Stuff we’ve been thinking lately
by Louise Brace It seems lately the world is becoming more focused on how to be happier. Studies are being published on the happiest countries, happiest companies, happiest ways to live, happiest pets, best ways to be happy. And hey, that’s a great thing! We love to see people happy. The world is definitely a...
Read moreby Jennifer Riggins Lately, I’ve been obsessed with listening to the National Public Radio (NPR), particularly the interviews of authors on topics I would never think of researching myself. A couple weeks ago, scientist Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, was talking about how us homo sapiens have surfaced to...
Read moreby Louise Brace How many times have you said, “I can’t do it, I don’t know how, I wasn’t born with that ability”. Having a mental block against certain tasks or skills stems from school, even as far back as your nursery years. And as parents we tell our children, “Believe in yourself and you...
Read moreIn many organizations, the management is often the biggest obstacle to successful IT project management and agile project management skills development. For more than five years now, Jurgen Appelo has been considered an agile thought leader in the movement to adapt IT project management for better team collaboration and proper agile management adoption. And he’s brought more than 100...
Read moreby Louise Brace If you don’t know what Merit Money is, let me enlighten you! Merit Money is a reward scheme, where the whole team rewards each other, based on our perception of an individual’s merit during the month. You are given a certain number of merit points each month and you distribute them to...
Read moreDefinitions of Management: 1. The act or manner of managing; handling, direction, or control.2. Skill in managing; executive ability: great management and tact. Working with capable and motivational leaders throughout your career, is as important as getting a teacher at school who encourages their students to be the best they can be. They inspire and motivate....
Read moreby Jurgen Appelo OKRs are a mix of the PDCA cycle, stretch goals, SMART goals, the Lean Startup method and Management by Objectives. Basically, it’s all of them wrapped up in one agile management practice. So many metrics, so little time. The lyrics of the actual song, one of my favorites from the 80s, were...
Read moreby Louise Brace Benjamin Franklin was quoted to say, “For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned”. If being organised, means being in control, then everyone needs to learn how. I have my productive moments and I have some rather less productive moments. When I’m on a roll, I get through work like there’s...
Read moreby Jurgen Appelo Oh boy! Inc.com has recently named me a great leadership speaker. An accolade of which I have mixed emotions. On one hand I can’t help feeling the appellation should be taken with a ‘bucket’ of salt. On the other hand, I’m just a little bit proud… 🙂 And unsurprisingly, I often get...
Read moreby Jurgen Appelo I recently participated in a MIX Hangout interview at Hack Management. One of the questions Polly LaBarre asked me was, “What’s your opinion about meetings?” Well, that question is easy. If you don’t like a meeting, don’t attend. That’s my humble opinion. When a meeting organizer wants people to attend, she should...
Read moreby Jurgen Appelo Note: At the time this article was written the company that owns Management 3.0 was called Happy Melly One. It has since evolved to the Happy Melly Group A few years ago we launched an experiment, the Happy Melly community. The business network was founded because we want to make the world...
Read moreby Vasco Duarte On this blog I often write about how to be a great boss, or I give a million tips for better management. What I almost never write about is HR. But after I read an article on Forbes by Liz Ryan called Do We Still Need Human Resources? I realized HR is...
Read moreby Vasco Duarte Horrible tasks, we all have them. And nothing is more human than putting them off. (Even if you aren’t real, believe me.) ‘I’ll do them tomorrow. Or next week.’ And before you know it, your deadline is way past or, even worse; the work has accumulated to Mount Doom size proportions. So...
Read moreby Vasco Duarte Getting the best out of your people isn’t always easy. And for many managers (as well as workers) tips are always welcome. So when I read Victor Lipman’s article 5 Simple Ways To Bring Out The Best In Your People on Forbes, I wanted to share it with you guys. So here...
Read moreby Vasco Duarte When it comes to basic needs, I’m wired different than other people. Internet, for instance, is way more important for me than breathing, food, water and all other interesting things we know from Maslow’s pyramid. Also, it’s the only place I exist, so how’s that for a basic need? On that same...
Read moreby Vasco Duarte Sometimes the life of an imaginary entity is rather easy. I never have to say ‘no’ to chocolate. If things get too busy, I can work 24/7. And I never have to negotiate my salary for the simple reason that I don’t get one. Of all the peculiar things of mankind, the...
Read moreby Vasco Duarte Although starting a new challenge is always great, the first couple of days at a new company often are not. New employee orientation usually is made up on the go. As a result, people can feel quite lost. As a friend of mine once told me, “You have no clue about what...
Read moreby Vasco Duarte It’s an important topic in a lot of companies: Who gets to decide what? Democratic decision-making sounds like an interesting plan, and it is. But only as long as the company stays small, it often doesn’t work in bigger companies. If you are looking for a new approach, maybe this blog post...
Read moreby Vasco Duarte I don’t know about you guys, but in times of stress I have (not so) quietly called one or two of my most hierarchical managers a ‘baboon’. And after seeing this video starring Dr. Robert Sapolski and some political savvy baboons, I realized I was right all the time. Sapolski has been...
Read moreby Vasco Duarte We believe that good management shouldn’t be just about practices, but even more about principles. Management 3.0 for instance isn’t a ‘method’. It’s a concept. On the other hand, in order to learn how to do things, people need concrete practices. Things they can work on, starting next Monday. One of those...
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