Follow-up Ensures Customer Satisfaction Even If You’re Not a Salesman
In a recent post on luisrocks.com called “Fighting Cognitive Dissonance one Customer at a Time” Louis makes a point that follow-up one of the most critical tools to ensure your consumers remain happy after a sale. At first this lesson my appear to apply primarily to traditional selling and customer relationships I think the [...]
Tactics to Save IT Jobs in Tough Times
In a recent CIO.com article entitled “Why IT Leaders Shouldn’t Cut Staff” the Denise Dubie discussed the impact of loosing embedded knowledge and skill. While I agree with Denise that this is a significant risk I also believe that CIO and other IT executives need to be creative in trying times express the [...]
Review – Easier, Simpler, Faster: Systems Strategy for Lean IT
Easier, Simpler, Smarter, Faster: Systems Strategy for Lean IT is one of the few books I have found addressing lean implementation and Information Technology. It is a reasonable quick read by Jean Cunningham (co-author of Real Numbers) and Duane Jones that covers a number of topics regarding the impact of lean on business systems including: [...]
How to Create Goal Alignment with a Top-Down Approach
We are nearing the end of the year and most of us in management positions are being asked to provide our plans for next year including budgets, staffing plan, high level project identification, and numerous plans. Thought the year I try to take stock of my position consistently but we all get wrapped up in [...]
50 Most Influential People in Business IT
Recently Baseline released a slide show of the 50 Most Influential People in Business IT that includes the likes of many of the technology thought leaders, CIOs and CEOs of extremely influential companies. While there are many obvious names on the list there are many not so obvious. I found the list to be inspirational [...]
5 Simple Techniques to Maintain Focus
I frequently coach my team on techniques they can use to become more effective and one of the areas that I have found the greatest challenged is in remaining focused. Here are five simple techniques that I use to maintain focus on the critical projects and issues. Keep your work area uncluttered. Clutter becomes a [...]
Learning about Customer Service from Geeks
Image by Scurzuzu via Flickr I am often surprised that the most remarkable inspiration comes from some of the most unlikely places. In a recent article posted on the Harvard Business Publish blog called “A Geek’s Guide to Great Service” Bill Taylor discussed how Geek Squad teaches there employees to provide extraordinary support. At first [...]
Fostering Urgency
In a recent blog post by Michael S. Hyatt, the President & CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishing, he covered the topic of “Creating a Sense of Urgency”. He asserts that large companies have a hard time recognizing the need for change because they become complacent; there isn’t enough at stake until it’s too late. He [...]
Book Review: Balancing Agility and Discipline
I recently completed a book called Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed by Barry Boehm and Richard Turner that provided a balanced view of the issues around Agile and Plan-Driven project methodologies. It was especially refreshing to get beyond the “holy wars” surrounding each approach and see the authors take an extremely [...]
