attention to feedback is an essential component of system thinking. There are new concepts that are appearing in multiple fields, that incorporate this system thinking idea. One of the clearest examples is Circular Economy. In this framework, once a product has been consumed, the economy will take that product an reincorporated into the beginning of the production in order to get new products into the market. In this way, all the economy is making itself mor...

Hi ! In this post I want to talk about how new companies, like startups, are changing the way portfolios and portfolio management is done. What is portfolio management ? The portfolio of a company is a collection of the products, services and achievements. The goal of a company portfolio is to create a presence of the business on the market, attract more customers and to show how the business differs from its direct competitors on the market. Portfolio management ensures that an organization can leverage its project selection and execution success. It refers to the centralized management of one or more project portfolios to achieve strategic objectives. Our research has shown that portfolio management is a way to bridge the gap between strategy and implementation. How are startups changing it ? Start-ups are versatile and flexible. Those in charge of start-ups are constantly forced to decide what takes highest priority. It may include decisions like prioritizing profit or...

Hi everyone, This past week the topic of how to nurture talent has been a big topic in the company I work. Therefore, I went online to search how this can be done and I want to share it on the blog. I hope you like it. What is nurturing talent ? This idea of talent nurturing falls into the topic of talent management. Talent management is the science of using strategic human resource planning to enhance business results and to make organizations accomplish on their goals. Important steps Start by identifying your top talent. Reward, motivate and engage. So the team members have a journey that helps them to develop the new skills. Support balanced development. As skills need to be divided into several team members. Help top performers be part of the team. This can also motivate other team members to get the best from themselves. I hope this post had helped you to have a better understanding on how companies are using new techniques to nurture talent. I think this is a...

Hi ! Today I want to focus on the hard vs soft skills. Nowadays, there is an important discussion between sof and hard skills. Hard skills are specific abilities, or capabilities, that an individual can possess and demonstrate in a measured way. Possessing a hard skill connotes mastery and an expertise within the individual to perform a specific task or series of tasks to complete a job. Hard skills are demonstrable and quantifiable; individuals who possess hard skills can be tested to prove their capacity in each hard skill they possess. Examples of hard skills are: Proficiency in a foreign language A degree or certificate Computer programming source: https://www.thebalancecareers.com/hard-skills-vs-soft-skills-2063780 Soft skills, on the other hand, are characteristics or capabilities that are nearly impossible to quantify or measure in an objective way. Thus, judging one's soft skills is a subjective exercise. Soft skills are often called interpersonal sk...

Hi everyone, today I want to touch the topic of capability management. I found the topic when researching for capacity management (I suppose due to the similarity of the two words), and I think it is an interesting topic to reflect into the blog. Nowadays, companies have a portfolio of capabilities. Within that portfolio, capabilities have a life-cycle with, requirements, acquisition, in-service and obsolescence/disposal phases. This makes the capabilities of a company, something that needs to be planned and maintained. It is really important, because it will determine what a company can achieve now, and what it will be able to achieve. In capability management, the goal is to balance the economic cost and the operational requirements, taking the current capabilities into account and also which future capabilities need to be develop. Therefore, an effective capability management, will help organizations how to integrate all different components to achieve their strategic goals...

Hi ! Today I want to write about capacity management. Introduction Capacity management is the act of ensuring a company maximises its production output. Capacity planning defines the process by which an organisation can establish current and future processing needs. Implementing capacity management may also entail working overtime, outsourcing business operations, purchasing additional equipment, and leasing or selling commercial property. The important thing about capacity planning is that infrastructure is flexible to meet changing demands, this is easily demonstrated in the case of cloud computing, in which the computation capacity of a platform adapts to the computation demand. Capacity Management Best Practices Since we know capacity management includes a robust network of rotating processes, any digital entity looking to go it alone should be comfortable with some basic best practices. These are as follows: Continuous Planning The main idea with continuous planning i...

Hi ! Today I want to talk about product based planning. Product Based Planning is a four step process that helps us define a product we are trying to build and what to do. The are four steps in product based planning: An Overall Product Description This is simply a clear description of the major product we are trying to build in this project or program. This could be, for example, a database, a car, or a submarine, for example. If you already have a project team in place then you should already have an understanding of what the project is trying to deliver. A Product Breakdown Structure A Product Breakdown Structure is simply a hierarchical and complete decomposition of the overall product we are trying to create. You can follow the link to learn how to create one, but a simple example of one is shown below. The advantages of breaking down the overall product into lower and lower levels include that it makes it easier to estimate the project, it makes it easier to apply ...

In this blogpost, let's talk about benefit and value in a project. Both of them, value and benefit, are connected, but there are nuances between them. The ultimate goal of a project is to create value for the organisation and all the stakeholders. Benefit must be delivered to achieve value for the organisation. The classical definition of benefit is the idea of cost (money, people, time, energy and materials). So maximising the benefits means to minimise the cost. The term benefits here can be expanded to include stakeholder requirements and goals, because typically both are interconnected. Value includes all the positive impacts that the project is going to have on all the parts involved. Value however must be created at the beginning of the project through the development of the business case and in the selection of the options to be delivered. Value must be maintained throughout the project using, for example, risk management and project monitoring. By...

Hi all, these days I have been reading several news on the Internet and I found the topic of Business-IT alignment. I want to write about it today. What is Business-IT alignment ? Business-IT alignment is defined as "the process in which a business organization uses information technology (IT) to achieve business objectives - typically improved financial performance or marketplace competitiveness." This makes Business-IT alignment a really important feature of nowadays business. On the other hand, this coordination can be very disruptive. In some companies, this can be view with a lot of backslash, due to the innovative nature of the alignment. Challenges and how to achieve ? In order to achieve this alignment, there are several challenges that need to get implemented into a company: Strategic goals Both sides need to synchronize goals, priorities, and objectives, which should be well defined. This will help to match the expectations of business profes...

Hi all! Woody Zuill is coming to Stockholm! I've seen him last year in one meetup and now he is going to share his experiences with us again! Woody Zuill is an ex developer, now he does a mob programming workshops, talks and presentations on agile topics, and coach people who are interested in creating a wonderful workplace where people can excel in their work, and in their life. Last year I was very inspired by his keynote. He talked about making it easy. Making it easy to create new products, making it easy to collaborate, making it easy to learn and share the knowledge and making it easy to be a great team in IT world. He asks why does it have to be so difficult? I remember he quoted Peter Drucker in his slides and the very beginning of his speech: "So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work." It seems clear that there is often a "right way" or "best practice" for many tasks in the modern...

Hi everyone, In this blogpost I want to talk about different ways a project can be planned and organised. This is a very broad topic, so I would summarised the techniques and tool that look more useful to me. Steps of a project. I would like to start by defining which are the different phases of a project. Typically there are 5 of them: Conception and Initiation. The most important result of this phase is a business or use case that the project will try to tackle. Definition and Planning The most important task and milestones are defined. Launch Resources and personnel are allocated to the different tasks. Performance and Control During this phase the project is executed and the intermediate results are monitored. In the following section I will talk about some of the tool to perform this monitoring. Closure The final approval from the stakeholders about the results needs to be done here. Another important step is to reflect on the experiences gathere...

Hi everyone, in this blog post I would like to introduce you to a portfolio management framework called Boston Matrix. I will talk about it's history, how it works and my point of view on it. History The Boston Matrix was created in 1968 by BCG’s founder, Bruce Henderson. It was published in one of BCG’s short, provocative essays, called Perspectives. At the height of its success, the growth share matrix was used by about half of all Fortune 500 companies; today, it is still central in business school teachings on strategy. Matrix The matrix was built with the idea that market leadership results in significant superior returns. The market leader obtains an enormous cost advantage that competitors find difficult to replicate, thanks to being first to the market. These high growth rates then signal which markets have the most growth potential. The matrix is divided into four blocks: Cash cows, is where a company has high market share in a slow-growing industry. They ope...