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Showing posts from November, 2011

Business Plans AREN'T Presentation Documents

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If you are seeking to raise capital (either debt or equity), attempting to negotiate a joint venture (or merger or acquisition ) or trying to recruit some talented key employees or technical experts, you might need a "Summary Of Proposed Operations," a spiffy PowerPoint "Highlights Of The Company And Its Bright Future," a "Confidential Private Placement Offering Memorandum" or a public Offering Prospectus . If you are interested in creating a genuine blueprint for the implementation of your intended business operations , i.e., a step-by-step, function-by-function manual to be your company's guiding beacon, you need a real Business Plan . A true business plan is a detailed map and manual for attaining your objectives --- it is never, ever a selling tool filled with fluff, wishful thinking, optimistic (albeit disclaimed) "projections," and solicitous flowery language about vast potential . The best presentation documents are brief, enticing,

Ad Hoc Teams: The "Uncompany"

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Image by VFS Digital Design via Flickr Agile But Fragile - The "Uncompany" A natural extension of the growing culture of independent contractors , consultants, and project management teams -- enhanced by an accelerating rate of technological change and the growing tendency for structural flexibility (sometimes a euphemism for fiscal non-commitment) is leading industrialized society to the " Uncompany ." The Uncompany is centered about a mission or project, and an ad hoc team of independent individuals from various disciplines is assembled through various recruitment resources specifically to participate in the planning, implementation, management and achievement of a narrowly-defined objective. When the objective is attained, the team is disbanded, leaving the Uncompany lean and mean, with limited fixed or long-term obligations to the individual participants. Sidebar : For those of you Agile Advocates (i.e.,technologically-oriented Project Management

Optimize Project Team Cooperation, Communication, Responsiveness And Adaptability

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There's Agile (a project management platform which is extremely well-known to Project Managers and IP professionals the world over, and its counterpart Scrum -- which when combined as " Agile and Scrum " sounds a bit like a vaudeville team -- it brings to mind illusionist act headliners like Penn and Teller , for example), and there's Agility , which is a term well-known to business leaders, Physical Therapists , Exercise Physiologists , Chiropractors and a vast segment of the non-computer obsessives who view it as the ability to maintain speed, flexibility and grace [e.g., minimal transitional trauma] when it comes to making moves or changes. It is crucial to note that one of these (Agile) is a programming tool and the other (Agility) is a Human skill, both personal and interpersonal when applied to a team in motion to get a project done. It is also important to note that programming tools are not a substitute, but are more supplementary and complementary to b