Views in Verse on 'time to reflect'

The Aussie holiday silly-season
(The day’s between...)

Views in Verse on 'time to reflect' (on what really matters)

The Aussie holiday silly-season
(The day’s between...)

Summer colours bubbling bright
Parties hum into the night
Celebrate hard, its that time of year again!
Beach crowds, they hurry slow
Warm embrace very much ‘the go’
So overdue with family and very much loved friends

The seaside shops they can distract
Perhaps a casual interact
With smiling passers-by along the way
The boulevard long and sweaty
Conversations short (sic petty)
Noise a rattling from children who like to squeal at play

Moon on-water after dark
At the beach or harbour park
The bay lights rise with nature’s song
Great memories shared with friends
Conversation so easily lends
‘Reminiscing’ the key as 'the story' moves along...

‘The Unresolved’, unwanted guest!
An alcohol-endangered quest
Family glibly interfere with each other’s thoughts...
But no matter what to think, expect or fear
The new year still awaits us here
The daytime vibrant, thick with outdoor sports

Onward as the eve unfolds
Another year, of getting old
Whatever these days is worth celebrating...?
A further candle on the cake?
How much more money can we make?
There must be more to life than this...
Perhaps to consider others for a change
Respect their ways although they seem strange
And to appreciate more of what we truly have to give!

Grahame Flynn Views in Verse

Sent from my iPhone

Views in Verse on 'realisation'

"How is the transformation going...?"

"Clearly, a lot is happening but...

I'm not seeing a lot of change!"

The secrets to 'successful' business transformation

(Transformation + Governance = Value Realisation)

Don't confuse cost management projects with transformation

they are not the same thing...

Transformation drives growth, productivity and a better bottom line

Focussed on a fixed period of dynamic 'change' across the business

Driven from the top, enacted within and around work-groups

Getting the governance structure right ...before you start

Transformation should not be about the journey ...it's all about the destination!

Articulate the vision, goals, expected returns very clearly from early on

Foster an understanding of the hi-level 'line of sight' objectives

Add some internal branding to this and maintain it

Plan to get out in front early and stay there!

Realisation will require input from right across the organisation

Building the expected benefit returns right into the budgeting process

Managing the delivery of business outcomes in 'commitments',

controlled via programme management

Don't compromise on short term planned benefit return ...this is critical!

Featuring a strong 'programme management office'

Reporting to the Executive Office

Maintained by the active sponsors


Fact: An organisation that can't really see the value of the central PMO doesn't as yet see the challenging breadth of transformation




Governance thereby demands that a formal hierarchy

of controls, standards, programmes and projects be recognised

The end game is to deliver your 'change' programmes to meet planned objectives

A well tuned project portfolio management process makes this possible!


PROJECTs                                                  PROGRAMMEs

deliver capabilities                               return planned benefits to the business

linked with planning custom dates          linked with business fiscal cycles

decentralised and within tiers                centralised and across whole of business

resource and activity focussed                governance intensive

portfolio of solution alternatives             reflective of changing strategies

stepped approach to change                   transformative approach to change

delivers to time and budget                    ensures operational change


Think agile, sure ...but consider projects as enablers or assets

they are not business outcomes

Technology and process play a core role but lead with your 'people' people

Maintain your related IT projects in an IT project office

but they must link thru the Programme Management Office

Never forget the lessons of the 90's where process and technology were 'king'

Systems should enact policies to achieve desired results...

Policies should in turn drive behaviour

Policies should thereby be the centre piece of your communications strategy/project

Corporates struggle with this concept...Public entities just see it as fundamental


Redefining your 'managers' as 'leaders'

Experienced people, filling vital roles,

A Change Manager should be a Programme Manager

Ensure all of your leaders are intent on helping build the new culture

Focussing on continuous improvement (to help reinforce the culture of change)

Outsource packets of work only where value is seen

Prepare to manage outsiders within your structure ...not theirs!

Remembering all processes are customer facing

Intruding into the culture is mandatory in order to address behavioural change

Recognising the need for active supervision and the management systems that support it

Ensuring clear accountabilities in all roles


Featuring social leadership skills designed to help develop engagement and trust

Reinforced by coaching in the workplace

Measurement is essential but is only a part of a much bigger people focussed agenda

Performance management too must be a social process

Remembering that "work turns intention into reality" (Elliott Jaques)

'Work' is indeed a pathway to achieve desired results

...not the related (hi level) launches and coffee meetings!

(although they do help with the morale at a time of unsettling change)

"Human nature plays a bigger role in business benefits realisation than any other factor" - John Thorp (Chair ITGI) and author of 'The Information Paradox'.






Clarity in purpose, role, authorities, systems, policies and in hi level objectives will all help to ensure that behavioural change 'sticks' if understood where 'the work is actually done'


Above all, ensure that governance is not just a buzzword in your organisation

Otherwise, all your money, effort and best intentions will preface failure

...possibly of your business at large!

Requisite Uncertainty (Jaques)

as shown here as a sample platform

counter balanced

with elements of

Programme Management &

Project Portfolio Management


“Under requisite uncertainty, a well-functioning governance hierarchy is differentiated by the degree of strategic uncertainty addressed at each level and integrated through a cascading series of strategic commitments as those uncertainties are resolved” - Michael Raynor ‘The Strategy Paradox’

Enterprise risk management ensures that the above value return cycle is constantly turning

It is vital to have absolute integrity in every element of the processes and controls as shown.

There are no short cuts to effective governance in ensuring sound value return on investments.

Funny thing how governance can appear to be something that is 'optional' or 'dispensible' or, even more frightening, 'not very well understood'.

                            Transformation + Governance = Value Realisation

Good luck with yours.

Grahame J Flynn

FAICD CGEIT (ISACA)

The Troubadour

He came to us
as one of us
With a want to try to sing
His songs
were not 'the usual'
but long complex things

He spoke out
on looking out
from beyond your own back door
His call was to lead
not follow ...as before

With no concession
to class or place
as our fathers readily bore
But as an uncompromising
bringer of change...
revolution at the door

Using words
Powerful words
That spoke of freedom and truth
Thoughts he shared
with a growing army
of anxious wide-eyed youth

Enter the Troubadour
Let him sing
for he has something to say
We yearn for change
we're pained by war
He's brooding there back-stage
A tidal surge
of youthful thought
We need this better way
The guards are sleeping
The tower rests
We'll leave this very day
As we go
we won't look back
There's little good we see
When they awaken
The only clue given
Will be one hand waving free

Luther King
The Kennedy's
All praised in their own way
For their part
in social change
the heroes of their day

Yet no engine starts
without a key
The facts are plain to see
A new dialogue
the ready basis
for open thought to breed

Dylan surfaced
He provided that spark
in his shrill compelling voice
Truth spoken out
again and again...
it serves enlightened choice

Establishment frowned
...in time gave way
leaving Richard Nixon dethroned
We all answered
in the western world
J Edgar took a long walk home

Enter the Troubadour
Let him sing
for he has something to say
We yearn for change
we're pained by war
He's brooding there back-stage
A tidal surge
of youthful thought
We need this better way
The guards are sleeping
The tower rests
We'll leave this very day
As we go
we won't look back
There's little good we see
When they awaken
The only clue given
Will be one hand waving free

From my I-pad - Grahame J Flynn

Views in Verse on mindfulness

Mindfulness

The new corporate 'must have'

Delivering Buddhist 'be in the now' composure 

to the better known 'I thought you did this yesterday' culture

No doubting the power of personal mindfulness; but can it be deployed in the manner in which we usually see corporate projects deployed? There is only one answer to that. Yet it won't stop us from trying.

Mindlessness

The Buddhist monks have given their all

A panacea, a corporate call

A silver bullet to be precise

To transform our culture to warm and nice

It’s a state of mind we’ll all be showing
When the pressure's white hot glowing

You'll zone in with all your thinking

Into ‘the now’ …key factors linking

It starts out with the CEO

Who declares it as the ‘way to go’
Drilling into where it’s needed

Right to ‘the floor’ to be seeded

But it can’t be just a 'softly' code

Where the ‘rubber hits the road'

For this to get up we’ll need to try

To marry up key KPI’s

With line of sight we’ll execute

Focussed mindsets to really suit

While the unions shouldn't interfere

To kick it back that extra gear

Yet lip service will clearly not be enough

When the going gets real tough

The odd angry shout we'll understand

It’s rough out there in corporate land

And being sure it’s HR’s stand

Should resonate in budget land

Can’t see ‘the beanies’ really caring
Given they like that 'something daring'

And don't be concerned that proof is lacking

to warrant this scheme deserves our backing

Innovation demands ‘the smart ones’ bring

The new ‘must have’ …the next big thing!


They've tried it at the Aussie Rules
'Roosy' says "hey...the boys are cool"
"The coaches say they'll fall into line"
"Malthouse may take a little time!"




From the desktop of Grahame J Flynn

Views in verse on our 'OZ-strain' language

On - the Aussie and how we speak

Sometimes you do struggle to understand don't you ...?

"whatthehelldidesay?"

and are we proud of these our folklore 'stereotypes'?

or are we...just as happy to move on?






"Stone the crows - Barry's taken off for the mother-country". Australian Barry Humphries, well known throughout the world for his Dame Edna character,rarely lays claim to Barry McKenzie these days. Our Bonza Bazza incidentally spawned his (to be Dame) Auntie Edna way back there somewhere... yet Humphries seemingly left him behind. Why would he do that?

'Barry' was the ugly Aussie tourist abroad (Earl's Court London - to be exact). A product of the Humphries' vivid imagination largely founded I guess in impressions from his own father's background as a construction worker.

Bazza spoke in a rich Aussie slang - 'hit the frog and toad', 'rather eat a dog's eye','may your chickens turn into emus and kick your dunny down' and a so on. None of these unique to Humphries, mind you.

Surely fiction to the outsider ...but no, a legacy product of the Aussie at play both "in the bush" which in many ways spawned us all (see Eric Jolliffe) and into the cities. Yes, on construction sites, and in some ways in all working class homes for all us 'Baby Boomers' (as those marketeers like to refer to us these days).

To the point of today's chat - what of gen X & Y's? - what are they losing of our linguistic Ozzie heritage going forward? as these multi-cultural internet users explode on the global scene with a tighter language that has to be more or less correct English. These days,brevity too is 'the go'. And as for using colourful slang based imagery that has flowed through from our forefathers ...well,  not advised really...

I have found myself pulled up time and time again in the past decade to explain my slang which I have thrown-in to simply colour a 'yarn'. Thereby in explaining it, often losing the punch of what I was saying.

On speaking of a sportman's poor effort in game last weekend, I said to group of Gen Y's - "he dogged it" - the three looked back at me as though I was speaking another language - I guess I was. A friend only this week mentioned to her 30 yo daughter-in-law re a doctor they know "he's getting a bit long in the tooth". The d-i-l had no idea what she was talking about.

So I guess the colourful language of the 'bushie come to town', we everyday Aussies have learnt to 'hold dear' as we have urbanised ourselves these last hundred years is in truth condemned to the dustbin of history and gone the way of 'button up shoes' (whatever they were?).

Well, from there, I felt a touch of melancholy.

So I turned to the greatest Aussie poet I know, Banjo Paterson, just to get a sense of where his 'Clancy of the Overflow' would be without some expressive 'slang'. And ...much to my surprise despite the hundred years - there is no slang ...only correct English. (One clear abbreviation though... perhaps a sign of things to come)

So what do you make of this lot then?

I wonder whether people will be able to translate 'omg" in a 'hundred years to come' - our 'gen 100+ers'?

As for Barry McKenzie ...I liked his Uncle Les much better anyhow. Or ...maybe not!!!

Clancy of the Overflow

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better

  Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,

He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,

  Just ‘on spec’, addressed as follows, ‘Clancy, of The Overflow’.

And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,

  (And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)

’Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:

  ‘Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving, and we don’t know where he are.’

       . . . . .

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy

  Gone a-droving ‘down the Cooper’ where the Western drovers go;

As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,

  For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him

  In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,

And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,

  And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.

       . . . . .

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy

  Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,

And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city

  Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle

  Of the tramways and the ‘buses making hurry down the street,

And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,

  Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me

  As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,

With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,

  For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy,

  Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,

While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal

But I doubt he'd suit the office our Clancy of the Overflow

- our Andrew 'Banjo' Paterson 

17 February 1864 – 5 February 1941

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo_Paterson