About Wayne McKinnon
As a foot note in history, Wayne once worked as a member of the team that assembled the particle detectors used in nuclear physics to discover the first evidence of quarks.
Wayne no longer works with the building blocks of the universe; instead he works with the building blocks of organizations. Unlike the tiny quark, the results that Wayne achieves for his clients are visible and have an extended lifetime.
MoreWayne’s Newsletter
Search M2HV
Categories
- Adapting To Your Surroundings
- Career advancement
- Demolishing silos and building teams
- Heroic efforts
- Leadership
- Lights, Camera, ACTION!
- Moving to Work of Higher Value
- Service Improvement Hall of Fame Nominees
- Wayne McKinnon's Evolutionary Challenge™
- Waynster Garage
- Where is the value?
- Worth a Laugh
- You Can't Think With Your Tool Belt on®
-
Latest Blog Posts
Recent Comments
Archives
- March 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- February 2015
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
Monthly Archives: November 2010
Improving Service Delivery
This shot was taken in honor of one of the people in the group who visited me in Ottawa this week from The West Indies.
They were with me to learn about how to improve service delivery, and, at the beginning of the session, technology was the first thing on their minds.
Success! By the end, technology was the last thing that they listed when preparing to improve service delivery. Not bad for a bunch who represented the IT department.
Are you focused on climbing ladders or increasing your value?
Room at the top for the people with the white hats is getting scarce as the work force ages. Everyone wants a white hat and fewer people are willing to get their hands dirty. Meanwhile, the trend towards a flatter management structure continues. This reduces the need for white hats even more. What is a seasoned worker to do for advancement if there are no more ladders to climb? How does one increase their value? Your primary goal should be to move away from work that can easily be outsourced or automated and move towards activities that are not easily commoditized. Organizations need smart people who can shorten the time to achieve objectives, not simply good workers who can easily be replaced.
Project Management: High Value or Misguided Goals?
In an effort to reign in the spending on projects, many organizations have implemented formal project management practices. This makes sense from the perspective of ensuring that the right things are being done at the right time, in a controlled and fiscally responsible way. What doesn’t make sense is the extreme that some of these organizations go to in order to control project costs.
Project management should be a resource to the project. It should help the project stay on track and improve communication with stakeholders.
Certainly there is a place for project management in tracking costs, completeness, and making sure that the people working on the project know what tasks are next on the priority list, however, if technology teams are criticized for being too close to the technology and not business savvy enough, project managers can be criticized for being too close to the project management tools and methodologies that they use.
The value is not in the reporting. The value is in enabling decisions and navigating the roadblocks along the way so that the project team can reach the customers goals efficiently and effectively.
In my opinion, too much time is spent measuring the "burn rate" rather than removing the costly obstacles.
© Wayne McKinnon 2009. All rights reserved.