Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Time Out!
Ian Whittingham, PMP is director of Calixo Consulting, providing project and program management expertise from initiation through to implementation, covering business transformation, workflow process re-engineering, and enterprise data integration. He is a regular contributor to ProjectManagement.com. You may contact Ian directly at [email protected].
The coach catches the referee’s eye and signals to him. Play stops. You turn around and see the coach. He’s beckoning to you. He’s taking you out. Why? You were pumped up, firing on all cylinders, ready to deliver that game-winning play. But now you’re out of the game. How did that happen? Who wants to sit on the sideline, watching from the bench, when you’d rather be where the action is? Of course, it all depends on your perspective.
More often than not, even to know-it-all armchair referees, the deleterious state of play makes the coach’s decision blindingly obvious. But the better coach will always know when it is time to take out a player. It’s not personal; it never is, though personality can influence the decision, especially when personality is driving the style of play (as it often does). But sometimes, like the benched player, we can also be left scratching our heads, wondering: “What was that move all about?”
Practice makes perfect
To be effective, coaching must blend a working knowledge of the mechanics of a skill set with experience of exercising that skill set in real-life situations. Training sessions are ideally built around these two elements, using repetitive drills to teach the correct execution of discrete skills, followed by set plays to exercise those skills in combinations that …
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"Ambition is like a frog sitting on a Venus Flytrap. The flytrap can bite and bite, but it won't bother the frog because it only has little tiny plant teeth. But some other stuff could happen and it could be like ambition." - Jack Handey |