Alphabet Soup Management

  Leadership   ProjectsAtWork  

ITIL, OPM3, XP, APM, PMBOK, PRINCE2 — the list goes on and on. How does anyone make sense of all the management mantras? The reality is that most do not. True leaders understand the importance of getting every member of the team to take ownership of their actions and the overall strategy. This requires more than an alphabet soup of process, it requires an owned strategy.

ITIL, Six Sigma, Lean, TQM, Agile Development, Scrum, XP, APM, PMBOK, strategy maps, and portfolio management — the list goes on and on. How does anyone make sense of all the management mantras? The reality is that most do not. The average organization will attempt to implement three of these, or other management techniques, every two years. Each initiative will cost approximately $750,000 and will be cancelled within 12 months. Yet, the management problems these ideas were undertaken to solve will continue.

As an organizational leader tirelessly attempting to keep your firm moving forward, reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction, retain your most valuable employees — along with 20 other major strategic and operational goals — what are you to do? The key to wading through the myriad of mantras is to keep your focus on what really matters. Remembering a few simple rules can dramatically improve your chances of success. Firstly, process won’t get you there, people …

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