In the service provider and consulting worlds, budget and schedule rule all. If a client doesn’t have control on their cost and timing it doesn’t matter how good the result is going to be. Budget and schedule often seem to trump even Quality (yes, with a capital Q). But is that the right approach to…
Make it marketable or don’t make it at all.
Every slide you create, every piece of paper you produce, every email you write (every post you put on your blog) is marketing. Even the invoices you send out are marketing that send a message about your company. Is it friendly and easy to read? Is it abrupt and rude? Is this someone I want…
Why businesses should care about their employees personal LinkedIn page
Many people don’t curate their LinkedIn account – keeping their profile, image and connections up to date. It’s easy to forget about because there isn’t typically much that it does for you. Most think of it as their emergency preparedness kit – break glass when necessary. But they forget that LinkedIn is the world’s view…
Finding that personal writing style and process.
There are three types of blog posts (and generally a given blog will feature one type predominately). Independent and not linking to outside sources. These are the ones that are written from the top of the head and are less likely to be successful without the writer themselves being independently well known. Blogs that self-link…
500 posts. Another milestone for me with this blogging thing. Can’t stop now I guess.
I honestly had no idea this one was coming up. It’s actually a bit of a surprise because I didn’t notice until I was about 7 away. My last major milestone was 300 posts and 1 year of continuous blogging last August. So in the last year I’ve posted 200 new posts. That works out…
Sensitivity modeling around your decisions.
Maybe I should make a Decision Making week around here. Because yesterday’s Financial Modeling post got me thinking about sensitivity modeling. It’s not just about financial modeling. According to Wikipedia, Sensitivity Analysis is: the study of how the uncertainty in the output of a mathematical model or system (numerical or otherwise) can be apportioned to different sources of uncertainty in its…
Risk and sensitivity are the most important attributes of an effective financial model.
Often times it seems as if CRE decisions come down to financial models that tell you what the best 10 year NPV is. Well I’m here to tell you that most of those financial models are not worth the 1s and 0s the spreadsheet is written in. Financial models are no better than the assumptions…
Maintainting Meeting Minutes
It’s something that takes time and effort. Keeping track of the history of a call and all the agreements that occur is a tedious task. But it’s one that is highly important to smooth project management. Knowing what occurred and when it happened is step 1 of project management. I’ve not been good about this…
If your technology doesn’t have an identity and personality it won’t succeed.
What’s the key to successful tools and technology? Personality and identity. If people can’t say what the tool is without describing features and functionalities, it’s missed the mark. Technology that people can relate to and intuitively figure out will always trump cutting edge (assuming you are targeting general users).
Good managers make order out of chaos.
Chaos is the killer of momentum and enthusiasm. Yes, some people thrive off chaos, but the most productive state for a person, group or organization is order. A good manager is someone who creates that order for their employees. Sometimes it’s just a matter of taking guesswork out of the day to day activities. Sometimes…