Posts Tagged ‘Management’

Monday night I had the opportunity to attend an Agile Groupies meeting.  It’s a semi-regular gathering of folks (developers, business analysts, product managers, etc.) interested in a specific approach, Agile, toward software development.

For those of you not familiar, Agile development focuses on smaller development teams, working on smaller deliverables, in highly iterative, somewhat less structured approach.  Part of the thinking is that if you are delivering in smaller, more discrete ‘chunks’ of working product, that the overall process will be more ‘agile,’ more adaptive to ongoing change during a product’s overall life cycle. The idea is to move away from ‘heavy’ less flexible disciplines, and back toward lighter, freer, approaches. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m pleased to let everyone know, March 17, I will be speaking at the It’s a Duesy II Manufacturing Revival Conference.  You’re encouraged to come.

Dennis Jeffrey of Tekni Consulting is the event’s organizer.  Heading into 2010, we begin to catch our breaths, having simply survived 2009.

Now, is the time for revival!  But, not revival just as a dictionary would describe it.  One definition is, ‘…restoration to use…’  We need not to simply revive, restore, or return to pre-‘09 conditions, we need to find ways to thrive, to strengthen ourselves and move forward positively.  With this in mind, I was happy to accept Dennis’ invitation to speak.

My discussion is part of the event’s Management track, focusing on Change.

The world around us continues to evolve; nothing new there.  But many organizations, even as they change what they look like, have largely stayed the same inside.  Social, technical, global evolution has now come so far organizations simply have no choice but to finally begin changing who they are inside.

Register Now! Early Bird Pricing until February 15th! Price is only $89/ person, group rates available.

For those of you who have followed my blog, you understand that my focus is on providing thoughtful business leadership.  Come listen as I discuss areas often neglected by leaders, allowed to fall by the wayside, which are increasingly important in today’s world—areas that need to change.

In preparation for this event, I am actively interviewing business leaders and soliciting input—including yours, dear reader.  I encourage you to provide your input regarding how businesses need to change in order to thrive, moving forward.  Feel free to Comment, or send me an email (results@jtpedersen.net).

Energy costs.

Ask yourself, why did the economy tank last year? A popular answer is bad mortgages leading to a collapse of the financial markets…and the dominoes just fell from there. But if so, then why did Europe and Japan head into recession (by a couple quarters, at least) before the US?

If you listen to the popular economist Jeff Rubin (http://www.jeffrubinssmallerworld.com), he’ll give you an earful on why it was really triggered by 2008’s run up in oil prices. Consider that in 4 of 5 previous recessions (we can’t say about this one yet, for sure), oil spikes preceded economic recession by about 12 months each time. Interestingly, 09’s spike was nearly 500% prior spikes. I encourage you to read Jeff’s book, or at least skim the related blog post, Financial Crisis or energy Shock? You Be the Judge.

So, what happened to us as energy sky rocketed, before last year’s collapse? We started

Read the rest of this entry »