Some of the books that inspire me
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Goal Directed Project Management
For Project Management, I like to do milestone planning and status reporting on just 2 sheets of paper instead of using detailed activity plans.
I picked this up early in my career at C&L where I was introduced to Goal Directed Project Management.
Scrum voor Managers
For Portfolio Management I prefer a discussion with your management team around a whiteboard visualizing the different projects and their priorities rather than a dry digital report in some spreadsheet.
A picture is worth a thousand words, isn't it? And a similar approach can be used for managing IT Projects. At one company we had an entire SCRUM room visualizing all projects.
The SCRUM-methodology offers some great guidelines on how to manage and organize this.
Mindmaps
I have a visual memory. You will find me creating mindmaps in meetings. I will make a presentation using images and schematics rather than words.
A status report needs to be shared with everyone involved. Yes, I will send a mail, but I will also have it up somewhere on a wall for everyone to see.
And if I'm long enough in your company you might see some inspiring quotes decorating the wall behind my desk. That's who I am. Can't help it. It's in my genes.
Gamestorming
I love to facilitate workshops. That's when I am at my best. Making sure everyone is involved and gets a say. Asking probing questions to fully understand what's being said.
This book describes a whole range of tools that can be used in that context.
The Goal
In the area of supply chain, I am a big fan of Bottleneck and Throughput Management (Theory of Constraints).
This basically says that there is no need to improve a process in a step that is not the bottleneck, as you will only create stock and waste resources.
The basic principles of bottleneck management can be applied to other domains as well.
Througput Accounting
In the finance domain the principles of the Theory of Constraints are known as Throughput Accounting.
I love this because it greatly simplifies things. No need to allocate fixed costs. Just look at the contribution of each product or service.
More importantly, Throughput Accounting allows you to make the right financial decisions.
Insanely Simple
I will never suggest a system solution if I think it compensates for unwanted human behavior. Nor will I suggest overtly complex solutions.
I have introduced Balanced Scorecards in companies based on spreadsheets, rather than fancy dashboard applications.
A good and constructive discussion about the performance, resulting in clear actions and a timely follow-up are way more important to achieve actual progress.
Decisive
I love Decisive, the excellent book of the Heath brothers about how we, humble humans, tend to make the wrong decisions and about how to avoid some of these pitfalls.
For instance, if you need to select a supplier for a big project, rather than following your intuition based on a couple of meetings,
why not pay a couple of suppliers to produce a carefully chosen deliverable?
It might cost a little bit more initially, but you will be able to make a decision based on actual experience and on the quality of that deliverable.
This might save you a lot of money, time and frustration afterwards.
The 80/20 Principle
I like the Pareto principle. Less is more. Good is good enough. Focus is key. No need to do everything. Just do the right things, those things that will have the most impact.
This means hard decisions. Because not doing something will probably mean you will have to say "no" to someone who came up with a suggestion for a new project or activity.
Or it might mean cancelling existing projects or activities, which could even hurt more people. The key is to understand that this process can be iterative.
For each step you only bite off as much as you can chew.
Business Model Generation
Having a great idea, but still wondering how you can earn money with it? This is a great book to help you develop the right business model.
Lots of examples to learn from. Or, if needed, you can start from scratch using the Business Model Canvas.
Slicing Pie
I have experienced the friction that arises in startups when they use fixed equity splits.
What seemed fair at the onset of the adventure is no longer fair as you travel along.
Things change, people don't deliver what they promised, those relations someone brought along didn't translate into sales, etc.
Slicing Pie works with dynamic splits during a startup's bootstrap phase (i.e. until break-even).
All efforts (time, money, relationships, ...) are continuously monitored and you will be awarded equity in line with the level of risk you are exposed to.
