Context before conclusion: Ask more questions.
You cannot expect the right answer to come from the wrong question. Too often we spend inordinate amounts of time trying to answer those questions before we understand the context or the 'frame' from which the answer will come. Before anything else, to ensure...
The great trap of metrics
Goodhart's law is a much quoted adage that states: When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure’. When we see numbers cited as evidence, we tend to instinctively give them more credibility than they may deserve. Without an examination of the...
Is it an argument or a quarrel?
The word 'argument' has many meanings, depending on the context. It can mean a friendly difference of opinion, a negotiation point, a statement of reasoning a lawyer might use, to an expression in a mathematical formula. A quarrel is far more specific,...
The fundamental management distinction: Principle or Convention?
My time is spent assisting SME's to improve their performance. This covers their strategic, marketing, and operational performance. Deliberately, I initially try and downplay focus on financial performance as the primary measures, as they are outcomes of a host of...
How do we prepare for AI roles that do not exist?
Most BBQ conversations about the future of AI end up as a discussion about jobs being replaced, new jobs created the balance between the two, and the pain of those being replaced by machine. It is difficult to forecast what those new jobs will be, we...
Are we in an AI bubble?
Nvidia 2 years ago was a stock nobody had heard of. Now, it has a market valuation of $US2.7 trillion. Google, Amazon, and Microsoft from the beginning of this year have invested $30 billion in AI infrastructure, seen their market valuations accelerate,...
Treat ‘prompt engineering’ as you would a ten year old.
Management is all over the place, scrambling to 'get AI'. A common failure of that scramble is a reality: rubbish in -- rubbish out. Outcome quality depends on two factors: Data quality. The quality of the data that is used to generate that outcome. The quality, depth...
Strategy does not include execution.
A short time ago I sat in a workshop where one of the featured speakers continued to conflate strategy and execution into the one process. Those who know me watched with amusement is I tried to maintain a philosophical silence. Rather than jumping up and...
A Future Made in Australia: Does feeding ourselves count?
The recent declaration of "A Future Made in Australia" by the Prime Minister has put the future shape of the nation’s manufacturing sector back on the agenda. There was however, nothing specific on the importance of agricultural innovation and value...
Why special purpose teams often don’t work.
Special purpose teams are generally formed to solve a problem. However, it seems that 'collaboration' has become so integral to many corporate cultures, that every problem becomes an opportunity to ‘collaborate’. Teams are often formed without sufficient...