return on investment
How to shift from survival mode to growth mode
Jay Goltz’ article in The New York Times is spot on: “[Einstein] said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Too often, I think that’s really the definition of small business. Whether it is continuing to hire the wrong people because of a bad hiring protocol, [...]
Thinking creatively by taking your ideas to trial
You can put your ideas to the test by putting them on trial. A very successful team building and idea vetting exercise is to literally organize a mock trail, with prosecuting and defending teams and even a jury. Not only is it fun, but it can be eye-opening: “It was one of the better things we’ve done in a long time,” says Richard D. Fain, chairman and C.E.O. of Royal Caribbean Cruises.
Successfully applying lessons learned
Capturing lessons learned at the end of a project sounds like a great idea. Who wouldn’t want to reflect on what was done right, what could be done better, and then apply those lessons to the next project? Unfortunately, few organizations take the time to build the right kind of lessons learned system, and that means critical information is being lost.
Bad employees rarely quit and good ones are hard to find
Finding great employees is really hard. I don’t mean it’s difficult — I mean it’s virtually impossible to succeed in hiring great employees all the time. It’s equally hard to keep them, as it turns out. As Don Rainey recently wrote: Good employees are really hard to find — A solid worker isn’t just difficult to find, [...]
It’s never a good time for training
As Jamin Arvig, President of WaterFilters.net learned the hard way, putting off training has a cost of its own: Lost employees. As Jarmin wrote in his A Worker Quit — Because I Didn’t Train Him To Succeed, if you don’t arm your employees to succeed they’ll eventually go elsewhere to look for career advancement. “[It] [...]
Fix your boss (or, reduce risk to quality using a matrix approach)
How do you ensure that one person doesn’t derail your entire project? Most of us have been there before. Maybe it’s a co-worker who doesn’t work well with the team. Maybe it’s your boss, who has to oversee every single decision even though he’s an overtasked bottleneck. Either problem poses a critical risk to your project: Delays, mistakes and rework because one person isn’t part of a streamlined effort. Learn how the situation can be improved, realizing positive gains in this habitually entrenched process.
Should Training be an Integral Part of a Project Budget to Increase Project Profitability?
Organizations that are “training challenged” must learn to do things differently. This includes delegating authority along with responsibility, being inspirational to employees, building trust and improving communication — all of which are direct benefits of a comprehensive process that incorporates training. Take a look at part two of Should Training be an Integral Part of [...]
Articulating the value of training
Training budgets are one of the first to go in a down economy. I first pointed this out in Finding Strategic Learning Funds, but there’s ample evidence to be gathered. When the money isn’t there, organizations start casting about for any program they deem expendable. But the unfortunate truth is that training is the best [...]
Finding strategic learning funds
Training Industry Times recently published some rather disappointing statistics: Over 92% of surveyed business have experienced pressure to reduce their training budget in 2007. Worse, 56% reported that the pressure to reduce or altogether cut training costs were “significant.” Is this attitude regarding education part-and-parcel of the declining attitude toward education in the United States? [...]
The case for certification
I had to read the Agile Alliance’s position on certification a few times before I could decide whether I liked their position or not. Part of this is that the opinion is not that well written. Getting past that, I came away with these core statements: Employers should not require certification. Non-skill-based certification testing procedures [...]
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