Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

*Beyond* Beyond Bullet Points

Recently, I shared my enthusiasm for the book Beyond Bullet Points, and the presentation method it's helped me learn. Since then, I found out about a Beyond Bullet Points PowerPoint add-in that's made it even easier for me to create high-impact presentations. This add-in was co-developed by Cliff Atkinson, the author of the book, and NetCentrics. I've been a loyal customer of NetCentrics' Getting Things Done Add-In for Outlook for a couple of years now, and they've done a phenomenal job on this add-in, as well.

This product adds a number of toolbar options into PowerPoint, providing easy-to-use guidance that helps you achieve the results described in Cliff's book. One of these options is a "Create New Story" button, which brings up a story creation toolkit that guides you through establishing the main elements of the story you'll be presenting. Following the various screens in the Create New Story process made it very easy to work with. The process felt a bit like creating a screenplay (or so I imagine - I'm not a screenwriter, but I watch a lot of TV). Click the screenshot to get an idea what this new toolkit looks like.

The add-in also puts in some tools to help you manage different color palettes, fills, and other actions that help you create a uniform color scheme throughout your presentation without having to constantly use PowerPoint's (somewhat clunky) color selection dialogs.

One of the key activities in creating a Beyond Bullet Points presentation is use of the slide sorter to create the storyboard, and use of lots of graphics to tell your story. This add-in provides tools to help there, as well. You'll find shortcuts on the button bar to change views, add speaker notes, turn the slide thumbnail view on and off, and a number of other things. Yes, you can do most of that within PowerPoint, but having them right there within easy reach saves some time and hunting.

The bottom line? I am still an enthusiastic advocate of the Beyond Bullet Points method and I urge you to read the book and give this technique a whirl. I also recommend you download the trial version of this add-in to help you create your first Beyond Bullet Points presentation. Once you do, I'm confident you'll find it as impressive as I have.

Succeed or die

Are you facing a daunting task, a difficult challenge, or a project where you really want to (or have to) achieve wild success? If so, here's a technique that may help you achieve the kind of breakthough thinking you'll need to succeed.

In the past, I've written about the technique of "trying on beliefs" (see related posts below). With this technique, you pretend that something is true and act as though it is true. If you go with the spirit of the technique, you'll find you'll make different decisions, interact with people in different ways, etc. This approach can have a powerful influence on the outcomes you achieve.

With that in mind, try on the following belief about your project:

You will die if your project is not successful in 6 months.

  • What will you do to ensure your don't die?

  • What things are you doing that put your project at risk? What are you going to do to stop those things?

  • What actions will you take to increase the odds that you'll be around in 6 months?

  • Who will you ask for help to increase the chance you'll make it?

Adjust the time frame above to fit your needs, but the concept holds no matter what. Basically, this approach is a good way to help you think about what you'd do if your life depended on it.

Try it on - you might like it. It works for me.

[Updated] Projects: Getting everyone on the same page at a lower cost

In my line of work, we often deal with project plans, and we use Microsoft Project to create them.  Project plans are a great way to keep everyone on the same page.  However, it can be challenging to share project plans because Microsoft Project costs several hundred dollars per license, and that's expensive just to let someone view a project plan from time to time.  Project offers the ability to export projects to HTML, but the view is very limited and kind of a pain to deal with.

I recently discovered an excellent - and much more cost effective - solution.  It's the Steelray Project Viewer.  The viewer provides a very robust means to view and print project plans by reading and displaying native Microsoft Project files.  It also provides far more capability than the HTML exports provided by Microsoft Project, in that it allows you to browse resource sheets and usage information, a task calendar, and other useful views of the project.

For a unit of 1, the cost is about $35 US and it goes down in quantities. There's a free trial available, as well. 

If you work with Microsoft Project plans and want to share information more effectively without the cost of a full license of Project, why not give it a whirl?

Update: I've been using this a bit longer and have found another very useful feature: Steelray makes it very easy to search within projects. If you're looking for a particular task, resource, etc. this tool makes it a snap to find it without having to navigate through the various views.

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Tired of talking to yourself? Come talk to us.

In case you haven't found it yet, why not drop by and check out the Never Work Alone blog?  As I mentioned before, this is a joint project started by me, Bren, and Skip.  However, we're just renting the hall - it you that makes it a party worth coming to.

The short story is that we've got a discussion group on Google where you can post about management and work-related issues that are bugging you.  Periodically, we summarize the group's discussions on the Never Work Alone blog.  The latest summary just hit the blog, dealing with  how IT people and non-IT people can get along better.

You'll then find that there is a very smart, caring group of people ready and willing to help out and, of course, we'd love to have you hang around and help other people with their issues. 

Grab a name tag, hang your coat over there in the hall, and come on in!

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Resources for learning the Theory of Constraints (TOC) Thinking Processes

OK, so I'm a geek. Let's just start there.

As a fan of Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (TOC) I have been surprised at how powerful its underlying concepts can be. Unlike many "process improvement" programs, Goldratt's TOC is a system improvement approach. The simple concept at its heart is that any system has only one constraint (aka "the weakest link" or "bottleneck") at any given time.

Furthermore, his theory says that any work that doesn't maximize the effectiveness of the constraint is wasted. In other words, work that doesn't allow the constraint to perform at its optimal capacity doesn't increase the throughput of the system, so your effort would likely be better spent elsewhere.

Another key component of TOC is that it is a system view and it preaches that you should focus on the throughput of the system as a whole, not on local optima.  In other words, the system should maximize the throughput of the bottleneck resource even if that means that other resources sit idle.  On the surface, that may seem counter-intuitive, but that's just because our intuition has been fed by a cost-accounting philosophy rather than a throughput-accounting philosophy.

The Roots of TOC

TOC first became known as a Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) approach that provided immense improvements in the effectiveness of manufacturing businesses. While manufacturing is the first place TOC gained its glory, the principles of TOC can be applied to virtually any system, in any business.

Goldratt himself is a phycisist, so it's no surprise that TOC is based on a small set of very simple "rules" with very complex implications and interactions. This paradox of complex simplicity makes it simultaneously easy to understand but difficult to master the precepts of TOC.

I'm a fairly conceptual thinker, so I have found it easy to apply theories of TOC at a high level, but I've found it difficult to really master the nuances of the "Thinking Processes" of TOC and execute on the technical aspects of TOC. While the processes are used heavily in all of Goldratt's books and I've read most of them, the books are presented in the style of novels. As a result, there are not a lot of tutorial-level details to help you learn the Thinking Processes on your own. [An introduction to TOC and the thinking processes is available in a free PDF from Goldratt.com]

Resource 1: A step-by-step tutuorial on the TOC Thinking Process

At last, I have found a book (looks like a textbook, in fact), Goldratt's Theory of Constraint's by H. William Dettmer, that takes you through the end-to-end process of using the Thinking Processes to create such TOC topics as:

  • Creating, debugging, and diagnosing Current Reality Trees

  • Creating and using Conflict Resolution Diagrams ("evaporating clouds")

  • Developing Prerequisite Trees to systematically deal with obstacles

  • Building and using Transition Trees

In this book, Dettmer takes you through the mechanics (graphical conventions, step-by-step processes for using and applying the Thinking Processes), but also takes you a step further. There is considerable material on how to use these processes and diagrams to communicate with others, particularly stakeholders from which you need buy-in.

if you are new to Goldratt's Theory of Constraints, Dettmer starts the book with a very clear overview of what TOC is all about, even going so far as to cover how to apply TOC in non-profit organizations, and provide additional application notes to enable you to apply it in different environments.

Resource 2: Learning from Goldratt himself - now it's within your grasp

Last week, I took delivery of "Beyond The Goal: Eliyahu Goldratt Speaks on the Theory of Constraints" which is an 8-CD set containing the audio of a very comprehensive lecture by Dr. Goldratt. He takes us through the development of his Theory of Constraints by weaving a fascinating tapestry of stories to illustrate the concepts. Thankfully, for those of us who tend to be a bit more visual, CD number 8 also has all of the PowerPoint slides he uses during his lecture. I printed them out and it's been very helpful to have them handy as I listen to him speak.

One word of caution on this set - while TOC can ostensibly be applied to any system, the focus of this lecture is very MRP- / ERP-centric. That said, Godratt provides a lot of non-manufacturing examples, such as hospitals, fire departments, etc. and even applies TOC concepts to the Sales process.

If you are an abstract thinker, it is easy to listen to this and do the concept "mapping" in your head so you can apply this to other applications outside the MRP/ERP world. If you are a literal thinker, this one may be a frustrating listen.

But speaking as a geek, I love it.

Note that there is an interesting discussion on TOC and its application to education going on at the Never Work Alone blog.  Fascinating stuff - go check it out.

There is also the "unplugged" version on the Never Work Alone Google group.

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