Your path to business agility
“Hey Percy, what happened to the two medical writers who were supposed to start work with us this week?” “Oh, you didn’t hear, Luke? They were pulled to work on project PDE_311 at the last minute.” “Ugh, just like the bio-statistician that we were supposed to have last month!” said an exasperated Luke. “That’s the...
Halloween is around the corner, but ghouls, goblins, and ghosts shouldn’t worry you. You have a deadly horror lurking in the halls, hiding in the shadows of your conference rooms, and trapped in computers waiting to spring on you when you least expect it – spreadsheets. These spreadsheets are creating massacres across the industry, cannibalizing...
We are all team members. Sometimes in bootstrapped groups, fighting impossible deadlines. Sometimes dealing with lots of external partners and stakeholders. We are juggling budgets, large and small. Sometimes as assigned leaders. Different roles, conditions and challenges require different sets of skills and work tools. Undoubtably, we share the same goals in an organization, department...
Project management tools are supposed to drive productivity, but we know from experience that this does not always happen by default. Armed with technology and communications that make them accessible 24/7, teams across the enterprise are working differently than they did even just a few years ago. People work from home, on the road or...
We’ve all heard that a failure to plan is a plan to fail, right? But how do you successfully execute on your portfolio strategy when internal, external factors and even unplanned demand impact your portfolios? Are you able to take these unpredictable forces and re-assess how you are executing on your strategy? This dilemma was...
It’s been a while since Java 8 was released. It brought us great additions like lambdas, streams, optionals, and many more. Here at Tasktop we do mostly Java programming and are focused on increasing our productivity every day. Since we are working with Java 8, a bunch of Eclipse templates were created that make developing...
Back in 2002, I didn’t have a clue about how much Agile would change the world of software delivery. But Agile did feel right; so my small team at the New York Stock Exchange went for it. Why? Honestly, I’m not sure we totally knew why – as I said, it just felt right –...
What do Bruce Wayne, George Lucas, and the team at Polaris industries have in common? They’ve all conceptualized cutting-edge, one-of-a-kind vehicles built for power and speed, featuring elegant aerodynamic properties and the latest in automobile innovation. But only Planview IdeaPlace customer Polaris has crowdsourcing to thank for the unique design of the Slingshot, their recently-released three-wheel motorcycle...
HiPPO is the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. If you’ve spent any reasonable length of time in a large corporate environment, you will probably have seen something a bit like this firsthand. It usually happens when a group of people are attempting to make a difficult decision, for which there are lots of opinions, but not a...
“We want top-line growth and to protect our bottom-line, and I need your ideas on how to make that happen!” Crowdsourcing innovation works best when the crowd knows exactly what issue they’re trying to address. Although the statement above is a fictitious one, it’s not far away from what’s often said — or shouted — in boardrooms...
