Author Archives: Tracey

I’ve been thinking about my experience working with senior leadership at the companies I’ve worked for.

In his book about Judgement, Noel Tichy makes the following points (among many others):

– Judgment is so important that it can’t wait to be framed and developed until it is needed; leaders must make the time to create a point of view and align and engage their team and stakeholders around it before the moment arrives when a judgment call is needed.

– The framework developed to make good judgments in high profile situations is just as relevant for general managers anywhere in an organization facing any major judgment call.

– Of all the classes of judgment calls, the ones involving people are the most critical, from those involving the selection of an organization’s new executive leader to those involving who should be on the leader’s team.

Leadership also depends on environment, of course; the skills required in a start-up are very different from those required in a large multinational.

As the world moves towards end-to-end service solutions, the role of the business analyst becomes ever more pivotal. Take an upgrade to IPv6, for example.

Many companies boast that they are “IPv6-capable.” The alert decision-maker recognizes this as an important warning. Here’s the translation: “The technology is ready – but my company is not.”

An IPv6 upgrade is only partly about the technology update. In an IPv6 conversion, redesigning your business workflows and retraining your people are the real key to success. IPv6 is the plan of record for the IT industry, but it is also so new that it is difficult to imagine all the ways in which it can serve your company’s purposes.

Intelligent consideration of these possibilities and a willingness to experiment rapidly with the best options, will quickly sort the winners from the pack.

Only readiness on all three levels: Technology, Processes and People, can ensure that these conditions exist for you.

It’s my birthday soon (yeah, I know, hooray for me) and all my licenses are expiring. Which means new pictures. So I went to London Drugs and paid $15 for a photo that makes me look like a maniac with a gland problem.

Then I saw the good ol’ photo booth… $4 later? Problem solved.

Now at least I look like a maniac who takes her medication. :-)

I get the whole facial recognition thing, but I really hate it that you can’t smile.

“Electric utilities now find themselves making three classes of transformations: improvement of infrastructure, called the strong grid in China; addition of the digital layer, which is the essence of the smart grid; and business process transformation, necessary to capitalize on the investments in smart technology.” (–http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_grid)

As a business analyst with a background in Smart Grid, it was nice to recognize myself in this sentence. It’s true that the Smart grid technology is not just about getting more/better data; you have to rework your expectations and rebuild your reporting in order to make use of it.

The difference between “one reading every two months” and “data every fifteen minutes” is not just more data — it’s a whole new ball game.

A technical system is intuitively usable if the user’s subconscious application of prior knowledge leads to effective interaction.

The neatest Christmas party invitation we got this year was from my new agency, who are hosting a “Kentucky Derby” themed party. Fancy dress is requested, and of course — that means hats.

So I made over an old wedding hat with a Christmas theme. It turned out pretty well, although I never knew the one-sided design would be so heavy. Really, it needs a counterweight for all that glitter.

My recent experience with SharePoint 2013 was much more positive than I expected. In particular, I was impressed with the way it permits concurrent editing. A colleague and I sat down and threw all sorts of hairy scenarios at it, and it never missed a beat. In each case, the response seemed clear and so was the user’s recommended next step.

I also liked the way SharePoint handles video clips. You can easily attach supplemental learning material, for those who don’t want to watch the whole video. The only thing I couldn’t do was populate the “length of clip” field — so we just deleted that column.

I was able to build a library of a couple dozen short training videos (thanks to Camtasia) which I then posted in a separate asset library of all-video types. This will help users who are new to SharePoint or to document management.

All in all, I was pleased with how the learning platform turned out. The colleagues who will carry on the work were pleased, too.

Here’s a shout-out to Emily and Eunice, whose energy and enthusiasm made it all worthwhile!

I recommend this article by Eli Cohen and Noel Tichy, about their leadership research.

How Leaders Develop Leaders

Some of their key ideas:

To develop others, leaders must have a teachable point of view.

A teachable point of view is a leader’s opinion on what it takes to win in his or her business and what it takes to lead other people.

A teachable point of view involves in-depth preparation and you must never miss an opportunity to communicate it.

Leaders create stories about the future of their organizations. A teachable point of view becomes the basis for leaders to present a dynamic, compelling story to others.

These stories create a case for change, a vision of where the organization is going, and an understanding of how to get there.

Once leaders have a story, they take bold actions that bring about massive and lasting change.

Here is a link to the article, which was originally printed in Harvard Business Review. The authors are William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass: Who’s Got the Monkey?

This article changed how I look at everything, even outside of my business life. Long live the monkey! Unless you can’t feed it. Then, bye-bye monkey! (1)

This version of the article includes a commentary by Stephen Covey, added when the article was republished a generation later. IMHO, you could skip that.

(1) No real monkeys are harmed in the preservation of your sanity.