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April 06, 2006

Deliverables - the fundamental secret to improving knowledge work

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Posted by Jim McGee

I've been exploring the role of deliverables in understanding and improving knowledge work for a while. In January, I took another shot at articulating the link in a column in the Enterprise Systems Journal putting deliverables at the center of the challenge of improving knowledge work.

Knowledge work does not produce standardized, well-defined outputs. Instead, the value of its outputs depends on how well they match the unique needs of their users. No one is interested in a spreadsheet full of someone else's data; no teacher is likely to value a copy of a paper you've submitted to another class. Understanding what aspects and features of a knowledge work product are most valuable to its intended user is key to focusing efforts on producing the desired deliverable. [The Fundamental Secret to Improving Knowledge Work - ESJ].

Our experience in industrial settings encourages us to look at the output as something that is already well-defined and well-understood. We focus on process changes that will produce the output more quickly or more cost-effectively. When we are doing knowledge work, we do better to focus on the deliverable longer and more mindfully. At a minimum we need to understand the user's definition of quality, the balance between uniqueness and uniformity that will meet this level of quality, and the conditions that must be met to declare the work done. 

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John Sviokla blogging on technology and strategy

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Posted by Jim McGee

Dan Bricklin nicely summarizes most of the nice things I would have said in calling your attention to John Sviokla's new blog (Sviokla's Context). I think I can rightly take some credit for persuading John to add his voice and thinking to the mix. John and I first met twenty plus years ago at the Harvard Business School. John was just finishing his DBA (Doctor of Business Administration, not Data Base Administrator - this was HBS's original version of a Ph.D. in business that explicitly emphasized interdisciplinary thinking) as I was starting work on mine. He joined the faculty there and I worked as his research assistant for a while.

When HBS foolishly chose not to offer him tenure ten years later, I persuaded him to join me at Diamond, where he ended up becoming my boss again. Calling John "quite bright" is along the lines of describing Tom Brady as a "pretty good quarterback." If you are at all interested in how technology and strategy fit together, John is someone you would best pay attention to.

John Sviokla's blog. As part of my work as a DiamondCluster Fellow I've spent a lot of time talking with their vice-chairman and Global Managing Director of Innovation and Research John Sviokla and listening to his presentations. We've also produced a few episodes of a podcast together. Prior to DiamondCluster (a consulting firm that merges technology and strategy consulting) John was a professor at Harvard Business School (not when I was there as I recall). He's quite bright and helps me understand big businesses and organizations.

John has recently started blogging at a somewhat regular pace (a new long post every day or so). Given the disclaimer that I have a financial interest in DiamondCluster, that I do consulting for them, that I talked with John about his blog a few weeks ago as this was starting, and that he pointed to me today when writing about Motorola wikis, etc., etc., I have to tell you this because I think I'd be doing my readers a disservice if I didn't: John Sviokla's new blog is really worth reading. He covers technology and business in a way that will help people in both worlds. He brings interesting perspectives that remind you of those moments in business school when after 60 minutes of discussing a case in class it all starts making sense -- there's a way of looking at things I hadn't considered.

His blog is "Sviokla's Context" and it has an RSS feed.

John is trying to add his voice to the blogosphere. I think it's a welcome addition. A nice sign of the times as a blog may be pushing aside the white paper at a major consulting firm. [Dan Bricklin on John Sviokla]

Comments (1) + TrackBacks (0) | Category: Leadership & Strategy