The agile start-up these days treats everything to do with customers as an experiment. Large companies are learning to replace much of their strategy with experiments, but many companies forget that you can do the same thing internally. Much of what we call management today is still guessing and doing what we see others do and what other companies do, but there's little evidence that most of today's practices. What about trying less management?
What if you took all the traffic signs and lights in your city and just covered them up and turned them off? What do you think would happen? Not only has it been tried in several cities in Europe, but many of those have since removed their traffic material entirely, relying on people to be more aware and make better decisions. It doesn't work everywhere, but it has rejeuvenated several cities, like Poynton, England:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vzDDMzq7d0
If you want to learn more about experiments and business agility, I have just launched a new web site with plenty of good material. I hope people will come see it and give me feedback:
Internal experiments can help revitalize a work environment where decisions are currently being made by the HIPPO principle (the HIghest Paid Person's Opinion).
The agile start-up these days treats everything to do with customers as an experiment. Large companies are learning to replace much of their strategy with experiments, but many companies forget that you can do the same thing internally. Much of what we call management today is still guessing and doing what we see others do and what other companies do, but there's little evidence that most of today's practices. What about trying less management?
What if you took all the traffic signs and lights in your city and just covered them up and turned them off? What do you think would happen? Not only has it been tried in several cities in Europe, but many of those have since removed their traffic material entirely, relying on people to be more aware and make better decisions. It doesn't work everywhere, but it has rejeuvenated several cities, like Poynton, England:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vzDDMzq7d0
If you want to learn more about experiments and business agility, I have just launched a new web site with plenty of good material. I hope people will come see it and give me feedback:
Whenever someone has a question, answer with: "How can we try it?" You'd be surprised how just trying things works much better than thinking about them, discussing them, or planning them.
You can't change that much in a day. Start small! Do small experiments. Make some deliberate mistakes. Try something you ordinarily wouldn't do. This woman decided to say "yes" to all the guys who asked her out for an entire year and met her future husband that way. She would never have met him if she hadn't tried that experiment:
http://www.amazon.com/Year-Yes-Story-Hundred-ebook/dp/B002RI9SFQ/
Run quick and dirty experiments all the time! Try not to answer any questions about the future without asking how you can try it first.
Many people have written books that have contributed parts of what I call business agility. I have a huge section of resources available on my web site:
http://www.businessagilityworkshop.com/resources
And a list of the most influential books:
There are many resources on my web site:
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