Leadership Archives – Page 8 of 14

27 Jan 2012

Chain Reaction (to Sustainable Profits)

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:40:28-06:00January 27th, 2012|Categories: Books and Courses, Doug's Blog, Leadership|

I read Chain Reaction – A Business Novel by Jeff Pallister a few months ago. I enjoyed the book and found that a lot of Jeff's thinking paralleled our thinking about how business could be.

Jeff Pallister is a speaker, author and management consultant who specializes in applying creativity and teamwork to generate increased profitability.

The book itself is about the company president Ryan Vale who was hired by the founders to get the company back on track. Most of the founders are reaching the end of their careers and want to cash out by selling the company […]

13 Jan 2012

I’m Not In The Mood For…

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:40:39-06:00January 13th, 2012|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

The other night I was in a funk and this post almost ended up being titled "Real Men Don't Talk About Depression" but while there is still too much silence and taboo around the topic; I didn't want to take away from the plight of those who are clinically depressed and this post ended up on a different path anyways. I must also credit Carrie Wilkinson of The Barefoot Executive fame for showing me the value of being real (i.e. human) and thus not deleting this post entirely.

As we started the New Year I was both excited and overwhelmed by […]

17 Nov 2011

Agile is Out, Lean is In… Work Management Options

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:42:47-06:00November 17th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Software Development|

In business, there are two main types of work:

Ad hoc ongoing work, and
Project based work where a bunch of work is lumped together to achieve a bigger objective.

Of course the lines blur a lot: large ongoing work versus small projects.

Ad hoc ongoing work tends to be mostly queue based for most people. How this work gets managed (or not) varies wildly.

For project based work I see that you have 4 main options for managing it:

Schedule based – The standard planned up-front Gantt chart type project. A variation would be to plan/schedule only as far out as you need to until you get […]

9 Nov 2011

How to Create a Marketing Persona – Make it Personal

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:42:56-06:00November 9th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Marketing, Sales|

Whether you are talking about product (or service) development or your marketing strategy or sales tactics it is important to understand who your customer is.

This is where personas can help you.

You start by creating a specific and detailed profile of the people you want to reach. Then create characters (or personas) to represent those people. I really like the idea of treating them as real people as long as you can remember they aren't.

Harry Potter is a character in a popular series of books and movies. When you mention his name, you can immediately bring up a picture of him, […]

15 Aug 2011

Kanban – The Power of Focus

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:44:36-06:00August 15th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Software Development|

I recently read "Kanban – Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Company" by David Anderson.

Power of Focus

The most important takeaway is the power of focus.

I don't think the author quite stated it that way. He basically presented numerous examples and statistical evidence to show that limiting work in progress lead to a more effective and predictable outcome for software teams; especially those working on maintenance or lots of little projects for different systems.

It seems the more work you have on your plate that you are trying to simultaneously juggle the less efficient people and teams are.

Kanban essentially proves what other […]

6 Jul 2011

Timesheets Don’t Lie – The Power of Tracking Effort

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:44:48-06:00July 6th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

Timesheets don't lie.

Sure people filling out timesheets can be less than honest, but more often than not, they are more inaccurate than dishonest.

Measure It To Improve It

I've come to the very firm conclusion that if want to achieve your full potential, obtain your peak performance or build a great company you need to measure where you and everyone else spend their time.

When you are doing your strategic planning, looking to improve your business, thinking to grow sales or just working to satisfy your existing customers; it is likely that free time is in short supply.

This means you will tend to be […]

21 Jun 2011

Who Owns Quality In Development

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:45:15-06:00June 21st, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Software Development|

The simple answer: Everyone.

Actually this goes for any business. Quality is not a department or a person, it is something a company needs to live and breath from top to bottom.

It Starts With Development

The development team creates the code. If the software contains bugs, the developers created them.

If you are using third party libraries, developer may have inherited some bugs, but again, it is up to the developers to deal with them.

Quality is as much an attitude as a practice.

If you don't own the code as a team and own quality as a team; you won't have the right attitude to […]

16 Jun 2011

Top Challenges for Businesses

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-04T15:01:02-06:00June 16th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership|

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the power of crowd sourcing.

I’ve compiled a list of business challenges that are all somewhat related but stated in different ways for people in different situations. We are looking at getting some feedback to support some of our marketing and product development efforts. Leave a comment or contact us directly, we’d love to hear from you.

Which of the following can you relate to personally the most? Which do you think are the most prevalent and compelling for businesses in general?

80% of businesses fail within 5 years. That number repeats again […]

26 May 2011

The Slippery Slope of Being a Horse Trader

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:45:45-06:00May 26th, 2011|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership|

Back in the old days, horse traders were the equivalent of used car salesmen today.

Their business model was to buy horses cheap and sell them high. Reputable horse traders dealing with knowledgeable buyers were as close to a fair transaction as you could get. But in reality there were many not so reputable sellers and often buyers didn't have all of the skills or knowledge to price a horse correctly; buyer beware. As the saying goes, "a fool and his money are soon parted."

When you start or buy a business there are two ways of making money when you sell it.

Type […]

19 May 2011

Getting Better, Every Day

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:45:57-06:00May 19th, 2011|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation|

Imagine if everyone in your organization got a little better everyday. If you learned something or practiced something to make you a little smarter or faster or more efficient or… better.

In a business with 10 people, that would amount to 3650 steps to a better team every year.

Imagine if everyone in the business did something to make the business a little better everyday. Improved a process, went out of their way to connect with a customer, worked on building a stronger team, found a way to save a bit of money, found a better tool…

In the same sized business (working a […]