I’ve put a slide overview of the book up on slideshare. Or you can look at the embedded version below.
Cries of ‘analysis paralysis’ are more often fiction than fact. Every time I've heard someone call out the phrase in a meeting it's to end a argument over some particular solution preference rather than an attempt end to an overly long analysis process. The problem isn't too much analysis, it's too little. Surrounded by weak, muddy and conflicting information we often fail to find a clear call to action that we can easily latch onto and end up playing what if with the weak solutions that we can find, unable to commit to one. We need to take a more structured approach to traveling from problem to solution – scan, focus and then act – and apply our judgement rather than trying to skip directly to the end of the book and then arguing about the conclusion.
Tags: Educational psychology, Evaluation, Google, Neuropsychology, possible solutions, Problem, Problem solving
Unlearning is potentially more important than learning[1] as it allows us to sweep away concepts and preferences that are now longer relevant, clearing the way for us to learn something new which doesn’t sit well with what we previously knew. But why is unlearning so hard? It’s because we’re trained from birth to favour ideas and experiences that align with our expectations, and abhor those that clash with them. The real challenge is to manage our expectations, as we’re all expectation machines.
References
1. Unlearning is the most important thing @ PEG↑
Tags: Critical thinking, Education, Educational psychology, Epistemology, Java, Knowledge, Learning, Linda Beamer, Mind, Philosophy of education, Thought
It doesn't really matter which which way up you put the organisational pyramid the statically defined, stable organisation is looking quaint and increasingly irrelevant.
Tags: Frederick W. Taylor, Henry Ford, Human resource management, Instability, Learning, Management, Paul Bennett, Physics, Science, Skill, Special Air Service, Stability theory, Systems theory
For some strange reason every time someone mentions ‘governance’ all sense is thrown out the window, the process wonks rub their hands with glee, and you soon find yourself waist deep in treacle like processes that slow everything down to the point that it’s impossible to get anything done.
Governance isn’t a process, and adding more processes won’t necessarily improve your governance.
Governance is a question of decision rights:
- who gets to make the decision
- what information should be considered when making the decision
- who can influence the decision
- who needs to be informed of the decision
‘Process’ is just a tool we use to manage the decision making journey.
Tags: Accountability, Governance, Structure
OODA: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act
It seems that I’ve shared this with four or five different groups of people over the last couple of weeks, so I thought it worthwhile putting it on the blog. Plus this is one of those instances where the Wikipedia page is not the best launching point.
Anyway, OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act)[1], shown above, is a learning framework created by John Boyd[2].
Colonel Boyd was an interesting bloke who had a huge influence on military tactics. One of his key insights was that success in a rapidly changing environment depends on your ability to adapt to the environment as it changes about you. The successful army is the one that can adapt as the world changes around it, and not necessarily the army with more resources at its disposal. This is interesting as the evidence is in and it shows that – for the vast majority of businesses – your competitors have very little influence on your success or failure; the largest factor is your ability to adapt and stay relevant as the market changes around you. Think Nokia, RIM and the iPhone. Or think in terms of high speed rail and point-to-point buses vs. discount air travel in Europe. The complication here is that today’s environment is changing so rapidly that your art – your product – might only have a shelf life of six months or so.
References
1. John Boyd, The OODA LOOP, The Essence of Winning and Losing, slide 4 @ danford.net↑
2. A John Boyd Biography @ danford.net↑
Tags: Europe, Intelligence analysis, iPhone, John Boyd, Knowledge, Military, Military strategy, Military terminology, Nokia, OODA loop, strategy, United States Air Force
There's three questions you need to ask yourself before you invest a large chunk of cash in some enterprise application:
- Can I use something, rather than configuring something, rather than customising something?
- How will the solution support the (social) community who will use it?
- Is there a reason why I can't buy the solution ‘on-demand’ via SaaS?
Tags: Business, Business agility, Center for the Edge, Chatter, Christchurch, Cloud applications, cloud computing, cloud solutions, Cloud technology, CRM, del, Deloitte, Holden International, John Boyd, Marketing, Miller Heiman, Salesforce.com, Snowmobiles, Software as a service, Software industry, software platforms, Synthesis, Yammer
I had the chance in the last couple of months to review the (very old) chapter Technological Considerations of AML/CTF Programs chapter the I wrote with a couple of colleagues for LexisNexis's Anti-Money Laundering and Financial Crime publication. The world has changed quite a bit since then so it was more like a recreation than a simple revision.
LexisNexis have kindly made an extract available, which you can find below via a Scribd embed. If you're interested then head over to LexisNexis (or I suppose we can catch up for a coffee or something).
Tags: business finance, crime, Economics, financial crime, financial regulation, LexisNexis, money laundering, organized crime, payment systems, payments, remitances, Scribd, tax evasion
New book out now
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