Last post for PM411 for awhile. My content will remain here so come back often. My Top Ten Posts are the previous ten……and don’t forget to visit www.lulu.com/workingtheplan for my books and articles on value selling large projects and innovative technology enablement.
One more thing. Check out my daughter’s fashion and style blog at http://www.laculturecreators.blogspot.com/; you’ll be glad you did!  
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I had to laugh at the headline from Manufacturing Business Technology:
Focus on Innovation: HP expects restructured labs to produce fewer, more successful projects
MBT went on to say, in an almost sad way, that HP consolidated its research to focus on 20 to 30 large research projects from about 150, with, lo and behold, a strategy focused on five areas.
Those of you who read projectmanagement411 know that the first thing you do when you attempt to control projects is a project inventory. The next is to see if the projects align with strategies of the company. Because, guess what, you aren’t …read more

The Google way involves many approaches and policies that release innovation. Miki at Leadership Turn sparked my innovative synapses with her post. I focused on one item in my last post: letting people do what they want for 20% of the time. Brilliant! The second item that caught my attention was NOT managing but rather “listening” for innovation, understanding that innovation can come from places unexpected.
The idea of NOT managing innovation is an interesting concept. In the best lean/continual improvement environments supervisors and managers are taught how to monitor and elicit innovation from those who do the process. For example, …read more

Continuing my summation of comments related to the post “IN SEARCH OF: Business Processes Supporting Strategy Execution and Innovation“, I reveal my discussion with Cullen Coates. Once again, I encourage you to read all the comments at the post- they reveal a desire by all parties to learn and understand each other.
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Mr. Coates: Basically I find that people like to be involved in “strategy stuff” – it’s fun like marketing. I also find that when people get together to “do” strategy they generally come to the table each with their own agenda – they know what the strategy should be …read more

My post titled “IN SEARCH OF: Business Processes Supporting Strategy Execution and Innovation” continues to attract excellent practical comments by many including former CEO Cullen Coates. I encourage you to read the comments- they reveal a desire by all parties to learn and understand each other. Below are some of Mr. Coates’ remarks with emphasis on points that jumped out for me:
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Mr. Coates: I have been working with organizations on an integrated process of strategy development through online software for execution management. I find that, as with some of the other commenters, that – aside from ensuring that strategy itself …read more

We at b5media experienced a “crisis” of sorts the other day: our servers went wacky. At first I reacted with, “Oh well, I’ll just ride this one out”. Later in the day, after continued error messages while attempting to get into my blog, I said to myself, “Crap (the worst cuss word I could muster), now my page views are going to be messed up.” Once again however, I resolved to ignore the problem for a day.
To what do I credit this seemingly “blase” attitude about a crisis? Well, I’ve been through it before, I’ve raised three daughters, I’ve been …read more

What good is analyzing trends? Well, first of all you can determine whether you agree with them. Then decide if they will impact you. If so, you need to figure out how to deal with them. The last few posts have done this type of analysis from an “every company” point of view, and here are the results:
First a summary of the STRATEGY and MANAGEMENT trends from CIO Insight’s list of Top IT Trends in 2008 in as brief a format as I dare:
Economic slowdown, customer e-service demands, m-commerce opportunities, technology enabled process improvement, change in world markets and resources, …read more

My sum up to CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends in 2008 related to MANAGEMENT reveals a need to focus on centralizing non-IT executive control vs. expanding the CIO role, and cleaning up and innovatively using data already out there for decision-making.
The CIO Insight MANAGEMENT trends of 1. No downturn for CIO role, 2. CIO role becoming more demanding, 3. IT metamorphosis continuing, 4. IT grad shortage changing the face of IT, 5. IT outsiders providing inspiration, and 6. Master Data Management expanding, caused these reactions in my two posts related to MANAGEMENT:

Focus on centralizing non-IT executive control and awareness of …read more

Continuing with MANAGEMENT trends in IT from CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends for 2008 , we now deal with graduate shortages, sources of innovation, and one of the most interesting and impactful trends toward Master Data Management:
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CIO Insight: IT grad shortage changes the face of IT- CIOs expect fewer young people to enter the IT profession and say half of those that graduate with IT and computer science degrees aren’t well prepared.
PM411: I’m not as tuned in to this “shortage” of talent. Should companies expect IT graduates to be prepared properly? I’m jaded by my MBA experience years ago …read more

CIO Insight’s Top IT Trends for 2008 were particularly interesting in the STRATEGY and MANAGEMENT areas. My last three posts dealt with STRATEGY. Now I’ll react to the MANAGEMENT trends . First up are the trends related to the role of the CIO and the metamorphosis of IT:
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CIO Insight: No downturn for CIO role- the CIO role will become more important and the IT function will grow more centralized.
PM411: This “prediction” has been talked about for 20 years- the problem is not solved by CIO role expansion, but by executive governance boards taking the responsibility for which projects should be …read more