ROWE your Business to Success

Cali & Jody on Results Saturday was like Christmas: my copy of Why WORK SUCKS and How to Fix It arrived in the mail! But it would be Sunday before I would have time to even open the packaging. I am not disappointed. When others discover common sense and share their breakthroughs, it makes my life seem more valid. I know, I know. It should not have any bearing on my value, at least not in my eyes. But, guess what? I am human. But please don't let it get around. My daughter has always struggled with exactly what it is that I do for a living. I guess kids have to share that sort of thing with their friends. After the movie Armageddon came out, I told her that I simply, "Think stuff up." As if I work for NASA. Great line Bruce Willis. My freedom (at work) has always been important to me. As I wrote in Purple Curve Effect, upon getting into business (after the U.S. Marine Corps), I looked forward to early retirement. Today, I know better. I have only completed the first chapter (and the preambles) but I am duly impressed. The concept of Sledge^SM is most interesting. Putting a face on one of the enemies of productivity is an interesting construct. I look forward to seeing how this works out for getting folks to actually take action on the book. That is always the biggest challenge, right after getting people to buy the book. I look forward to reading the portion where, as they say on the cover, "... the simple change that can make your job terrific." As a consultant (thinking 'stuff' up), my career is really about getting business owners to make changes. Yes, they all say that they want to change. They all know that they must change to achieve their goals, and they all assume that once they see "the light" they will take action. But they don't Not always. Or worse yet, they start down the new path, making great progress, then stop. Look back, and see something that they miss, and turn around. How sad. So it is with much enthusiasm that I look forward to reading more about ROWE (Results-Only Work Environment). Stay tuned for my final evaluation (by week's end). -ski P.S. Maybe sooner... ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah Strategy, Tactics & Execution Dover, OH | Hilton Head Island, SC | Las Vegas, NV Cell: +1 330.432.3533 tag: Why WORK SUCKS and How to Fix it ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

Using a RSS Reader

Why repeat yourself? Get bloglines How do keep track of the changes happening around you? At least the changes that are important to your business (profession, life, community, etc.)... Me? I use bloglines It has been several years, but I think my favorite protagonist and arch friend Clarke Ching introduced me to this great product. Clarke and I are like oil and water (do not mix well) for some reason, but we both have tremendous respect for the work of Dr. Eli Goldratt. He finally has adopted my favorite term: Constraints Management. For me, TOC (Theory of Constraints) has evolved. But I digress... Over the years, from time to time I have set up my browser's "home page" to point to bloglines. But like most folks, I have too many RSS feeds on my account. RSS is "Really Simple Syndication". Which in English means that when a web site changes, or someone blogs about something, or press release is issued, a "newsreader" like bloglines can notify you of the changes. No news is no news If a blog that I follow has no new posts, nothing happens. However, once a new post is made, within minutes (usually; sometimes it takes closer to an hour) I am alerted. Hence when I fire up the browser in the morning, I get the latest updates... or more accurately, the notification of an update. I get to decide whether to view the post, or save it for later. Or email it to a colleague. In this image, you can see how I am notified: Notice that at this moment, I am following 117 feeds. Again, this is too many. I need to purge ones that never really provided the insight that I had hope. As I have mentioned, I use twitter. There is a RSS feed service that allows me to know if anyone has directly referenced me in a "tweet" (as messages are called) on twitter. The answer is no "unread" tweets. How do I know? There is no number after the item description. Balkhis has five new (actually unread) posts on his blog. See how this item is in bold, and has the "(5)" indicated after the description? Ron McDaniel's' Buzzoodle web site has four new/unread (by me) posts, plus four additional posts that I have marked to keep "active" so they can be quickly referenced by simply clicking the Buzzoodle item description. The first "(4)" in bold are unread. The next "(4)" is not bold. Bottom line: Need to know what is happening around you? Get bloglines. Once I know that you have it, and follow my postings, I can stop repeating myself! -ski P.S. There are a ton features that I have not mentioned. Plus a bunch I do not even know how to use! But I love the simple, clean interface. I use it like a dashboard to tell me at a glance when something has happened. Programmers can also set up a variety of reports and make them available via bloglines. I also use it for podcasts. It handles video too. P.P.S. Did I mention it is free? ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah Strategy, Tactics & Execution Dover, OH | Hilton Head Island, SC | Las Vegas, NV Cell: +1 330.432.3533 tag: bloglines ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.

TV Commercial as Intro

Do you speak CCPM? Lets say that you have been in project management circles your whole adult life. Maybe 10+ years (just for the sake of argument)... and yet this "Critical Chain Project Management" (CCPM) thing is a foreign subject. Not good There are a lot of reasons for projects to fail to hit the target with regard to budget and/or time and/or functionality. But as W. Edwards Deming mentioned, success (or failure) is 94% of the time, a function of the system (or lack thereof). A poor system most often equals poor results. If you are in a matrix management model, you need to explore CCPM. Today! Start here. Then, you will have a better appreciation of what you need to do next. -ski P.S. You may jump start the learning curve: download my book. P.P.S. Did I mention the PDF version is free? ---- Jeff 'SKI' Kinsey, Jonah Strategy, Tactics & Execution Dover, OH | Hilton Head Island, SC | Las Vegas, NV Cell: +1 330.432.3533 tag: Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) ©2008 Throughput.us LLC. All rights reserved.