Form a team: Although this seems obvious, it is rarely achieved. The definition of a team is a group of people working together with a common goal. If one person on a team can succeed while the others fail, it is not a team. Estimate the time to complete [...]
I write a monthly article on project management for Project Times, and so I thought I'd compile a few of the best tips in this month's newsletter: Project leader - as my HR mentor says, it begins and ends with leadership. This is no different when it comes to [...]
It's obvious that no matter your career, project management skills are critical to success. What better way to get things done? Focus on critical path - It's easy to get caught up in 1000's of tasks on your project plan. Instead, focus all your efforts on just the critical [...]
Successful executives focus on the bottom line—they identify what works and what doesn't work—then they change what doesn’t work. In today's business environment, one fact that remains true is that change is constant. Change is required to remain competitive. The key to success is to manage change better than [...]
As a business consultant and speaker, I interact with more companies, trade associations, and people than the average person. One of my passions and advantages in the workplace has been that I tend to see trends in people, situations, etc, and so I thought as 2006 closes, it would [...]
There are more and more stories in the news related to managing and mitigating risk. As companies go out of business, struggle to attain Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, etc, doesn't it seem a bit radical to recommend building an appetite for risk? Not if you build your appetite for risk, backed [...]
It is becoming more and more challenging to find a profitable niche in the marketplace, with more and more businesses competing with commodities and/or commodity pricing everyday. How do you escape from that rat race? One way is by beating your competition through innovation/ research and development (R&D). Innovation [...]
In the last few years, I've spent significant time studying businesses and investments, and I found a commonality for achieving results - leverage. Leverage is the advantage or power gained by using a lever. A classic example is the story of David and Goliath, where David was able to [...]
Between 70-80%+ of mergers and acquisitions fail to produce the results originally expected. Yet, there are still many venture capitalists and companies aggressively searching to merge and/or acquire a business. Why is the success rate so low? And, why can't 70-80%+ of the merger/ acquisition leadership teams find a [...]
Expand globally - expand your thinking of your customer base to GLOBAL. For example, as China and India expand in purchasing power, your customer base can expand exponentially. If you don't go after it, your competition will. Value add - think about your value add. Even though it's likely [...]
