At the end of every month, I review my most popular posts from the last 90 days. In Q2 Dilbert on Risk Management showed up in the top 5 for the first time:The surge in popularity is interesting but I’m not sure that it’s reliable, especially since Google Trends doesn’t show the same pattern. Regardless, risk…
It’s pretty common for people (and Dilbert) to poke fun at Marketing. The jokes typically come in three flavors: 1. Product Marketing and Public Relations often have amusing conversations as we try to describe products in colorful, but believable, ways. 2. Marketing sometimes has to use a little artistic license to get people interested in…
One last parting shot on MBOs and the proliferation of goals: Note to all vendors of software packages that support goal tracking (including my employer): It’s only a joke. I do know that there’s value in using technology to solve these problems.
Even though I’ve spent a lot of time over the last year talking to clients about risk management, I haven’t covered the topic in this blog other than my post on Risk Friends and Key Risk Indicators. This is especially odd as I’ve come to believe strategy management and risk management are inextricably linked. I’ll expound…
As a strategy management aficionado, I fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this Dilbert. After a few minutes, I realized I should have objected to Dogbert using PowerPoint to capture the goals. He should have used strategy management software instead. At least Dogbert is following the maxim that personal incentives should be…
Openly, I get annoyed when people use the term planning to describe budgeting. While the terms planning and budgeting are often used interchangeably, they’re not the same thing. Budgeting is how you allocate resources (typically financial) to reach specific objectives. Budgeting helps you create an estimate of income and expenses for a specific time period. Budgeting manages money…
Strategy consultants seem to recommend to go beyond the core blue ocean. Confused? Let me explain. Chris Zook’s book Beyond the Core describes how an organization can continue to grow after its core business has plateaued by finding adjacent opportunities which both leverage and reinforce its core strengths. Zook recommends a series of small, harmonious adjacent moves to maximize long-term…
How many strategy management mistakes can you count? 1. Failure to adequately communicate the strategy 2. Failure to explain how the strategy impacts individuals 3. No formal cascade of objectives between high-level strategy (pointy haired boss) and next level down (Dilbert) 4. No way to monitor progress towards achieving objectives Did I miss any?
If you weren’t convinced that dashboards have become over-hyped, these two Dilbert strips that appeared last week should be the final straw: (Click twice to enlarge the comics) The intellectual side of me would like to defend our profession and chalk these up as simply cartoons designed to elicit a laugh. Unfortunately, they are…