Kanban people remind us to visualize work. The default example is a board full of cards that represent tasks and their status. Something like this: That is a powerful tactic and we will surely explore it in future posts. But now I want to start with something a little different: Visualize the outcomes your work is … Continue reading Your Work Serves a Purpose: Make That Purpose Visible
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After concrete and concise, now is the time to cover the third part of the trilogy: meaningful. Talk about what they care about … … using the same words they use to describe it. Great, but how do we know what people care about? Here are three ways: Listen, Ask and Observe. 1) Listen Many people love to talk, especially if they feel … Continue reading Make Your Communication Meaningful (For Your Intended Audience)
Use the pyramid principle Last week we covered the first C of good communication: Concrete Today it’s time for the second C: Concise 1) The best way to make your communication concise is to start with your main point. Add details, supporting arguments and the steps you took to come up with your main point only as much as … Continue reading Make Your Communication Concise
In the previous One Minute Tip we covered one of the three key skills of remote work, namely to communicate well in short chunks of writing. We ended that tip with the statement that good communication is CCM: concrete, concise and meaningful. Now we will make that tip more concrete. My favorite ways to make communication more concrete are: 1) Show, don’t tell (covered in … Continue reading Make Your Communication Concrete
One of the key skills of remote work is to communicate well (in short chunks (of writing)). Let me explain: Communicate well What counts as communicating well depends on the purpose: if it’s information — is it easy to understand and relevant to what the audience cares about?if the purpose is influence — does it move people to action?if it’s … Continue reading Communicate Well in Short Chunks of Writing
Live your differentiators If you want to create a successful product or service a common piece of advice I hear is to “wow” your customers. To deliver such moments of sheer delight that they will never forget it. If you’re a leader the same goes for creating a great employee experience. This advice can be … Continue reading Don’t rely on “wow” effects
Base key decision on estimated impact on quantified stakeholder values Will your project succeed? That question hangs on a simple commandment: Make things people want. Great, but how do we know what people want? This is definitely a difficult question, but there’s a powerful technique that can help cut through ambiguity. It is to quantify the top … Continue reading How to make Very Big Decisions?
Some people use Trello as a Kanban board (i.e. a task management or workflow app) and that’s a great use for it. A different way is to think about Trello as a structured whiteboard that you can use for online workshops or even distributed, asynchronous sense-making and problem solving. Unlike a dedicated task management tool like JIRA, Trello is much more … Continue reading Use Trello as a structured whiteboard for distributed brainstorming and online workshops
Check Your Story Have you ever found yourself on one side of a situation like this? Ancient philosophers knew it and modern ones developed the idea: We do NOT have direct access to reality: We perceive an extremely small part of it using our limited and unreliable senses. Then we interpret the meaning based on our cultural context, past experience, the vocabulary we wield and even our … Continue reading Heroic Adventurers vs. Brutish Invaders
3 practical strategies Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” is like a tsunami rolling over the business world. If you haven’t seen it yet or you’d like a reminder here’s Simon’s original TED talk. I used to be completely enamored with it 🤩 Over time I have become slightly more sceptical 🤔 I’ve also talked to many … Continue reading How to Start with WHY
