Going and Doing I notice that I have two distinct modes of operation. Going and Doing. Going to a destination where I need to do something and Doing something at the place I arrive at. These are the two basic sub-routines that manage my existence. Sometimes, when I am busy, I will arrive somewhere in […]
What are Hosts? By Hosts I mean the role of actively managing the experience that guests or visitors have when they stay somewhere. People used to tell me that I was a good consultant (of the management consultant variety). Over the last seven months more than eighty people have told me that I am a […]
What is a Digital Nomad? I thought I was a Digital Nomad; empowered by mobile communications, mobile computing and app-based platforms. I thought that doing my emails, writing a blog and studying a document I had been asked to review – at the beach – was the height of digital freedom. Until I met a […]
Defining Economic Attraction one ‘segment’ at a time In last week’s Weekly Blog I questioned the relative importance of a place having economic attraction (being attractive) as well as having specific attractions. I think that Brighton & Hove City needs more of both. But what is attractive to one person may not be so attractive […]
Attraction not Attractions A Tourist City usually has Attractions; specific things or places to go, to see, to be. A City that is popular as a destination must have an attraction for a broader range of people. It should be an attractive place to get to, to stay and to leave. Visitors for tourism reasons want […]
Generating income locally I have found local management consultancy work to be in short supply. My resolve, not to go back to a daily commute to London, is still holding out. So, I have had to do some agile strategy design® of my own, focussed initially on the local tourist economy. We have newly built […]
Flight reflexes You may have noticed that the weekly blog has been silent for a few weeks now. Initially this was triggered by the two week Half-term that we enjoyed in Sussex. Many families were delighted with the extra week, especially as the holiday tour operators had only lifted prices for the normal single week […]
The Event I went to a Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce event yesterday: “The Construction Voice”. It was well attended (~70 participants) and the Panel of three speakers certainly provided some interesting insights and raised some challenging issues. I heard lots of calls for a Master-Plan but I did not hear anyone offering to […]
What’s the rush? The pressure is on. Everyone wants an instant response and quick decisions. “Why do you need to deliberate?” “Haven’t you made your mind up yet?” “What’s wrong with you? Are you weak, poorly informed or incompetent?” “Surely you know all about this already. Your people have seen it.” “No-one else has objected.” […]
I once worked for a US multinational company whose Vice President of Engineering insisted on reducing the product launch risk to zero before allowing new product introductions to proceed from development into manufacturing. He did not want to take a risky decision. Some projects spent a long time at that Stage-gate. Acceptable levels of risk Getting […]
Sometimes I have done Organisational Design (OD) work. OD is often part of the bridge between Strategy and Implementation. But we don’t usually talk about slime! What is an organisation made of? If we are building a new, or renovating an existing, organisation – what building materials do we need? Typically we may think about […]
Independent assurance – who needs it? We are agile. Low on formal process, high on creativity. We are the guns. Exceeding client expectations. We don’t need ‘assurance’. Right? We are a long-standing branded supplier. High on process so that we tick the boxes for large clients across global markets. We are the nuts. Always meet […]
Land and expand is a common strategy in situations where success is directly linked to the number of personnel deployed. Land and expand is everywhere In nature plants such as plantains (see this week’s cover picture) use this effectively, spreading out horizontally to block light from the surrounding grass as it competes for air, water […]
How do I see the backdrop? I think that collaboration was once a dirty word. Proposing collaboration suggested that your organisation was weak and not competent to succeed on its own. It became more acceptable as the European Union research programmes actively promoted pre-competitive research through collaborative projects. I think this was about improving the […]
Which adds more value: PMO or Strategic Investment Decision Support unit? I was once asked to design a Strategic Investment Decision Support (SIDS) unit as part of an overhaul of governance for a FTSE 250 company. It was in fact a PMO, where the ‘P’ in this instance stood for ‘Portfolio’ rather than ‘Project’ or […]
When is a ‘RAG’ status report helpful? We do design work on strategy and governance. This is often ‘remedial’ because of programme assurance work we or others have done. The project or its business case may be subject to a ‘RAG’ status report. There is an ongoing demand for programme outcome assurance work. Many programmes […]
How careful and how ruthless are we in our day-to-day business decision-making? Careful Do we take ‘reasonable care’ when we make decisions? If not, we might be threatening our organisation’s insurance premiums. After all, the shareholders and compliance authorities will want us to have acted competently, considering the options and assessing relative risks. They will […]
‘Happy Adventurers‘ are all smiles, reaching out to grab the next interesting thing that they see – but when are they good for business? Does smiling and reaching out lead to better business decisions? Reaching out In one of my earlier blogs I touched upon the heart-warming observation that happiness (smiling and laughter) is innate […]
What can we do when a programme does not meet our expectations? Programmes that require substantial investment may have to promise the Earth to get their business cases approved. Especially ones that are ‘transformational’ and where the outcomes rely on people behaving differently. Benefits are talked up. Uncertainty and risk are under-played. Having ‘sold’ the […]
A Useful Event This was a well-publicised Great Debate hosted by the University of Brighton, supported by the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce and sponsored by three local businesses. Two hundred and fifty tickets were available and all had been booked. I noticed a few empty seats but this is a hazard for event […]
The Solstice marks the longest day, The summer solstice means the longest day has passed and we start the journey into winter. Already? It always catches me out. Just as we are starting to celebrate the warmth of the cusp between Spring and Summer – that’s it – daylight reductions from here on in. As […]
It is a sunny but cool autumn day. The blue sky is a bold block of clean colour. We sit in the kitchen and watch the airplanes fly across the field of view at 4 minute intervals. It’s a busy route out of the south east to warmer climes. People want dislocation. Each jet engine leaves […]
Time for our annual retreat! We are sharing our idyllic woodland retreat with ~2,500 other guests. Yet as I sit here penning this postcard there is not a single person in sight. I’m surrounded by Silver Birch and Sitka Spruce and the trail-ways through the forest are eerily quiet. I can see dozens of cabins […]
We ‘did’ the i-360; without hesitation. It is not the London Eye but it is by the same architects at least. It is an amazing feat of engineering and style. It’s very functional (well it takes 250 people up and down 450 feet) and what it might lack in resilience to coastal winds it makes […]
“Motors going slow” I am going slow on my walk. I’m inspired by this orange and white beauty parked in a driveway. The owner did tell me the make and model and the name of the specific paint colour but I wasn’t listening properly (I had to look it up later). I was just in awe […]
Two bits of news about fatigue have popped up recently and raised my curiosity about how well I look after myself when major decisions are afoot. Firstly there was the news that; if you only get 6 hours sleep a night for 10 days straight, rather then the recommended seven to nine hours, the Royal […]
Well – here it is and without having to pay a royalty on the birthday tune; Happy Birthday Blog! Yes, the ASD-Ltd Blog is a year old. I don’t recall the exact date of the first one but my stats page tells me that this is post number 54 and at one per week plus […]
The Hinckley Point nuclear decision is a big one. I’m fascinated by the different stakeholder viewpoints reported in the media. They include EDF’s, the Chinese Government’s, the Opposition, UK tax-payers and electricity customers in the UK who, they say, will ultimately foot the bill for the Government’s decision. This decision is so big that the French […]
Have you read ‘Managing Public Money’? It’s a Treasury publication of the rules and guidance that public bodies and their Accounting Officers must follow when managing public money. Don’t be put off by the 217 pages – the main body of the text is only ~ 70 (the rest being appendices). In particular I like the Foreword. The one that […]
I was reflecting on the nature of trust in business. And on its impact on decision-making (that’s what we spend most of our time doing in Business Decision Design®). I recently did a strategy implementation event design and facilitation for a really interesting medium-sized business. With all the changes to my work focus and new […]
It has been a busier than usual week. I’m close to breaking my SLA of a weekly Blog. I did do a Blog last week – but it wasn’t on this site. It was for the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce, about their: AGM I am well into my second year as a Member […]
Last week I said I’d do this week’s blog about ‘language’ and the biases that it can introduce to decision-making. Distraction. I got at least half way through and I got distracted by a commitment that I had made to the Brighton & Hove Chamber of Commerce to blog about their AGM event. Then I got […]
My web-designer does not understand why I have the word ‘design’ in both the Trademarked propositions that we offer. For me it is because the ‘design’ activity is often missing when creating business decision frameworks or creating business strategy. And I mean ‘design’ as a creative endeavour as well as a discipline. Given the media […]
I’m travelling to London as I do most days. I need decision strategies as delays are common place and trains are cancelled frequently. But my experience has taught me that the network tends to recover quite quickly and rather than join the hundreds of other people crowding on to other less direct services I’m better […]
Some of you who recognise ‘Dilbert’ (Scott Adams’s famous cartoon character) may remember the ‘Bungee Boss’. As a reminder, the boss showed up just long enough to make some visible changes that improved some key business indicators in the short term. He was instantly promoted and moved onwards and upwards before the negative, long-term impacts of his […]
According to some – everything is a choice. It is up to you to make the choices that deliver your lifetime goals. There is no excuse. Nothing is pre-determined or imposed. Who feels like that? What about a new strategic imperative handed down from above in your working environment? Or a reduction in funding for […]
What happens when you make a new addition to the team? An increase in output / revenue / sales? Usually an increase in costs / reduction in available desks / a longer queue in the kitchen / another email address to add to the distro-list… An increase or decrease in productivity (“efficiency”)? An increase or […]
I wrote the Board paper. The Directors made their decision. They consulted with those that had an opinion. They made a choice with conviction and clarity and set a timeframe for implementation. Turbo decision-making! How long did it take for others to reduce the scope and trade down the objectives? To build an alliance to minimise […]
This week I am thinking about ambition. Maybe it is because someone described the idea of having three kids under five as ambitious. Or perhaps because I have been reflecting on the ambition of changing the culture and behaviours of both staff and contractors in a civil service organisation. I notice how context sensitive ambition […]
The team makes it easy: It was a beautiful weekend – in Hove anyway. Sunshine and warm. At least on the land. We took the ski-boat out for an inaugural session to get the ski-season rolling – it was 11°C in the water. Brrrr Whether your sport is football or rugby, sailing or skiing, karate […]
We bought new car. Unusual for us as I generally prefer a ‘nearly-new’ approach to asset purchase, letting someone else take the dramatic hit between new sale price and the next day market value. But not this time. I was handed a specification including the model variant, (“2016”), which did not leave much room for […]
I do like to reflect ideas and inspirations from my working life (and sometimes from my family life) into my work Blog. But how can I find inspiration when the first act of the working week is met with: ‘Train cancelled’ due to; ‘shortage of train crew availability’. I managed to get up and out of […]
When was the last time you experienced creative glee? Today? Yesterday? Last week? Can’t remember? Or – Creative Glee! What? I’m referring to the experience we have when a creative endeavour just comes together and the words flow or the paints glide or the form emerges from the sculptor’s block. It may have taken lots of patience […]
There is a type of perilous decision-making: real-time decision-making that I have wanted to blog about for a while. However, the most vivid example I have in recent times involves me nearly ending up in a heap trying to get out of my shower and I’m a bit reticent to share that experience in a business blog! Studying […]
Have you ever put something into a process only to have it turned back because there is not enough detail? It could be a booking form or purchase order or a business case or a personal appraisal. Sometimes I find this annoying. Web-based forms used to be the worst but the relentless competition for online […]
How often are you leaving decisions to the last minute? Why? What is the benefit of leaving insufficient time to do a proper analysis and consultation? I suppose benefits might include: Avoiding (for a while) admitting that you are not really confident about making a decision The adrenalin buzz of staying up to 2am working […]
I do like an elegant design. For me, examples of elegant design include: My kitchen table crafted from solid French Oak. My Apple devices (iPad and iPhone) just amaze and inspire me. Flint walls. A flower arrangement. Certain aspects of car design. My Philippe Stark citrus fruit juicer. My company logo (Thanks to Puree Design). […]
I work with businesses that recognise that; Knowledge has value They want to harness it for the benefit of the business. But when I ask them what they mean by knowledge management; They often don’t know So I ask if they are looking for business value by helping their people to build up more tacit […]
As we slide into the financial year-end, I’m reflecting on the exciting projects that we have been involved with over the last 9 months and how this has created opportunity for Agile Strategy Design® & Business Decision Design® in the year ahead. Shortly after I set up the company I did an agile strategy design […]
Looked at from underneath this piece of established trellis looks weathered but sound. Step out to the side or look down from above and it is immediately apparent that this structure has advanced Rot at the Top and is on its way to failure. Let’s hope no-one is underneath when the structure fails. Although it […]
