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Build a Tower Build a Team

19 September, 2018 by James Lawther 1 Comment

TED Talk Tom Wujec This is a talk about a powerful little game with some far-reaching implications.  It challenges the way we manage and implement projects. First Tom Wujec shows how we get caught up in a management world of plans, priorities and proposals. Then he demonstrates how much more effective we could be if […]

Filed Under: Best of the Web, Blog, Tools & Techniques Tagged With: diversity, incentives, innovation, marshmallow challenge, TED talks, test and learn, Tom Wujec, video

Messy by Tim Harford — Book Review

5 August, 2018 by James Lawther 1 Comment

Messy Tim Harford

What is it about? According to the author, Tim Harford, Messy “celebrates the benefits that messiness has in our lives: why it’s important, why we resist it, and why we should embrace it instead”. According to Maria Konnikova’s New York Times review, “a less catchy, but perhaps more accurate, title for the book would be […]

Filed Under: Blog, Book Tagged With: beliefs, command and control, complexity, innovation, systems thinking, test and learn, Tim Harford

Trial, Error and the God Complex

26 July, 2018 by James Lawther Leave a Comment

Now I can describe the symptoms of the God complex very, very easily.

TED Talk Tim Harford The “God Complex” is the overwhelming belief that, no matter how complicated the problem, we are infallibly right in our solution. Economist and journalist Tim Harford explains why we are deluding ourself and shows us the only problem solving technique that is guaranteed to work. It’s the Second World War. A German prison […]

Filed Under: Best of the Web, Blog Tagged With: beliefs, complexity, innovation, TED talks, test and learn, Tim Harford, video

Better to Be Approximately Right Than Precisely Wrong

12 July, 2018 by James Lawther 4 Comments

Ice-cream van

Spurious accuracy Thirty years ago I sat in a factory office with my head bowed low, looking at the dirty grey lino floor.  My boss, a middle-aged, overweight man wearing a white coat smeared with ice-cream was berating me in a broad west country accent. Apparently I was wasting both my time and his.  I […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: analysis paralysis, assumptions, over-processing, spurious accuracy, statistics, test and learn

Management Experiments and Idle Gits

26 June, 2018 by James Lawther 4 Comments

homeworker

A glamorous life The company I work for has offices in: Cambridgeshire Essex Greater Manchester Merseyside Sussex Tyne and Wear Yorkshire As an ops guy I get to visit them all.  If I am lucky I get invited to London to talk strategy as well.  I spend my life on a train.  Being part of […]

Filed Under: Blog, Operations Analysis Tagged With: assumptions, results only work environment, test and learn

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