Shipulski On Design

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The primary responsibility of management is to allocate resources in the way that best achieves business objectives.  If there are three or four options to allocate resources, which is the best choice? What is the time horizon for the decision? Is it best to hire more people? Why not partner with a contract resource company? […]

Recreational athletes train because they enjoy the activity and they compete so they can tell themselves (and their friends) stories about the race. Their training routines are discretionary and their finish times are all about bragging rights. Professional athletes train because it’s their job. Their training is unpleasant, stressful and ritualistic. And it’s not optional. […]

It’s easy to complain about how things are going, especially when they’re not going well. But even with the best intentions, complaining doesn’t move the organization in a new direction.  Sometimes people complain to attract attention to an important issue. Sometimes it’s out of frustration, sometimes out of sadness and sometimes out of fear, but […]

Anything that happens happens because of people, and anything that doesn’t happen doesn’t happen because of people.  Technology doesn’t create itself, products don’t launch themselves, companies don’t build themselves and trust doesn’t grow on its own.  Any kind of work, any kind of service, any kind of organizing – it’s all done by people. The […]

In strategic planning there’s a strong forcing function that causes the organization to converge on a singular, company-wide approach.  While this convergence can be helpful, when it’s force is absolute it stifles new ideas.  The result is an operating plan that incrementally improves on last year’s work at the expense of work that creates new […]

Do good work and people will notice.  Do work to get noticed and people will notice that too. Try to do good work and you’ll get ahead. Try to get ahead and you won’t. If the work feels good while you’re doing it, it’s good work.  If it doesn’t, it’s not. If you watch the […]

Our unhealthy fascination with ever-increasing shareholder value has officially gone too far.  In some companies dishonesty is now more culturally acceptable than missing the numbers. (Unless, of course, you get caught. Then, it’s time for apologies.)  The sacrosanct mission statement can’t save us.  Even the most noble can be stomped dead by the dirty boots […]

Work is never perfect, family life is never perfect and neither is the interaction between them.  Regardless of your expectations or control strategies, things go as they go.  That’s just what they do. We have far less control than we think.  In the pure domain of physics the equations govern predictively – perturb the system […]

If you haven’t done it before and you want to start, you have only one option – to start. Much as there’s a huge difference between lightning and lightning bug, there’s a world of difference between starting and talking about starting. Where talking about starting flutters aimlessly flower to flower, starting jolts trees from the […]

Put yourself out there. Let it hang out. Give it a try. Just do it. The reality is few do it, and fewer do it often. But why? In a word, fear. But it cuts much deeper than a word. Here’s a top down progression: What will they think of your idea? If you summon […]

There’s a natural hierarchy to work.  Your job, if you choose to accept it is to climb the ladder of hierarchy rung-by-rung. Here’s how to go about it: Level 1. Work you can say no to – Say no to it. Say no effectively as you can, but say it. Saying no to level 1 […]