Posts Tagged ‘where the bus is headed’

Positioning – the battle for your mind

Posted in Book Review, Positioning on May 21st, 2010 by Paul McArdleBe the first to comment

I first read this book about 10 years ago. Re-read recently it to refresh my memory of some of the core concepts expounded by the authors – as it is very topical for the company, where we are at presently, and with several important decisions to be made.


1)  Binary Review

This one is a pretty easy read, with good insights (and many anecdotes).

The Book

What we thought

Positoning

“Positioning – the battle for your mind”

by Al Ries & Jack Trout
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Very topical for us

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…

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Now Hiring – GM Software

Posted in Design, Development, Leadership, Methodology, Project Management, Recruitment, Requirements Gathering, Role of GM DDD WCW, What and Why on January 24th, 2010 by Paul McArdle8 Comments

In long-hand, you will be known as our:

General Manager for Discerning, Developing and Delivering what the Customer Wants

That’s a bit of a mouthful, so we have shortened it to a variety of titles used on this blog and elsewhere:
1)  GM Software
2)  Chief Software Engineer
3)  Director of the Product Development “Factory”

I would stress that all three aspects of the role are important.

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Five Qualities of Good Visions

Posted in 03 - Product Development, Book Review, Methodology, Vision on January 17th, 2010 by Paul McArdle1 Comment

The following is Scott Berkun’s view of what needs to come together to make up a good vision.  These points have been taken from (p74-75) his book “Making things Happen”, which has been separately reviewed.

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Where our Bus is Headed

Posted in Vision on January 14th, 2010 by Paul McArdle24 Comments

This is the 7th draft. I am adopting an iterative approach to this post, utilising feedback (both internally and externally) in order that I can improve how I communicate this Vision such that it is clear and compelling. Hence, if this draft is not either, then please let me know!

Clarification

By “Vision” I am taking a looser interpretation of the word – others might interpret the following (and the associated pages all marked as “Vision”) as part of all of these:

Vision, Strategy, Goals, Objectives, etc

I have bundled all of these concepts under the broader label “where this bus is headed”, which I have adopted from the book “Good to Great”I recognise that some of the linked pages are perhaps more like “how we’re going to get where we are headed”.

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Vision (part 3) – The Way We Do Things

Posted in Vision on January 11th, 2010 by Paul McArdle5 Comments

I posted, early in January, about where our bus is headed (you might refer to this as our Vision).  I have progressively refined this, since then, to improve the clarity of this core message.

For those who are interested, I have also started posting more details about some aspects of this Vision – as falling under any of these core headings.  Posts that have preceded this one are:
1)  I posted about my vision for
growing clients (and revenues) 20x.
2)  I also posted about how we’d deliver this growth in clients
with only a 3-4x growth in employee numbers.

It does not take a rocket surgeon to realise that we become much smarter if we are to achieve these growth targets.  Specifically we need to:
1)  do more of the right  things;
2)  do the right things more efficiently and effectively, and
3)  stop doing the wrong things.

Our Systems, Process and Culture will be the keys to getting us there…

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Vision (part 1) – Our clients

Posted in 03 - Product Development, 04 - Sales & Marketing, Company Results, Vision on January 1st, 2010 by Paul McArdle12 Comments

I posted, early in January, about where our bus is headed (you might refer to this as our Vision).  I have progressively refined this, since then, to improve the clarity of this core message.

For those who are interested, I have also started posting more details about some aspects of this Vision – as falling under any of these core headings.  This post provides more details under the first heading.

As part of the navel-gazing we have been doing recently (to coincide with our 10th birthday, which is rapidly approaching) we have been contemplating this question.  For us, there are plenty of opportunities (some mutually exclusive – at least for a company our size).

Being New Year’s Day, I thought it would be of interest to you to post a few comments about where our bus is headed into the future. Call this our very own New Year’s resolution.

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