Comments for Toby Elwin

Comment on Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success; stakeholder analysis template by Meta

Meta — Tue, 14 May 2013 07:21:03 +0000

I really think you need to provide an example in the file.

Comment on The failure of Murphy’s Law by Matt

Matt — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:43:47 +0000

I learned long ago, in high school, it’s just better to do the whole darn “group” project myself. It’s quicker.

Thank’s Brooks Law!

Comment on The failure of Murphy’s Law by Toby Elwin

Toby Elwin — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:37:46 +0000

Toby 1 : Shim 19

Thank you for your insight.

Comment on The failure of Murphy’s Law by Shim Marom

Shim Marom — Tue, 07 May 2013 10:38:17 +0000

Fantastic answer mate and I declare a defeat:
Toby 1 : Shim 0

Comment on The failure of Murphy’s Law by Toby Elwin

Toby Elwin — Tue, 07 May 2013 10:01:29 +0000

... unless the additional energy needed in the second law of thermodynamics is really hijacked by Brook's Law. The energy to move in that (downward) direction moves a project towards doom at a higher level of resource commitment than before. To stop going wrong you have to start going right for an object to resist a change in motion and break the law of inertia.

Comment on Social media strategy review for Project Management Institute — New York by Shim Marom

Shim Marom — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:00:56 +0000

Hey Toby, yet again I was happy to see my smiling face on one of your slides.

Well done mate.

Cheers, Shim.

ps. we should really try and catch up to have a chat about social media strategy an how to create an effective one.

Comment on The failure of Murphy’s Law by Shim Marom

Shim Marom — Tue, 07 May 2013 03:54:08 +0000

Toby, I think Murphy’s Law is in reality a close approximation to the second law of thermodynamics that in layman terms could mean that the use of additional energy is required in order to keep things moving in the desired direction. Such is the case with Murphy’s Law. Unless you take concrete action to direct things in the ‘right’ direction they will most likely go the ‘wrong’ direction.

Comment on Change management alarm by Toby Elwin

Toby Elwin — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 10:19:53 +0000

Feel of control certainly has merit. In the case of work the schedule to arise is followed by the compensation from work. So, I guess if we opt-in to provide an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, someone needs to know when you will get there to start your honest day’s work.

I hoped to give a perspective from how we rely on an alarm, but also wish we did not. Similar to how organizations wish change did not rely on people.

What is a positive of an alarm?

Comment on Change management alarm by Lee

Lee — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 09:09:57 +0000

Hi Toby
The alarm clock to me is a constant reminder every morning as to what controlled lives we lead by the simple time piece and how society has utilised this to control us and condition us in to routine and commitment so as to nor let the inner beast get any where near the surface. Maybe I am getting a bit deep here. That is what the alarm clock is to me though

Really great post thanks lee

Comment on Change management alarm by Toby Elwin

Toby Elwin — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 21:16:57 +0000

I believe your one paragraph says it better than my post.

How do you get people to feel they can tolerate the uncomfortable?

Comment on Change management alarm by Ted Evans

Ted Evans — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:48:32 +0000

People are creatures of habit. The alarm clock tries to remove us from the state of sleep which is our prevailing habit. If it was not uncomfortable we would not be able to change out of the state of sleep. Much like that, change management has to have a tolerable amount of discomfort otherwise habits will never change.

Comment on Social Media in an Agile World by Toby Elwin

Toby Elwin — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 10:20:40 +0000

I hope the engagement leads to more dialogue. If I recall our work together I know the conversation engaged new ways and new thoughts for exploration.

The great benefit of Agile and Scrum are the customer stories which keep the customer as a focus. Any 2 – 4 weeks with working product as well as the Sprint review to really improve the ability to estimate as well as incorporate natural changes one finds working on timelines.

People ignore iteration at their own folly. There is little change management left that uses unfreeze > change > freeze. What are you going to freeze when the system and environment are in constant motion. It is more about awareness > adoption > resilience.

Here’s a good post on Agile Vs. Lean, What’s the Difference?.

Pain and opportunity, two sides of the same coin that lead to very different conversations. If you flip the customer pain point to customer opportunity how does the conversation change?

Comment on Social Media in an Agile World by Nauman

Nauman — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:29:00 +0000

Meeting was fruitful (as to who it was with, think of the company that is largely credited for introducing social media to the masses; the one whose initials are F and B). They wanted to hear my thoughts on a social media strategy for one of their experimental products. I don’t do much process mapping anymore as my focus is more software products than projects (although I suppose I can find a way to apply swim-lanes to my products if I really tried). My approach is more conversational and a less structured way to get to the customer’s pain points. I then work to evolve my products to help. My engineering teams use as Agile (storyboarding and then 2-week sprints) to develop the software. Haven’t yet brought Lean into the mix.

Comment on Social Media in an Agile World by Toby Elwin

Toby Elwin — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 11:01:47 +0000

Social media is as real time as the relevance of any other conversation, to me when I have talked with so many individual and volunteer organizations, the challenge remains – where to find the time to achieve true engagement. Agile makes sense.

How have you managed your social media engagement? Do you have pick and plan or does it work itself out? In process mapping with clients have you used Lean principles? What makes Lean/Agile seem to work in this context?

As you know you can either do more of something or do something more unique.

Thank you for your comment Nauman.

Of course, how was the meeting with the social media juggernaut?