Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

Leadership and teaming skills are front and center in times of rapid change. Meet today’s constant disruption head on with expert guidance in leadership, business strategy, transformation, and innovation. Whether the disruption du jour is a digitally-driven upending of traditional business models, the pandemic-driven end to business as usual, or the change-driven challenge of staffing that meets your transformation plans — you’ll be prepared with cutting edge techniques and expert knowledge that enable strategic leadership.

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Insight

About two decades ago I thought I had a handle on big data. I was doing some data warehousing work with a telephone utility that had about 100 million transactions. That was a lot of data, I said to myself.

Robert Jordan: But did thee feel the earth move? -- From Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls

People were always mobile. Even more so after the transportation revolution that started with Ford and others.

Developments in technology and business are occurring at an ever-increasing pace, creating continuous shortages of available talent. Nowhere is this truer than in the analytics sector. New ideas do not necessarily require new hiring, but they do need more education.

If you've read the last few of my Advisors on Google Glass and Babel fish, you will have noticed that I've been more than a little overwhelmed by the speed with which technological change is outstripping my limited sci-fi-augmented imagination. Some of the products that I was forecasting to be years away (like real-time translation of speech in one language to another) are actually going to be available (in beta form, at least) as early as the end of this year. So the possibilities are really getting interesting.

This Executive Report discusses the challenges and the value of using Agile methods in outsourced projects. The use of Agile -- with its focus on individuals, their interactions, working solutions, and acceptance of change -- can help reduce cultural and regional barriers in an outsourced/offshored environment. The Composite Agile Method and Strategy (CAMS) presents a balanced, strategic approach to Agile and can enhance collaboration, reduce method friction, and provide value to all parties.

 Outsourcing, by its very nature, is driven by planning, contracts, processes, and deliverables. Once Agile is understood and accepted as a strategy and a culture rather than just as a method for developing software solutions, it can play a substantial role in reducing cultural and regional barriers in an outsourced/offshored environment.

The new buzzword for measures for improvement is "analytics." Unfortunately, there is no new thinking to go along with the new name. Many leaders still go about getting, analyzing, and using measures in the wrong way. Rather than being the "leader," they fall back into the role of doer. It's a fascinating phenomenon.

Carla Ogunrinde writes, "if we can summon the will to take a giant step into this evolutionary moment, using empathy as the gateway, we can become boardroom luminaries who create meaningful and enduring solutions."