The one thing that has always made humans stand out from the rest is our ability to feel. In a world where someone’s career impacts their day-to-day life on such a large scale, the hiring process can be an emotional one. 
That’s why removing feelings from the process just isn’t an option. Machines don’t get people, and feelings can’t be automated. You have to be able to communicate and adapt in real time to be a great recruiter — not use more tools.

Hiring Is An Emotional Process

Machines are uniform, consistent and prefer one single outcome. Automation can only create one baseline. And the reality? There are so many more types of people in the world. Different kinds of people are applying for different kinds of jobs. Robots can’t adapt to real people with real wants and needs. A chatbot can recognize a word, sure, but the one thing it can’t recognize? Feelings.

Consistent Inconsistency

The hiring process is long, exhausting, and intimidating for both employers and candidates alike. And sometimes things don’t even work out after all of the effort to fill a position. If recruiters know how to communicate, positions will be filled quicker, and better candidates will be placed.

Value Of Better Talent Communication: Teaching Recruiters To Communicate Consistently

When the wrong candidate is brought in, it can set both a company and candidate’s life back by months as they scramble to reconfigure. But when a recruiter knows how to discuss a role effectively and communicate with a candidate, they can assess just who they’re hiring ahead of time — and if it’s going to work out for both parties.

Better Retention

Have you ever tried to maintain a conversation with someone who struggles to communicate? Imagine how that feels for a candidate who just wants to land the right position. When your recruiters are able to describe a role in a better job posting that sells, candidates will apply. Recruiters need to be the authority on the position they are working to fill. Communicating effectively and consistently will garner respect from candidates and ensure that they feel like they are entering into a reliable space.

Being Human

People Still Prefer People. Feelings Cannot Be Automated in Recruiting.

career

Career

humanresources

Human Resources

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

Feelings Cannot Be Automated in Recruiting - ERE

Gratitude in the workplace is often underrated. While some leaders are quick with a “thank you,” others are still under the impression that thanks are given with a paycheck. Research clearly illustrates that the right amount of gratitude can dramatically impact the productivity, positivity, morale, employee retention, and success of a business.With “The Great Resignation” and “The Great Discontent” affecting our organizations, retention is top-of-mind.  A little gratitude goes a long way in keeping employees happy and feeling valued.

Gratitude At The Workplace

The act of gratitude clearly transcends any one part of our lives. It’s holistic in nature. Those who are grateful at home are likely to be grateful at work. But people aren’t inherently grateful or not. Like many things, it can be–and I would argue should be– practiced.

Gratitude Is Transcendent

Say things like: Thank you! We appreciate you. We are glad you’re here. You offer great value to our team. Nice job on that project. Sound too easy or trite? It’s not. Ask questions like: How would you like to be recognized? What makes a happy, productive workplace? A misstep is often to assume you know what resonates with people. Don’t be afraid to ask: take surveys or have open conversations about what feels good to hear or experience.

Go Back To Basics

Make time and space for gratitude.  Many employees may feel ambivalent about expressing gratitude or appreciation publicly, so don’t force it. Instead, managers should make (physical or virtual) space and time for gratitude. For example, managers can create an appreciation wall or a dedicated Slack channel for employees to recognize others and give kudos. Managers might also start meetings with gratitude ‘check-ins,’ during which team members can express one thing they’re thankful for.

Create An Environment That Fosters Gratitude

Gratitude in the workplace doesn’t have to be expensive or overwrought with logistics. There are many ways to show appreciation and employee recognition that aren’t overtaxing or unrealistic.

Gratitude isn’t an Initiative Or a Task To Manage

As with all goal-setting, the clearer the picture, the more likely you will succeed. Take the time to understand what happiness means in your organization, industry, and area of the world.  This alone can put a damper on the “Great Resignation” or “Great Discontent.”

A Culture Of Gratitude: Defining Happiness

TalentCulture's Cyndy Trivella explains the importance of gratitude for keeping employees happy in the workplace.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

Stop Overthinking a Culture of Gratitude. Show It Instead!

When you have a role of responsibility or authority, such as your business, a leading role at work, or your family, you may try to do everything yourself because you want it done right.
But this could lead to slower progress, inefficiencies and exhaustion.

Doing it all by yourself

When you delegate, you assign responsibilities and tasks to others on your team. Benefits include:<ul><li>More time to focus on important tasks only you can do.</li><li>The involvement of others creates cohesiveness and engagement within your team. It helps others to grow.</li><li>It increases the quality of life as it reduces fatigue from overwork.</li><li>It boosts the morale of your teammates as they feel more valued and motivated.</li></ul>

Benefits of delegation

The role of an effective manager is to move from doing your job to managing your job. <ul><li>An essential part of managing is to delegate. Delegating helps people grow, eventually increasing their value to your company.</li><li>Teach, don't tell. Teaching someone how to complete the delegated tasks increases productivity and ensures higher-level results.</li><li>Trust your team as you decide which tasks to delegate. Empowering others to do their best means reminding them how good they are and how much you believe in them.</li><li>Give future-focused feedback. When improvements are needed, give solution-based feedback.</li></ul>

How to delegate correctly

We can become better delegators by applying the tips in this video.

When you have a role of responsibility or authority at work or home, the temptation to do everything yourself can be overwhelming. This can lead to exhaustion and inefficiencies. Delegating is the better approach to take. Find out if you're a bad delegator and tips to improve. https://bit.ly/3rZlazp If you want to be a better delegator and learn how to think ahead and evaluate your goals effectively, click the link above to download my Personal Development Plan Template! Start planning months and years to come more efficiently than ever before. #delegator #baddelegator 0:00- Introduction 0:34- Benefits of delegation 0:36- More time for important tasks 0:41- Involvement from others 0:47- Increased quality of life 1:07- Productivity Tips 2:17- Trust your team 2:55- Provide future-focused feedback 4:03- Personal Development Plan Template Give me a follow on Clubhouse! @briantracy — see you there! ___________________ Learn more: Subscribe to my channel for free offers, tips, and more! YouTube: http://ow.ly/ScHSb Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/BrianTracyPage Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/BrianTracy Google+: +BrianTracyOfficialPage Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/BrianTracy Instagram: @TheBrianTracy Blog: http://bit.ly/1rc4hlg delegation, teamwork, success tips

videos

Videos

When you have a role of responsibility or authority at work or home, the temptation to do everything yourself can be overwhelming. This can lead to exhaustion and inefficiencies. Delegating is the better approach to take. Find out if you're a bad delegator and tips to improve. https://bit.ly/3rZlazp

If you want to be a better delegator and learn how to think ahead and evaluate your goals effectively, click the link above to download my Personal Development Plan Template! Start planning months and years to come more efficiently than ever before.

#delegator #baddelegator

0:00- Introduction
0:34- Benefits of delegation
0:36- More time for important tasks
0:41- Involvement from others 
0:47- Increased quality of life
1:07- Productivity Tips
2:17- Trust your team
2:55- Provide future-focused feedback
4:03- Personal Development Plan Template

Give me a follow on Clubhouse! @briantracy — see you there! 
___________________
Learn more: 

Subscribe to my channel for free offers, tips, and more!
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The 80 20 Rule Explained
https://www.briantracy.com/blog/personal-success/how-to-use-the-80-20-rule-pareto-principle/

delegation, teamwork, success tips

Brian Tracy is the most listened to audio author on personal and business success in the world today. His fast-moving talks and seminars on leadership, sales, managerial effectiveness and business strategy are loaded with powerful, proven ideas and strategies that people can immediately apply to get better results in every area.

Brian Tracy

Are You A Bad Delegator? | Brian Tracy

Are You A Bad Delegator?

Earlier this week, I had a feedback experience that shook me up a bit. I was halfway through my course preparation task for my boss’ <a href="http://buzzedison.co/">business coaching </a>brand when I decided to get feedback on what I had done. To be honest, I was really proud of what I had done so far and I was convinced my boss was going to like it too. Sike! I was wrong.My boss took one good look at the work and said it wasn’t good enough and that I had veered off the task. I was heartbroken, to say the least. The time I had invested, the research I thought I had done so well, all gone down the drain.

Experience Is The Best Teacher They Say

I refused to accept it. I tried to defend my work, tried to get him to see some good in what I was presenting. But he knew what he wanted in that course and I was nowhere near what was required.Eventually, I gave up my defending and listened to his corrections and suggestions. Honestly, at that moment, I lost hope for the task and started taking his feedback with a pinch of salt.

Later in the day (after I had taken a much-needed power nap to calm my boiling nerves) I sat down to analyze the feedback my boss had given me and realized he was right after all. I had veered off the work and I would have wasted more time on it if I hadn’t asked for his candid feedback. I started the task all over again, this time with a clearer mind, and when I went back for his feedback a second time, he found the work satisfactory.

The After Nap Realisation

As human beings, we never like to be in the wrong. We are more receptive to positive feedback and praise. In the world of work, however, things are not always dandy.In order to do work that matters and get results, you need to be good at accepting and giving feedback to and from your teammates, your managers, and even yourself.

We All Need To Suck It Up Sometimes

Yes, feedback is sometimes a form of criticism, but the goal is different from actual criticism.Criticism just highlights how someone or something is at fault, without giving ways it can be made better. Feedback is meant to do the exact opposite. While criticism focuses on weaknesses, feedback is meant to build strengths. Criticism deflates morale, feedback inspires. While criticism points to you as the problem, feedback finds ways to make things better.

Let’s get this clear: Feedback and criticism Are Different

I read a quote in an article on Medium that said “The value of feedback is measured at the other person’s ear, not at your mouth”. This just means that you should always be mindful of how you frame your feedback because it is meant for the receiving party, not you. And if the understanding of your feedback is muddled, it will defeat its purpose.

Giving Feedback

To give feedback that matters, you can apply the Radical Candor framework by Kim Scott. According to this framework, good feedback needs to be “care personally” but “challenge directly”. It needs to take a person’s feelings into consideration, but be straight to the point and incite the needed change. He calls this radical candor. By doing this, you can get the message across without hurting feelings or making people feel incapable.

The Radical Candor Framework

<ol><li class="ql-align-justify">Don’t act nice, be kind</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Give relevant feedback before jumping into solving the problem</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Do not use the “sandwich” feedback method</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Make your feedback concrete</li><li class="ql-align-justify">Never make it about being right or wrong</li></ol>

How To Give Feedback Like A Pro

After you’ve given feedback, keep giving it and reinforcing it. Do not believe that just because you’ve told someone once that your task is complete. Your responsibility is to make sure the other party hears and understands the feedback. You must reinforce your comments and acknowledge any adjustments they make as a result of your feedback.

Being on the receiving end is twice as uncomfortable as being the giver. As I stated earlier, no one likes being told they are wrong about something. However, you need to come to terms with the fact that no one is perfect and learning is a never-ending process.Receiving feedback is just as important as giving it, if not more. It helps you to improve and get better at what you do if you are able to accept corrections and act on them.

Receiving Feedback 

<ol><li>Acknowledge the good elements</li><li>Pay attention to recurring feedback and work on correcting them</li><li>Ask questions and seek clarity</li><li>Don’t forget to say thank you</li><li>Always follow up </li></ol>

How To Receive Feedback Like A Pro

Always remember that feedback is there to correct and improve, not to highlight mistakes. Be graceful about how you give and receive feedback and remember to apply what you receive as early as possible and follow up as often as you can, Always remember that offering feedback sometimes says something about the one taking it, but it always says something about the person giving it. First, take a look at yourself, and then give criticism.

Wrapping Up

This article is based on my most recent feedback experience and what I learnt from it!

Giving and receiving constructive feedback in any situation can be an uncomfortable experience, depending on how intense the feedback is.

communication

Communication

“Suck It Up”: A Guide To Giving And Receiving Feedback Like A Pro

<ul>
<li>Toxic leadership is the main reason why employees leave their jobs. In order to become truly exceptional, those in charge must practice empathetic leadership.</li>
<li>Empathy is the ability to feel what another person is feeling. It is the ability to put yourself in the other person’s shoes in a big and meaningful way. It is to experience their emotions.</li>
<li>Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions, as well as the emotions of others. Empathy is absolutely critical to emotional intelligence.</li>
</ul>

Empathy in a Remote Team

We live in an era filled with information. Thus, without emotions and the ability to sense, understand, and respond to these emotions, any level of understanding and connection is impossible. In today’s business world, we have tools and methods for the efficient exchange of information, but these leave out a massive amount of what makes people human. Research has shown that empathy is essential at work, and when it comes to remote work, the critical need for developing both emotional intelligence–and expressing it in the form of empathy–is imperative to its success.

Why Empathy Is Important

Encourage formal and informal meetings, demonstrate your listening abilities and show care. You can use technology to enhance virtual meetings to feel more close and connected. One has to assume a positive intent and work closely with the team, getting a full idea of their workday, life and the challenges they face.

How To Be A More Empathetic Leader

We are all biased. People tend to approach situations with preconceived notions. It helps people feel prepared for situations. It helps people to feel in control and more comfortable. But preconceived notions, assumptions, or biases make it difficult to listen fully. Work on identifying them and challenging these biases to improve empathy and become more inclusive of different perspectives.

Identify And Challenge Your Biases

The highest-performing teams have one thing in common: psychological safety. It is the belief that you won’t be punished when you make a mistake. <ul><li>Approach conflict as a collaborator, not an adversary.</li><li>Ask for feedback to illuminate your own blind spots. Open up for suggestions and ideas from your team and take time to reflect on them.</li><li>Commit to developing a psychologically safe culture. Discuss shared “team rules” openly.</li></ul>

A Safe Place

With technology, you can scale empathetic leadership development to optimize collaboration for stronger team effectiveness.

remotework

Remote Work

loveandrelationships

Love & Relationships

3 Ways to Practice Empathetic Leadership with a Virtual Team

A meeting cadence is how often a meeting is held. For example, if you and a direct report check in every Friday morning, that’s a weekly cadence. If you have a request to meet every other month, that’s a bimonthly cadence.
The challenge for every company is how frequently meetings should take place. In an increasingly distributed workforce where a face-to-face Zoom is sometimes the only interactions you’ll have with your team, these are often overscheduled in the hopes that these “in person” meetings will be beneficial to building relationships and team morale.

Meeting Cadence

You want your team to know what everyone is working on, but you also want to allow for enough freedom for everyone to work autonomously.  Here are a few examples of some common meetings and how frequently they might meet. <ul><li>One-on-One Meetings: Weekly meeting cadence</li><li>All Hands: Quarterly meeting cadence</li><li>Daily standup meeting: Every day</li><li>Leadership Teams: Monthly meeting cadence</li></ul>

Different Companies, Different Needs

<ol><li>What is the goal of this meeting?</li><li>Can this meeting happen asynchronously?</li><li>Is this a high-priority or urgent task?</li><li>Do these types of meetings regularly run over the allotted time?</li><li>Do we run out of items to discuss in these types of meetings?</li></ol>

Five Questions To Ask Before Making a New Meeting Request

Once you’ve determined that you’ve got a weekly cadence for one project and another weekly cadence for an all-staff check-in, that doesn’t mean these have to be formatted in the same way. You have to decide if the meeting is information seeking or information giving, which we alluded to earlier. This matters a lot when you’re determining how to best check-in.

Change Your Cadence: Asynchronous vs Synchronous Meetings

These meetings fall into any of the following categories:Seeking Information<ul><li>A kickoff meeting for a new project</li><li>A project team meeting to discuss next steps</li><li>Management meeting to check in on how teams are running</li><li>A one-on-one with a direct report to check in on goals and tasks</li></ul> For information giving meetings, those might be: <ul><li>A daily standup</li><li>A project update</li><li>A company’s annual report</li></ul>

Information Seeking And Giving

Research shows that 15% of an organization's time is spent in meetings. Imagine moving that 15% towards actionable tasks that can increase revenue in your business? Less meetings and more money? An easy win. A whopping 73% of people admit to multitasking during meetings. Let your employees spend more time doing their work and less time passively listening in.

Fewer Meetings = Better Meetings

<ol><li>Do create an agenda. Make sure everyone knows what will be covered in advance so they can attend better prepared.</li><li>Don’t leave room for questions at the end. Instead, use Slack or email for any follow-ups since there’s never enough time at the end of the meeting to get to everyone’s questions.</li><li>Do invite-only key players to a meeting. It’s much easier to communicate in smaller groups.</li><li>Don’t go over the allocated meeting time.</li></ol>

Four Do’s and Don’ts For Your Meetings

How often should you meet with your remote team? What can be an asynchronous update vs a synchronous meeting?  Here's how to decide how many meetings you need.

Meeting Cadence: What’s Right For Your Remote Team?

Most people approach data the wrong way: They start with a data set, then use their favourite tools and techniques on it. This produces a narrow set of unsurprising results.
When we want to gain knowledge from the data, we should first do some thinking. Before we can answer how we first need to ask why. But this can be surprisingly challenging. The answer is to have a structure to think through all the aspects of a problem.

First why, then how

We can find structure when we create the scope for a data problem. A scope is the outline of a story of why we are focusing on this problem. The scope of a project consists of four parts, which is expressed as the mnemonic CoNVO.<ul><li>Context</li><li>Needs</li><li>Vision</li><li>Outcome</li></ul>When a problem is well-scoped, we will be able to talk about the project easily. The story will have context, conflict (the need), a resolution (the vision) and a happy ending (the outcome.) Once we have done the thinking using the CoNVO structure, we can go and collect the data.

Creating a scope for a data problem

We find context when we know who we are working with and why they're doing what they are doing. We learn the context when we talk to them about their long-term goals. The context provides a project with larger goals and helps to keep us on track. An example of context: A news organisation produces stories and editorials for a wide audience. It gets money from advertising and through premium subscriptions to its content. The final decision-maker is the head of online business.

Context (Co)

What needs could be fixed by intelligently using data? When we clearly explain a need, we are showing what could be improved by better knowledge. An example of needs:  We want to place our ads in a smart way. What should we be optimising?

Needs (N)

Vision is when we take a glimpse of what it will look like to meet the need with data. The vision consist of the following:<ul><li>A mockup explaining the intended results: It could take the form of reporting the outcome of the analysis in a few sentences, a graph, or a user interface sketch that shows how people might use a tool.</li><li>A sketch of the argument we're going to make: It is a loose outline of what we need to do to be convincing.</li></ul>

Vision (V)

The data scientist wants to know how the data and/or insights will be used. How will it be integrated into the organisation? Who will use the data, and why?An example of outcome: The marketing team needs to be trained in using the model (or software) to guide their decisions, and the success of the model needs to be gauged in its effect on the sales..

Outcome (O)

Thinking With Data is not about how to do data analysis but about first working out what the problem is that you're trying to solve.

Many analysts are too concerned with tools and techniques for cleansing, modeling, and visualizing datasets and not concerned enough with asking the right questions. In this practical guide, data strategy consultant Max Shron shows you how to put the why before the how, through an often-overlooked set of analytical skills. Thinking with Data helps you learn techniques for turning data into knowledge you can use. You’ll learn a framework for defining your project, including the data you want to collect, and how you intend to approach, organize, and analyze the results. You’ll also learn patterns of reasoning that will help you unveil the real problem that needs to be solved. Learn a framework for scoping data projects Understand how to pin down the details of an idea, receive feedback, and begin prototyping Use the tools of arguments to ask good questions, build projects in stages, and communicate results Explore data-specific patterns of reasoning and learn how to build more useful arguments Delve into causal reasoning and learn how it permeates data work Put everything together, using extended examples to see the method of full problem thinking in action

productivity

Productivity

problemsolving

Problem Solving

books

Books

computerscience

Computer Science

Many analysts are too concerned with tools and techniques for cleansing, modeling, and visualizing datasets and not concerned enough with asking the right questions. In this practical guide, data strategy consultant Max Shron shows you how to put the why before the how, through an often-overlooked set of analytical skills.Thinking with Data helps you learn techniques for turning data into knowledge you can use. You’ll learn a framework for defining your project, including the data you want to collect, and how you intend to approach, organize, and analyze the results. You’ll also learn patterns of reasoning that will help you unveil the real problem that needs to be solved.<ul><li>Learn a framework for scoping data projects</li><li>Understand how to pin down the details of an idea, receive feedback, and begin prototyping</li><li>Use the tools of arguments to ask good questions, build projects in stages, and communicate results</li><li>Explore data-specific patterns of reasoning and learn how to build more useful arguments</li><li>Delve into causal reasoning and learn how it permeates data work</li><li>Put everything together, using extended examples to see the method of full problem thinking in action</li></ul>

Max Shron

Thinking with Data

It means an absence of interpersonal fear. When psychological safety is present, people are able to speak up with work-relevant content.
For many people during the pandemic, the explicitness of the physical lack of safety has been experienced as a shared fear, which has allowed them to be more open and intimate and more able to voice their thoughts and concerns with colleagues.
This collective fear thus becomes a potential driver of collaboration and innovation, further contributing to an open environment for producing and sharing ideas that under normal conditions may have remained unshared.

Psychological safety

Even though face-to-face interactions allow for a level of intimacy and understanding that may be lost online, with video formats you can still pick up cues and detect whether someone’s in some period of mild distress.Leaping into task orientation too quickly may almost feel like a violation to the person on the other end of the call. Taking a pause to acknowledge where the person is and what they need can build trust over time and make the shared interaction emotionally less risky. Yet this might also make the exchanges themselves even more draining as you pause to doubt the interactions.

Building trust and confidence

What makes management by wandering around so successful is the ability to make a genuine link between a task or job and a larger overarching purpose.
Although not as spontaneous as walking around, video calls and chats, when kept to relatively small sizes, can still develop the connective tissue linking actions to a shared vision for the future.

Management by wandering

With tools like Zoom, communications have become more explicit and structured; leaders must ask direct questions about what’s working and what isn’t.

The degree to which leaders can manage their own stress and feelings, and the reason why emotional self-awareness and mindfulness are so important in times of crisis, is because leaders become emotional contagions, inflicting positive or negative feelings on others.And, although sometimes leaders may want to induce some stress into a situation to insert new energy and momentum, most of the time it’s better to engage people in positive pursuits to retain a higher level of creativity, productiveness, and engagement.

Emotional contagion in the workplace

We can’t be positively infectious with others unless we’re feeling inspired and sustained ourselves first. That’s what leaders managing high-stress positions need to do to take care of themselves and to then involve and take care of others.

As a leader in this point in time, you don’t want to be faking your emotions. There is an enormous need for genuineness and transparency. And that means some leaders might have to actually train themselves to be caring, curious, and positive, which is hard to do when you’re in a state of threat or fear when self-protection becomes an overwhelming instinct.
There is a strong temptation to just dive right into business without acknowledging what others might be up against. Best practice is therefore to stop, pause, breathe, and remind yourself to be interested in what’s going on for others.

The need for genuineness

A shared vision or shared sense of purpose is the strongest predictor of organizational-leadership effectiveness, engagement, organizational citizenship, and even product innovation. This is a time for leaders to try to invoke or provoke a degree of reflection, spending the time to talk about a shared sense of purpose and core values while also spending the time to emotionally check-in. Purpose and vision are critical today, but only to the extent that both are recognized as updatable, and reflective of a continuous learning process.

A shared sense of purpose

Want to build a high-performing team? Start with creating a safer work evironment

teamwork

Teamwork

Fostering Psychological Safety In The Workplace

Psychological safety, emotional intelligence, and leadership in a time of flux

Without plans and goals, organizations merely react to daily occurrences without considering what will happen in the long run. For example, the solution that makes sense in the short term doesn't always make sense in the long term. Plans avoid this drift situation and ensure that short‐range efforts will support and harmonize with future goals.

Gives an organization a sense of direction.

Plans keep the people who carry them out focused on the anticipated results. In addition, keeping sight of the goal also motivates employees

Focuses attention on objectives and results. 

Diverse groups cannot effectively cooperate in joint projects without an integrated plan. Examples are numerous: Plumbers, carpenters, and electricians cannot build a house without blueprints. In addition, military activities require the coordination of Army, Navy, and Air Force units.

Establishes a basis for teamwork.

When management plans, it can help forecast future problems and make any necessary changes up front to avoid them. Of course, surprises — such as the 1973 quadrupling of oil prices — can always catch an organization short, but many changes are easier to forecast. Planning for these potential problems helps to minimize mistakes and reduce the “surprises” that inevitably occur.

Helps anticipate problems and cope with change

Decisions are future‐oriented. If management doesn't have any plans for the future, they will have few guidelines for making current decisions. If a company knows that it wants to introduce a new product three years in the future, its management must be mindful of the decisions they make now. Plans help both managers and employees keep their eyes on the big picture.

Provides guidelines for decision making. 

Planning is primary, because without knowing what an organization wants to accomplish, management can't intelligently undertake any of the other basic managerial activities: organizing, staffing, leading, and/or controlling.

Prerequisite to employing all other management function

The military saying, &ldquo;If you fail to plan, you plan to fail,&rdquo; is very true. Without a plan, managers are set up to encounter errors, waste, and dela

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

timemanagement

Time Management

Recognizing the Advantages of Planning

Good technical design decisions are very dependent on context. 
Teams that regularly work together on common goals are able to communicate regularly and negotiate changes quickly. These teams exhibit a strong force of alignment, and can make technology and design decisions that harness that strong force. As we zoom out in a larger organisation, an increasingly weak force exists between teams and divisions that work independently and have less frequent collaboration. Recognising the differences in these strong and weak forces allows us to make better decisions.

The Forces Of Architecture

Technology governance and what is considered ‘good architecture’ is mostly considered with a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
<ul>
<li>Many organisations try to apply the same strict governance at all levels - limiting tech choices, and disempowering teams. </li>
<li>Others have allowed teams complete autonomy at all levels, meaning teams are left to make their own choices with no constraints at all. </li>
</ul>
Neither of those approaches are ideal.

One Size Fits All Approach

Within a domain we have multiple teams, each being responsible for some capabilities and underlying systems within the domain. 
Sometimes this is perfectly aligned, with each team being custodians of a neatly bounded set of systems. More often this is imperfect in reality, with custodianship of some systems being shared across teams - often for legacy reasons. For teams within a domain, there is a very strong force of alignment.

Within A Domain: Strong Forces

In the middle ground we have our vertical structure, with multiple domains. The social distance between the people in one domain and another is getting stretched. 
This makes negotiation and reaching alignment more strained and slower, and so necessarily this impacts our technology choices and approaches.

Within A Vertical: Weakened Forces

When we zoom out to all of the organisation - the force of alignment between the verticals is very weak indeed. It is quite hard to make changes atomically across the landscape - mostly because the prioritisation of work for each vertical is deliberately independent. 
Coordinating work at this level is necessarily much slower and limiting. This means our design decisions and approaches need to adapt accordingly.

Whole Of Organization: Weak Forces

<ul>
<li>Within a single domain, there should be a small set of technology choices agreed upon.</li>
<li>Often this follows Default Trial Retire for each class of technology required.</li>
<li>Informal governance through technology leadership is usually highly effective.</li>
</ul>

Technology Choices: Domain (strong force)

<ul><li>At a vertical level, there would be a slightly larger set of agreed technology choices, to cater for the differing needs of the multiple domains.</li><li>It is beneficial for the vertical to be able to move people closer to high priority work, so keeping aligned on technology is important here.</li><li>More formal sharing of solution options and proposals keeps choices aligned effectively.</li></ul>

Technology Choices:  Vertical(Weakened Force)

<ul><li>The weakest force for aligning and governing technology choices is at the Whole of Org level.</li><li>Solution options and proposals encourage dialog and improve alignment.</li></ul>

Technology Choices: Whole of Org (weak force)

<ul><li>Within a single domain, even across 3-5 teams, we should have high bandwidth communication and a short distance to empowered leadership.</li><li>This means that when a change needs to be made to shared code or infrastructure, we can quickly inform and prepare for the changes.</li><li>The coupling introduced by shared code and infrastructure has less impact, and the benefits often outweigh the costs.</li></ul>

Shared Code And Infrastructure: Domain (strong force)

Sharing code, artefacts, and infrastructure can often be managed at a vertical level - but the drag introduced should be carefully monitored.

Shared Code And Infrastructure: Vertical (weakened force)

Shared code at a whole of organisation level is limited to highly stable, highly useful things. Mostly these things are limited to libraries which can be distributed and versioned, and changed carefully.Shared infrastructure is similar - at an org-wide level, shared infrastructure must have very high value, and be well-encapsulated (“as a service”, self-service). It should very rarely need a core change in response to a need from a single team.

Shared Code And Infrastructure: Whole of Org (weak force)

<ul><li>Within a single domain - with high degrees of alignment in terms of practices and technology - it can be quite reasonable for teams to contribute code across team boundaries, with a type of collective code ownership extending to the whole domain.</li><li>Custodianship of each system should still be clearly understood, usually best kept within one team.</li><li>At a vertical level, it is common for code contribution to happen across systems, e.g. pull requests in source control - with only small amounts of delay and re-work required.</li></ul>

Code Contribution models: Domain Level

<ul><li>At the whole of org level, it is often quite difficult (and sometimes harmful) to effectively manage contributions that cross verticals.</li><li>This is particularly true where systems are complex in nature, highly critical or sensitive in terms of accuracy, performance, privacy and compliance.</li><li>When completely new system features are being established, it can work well to collaborate across verticals even doing pair-programming together.</li></ul>

Code Contribution models: Whole of Org (weak force)

<ul>
<li>Domain (strong force): Systems that are owned within a single domain are relatively easy to change in a closely coordinated way. </li>
<li>Vertical (weakened force): Changes that must be coordinated across multiple domains within a vertical should be rare, but can be managed when absolutely necessary. </li>
<li>Whole of org (weak force): The impact of highly-coupled integration (e.g. ETLs, database integration) is very high, and should be absolutely avoided.</li>
</ul>

Integration Patterns: Connecting Systems Together

Understanding the strong and weak forces of team architecture

The strong and weak forces of architecture

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