Workshops and Seminars

Bullet Points: Mastery or Madness?

Many regard the standard format for briefings and presentations — a series of slides containing so-called "bullet points" — as convenient, efficient, and effective, for both presenter and audience. Convenient and efficient they might be, but their effectiveness is questionable for what is perhaps their most important application — briefing decision makers. We explore the inherent limitations of the bullet-point format, exposing how it tends to make briefers and presenters vulnerable to a cognitive bias that compromises their ability to deliver the message they intend. Instead of briefers composing bullet points, and audiences reading them, we actually need to think. We suggest how briefers and their audiences can collaborate to accomplish just that. More

The Race to the South Pole: Lessons in Leadership

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to organizational leaders, the story is fascinating as a source of lessons in leadership. Packed with stories from the two expeditions, and original photos from them both, this program provides some much-needed relief from the sometimes-dry presentations about leadership. More

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many who possess real organizational power have a characteristic way of projecting their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect before they attain significant organizational power. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. In this program we survey 10 principles of expressing personal power, to make you better able to recognize power pretenders, and better able to express your own personal power. More

Strategies for Leading Teams in Hard Times

When a project team is on task, the contributions of leaders are important, and little noticed. Sometimes the team encounters unexpected difficulty, or requirements change, or budgets are reduced, or any of a number of other things might happen. In these cases, the leader must make or facilitate decisions about how to respond or how to revise the plan. We get through it somehow. Hard times are something else altogether. Despondency, disillusionment, resource shortages, unexpected and severe failure of the plan, and toxic conflict can erode morale. How can leaders deal with such situations? More

Strategies for Technical Debt: A Workshop for Enterprise Leaders

In technology assets, technical debt is the accumulation of technical artifacts that we would like to replace or create, to reduce the cost of — and shorten delivery times for — maintenance and enhancement of those assets. Technical debt arises from obsolescence, poor workmanship, changing requirements, deadline pressures, or — most often — learning, as we go, about better designs more suited to our needs. The "interest charges" on the debt are the higher maintenance costs, longer delivery times, and consequent higher costs and lost opportunities caused by the artifacts we want to replace or create. But "retiring" the debt is more difficult than just throwing resources at it. In this program, we provide guidance for technical leaders, senior managers, and executives as they devise policy changes and organizational changes that help to get technical debt under control, permanently. More

Technical Debt Management: Making the Business Case

This program outlines the steps necessary for deploying a program for rational management of technical debt. For many organizations, adopting a program for rationally managing technical debt entails organizational change. And unlike some organizational changes, this one touches almost everyone in the organization, because technical debt isn't merely a technical problem.

Technical debt manifests itself in technological assets, to be sure, but its causes are rarely isolated to the behavior and decisions of engineers. We can't resolve the problem of chronically excessive levels of technical debt by changing the behavior of engineers alone. Technical debt is the symptom, not the problem.

In this program we outline the essential elements of an effective business case for adopting a rational technical debt management program. But this business case, unlike many business cases, cannot be captured in a document. We must make the case not only at the leadership level of the organization, but also at the level of the individual contributor. Everyone must understand. Everyone must contribute.

We explore five issues that make technical debt so difficult to manage, and develop five guidelines for designing technical debt management strategies for the modern enterprise. More

Nontechnical Phenomena That Lead to Technical Debt

When organizations set about gaining control of their accumulated and newly incurring technical debt, a common error of thinking is that the problem can be addressed by modifying their technical processes alone. That can be effective in cases in which the causes of technical debt are found only in the engineering and IT organizations. But those cases are rare.

This program surveys examples of organizational phenomena that lead to accumulating technical debt and which aren't restricted to the engineering or IT organizations. Indeed, many of these phenomena cannot be found in the engineering or IT organizations, or if found there, they have relatively small effects on technical debt.

For each of the phenomena, we describe how it leads to technical debt formation or persistence, and what can be done to mitigate its effects.

Most important, we explain how effective control of technical debt requires contributions from a broad array of organizational roles. More

How Cognitive Biases Make Technical Debt

Adopting a program for rationally managing technical debt is a complex undertaking. But the heart of the problem must certainly include how we decide whether and when to deal with technical debt. Researchers have demonstrated that decisions are not always rational. — they are sometimes affected by what are called cognitive biases. Decision regarding technical debt are no exception.

Indeed, decisions can be affected by any of hundreds of cognitive biases. Cognitive biases underlie our human tendency to make systematic judgment errors based on thought-related factors rather than evidence. We review selected biases and suggest how to mitigate their effects on technical debt management efforts to avoid catastrophes and create stunning successes. More

Technical Debt for Policymakers: Nine Strategies

We often regard technical debt management as a topic only for project teams. But since causes of technical debt can be anywhere in the organization, controlling technical debt requires organizational policy changes. This program examines nine strategies that policymakers can deploy to transform how their organizations manage technical debt.

We introduce a fundamental principle that makes everyone in the organization accountable for their own contributions to the formation and persistence of technical debt. That principle leads to nine recommended strategies that can transform the organization's management of its technical debt portfolio. More

Decision-Making for Team Leaders

Effective group decision making requires far more than knowing how to organize a discussion or take a vote. This program is designed for both new and experienced team leaders or team sponsors, managers, project managers, portfolio managers, program managers, and executives and general managers. It's especially valuable to people who work in organizations that confront fluid environments, in which decisions must be made in the context of uncertainty. More

Conflict Resolution Skills for Leaders

In collaborative work, especially in knowledge-based organizations, conflict is inherent. It can be constructive, producing outcomes that are superior to the outcomes that could have been produced without it. Or it can be destructive and toxic, destroying the working relationships of the collaborators. This program shows leaders how to keep conflict constructive, and how to make it constructive again if it turns destructive. More

Team Development for Leaders

Teams at work are often teams in name only — they're actually just groups. True teams are able to achieve much higher levels of performance than groups can. In this program, organizational leaders, managers, team leads, and team sponsors learn the techniques they need to form their groups into teams, and once they are teams, how to keep them there. More

Cognitive Biases and Workplace Decision-Making

Most of us don't realize how many decisions we make every day, because we make so many decisions outside our awareness. And most of us believe that when we make decisions, we make rational decisions. Not so. Cognitive biases are tricks of the mind that help us make decisions more quickly — and often, less rationally. In this program we explore how to improve decision quality by becoming more aware of the effects of cognitive biases, and how to intervene to limit those effects. More

Managing in Fluid Environments

Most people now work in environments that can best be characterized as fluid, because they're subject to continual change. We never know what's coming next. In such environments, managing — teams, projects, groups, departments, or the enterprise — often entails moving from surprise to surprise while somehow staying almost on track. It's a nerve-wracking existence. This workshop provides numerous tools that help managers who work in fluid environments. More

Wishful Thinking: Why It Happens, How to Prevent It, and How to Return to Reality

Wishful thinking is expensive. It causes delays, rework, and even outright failure, on every scale from the project to the enterprise. In this program, we explore tools we can use to detect wishful thinking while we're doing it. We then describe several techniques for preventing it, noticing it, and finally, for repairing the consequences of wishful thinking when it happens. More

High-Voltage Brainstorming: Leading Teams to More Brilliant Ideas Faster

Although most of us are very familiar with brainstorming, many overestimate its effectiveness. Serious research indicates that, as commonly practiced, it produces results that tend to overlook some brilliant ideas, and might even include ideas that are counterproductive. We can do so much better. More

Customized Executive Team-Building

Executive team-building is unlike other team building, because executive teams are unlike other teams, and because time is usually so much more precious. Using advance interviews and a collaborative approach, we tailor our effort to your team's precise needs. More

Technical Emergency Management Planning

Much of the available advice about emergency preparedness makes the assumption that somehow you have succeeded in making preparation a priority when there's still enough time to do it in a routine manner. Since that situation is rare, this workshop assumes that the emergency is either already upon you, or that it's imminent, and there isn't enough time to prepare in the usual take-forever, yet-another-meeting, plan-then-plan-some-more manner. We assume that you're in a situation in which business as usual just won't cut it. Which leaves just one place to go — business as unusual. More

Changing How We Change: The Essence of Agility

Managing organizational change has been a favored topic now for over four decades. Books, articles, academic careers, and entire consulting practices continue to be built around the topic. Apparently we haven't figured it out yet, despite enormous investments. Maybe it's time for changing how we approach Change. And the rewards for doing so can be especially significant for those who are contemplating adopting, or who have adopted or who are adopting Agile processes. More

Sudoku Solutions, INK: A Simulation of a Project-Oriented Organization

This program is a simulation of a company that solves Sudoku puzzles for its clients. In the simulation, each project team solves puzzles, where team members specialize in the usual skills such as quality control, project management, or business analysis. But we also have people who specialize in even numbers, multiples of three, twos only, and so on. The inevitable tensions that arise are expensive distractions. For example, a department gets downsized, or the division is reorganized, or a function is outsourced. We simulate these kinds of events to give participants a chance to experiment with effective responses. This workshop helps participants understand how to deal with these tensions, how to prevent them, and how to work more productively in and with cross-functional teams. More

Creating High Performance Virtual Teams

Many people experience virtual teams as awkward, slow, and sometimes frustrating. The problem is that we lead, manage, and support virtual teams in ways that are too much like the way we lead, manage, and support co-located teams. In this program, Rick Brenner shows you how to change your approach to leading, managing, and supporting virtual teams to achieve high performance using Simons' Four Spans model of high performance. More

Leading Virtual Meetings for Real Results

For years, your organization has perfected project management, and you got pretty good at it. Then one day, you decided to execute a project using a distributed team. Eleven time zones, three languages, five countries. Managing the virtual meetings was a nightmare squared. People no-showed, the wrong people attended, misunderstandings flourished, confusion reigned. Would you like to get better at leading virtual meetings? In this program we provide insight into what goes wrong in virtual meetings, why it goes wrong, how to deal with it, and how to avoid it. More

Team Communication in Enterprise Emergencies

In a single day, your brand can collapse — or it can re-emerge stronger than ever. From Tylenol to JetBlue, nobody is exempt. The outcome depends on how well you communicate to each other. Enterprise emergencies almost always entail complex technological issues. Some of us understand them, but most of us don't. That's the technology divide. To successfully communicate within an emergency management team, team members must know what nontechnical leaders need; ask for what they need from technical leaders; prepare for the emergency environment; deal with situations that run off the rails; listen to others and manage their own responses; and manage the risks of metaphors. And most of all, they must recognize that the emergency environment is unforgiving. Learn what it takes to succeed as a team in enterprise emergencies. More

Great Teams Workshop

Occasionally we have the experience of belonging to a great team. Thrilling as it is, the experience is rare. In part, it's rare because we strive only for adequacy, not for greatness. We do this because we don't fully appreciate the returns on greatness. Not only does it feel good to be part of great team — it pays off. It pays off, but it takes work. More

Leading Virtual Teams for Real Results

For years, your organization has perfected project management, and you got pretty good at it. Then one day, you decided to execute a project using a distributed team. Eleven time zones, three languages, five countries. It was a disaster, or at best, well below your organizational standards of performance. Want to get better at managing distributed teams? More

Virtual Team Assessment Services

Driven by acquisitions, strategic partnerships, and your broadening reach into expanding markets, your organization's team efforts have become gradually more distributed over the country or the globe. Yet, you're unsure that the management techniques you're using are as effective as they could be, even though they worked pretty well in the face-to-face environment. A Virtual Team Assessment identifies your opportunities for improvement. More

Technical Conflict Management

Technical teamwork frequently involves conflict. Although technical conflict is much like other forms of workplace conflict, it has some special characteristics that sometimes make it difficult to deal with. This workshop introduces participants to basic skills for dealing with conflict, and prepares them for the special situations that can appear in the technical context. More

"Make It So" and Other Styles of Delegation: How to master the art of delegation

In this program we explore the art of delegation. We look at what it takes to create an environment in which the person or team that actually does the work experiences a sense of contribution and pride from the moment they accept the delegated task until the moment it's completed, and beyond — everything it takes to make sound delegation agreements. We look at some common fears of delegation, and how they lead to micromanagement. And we also examine how delegation, once undertaken, can go terribly wrong. More

The Psychology and Politics of Project Scope Risk

Why can't we control project scope? In project after project, scope expands inexorably, despite our awareness of the phenomenon, and despite vast amounts of sage advice available. Most analyses assert that practitioners fail to employ practices that are known to work. Although this failure is partly responsible, the issue is so widespread that project management malpractice cannot account for it all. We propose that organizational politics combined with psychological phenomena known as cognitive biases are at work; that effective project scope management must address them to mitigate their effects. We introduce several biases and provide tactics to help project managers achieve effective scope management. More

Forty-Nine Insights for Leading Projects

Experience is a great teacher. But personal experience can be very expensive. To lower the costs of experience, we can study the experiences of others. And that's what this program does. We present a collection of very valuable insights, often gained at great expense, by project managers, project sponsors, program managers, and project team members. Each of the forty-nine insights is expressed in a short, memorable way to help participants recall them easily when needed. More

Ten Project Management Fallacies: The Power of Avoiding Hazards

Most of what we know about managing projects is useful and effective, but some of what we know "just ain't so." Identifying the fallacies of project management reduces risk and enhances your ability to complete projects successfully. Even more important, avoiding these traps can demonstrate the value and power of the project management profession in general, and your personal capabilities in particular. In this program we describe ten of these beliefs. There are almost certainly many more, but these ten are a good start. We explore the situations in which these fallacies are most likely to expose projects to risk, and suggest techniques for avoiding them. More

Strategic Thinking for Project People

When we think tactically, our focus is the "next doable step," or perhaps, the next two or three doable steps. When we think strategically, we place far more emphasis on the longer-range objective. In project work, effective strategy can dramatically reduce the level of tactical effort required to achieve the longer-range objectives. More

Influencing Outcomes Without Authority

Your ability to influence others — whether upward, downward, laterally, or within a team — always depends on both the quality of your relationships with the people you influence, and on your perception and their perception of your personal power. This program shows you techniques for making things happen not by using formal organizational power, but by using informal, personal power. More

The Race to the South Pole: The Power of Agile Development

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to those seeking to understand the power of agile methods, the story is fascinating as a source of important insights. This program provides some much-needed relief from the sometimes-dry presentations about agile methodology. More

The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. This program provides some much-needed relief from the sometimes-dry presentations about project management. More

Advanced Project Management

Your organization understands project management. You have schedules and budgets, you get frequent status reports, and every project manager is an ace at using one or another project scheduling software package. But projects still come in late and over budget, people are working long hours most of the time, and you spend entirely too much time fighting fires. Why? What does it take to get things to run smoothly? What are you missing?

This workshop in Advanced Project Management is intended for organizations that have a project orientation, and have solid experience applying project management skills, but somehow find that the results they're getting are disappointing. We explore possible causes, define their relationship to project success, show how conventional project management practice fails to address them, and give participants practice with the interventions needed to mitigate their effects. More

Dealing with Devious Political Tactics While Preserving Your Integrity

Although some regard politics as a nasty game, it's mostly helpful. Still, there are some ruthless individuals who abuse the rest of us by employing devious, unethical tactics to get what they want — or just for the thrill of it. Understanding these ploys is the first step in defending yourself. In this program we examine many of the more common devious political tactics and show how to recognize them and defend yourself against them. More

The Race to the South Pole: The Organizational Politics of Risk Management

Organizational politics presents a risk not often accounted for by risk models. It creates one of the many components of risk management risk — the risk that the risk management process itself is inadequate. Using the race to the South Pole (1910-1912) between two expeditions led, respectively, by Roald Amundsen and Robert F. Scott, we explore how political considerations can lead to risk products that seem acceptable but which are fatally flawed; or worse, the risk products are plainly unserviceable, but everyone chooses not to acknowledge the problem. In this program we examine how organizational politics influences risk management, and discuss several measures for mitigating its effects. More

Agile Politics Clinic

Every team, agile or not, is unique. That's why it's so difficult to formulate a one-size-fits-all solution to enhancing agile team effectiveness. But with the informal and flexible format of a clinic, we can address your specific needs. Bring your questions, wonderings, knots, quandaries, predicaments, muddles, dilemmas, impasses, and tight situations to the Agile Politics Clinic, and we work on them in an interactive simulation to develop insights that can get you moving forward again. More

Workplace Politics Clinic

Every organization, group, or team is unique in its strengths, weaknesses, confusions, and politics. That's why it's so difficult to formulate a one-size-fits-all solution to enhancing effectiveness. But with the informal and flexible format of a "clinic," we can address your specific needs. Bring your questions, wonderings, knots, quandaries, predicaments, muddles, dilemmas, impasses, and tight situations to the Politics Clinic, and we work on them in an interactive simulation to develop insights that can get you moving forward again. More

The Politics of Meetings for People Who Hate Politics

There's a lot more to running an effective meeting than having the right room, the right equipment, and the right people. With meetings, the whole really is more than the sum of its parts. How the parts interact with each other and with external elements is as important as the parts themselves. And those interactions are the essence of politics for meetings. This program explores techniques for leading meetings that are based on understanding political interactions, and using that knowledge effectively to meet organizational goals. More

Organizational Politics for People Who Hate Politics

Have you ever felt powerless to implement an important new idea? Have you ever been "blind-sided" at a meeting? Have you ever lost two good employees because you could find no way to keep them from attacking each other? These are some of the issues of organizational politics. Many of us have become enmeshed in politics from time to time, but we've also known some people who seem to be able to engage and prosper. How is that done? The good news: we can learn how. More

How to Say No to Power

Knowing how to say no — and hear no — effectively is a critical skill for project people. Often, pressured parties tire of the tension, or fear sets in, and we "cave" — we yield to the pressure. Or when we have organizational power we allow ourselves to hear "yes" when we know that "no" was the right answer. At times, this leads to an agreement that simply cannot be fulfilled, which then threatens the project's success, and can even threaten the enterprise. When this happens, saying "no" — or hearing "no" — is best for the health of the effort and the organization. More

Who's Doing Your Job?

A common problem bedevils any of us who "wear two hats" — inherent conflict between the roles we play. If your job requires that you play two or more roles that inherently conflict, it makes sense to ask "Who's doing your job?" Is one of the roles dominant? If you can achieve the right balance, you can be more effective at all of the roles your job requires. More

In Person-to-Person Communications Quality Really Pays Off

Misunderstandings and unintended offenses are just some of the ways interpersonal communication can go wrong. When we communicate with each other, we run great risks. Analyzing information flow using the Satir Interaction Model, we gain insight into the elements of the communications process, and we come to a new understanding of how it can go wrong. In this fun and interactive session, we explore how our communication system works — and doesn't. We emphasize communication under stress, where the most expensive failures occur. And we might just change how some of us send and receive interpersonal communications. More

Person-to-Person Communications for Project Managers

People in the role of project manager face special communications challenges traceable, in part, to the role itself. In addition to the ordinary misunderstandings and unintended offenses we find in any role in the modern workplace, project managers have less common problems arising from the fact that they have formal authority over the project, but (typically) relatively little formal organizational authority. For project managers, avoiding communication tangles is therefore most important. Analyzing information flow using the Satir Interaction Model, we gain insight into the elements of the communications process, and we come to a new understanding of how it can go wrong. In this fun and interactive session, we explore how our communication system works — and doesn't. We emphasize communication under stress, where the most expensive failures occur. And we might just change how some of us send and receive interpersonal communications. More

Person-to-Person Communications: Models and Applications

Like the Interpersonal Communications program, we explore the Satir Interaction Model as a vehicle for understanding the communications process. But we go further, by exploring a specific class of applications of this model. In particular, we study saying no to power, which most of us find very difficult to do. By analyzing the dynamics of the saying-no situation, and by applying the Satir Interaction Model, we can devise effective ways either to communicate bad news uphill, or failing that, learn to recognize impossible situations. More

Survive or Thrive? Managing Projects During Pandemics

Bird Flu, Swine Flu, and now COVID-19. We might have dodged bullets with the first two. Will we dodge a bullet with COVID-19? Or will 2020 be a year of mass disease, mass absenteeism, mass quarantines, and economic disruption? What are the consequences for projects already underway in companies around the world? We examine project suspension and recovery tactics for three intensity levels of pandemics: low-impact, moderate, and high. The goal in all cases is to rebalance priorities to ensure both the health of employees and the well being of the enterprise. More

The Organizational Politics of Risk Management

Organizational politics presents a risk not often accounted for by risk models. It creates one of the many components of risk management risk — the risk that the risk management process itself is inadequate. Political considerations can lead to risk products that seem acceptable but which are fatally flawed; or worse, the risk products are plainly unserviceable, but everyone chooses not to acknowledge the problem. In this program we examine how organizational politics influences risk management, and discuss several measures for mitigating its effects. More

The Race to the South Pole: Lessons in Risk Management for Leaders

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to organizational leaders, the story is fascinating as a source of lessons in risk management. This program provides some much-needed relief from the sometimes-dry presentations about risk management. More

Human-Centered Risk Management

Too often, risk management plans address technologies and markets, and fail to address internal issues such as reorganizations, workplace politics, toxic conflict and reductions in force. In this program we explore a framework for addressing the issues that arise as a result of human behavior — and misbehavior. More

Spreadsheet Models for Managers

Whether you are a manager responsible for people working on business models, or whether you build models yourself, this course is invaluable. Learn how to model business processes, how to construct models that are easier to understand and maintain, and at the same time, more useful and reliable. Course includes tools, macros, tips and techniques to make life easier for modelers who use Microsoft ® Excel. More

Spreadsheet Clinic

Spreadsheets are everywhere. But are they "right?" Can you build them as fast as you need to? Are the spreadsheets you build easy to use? Or is your company now completely dependent on the authors of key spreadsheets used every day for tracking projects, budgeting, or reporting? The Spreadsheet Clinic shows you how to build spreadsheet models and tools that are easier to use, cheaper to maintain, faster to develop and above all, more reliable. More