In contrast to the flybys typical of GM executives, his first official visit to Rüsselsheim a year ago became a six-hour inspection tour as he took a deep dive into Opel’s operations, initiating part-by-part comparisons with Peugeot and Citroën. The review uncovered hard-to-justify excesses such...
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October 8, 2018 Bruce Benson
Change Management
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The Air Force has revoked more than 226 Air Force instructions deemed unnecessary or outdated over the past year as part of its ongoing effort to get rid of so-called “queep.” In an interview at her Pentagon office Tuesday, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said...
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October 4, 2018 Bruce Benson
Process Improvement
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What had worked for us? Velocity or better stated the methodology behind velocity, the average. It always drove people crazy that I'd advocate averages or I'd simply use averages on my projects.
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September 28, 2018 Bruce Benson
Metrics
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It was a scrum. No, not the agile software method, but a bunch of people all racing after the current big defect found in the product. It was a badge of merit to be the first to figure out the defect and to report on its fix. My boss expected me to jump into this competition of egos when these problems happened.
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September 19, 2018 Bruce Benson
Team Management
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People think that doctors are immune to petty disagreements, but they're human beings, and sometimes ego and primitive emotions take over.
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September 13, 2018 Bruce Benson
Risk Management
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Many of you are familiar with the “technology adoption life cycle” model, long a pillar of everything from new tech product pitches to IPO roadshows. However, overuse has eroded the model’s impact. Today, it’s less an effective visualization of market traction, and more a symbol...
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August 29, 2018 Bruce Benson
Change Management
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It's going to be very difficult to distinguish yourself with a truthful claim about having returns in the high teens when everyone else is bragging about returns that are orders of magnitude greater.
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August 25, 2018 Bruce Benson
Communication
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Instead of officially lowering its prices, Apple is in talks with retailers and banks to offer holiday deals all year round, according to people familiar with the plans. Those people say Apple is also asking some individual stores to more than quadruple sales targets, to...
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August 17, 2018 Bruce Benson
Communication
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I've found that "having the data" is about half the effort. The other half is not how to make it compelling. The data was always compelling in my experience because it generally showed that we were making poor decisions. That rarely went over well.
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August 11, 2018 Bruce Benson
Metrics
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Although it is a user’s responsibility to inform themselves of a browser’s features by actually reading the disclosures, the authors assert that these texts need to be written better. They note that only “participants who saw the Chrome or [older version of the] Chrome disclosure...
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August 8, 2018 Bruce Benson
Communication
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That was one of my biggest fears. We would deliver the product on time with good quality but the product wouldn't sell well.
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July 23, 2018 Bruce Benson
Schedule
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At 6 am, analytical thinking was shown to peak. However, in the evenings and nights this thinking style changed to a more emotional and existential one.
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July 18, 2018 Bruce Benson
Staffing
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The advent of the fiduciary rule led the industry to make changes that may not be reversed, according to Aron Szapiro, Morningstar Inc.’s director for policy research. After the Labor Department’s announcement in 2016, financial companies began moving to comply with it. Bank of America...
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July 10, 2018 Bruce Benson
Change Management
No Comment
Today’s workers don’t need some Big Brother figure hovering over us to tell us that budgets are cut, that we will be in big trouble if we don’t meet deadlines, and to “make do with less.” We need leaders who set us up for success,...
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July 4, 2018 Bruce Benson
Staffing
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The bug-laden software resulted in fix after fix, each fix reconciling some problems but introducing new ones. This all produced an enormous revenue source from the selling of Systems Engineer’s services.
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June 28, 2018 Bruce Benson
Innovation
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