Quotes About Management

We're like the Bates Motel of changes," I say in disbelief. "Changes go in but never come out. Within a month, we'll have thousands of changes that we'll be carrying around, all competing to get implemented.

I've figured out that the trick to a long career in IT Operations management is to get enough seniority to get good things done but to keep your head low enough to avoid the political battles that make you inherently vulnerable.

our goal is to create fast feedback and fast forward loops wherever work is performed, at all stages of the technology value stream, encompassing Product Management, Development, QA, Infosec, and Operations. This

In hindsight, we now know that WIP is one of the root causes for chronic due-date problems, quality issues, and expediters having to rejuggle priorities every day. It's

how we organize our teams has a powerful effect on the software we produce, as well as our resulting architectural and production outcomes. In

build ever-deeper knowledge about how to manage the systems for doing our work, converting inevitable up-front ignorance into knowledge.

Wes says defensively, "We all try to juggle the competing priorities as best as we can. That's life, right? Priorities change.

We should have done this a long time ago. We bump up the priorities of things all the time, but we never really know what just got bumped down. That is, until someone screams at us, demanding to know why we haven't delivered something.

I need you to say no! We cannot afford to have this leadership team be order takers. We pay you to think, not just

The Goal by Dr. Eli Goldratt.

Leaders are responsible for the design and operation of processes at a higher level of aggregation where others have less perspective and authority.

Small batch sizes result in less WIP, faster lead times, faster detection of errors, and less rework.

While we're dreaming big dreams here, let me say this," he continues. "In ten years, I'm certain every COO worth their salt will have come from IT. Any COO who doesn't intimately understand the IT systems that actually run the business is just an empty suit, relying on someone else to do their job.

She's often heard that IT is the nerve center of the entire organization, because over the last thirty years almost every business process has been automated through IT systems. But for whatever reason, businesses have allowed their nervous system to become degraded, like multiple sclerosis disrupting the flow of information within the brain and between the brain and the body.

In technology, our work happens almost entirely within complex systems with a high risk of catastrophic consequences. As

Complex work is managed so that problems in design and operations are revealed.

I've figured out that the trick to a long career in it Operations management is to get enough seniority to get good things done

any improvements made anywhere besides the bottleneck are an illusion. Astonishing, but true! Any improvement made after the bottleneck is useless, because it will always remain starved, waiting for work from the bottleneck. And any improvements made before the bottleneck merely results in more inventory piling up at the bottleneck.

It was a leader's job to project a calm mastery of the situation, while also encouraging subordinates to develop decision-making skills. Assuming that they made the right decisions. A leader's job was a crock of shit.

a leader's authority is limited to giving her followers orders that they will actually obey.

Adding a new line of business to an existing portfolio creates a crisis of prioritization. Such

existing ones. At the same time, it needs to separate its revenue performance activities from its enabling investments, focusing the former on delivering results based on what the latter have helped to seed and till. As the following diagram indicates, these two divisions result in four zones of management activity, each aligned with one, and only one, investment horizon, each demanding a different style of leadership to achieve those ends.

The competition takes place at the level of corporate agenda, not at the level of competing products. That

Now if we map the three horizons onto the Growth/Materiality Matrix, we can see how they intersect with portfolio management (see Figure 2.5).