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Posts Tagged ‘project management’

Special characters (grawlix) in a speech bubble expressing outrage and cursing.

We’re All Outraged! Turning Passion into Results.

If you were to pop open any social media platform or news app right now and scroll through a couple dozen posts, you’ll easily get the feeling that everything is #%&$ falling apart. Everyone is mad at something. We now use the term “doomscrolling.” In the past we had Yellow Journalism and we are there […]

Photo looking down at legs standing on asphalt with yellow directional arrows pointing in different directions.

Zigs & Zags – The Opposite of a Great Idea Can Also be a Great Idea

I get a lot of enjoyment from the creative and innovative side of the work I do. Helping clients or my teams break out of the day-to-day and explore the unexpected. I’ve discussed innovation myths before and how to use lateral thinking to expand your pool of ideas in unexpected ways. One of my favorite […]

Suspend Reality to Generate Creative Innovation

Suspend Reality – 6 Steps to Move from Fantasy to Execution

We’re just now finishing up the holiday season. At this time of year, I’m always intrigued by the magic of the holidays we celebrate, and the optimistic goals we set for the new year. Even the lies we tell ourselves. It amazes me how we collectively like to suspend reality for a bit, reflect, and […]

Team Consensus – Collage of Arguing and Disagreement Bombarding Someone

Consensus – The Slippery Slope of Success

Consensus is most simply defined as a general agreement. Some definitions may include the phrases “broad agreement” or “unanimous”, but a tempered meaning is the acceptance of an idea. There are very few things in life that have a single right answer. And with such diversity in the world, you’ll almost never end up with […]

Funny picture of a man holding frayed electrical wires, his hair is standing on end with face scorched.

Fail Like a Pro – How to Plan for and Recover from Failure

Success and failure – just like hot and cold, light and darkness, love and hate, or good and evil – these represent the ends of a familiar spectrum. Countless philosophical works have pondered these seemingly opposing concepts. My favorite view for all such opposites is that you cannot understand one without the other. They are […]

Picture of a Chihuahua dog wearing pink aviator glasses, looking like a wildcard.

The Innovation Wildcard – Surprise Yourself!

An innovation wildcard is a team member who is there to add a unique perspective that the rest of the team may not have. This person can be within the organization or pulled from outside. They may have deep expertise in other areas, or they may be new and more likely to question everything. Innovation […]

Heads Of Two People With Colourful Shapes Of Abstract Brain

Observations From Making the Move From Jira to Azure DevOps: Key Differences, Pros and Cons

It’s a tale as old as time, or at least as old as Star Wars. I have “gone to the dark side” of project management platforms by dipping my toes in the Azure DevOps pool (spoiler alert, come on in! The water is fine). And while these two platforms can even be integrated with one […]

Photo of kids with thinking hats on, unleashing creativity.

Unleashing Creativity through Constraints

When you hear the word “constraints,” what creative images and stories does your mind conjure up? The word often leads people toward negative thoughts of confinement, limitations, obstacles, or not getting what you want. With this article, though, I want to talk about useful constraints and how they can encourage creativity and innovation. Common Views […]

Photo of blocks being puzzle-pieced together. Using psychology to recognize idea blockers and help the pieces fit together.

6 Idea Blockers – Psychology of Innovation

The psychology of innovation is like any other area of life where our brains and emotions simply get in the way of our progress. We love to lie to ourselves. Even when we are aware of the pitfalls, they are unavoidable. Our brains are wired to fall into these traps. I recently wrote a blog […]

Photo of carved wooden emoji for sad, straight, and smiley faces. Represents a negative event, root cause analysis, and a positive result.

It’s Probably My Fault – Always Assume the Problem is Yours

It was 2002 when I landed what I considered to be my first real professional job. I was hired by a small advertising agency as a graphic designer, though I mainly got the offer because I also knew how to build websites. At the time, I had not created any principles and would still often […]

Subbing for the Scrum Master to fill a project gap

We often hear the business analyst role described as a “Jack of all trades, master of none.” This is especially true in the consulting realm where this role spans all phases of a project from discovery to development to training and all the crevices in between. So when your project’s Scrum Master has to step […]

Photo of a man scratching his head. He’s perplexed about a business problem that should be fixed, but not sure how to get the solution approved.

The Problem with “We Should”

“We Should” is Said a Lot I’ve worked at a handful of companies throughout my career. If you split the years out, half of my time has been working within an agency and the other half has been in-house. The agency work has allowed me to see dozens of other companies as well. I’ve been […]

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