Blog

What are Daily Standup Meetings? (And can you have them virtually?)

Daily Standup meetings, also known as daily “Huddles,” are a tool for focusing a team on their work for the day. Standups, whether held in person or virtually, are designed to be short – hence the standing format. Typically, there are three questions, and they can be used for any team working for any desired result. These three questions align the team in three distinct and important ways (and yes, Daily Standups can be performed virtually – see the end of the article for tips).

What Organizational Development Is Not

Organizational Development is a tremendous opportunity for any leadership team to put real impact behind high-minded concepts of growth mindsets and dynamic culture. Overcoming and dispelling some of the common myths and misconceptions around OD is a necessary first step to building a holistic and effective organization.

We Need Help Setting a Good Meeting Agenda

The absence of an Agenda being driven by a meeting Leader can often lead to feelings of time, and money, being wasted for everyone in the meeting. Agendas help ensure that the participants provide value to the organization in the time they are spend together, which will help the participants feel like their time is being used in a valuable way.

What Is Organizational Development?

Although the field of OD has been around since WWII, it is continually evolving to meet the new needs of organizations and communities, such as a growing investment in understanding and enacting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) theories and practices. Organization Development (OD) refers to the interdisciplinary field of scholars and practitioners who work collaboratively with organizations and communities to develop their system-wide capacity for effectiveness and vitality. It is grounded in the organization and social sciences.

Why Your Team Can’t Get Things Done

Great vision, great strategy, great project ideas – all areas on which business leaders spend countless hours and dollars annually. The real question is, whose job is it to organize the team and maintain accountability for execution?

Process Mapping Roles & Responsibilities

AJC loves facilitating Process Mapping sessions with cross-functional teams! There are distinct roles involved in Process Mapping which are not always intuitive. This article describes the roles involved in a team Mapping exercise, as well the responsibilities each role plays. These R&Rs can be applied to Value Stream Mapping and many other types of facilitated session.

Meet Sally Thomsen!

Sally Thomsen is a versatile consultant providing services in Project Management, Process Improvement, and Change Management. Here she offers advice on process, including how Change can be thought of as a process.

When to Assign an Internal Project Manager

Ready to start a new project? Do you have someone internally who you can assign as the Project Manager? Like anything else, there are pros and cons to “doing it yourself” (DIY) when it comes to Project Management. Here are somethings/areas for consideration when deciding whether this approach is right for you.

Should We Promote Our Outstanding Individual Contributors?

The default position for many organizations is that career advancement is confined to movement into management roles. Additionally, most organizations continue to reward the newly promoted manager for their individual contributions, detracting from their incentives to be good managers. OD thinking allows organizations to consider that management roles are not the only path to promotion and can help create Individual Contributors career growth tracks that are just as rewarding as Management tracks.

Organizational Development and the “Diving Catch”

The “Diving Catch” is a common metaphor in business to describe that extraordinary effort on the part of an individual who, at the last second, saves the day for the enterprise. The irony of such a culture is that it is more focused on preventing failure than on driving success. Organizational development provides the tools and processes to pivot away from crisis-oriented diving catches and towards a more strategic and predictable model of operations.