What's Best Next

You are here: Home / Archives for Matt Perman

The Four Categories of Information You Need to Pay Attention To

by

There are four categories of information you need to pay attention to when embarking on any significant endeavor:

  1. Things you know and know that you know.
  2. Things you know but don’t know that you know.
  3. Things you don’t know and know that you don’t know.
  4. Things you don’t know and don’t know that you don’t know.

Category four is what can be the real curve ball. The early space program is often given as an example of this: before we went into space, there were certain things we knew and could plan for (radiation, re-entry, etc.). But what were the things that we didn’t know that we wouldn’t even know were factors until encountering them? That was the challenge.

Which is why experimentation and trying things, sometimes in small steps, is so crucial. Since you can’t discover the things you don’t know that you don’t know any other way than by experience, taking action and embarking on paths of experimentation are essential to learning, for individuals and organizations.

This means that, to a certain extent, we need to be willing to tolerate risk and we need to be willing to tolerate failure.

Remember: Ask Questions

by

“Questions attract thoughts and new ideas. Asking questions creates a learning mindset.”

Plus, it’s the right thing to do. Being interested in others — reflected in asking questions — is part of treating people well.

The 3 Constraints on Every Project

by

Every project — every endeavor in organizations, society, and life — operates within three constraints:

  1. Quality
  2. Schedule
  3. Resources

Quality means how well it is done. Schedule means time — how long it takes. And resources means people and financial cost.

Here’s the meaning of this: these constraints are interdependent. And so you can hit it out of the park on any two of these areas, but not all three.

For example, if you want the end result to be very high in quality and done very quickly, it’s going to cost you a lot. Or if you want to use as little resources as possible, it’s either going to take you a very long time or you are going to have to sacrifice on quality.

You have to choose your priorities.

Reasons Projects Fail

by

Here are some main reasons projects fail, from To Do Doing Done:

  1. Unclear goals or objectives
  2. Changing scope
  3. Insufficient resources
  4. Conflicting priorities
  5. Lack of knowledge
  6. Poor communications
  7. Lack of leadership
  8. Lack of management support
  9. Lack of teamwork
  10. Poor planning
  11. Political issues

The Scarcity of Good Management

by

From an article in Fortune back in February of 2006; I don’t think things have changed much since, because the driving force of this problem is lack of training and skill:

“Talent of every sort is in short supply, but the greatest shortage of all is skilled, effective managers. Even [in China], where you can hire factory workers by the million, companies can’t find enough managers….Labor is abundant, but managers are scarce.”

Person-Based Pay vs. Job-Based Pay

by

From Treat People Right!: How Organizations and Employees Can Create a Win/Win Relationship to Achieve High Performance at All Levels:

Financial status and rewards in most organizations are based on the types of jobs people do. This approach is based on the assumption that job worth can be determined and that the person doing the job is worth only as much as the job itself is worth….

It is not clear that the worth of people can be equated with the worth of their job. This approach clearly does not fit with a company that depends on people for its competitive advantage. The alternative that is being increasingly adopted is person-based pay. It bases pay on each individual’s skills and competencies.

Filed Under: HR