Cheat Sheet for Managers: 101 Ways to Rise Above the Pack

InsideCRM has an excellent cheat sheet for managers, covering topics such as:

- Body Language
- Meeting Deadlines
- Getting Along with Employees
- Managing Yourself
- Boosting Productivity
- Managing Finances and Resources
- Communicating with Clients
- Keeping Up with Change
- Resolving Problems
- Going Above and Beyond

I've read through the list and there are some excellent reminders and insightful tips here. This is the kind of list that's good to print out and read on the train, keep on your desk, and read periodically to renew your focus.

It's billed as a "common sense" list of advice, but I find that much of it is quite uncommon (you know what they say about common sense). Kudos for the folks at InsideCRM for putting this together.

Check it out...


The Manager's Cheat Sheet: 101 Common-Sense Rules for Leaders - Inside CRM

Justify Business Intelligence Project

Struggling to justify that next business intelligence project? Try pilots and phased implementations to garner support and build investment momentum. ...

... "Traditional project planning and ROI measurements are ineffective in calculating the value of BI because calculating the potential value of unknown information is similar to a prospector digging for gold. " ...

Via CIO: Project Justification

Green is INnovative

Sun offers advice on green IT strategy and provides assessment toolkit as part of its eco initiative launch. ...

... "1. Assess Your Datacenter: Sun has resources available that you can use to measure the current efficiency and environmental impact of your datacenter, or we can do it for you. Based on the results, we can recommend ways to optimize space, power, and cooling for better efficiency and utilization across your IT infrastructure.

2. Optimize Your Infrastructure: Customers can upgrade their old equipment to new models that are the most energy efficient and powerful systems possible. Sun systems can deliver improved performance, power and cooling efficiencies as well as provide additional capacity in your facility.

3. Deploy Virtualization Technologies: Sun's virtualization solution is built upon industry-proven virtualization technologies – from desktop, to server, to disk and tape, and includes the free and open Solaris OS that runs across more than 890 Sun and non-Sun systems and has built-in virtualization and Predictive Self-Healing features. These products, combined with innovative programs, tools, services, and strategic partnerships can help customers achieve greater utilization, greater manageability, and significant savings, while bypassing power and space limitations. " ...

Via Sun Micro: Sun Eco Innovation Initiative

The Dark Side of PM?

I was surprised to read a rebuke of Management by Project (MBP) in an op-ed piece by Candace Talmadge for the North Star Writers Group. The article starts with a well-deserved assault on an Intel advertisement -- an ad that exhibits "sheer stupidity and insensitivity." Agreed. But then the article generalizes as follows:

...this ad is yet another piece of not-so-subtle corporate messaging about the status of all employees of every color and in every country. We call the shots. Workers are nothing but indistinguishable and interchangeable cost centers to be driven as hard and as fast as possible and then thrown away when no longer useful.

Think about it. Sprinters run at top speed for short distances and times. They are not in it for the long haul. By using the image of the sprinter for speed, Intel is also saying that employees will be on the payroll not one second longer than necessary to get the work done. This is very much in keeping with the management-by-project mentality that has taken hold in business over the past 15 years or so.

Does this criticism have merit? Does the field of Project Management invite such criticism because of its emphasis of temporary endeavors and temporary organizations?

I will post my opinion in a comment.

Problem Solving Methodology

An oldie, but goodie method for solving problems ...



Via BoingBoing

Build IT 2.0 Strategy

Advice on incorporating Web2.0 concepts into today's IT strategy. ...

... "Incorporate user-generated feedback into your IT strategy to help make IT decisions more transparent - offer comment sections, forums and content-tagging. " ...

Via National Computing Centre: IT 2.0

Web 2.0 3.0 Discussed

Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, compares and contrasts Web 2.0 and 3.0 ...