I was speaking with someone today, who stated that they had inferred I would have a tattoo on my butt reading “Agile Rocks” (or something like that).
I do apologise for any misconception caused by posts such as this one.
I also apologise for the images inadvertently conjured up by the first sentence.
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It is a loaded term – it means different things to different people (here’s the Wikipedia reference, for instance).
To me, it seems that there are two competing “innovation camps” which I sum up as follows: read more »
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I posted recently about how I have fallen down, sometimes, in the establishing a shared understanding about the ways in which our business needs to operate.
Recently I ran into another of these internal points of confusion …
This is a key question I have been asked numerous times in the past 10 years.
Here’s another back-dated post, with a date chosen shortly after Joel’s post to which it refers. I’ve done this to ensure that these comments are read in context.
My apologies to those for whom this practice offends – as noted before, I believe ICT is an enabler, not an ends in itself (or, to put it another way, I am not interested in form without substance).
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Back on November 1st, Joel Spolsky made a post for Inc magazine entitled “Does Slow Growth Equal Slow Death?”.
One of the guys in the office found this, and it stimulated a bit of discussion internally about where our bus is headed (on a restricted post). This was good, as we had commenced our Autopsy 2 process. read more »
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Will add more details here, as time permits.
At this stage, this is just a placeholder for my view which is that a model can certainly be of some value, so long as the users of the model (whether it be economic, technical, behavioural or other) recognise that it is a model of reality, it is not reality itself. Hence it has limitations.
Unfortunately, it seems, this is all-too-often forgotten!
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In the book “The Myth of 9-to-5” the authors note that it is a mark of growing maturity when an individual can reconcile the truth in two apparently paradoxial points of view.
Given this is aligned with my own personal philosophy, and the fact that I’m likely to need to refer to this point again-and-again, I thought it would be easier to extract this point to a separate post (here). read more »
Dear valued clients (that means all of you),
This week we have had new business cards printed and I have personally changed my email signature. My new job title is “Magician, Miracle Worker and Mind Reader”, which is so much more fun and interesting than my old title “Product Manager”.
Of course I am not actually a magician, do not read minds or work miracles. I do, however, seek to understand your needs better so that I can better serve you and grow myself as an individual.
When I say I seek to be a mind reader, what I mean is that I wish to understand and learn about your needs. When I say I seek to be a magician, I mean that I desire to be able to conjure the best solution to your problems. When I say I seek to work miracles, I mean that I wish to provide you with service so exceptional it will appear miraculous.
Obviously I have a long way to go and learning how to do these things is a large part of my professional growth. I would be particularly interested in any comments or suggestions that you have in how I can better accomplish my goal of being the best product manager around. Please let me know what you think, I’d love to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Stephen Hurn
Magician, Miracle Worker and Mind Reader
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An article “How to make the rats run harder” in the AFR recently pointed me in this direction, which is great. The article was written to promote a book “A whole new mind”, and references another, “Predictable Irrational” by Dan Ariely. We have dutifully added both to our Amazon cart and will review in due course.
The article, and associated materials, is very relevant to discussions that are ongoing within our company about how to meet the challenges of the next 10 years.
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As is noted ad-nauseum these days – the lower paid, unskilled or semi-skilled work is being outsourced to other countries, or automated.
For people in OECD countries like Australia, that leaves everyone who remains chasing a growing number of jobs in the “knowledge economy” [replace with your favourite buzz-word here].
To motivate such people (where creativity is a core part of the job), a fundamentally different system of incentivisation and motivation is required, compared to the previous (Taylorist) world in which a crude combination of carrots and sticks was good enough to achieve an outcome.
For those who found value in the previous post about the 10,000 hour prerequisite required to achieve “Guru” status in your chosen field, there was a related article in the AFR recently.
The article “Open your mind to growth” (15th September) was written to promote the release of the book “Mindest: the new psychology of success” by Stanford psychology professor, Carol Dweck.
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Having previously written about my views of the differences between the cultures at the Tarong and Stanwell power stations in the 1990’s, the former manager of the Stanwell station and inaugural CEO of Stanwell Corp (Ted Scott) sent me a copy of this book in order that I could gain a fuller view of his philosophy.
I am very grateful that he chose to do so.
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The Book |
What we thought |
 “The Myth of Nine to Five”by Ted Scott and Phil Harker |
 .Great content(lots to consider) |
| Full Disclosure – yes, that’s a tracked link to Amazon shown above. We buy quite a large number of books on a wide range of topics, all relevant to our business in some way. If you did happen to purchase the book from Amazon, they’d throw a few shekels our way, which would help us to buy (and hence publish reviews of) even more books. Hence, Karma would return the benefits to you… |
Unlike the Richard Branson book, which I read in a couple of hours during the same holiday, this one is a small book that takes longer - as there is plenty of food for thought.
The tagline for the book = “a little book with a big message” does (in my view) reflect the contents.