The answer is very obvious. People like to know where they are going. It would also be impossible to design a new route to satisfy all passengers. Perhaps there could be special bus stops dedicated to certain destinations. If enough people collected at such a stop then a bus would appear and take them there.
For most of our thinking we are very happy to have fixed routes. This allows us to predict effects and actions. We design a way to get to our required destination by combining known routes. This is what technology is all about. Architects rarely design new windows or new arches. They use existing ideas in new combinations. There is very little opportunity, or even need, to invent everything from scratch.
Indigo are authorised distributors for Dr Edward de Bono’s training techniques. If you, your team or your whole organisation wish to be trained in Dr de Bono’s Thinking Skills, call Indigo on 020 7924 8760
Stopping for a quick bite to eat at the Indigo offices on Friday, I caught a glimpse of the lavish opening ceremony of the Beijing’s Olympic Games, confidently playing out its carefully choreographed scenes on the TV in our office reception.
Whatever your political persuasion, it was hard not to be awestruck by the size, precision and sheer “people power” of the project taking place before my very eyes. A mammoth project in fact, delivered on time, with enormous funding, on an incredible scale.
My thoughts though while watching the ceremony, fast-forwarded a lot closer to home. I couldn’t help but think –
How are the London 2012 Olympics going to compare,
And what can and will the London 2012 organisers learn from the Beijing experience?
As a member of Indigo’s project team, and albeit working on slightly smaller scale projects than the Olympics (!) – assessing and analysing the cost, risk and benefits of our clients projects is a daily challenge of ours. So I will be fascinated to see how London 2012 manage over the coming years.
Failure to prepare? Prepare to fail
At Indigo, we specialise in helping our clients, who include no less than a number of high-profile worldwide Olympic partners, to become better project and programme managers.
When “delivering” a project, three key questions any good project manager will continually ask themselves are –
Will the project be delivered on time?
Is the project on budget?
And is the project on target?
Projects on time…With Beijing, and a “drop-dead-date” such as the Olympic Games, their project had to be, and therefore was, delivered “on time”. The same of course will have to be for London 2012, no question! Missing the deadline would be like celebrating Christmas in June!
Projects on budget…Projects like the Olympics don’t tend to let a “little thing like money” get in the way of a great finished product (some £20bn down the line in Beijing’s case).
For London 2012, with more limited resources than Beijing, and threats of spiralling costs already – putting my project manager “hat” on, focus must be made on careful project finance, planning and operations if their resources don’t dry up before the first gun has sounded.
Projects on target…The scale of the Beijing Olympics may prove to be unique in the history of the Olympics. No Olympics may ever spend or build more than Beijing. London has to realise this, step out of Beijing’s shadow, and provide a model which future Olympic Games can follow. This can be London’s project target, and a great legacy of the games.
It’s these “soft skills” of communicating and “selling” the value and benefits of the Games which will be London 2012’s challenge to convince us of over the coming years. I wonder if the sheer spectacle of Beijing is causing London to re-think its project plan!
I am one of the client managers at Indigo and recently spent a couple of days at our recent Think on Your Feet® workshop in Barbican, London.I went through this training during my induction, so I was there to make sure everything ran smoothly and pop out to client meetings in the city whilst the delegates were in the training room.
During a morning break on day two of the workshop, delegates asked me about my experiences on all of Indigo’s workshops.I decided I should take up the challenge of presenting information about our full range of training products during their lunchtime break.
The idea of a member of the Indigo team (who is not a trainer) being put on the spot really appealed to them!!They were there to learn how to present their ideas clearly, with brevity and impact.The delegates wanted to challenge me to put together an ‘ad-hoc’ presentation.
I had some initial panic about the lack of time I had to prepare!But I decided to use some of skills I had learnt at Indigo’s workshops to get the job done.So what did I do?
Some quick Six Thinking Hats®:
Took off my “Black Hat” (negatives)
Spent some time thinking about the “Yellow Hat” (benefits) of doing the presentation
Then employed “Green Hat” thinking to come up with some creative ways to make this happen.
Surely, I just had to employ the Think on Your Feet® and Skilled Presenter™ techniques…
Using Think on Your Feet® and the Skilled Presenter™
I designed a presentation around the three main areas we work within: Creativity, Communication and Project Management.
I then supported this with more detail about the how we approach these organizational challenges using more of the Think on Your Feet® plans.
So, phew… I had the content in 15 mins.Now what would my Skilled Presenter™ trainer say to me if he was here?“Practice, practice, practice James”.So I borrowed a spare room from our good friends at CCT Venues.
I presented to the empty room and found some glaring, but simple to fix problems with my presentation.The great thing about Think on Your Feet® is that I did not have pages of notes, just icons with three clear points to read from.Easy to remember and easy to use.
So, how did the presentation go?
Well, the most important thing to me is whether the audience found it engaging and interesting.They would be the best people to ask.I will be posting some of there comments on here when the event feedback forms have been processed.
For me, it felt great.I had banished my fears, turned nervousness into energy and had a well structured presentation to build around.Thank you Think on Your Feet®.Thank you the Skilled Presenter™.
I had a really enjoyable evening last night! It was the end of day one at our latest Think on Your Feet(r) Communication workshop, taking place at our training venue in London (CCTV Barbican). We decided to invite our twenty or so delegates out for a well deserved end of day one drink!
I work in the Operations team at Indigo, so don’t always get the chance to meet up with clients, but when I do, I find it fascinating catching up with and listening.
The mix of delegates at this particular Think on Your Feet(r) workshop was as diverse as ever – from public and private sector, large and small organisations, some in senior positions and others with less experience. Over a relaxed beer or glass of wine everyone commented on the strength of the tools Think on Your Feet provides and the impact of our trainer Stephanie’s teaching style.
However, there were a couple of really interesting comments I recall from yesterday evening that I thought I would share, as one delegate said;-‘I have learnt today that communication is about structuring your response…and Think on Your Feet(r) certainly provides lots of this! It’s all about, structure, structure and more structure’ - which is something I certainly agreed with.
However it was another comment that really stood out for me from another delegate saying;‘I have learnt today that communication is the response you get from someone!’ When you think about this, what a concise way of explaining the importance and value of effective communication.
Put simply, it’s how your message is understood, so if you don’t get the expected response, who’s fault is it? Yours. Perhaps it’s the way your message has been interpreted - as the saying goes; “its not what you say; but the way that you say it.”
A ‘neat’ summary I’m sure you’ll agree!
Andrew
See www.indigoearly.co.uk for the dates of our next Think on Your Feet(r) workshops.
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