Actions That Defy Logic

Often people do things which defy my logic and understanding.  Hidden factors are things that are unknown to me which explain people's behavior.   Remember that you do not have the whole picture from that person's point of view. 

Importance of Prework – Work Session Preparation

Meeting, or work sessions are more productive if people come prepared.  I make a habit of asking people to do some things in preparation for any meeting I am leading.  I call this prework.  The preparation is excellent way of getting the meeting going productively. &

Effective Business Requirements Documentation

As a Business Analyst, a critical success factor is to ensure that all requirements are efficiently captured for the development team to use.  Curious about what other business groups’ best practices are, I attended the webinar presented by IAG on "Inside Effective Business

Changing Your Point of View

Many times I find myself trying to explain something saying that I believe that is very simple and often it is viewed as more complex.  I was in a conversation with Graham last night as we were reviewing some stored procedures created a couple of years ago and he said "Jim

Are Your Projects Loaded For Success?

Harvey often asked "Is this project loaded for success?"   A good question to ask frequently to yourself or any project manager. So what do I do if the answer is no.  My general approach is revise the project plan and objectives to load it for success.  If

Jim’s Sayings – A Review

Over the last few years I have written about many of the lessons I have learned in my consulting practice.  I learned from one of the best, Harvey Gellman.  I would like to review some of these says and give you a reference back to the original post.  http://blog.pxltd.

Vision and Creative Tension

I would like to pursue further the ideas on Vision and Creative Tension based on the ideas in Senge’s book the Fifth Discipline.  I think for me the life of hard knocks and our human fraility really tested my tolerance for creative tension.  I think I lost my ability t

Creative Tension

One of the neatest ideas from Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline was the concept of creative tension.  I think it is in the section on Shared Vision which is one of the five disciplines.  The concept is that reality and our vision are often significantly different and crea

Rushing to Solution

One of the things I noticed in myself and others is how quickly we rush to solutions.  In a business intelligence project, rather than finding out the business questions the client has, we rush to designing reports.  In the process we narrow our solution much to quickly.&nbs

The Mushroom Farm

A friend of mine was describing the experience of her son who was an intern to one of the senior people in government.  It was a great experience for the person and he was included in many meetings and activities that regular employees would never get a chance to experience.