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Mindmaps are great for facilitated workshops, creativity sessions, brain dumps and all that – I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that they are one of the top tools for organizing your thoughts in a business setting.
It’s easy to talk about making your business more visual, but how do you actually do it in a way that is informative and not simply decorative? Here are 5 tips for communicating in a more visual way and making sure that your data is understood – and isn’t just a graph for a graph’s sake.
In an ever-changing world around us, it’s quite hard to set aside all the noise and just focus on our goals. Abundance of information makes it hard to take decisions, which consequently influences our productivity. There are so many opinions we hear every day that it becomes quite hard to decide for ourselves what is right for each of us.
They say a picture tells a story better than words, and that definitely true at work too. Using mindmaps is a professional (and easy) way of introducing a visual element into your work.
There are lots of different types of reports that we are expected to do at work, and they all have the same aim of trying to make it easy to communicate something.
As an interim communications / marketing manager I have a mantra that I frequently use in the companies that hire me. When a member of the team advices for example a campaign that is expensive and from previous efforts we know it is not very effective, I react: "If this was your own company, would you pay for that campaign?"
Have you ever been working on something and needed your manager to make a decision? You ask them. And then chase them. And chase again.
Without an answer, you can’t move forward because you don’t know what course of action is best – or what they would want you to do. So the task stalls, and in the worst cases, doesn’t pick up again.
This is a real problem for lots of people at work, and there are four main reasons why it takes so long to get a decision. When you understand these, you can work around them and help your manager get what they need so that you can get your answer and everyone can get back to work.
Mind mapping isn't a new phenomenon, in fact, it's been around for at least 30 years already. However, it's a technique that's often underused in blogging. It's one of the best ways to get information across to your reader in a fun and easy to understand way. Here's how to create them, and how to use them when you're blogging.
Does your project have clear objectives? I hope so: these should be written into the business case and Project Charter. Having objectives is crucial to knowing what it is you are trying to achieve and whether you are on track to get there or not.
You don’t have to have the job title of ‘Project Manager’ to find yourself working on a project these days. Lots of people have responsibility for initiatives, big and small, that are essentially projects. You have to clarify your objectives for...
Ask a project manager what’s going on with their project and they will probably pull up a Gantt chart to show you.
A Gantt chart (named after Henry Gantt who introduced the idea) is made up of horizontal bars visually representing task durations. The longer the task, the longer the bar. The dates are at the top so you can quickly see when work is due to happen.
There is nothing inherently wrong with Gantt charts. They are well-used and loved by many, they show the big picture for a project and they are visual so they work well for people at all levels.
I read somewhere that by 2020 video will account for a staggering 75 % of mobile data traffic. Four times as many consumers would prefer to watch a video about a product than to read about it. When you open a newspaper, chances are you come across an infographic. Websites of newspapers use more and more interactive...
Whether you’re managing a multi-million dollar project or planning out what needs to be done for a visit during the holidays, the chances are you work with task lists. Whether you call them To Do lists, activity lists or something else, you’re probably familiar with using them at work and in your personal life.
Flexible working, off-shore resources and virtual teams mean that today’s managers spend more time not sitting with their team members than with them.
There’s a degree of trust involved when you can’t see what your virtual colleagues are doing. Are they prioritizing the right tasks? Are they going to get the work completed on time?
What Movember shows - and actually what companies can learn form it -is that having a great story, working for a good cause, building a strong brand (not just a fundraiser, but a foundation for men’s health), designing a creative campaign, inspiring a social movement will lead to great success. Movember is number 55 on the top 100 NGO’s in the world.
I’m sure you’re aware of ‘strategic alignment’ as one of the top management topics at the moment. We are hearing about it everywhere. All it means is making sure you are doing the right work – business as usual and projects – to help you deliver your strategy. In other words, focus your efforts on the right activities.
It’s not very complicated on paper, but in practice it’s a lot harder to get right. In this article I’ll give you a 7-step approach, inspired by the work of Steve Butler, to help you and your team go from a strategy on paper to a work environment that actually delivers what you want.
Do we actually need creativity at our workplace? It’s the most controversial topic I’ve ever faced in my blogging career. And when I asked my colleagues whether they knew any unusual ways to unleash creativity, most of them surprised me with these generalized phrases: ‘Creativity? It’s just a job. You come and do what you’re said to and that’s all.’ or ‘Creativity is for you, writers and designers, sales managers shouldn’t unleash anything’.
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