Feeling stuck? One more post for workaholics. Chances are you have a bunch of projects that you juggle 24/7. So the “My Competing Priorities” exercise might be right for you. All you need is 9 minutes, a pen and a sheet of paper. (No, it’s not about origami.)
We won’t talk about prioritization methods like Kano, RICE, ICE and so on. Some time ago I wrote about the ICE scoring model because it struck me with its simplicity and seemed like a handy tool on the spot. But then it occurred to me that it often happens that many activities are actually of relatively equal importance. At least in my case, but I’m sure someone else has the same. How do you prioritize when everything is important? ICE doesn’t help much with this.
Before I tell you exactly what I did—and you can just scroll down to the picture at the bottom of the page as it sums it all up—I’d like to add a little more background and also touch on the topic of decluttering.
Continue readingHave you ever caught yourself at the beginning of a task and you have no idea where you left off? This can be especially true when you have multiple tasks and need to split them up by time.
I am sure many can recall such cases. And at the same time, what often happens when we are working on a task is we think “No, I will not forget this” or “I will work on this tomorrow, I will clearly remember everything.”
Unfortunately or fortunately, life has a very annoying habit of not following our plans, and sometimes literally anything can happen between part 1 and part 2 of your task. More days before you can reconvene, an unexpected trip, other major distractions, and so on. And here we are at the beginning of the second part, again having no idea where we left off.
Continue readingWhat is a toxic team? Toxic people? No, Not really.
Better way to define it as toxic relationships between people in a team. And it’s important, because if we say that people are toxic it is impossible to change, but if we say behavior is toxic, this is a whole different story.
And the good news is that it is totally under a team manager’s area of influence. So if you are managing a team, and it now behaves in a “toxic” way, it is not hard to fix. I’ll tell you four simple steps to take so you can improve it right away.
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ICE scoring is a simple, rough, and fairly good method for quickly prioritizing without focused, comprehensive analysis.
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You’ve probably heard this phrase or the so-called first rule of programming: “If it works don’t touch it”. I believe there is something about this joke, at least to the point that you shouldn’t change for the sake of change. And when you decide to change something you clearly understand why and what you want to achieve.
If you simply ask yourself these four questions you can ensure you are good to go with your change management program:
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The 360 degree feedback method was introduced somewhere in the 1950s and is still chart-topping more than 7 decades after. While it does provide a value, there are things to consider before using it.
The main point is bias and reasoning behind someone’s opinion. Even though this method is considered by many as non biased as there are many participants who provide feedback.
But look at this from a team’s perspective, not a theoretical one. You have certain people and everyone with certain reasoning. So when you ask for a feedback in a form of 360 degree you can do the following:
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