The simplest and most telling behavior of an organization that is without a true solid business strategy is that they spend the vast majority of their time focusing on the tactics of the business, and when asked if they have a strategy, they simply list the tactics they are focusing on. Tactics are ...

I was having a discussion with a small business owner a few weeks back about how their business was progressing. The sentiment was this: We're making it through the day. I thought about it for a minute and then I began asking some probing questions, as I'm prone to do: What are the roadblocks and bi...

No one on the face of the earth today who has access to an internet-connected device is unaware of cyber threats. It's now a very integral part of our lives, just like heat and fire. Think back to when you were young. You had to be educated at a very early age to be careful not to play with fire or ...

A major consideration when adopting the Agile Service Delivery methodology is that it is a pull system and not a push system. This simply means that the team is constantly pulling work from the backlog versus it being heaped upon them as with conventional service delivery methods. Utilizing a pull v...

After many years of brainstorming and collecting input for consideration, I'm finally ready to get the MSP Pro Academy launched. The intention is to build a learning and collaboration portal where anyone interested in training in the Information Technology Service Management (ITSM) discipline can fi...

If you've ever had the strange feeling that the efforts your team is working for are not fully supported by everyone on the team or even management, it's probably not unwarranted. All too often we have meetings where we discuss the path to success and then look around the room asking for buy-in, but...

Do you remember when your business consisted of nothing more than you and your dog? Maybe even your spouse was involved. And then one day, it doubled in size because you hired your first real employee. How did you manage that person? Most likely, you tried to give them autonomy in how they operated ...

Many years ago, I wrote an article entitled Take Time In Your Life For Inspiration. In it, I make what is now my personal statement: I believe that everyone is capable of both being inspired and inspiring others. A most valuable trait is the ability to take time in your life to recognize when you sh...

When I was young, if I wanted to talk to my best friend Randy without going over to his house or meeting him somewhere, I had only one choice - call him on the telephone. Of course, I could only call him if he had previously given me his phone number or if I knew the last name used for setting up th...

A few years back, I wrote an article on ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) and I even interviewed an expert on the subject. ITIL has always been thought of as the best practice library for big corporations, but it is folks like myself who are trying to pull that curtain down all th...

As I'm writing my book Getting To The Next Level and rounding out the chapter on this thing I call the organization Compass, I put together an anecdote to help drive home the importance of getting it right. Besides being a sneak peek at more of the book before it releases, it's a great compass cross...

I’ve been meaning to blog about this thing I call the Pyramid of Purpose and Value™ for the longest time. Well, I ended up writing about it extensively in my book Getting To The Next Level, so I’m taking advantage of that and posting the introduction to the Pyramid directly from Chapter 1, What Does...