This article was super fun for me to create because I got to revisit my very favorite Nave blog posts – the ones that really struck a chord with me, and have stuck with me after all these years!
Hey there, friend! I hope you’re having a wonderful week.
As I’m crafting this article, it is raining hard outside, and it’s so beautiful.
I’m cozy in my home office, I have a hot cup of mint tea (I’ve never been a coffee person) and my doggies are sleeping by my feet. I might not get up all day long. So, it’s a content creation day.
And speaking of content, today we’re going to talk about my very favorite Nave blog posts. And listen, although I’ve got a lot of favorites in our blog, I’ve chosen five that are the top must-read pieces in the entire pack.
I will tell you the reasons why you have to read them and then, you can kind of pick and choose which ones feel like, “Yeah, that’s an article that could really help me right now”.
My Top 5 All-Time Favorite Nave Blog Posts
When I say I’ve selected some of my favorites, it was not – and I repeat, not – a simple task. But these are the posts that have stuck with me over the course of almost a hundred and fifty articles and many, many years.
So, my hope is that you’re going to check these out and if you haven’t already, give them a read. Maybe even a second read, if you really want to get it all to sink in.
Okay. So, let’s dive in.
How to Achieve Optimal Workflow Efficiency All While Relieving Team Overburden
First up, “The 100% Utilization Paradox: How to Achieve Optimal Workflow Efficiency All While Relieving Team Overburden”. Take a read:
“We don’t get paid for being 100% utilized. We get paid for delivering results and realizing business outcomes. So, we need to be striving for efficient delivery workflows.
What’s the problem with aiming to have both? You might wonder, doesn’t a 100% utilization of individuals actually lead to a 100% workflow utilization?
It doesn’t. In fact, utilizing every minute of your individuals’ time will land you in some hot water.”
Here is the thing. Too many managers believe in the myth of 100% utilization. That’s the belief that every single person must be fully utilized, for every single minute of every single day.
The fact that this behavior doesn’t leave any space for innovation, serendipitous thinking, or exploration is almost beside the point. The bigger problem is that promoting 100% utilization of individuals actually contradicts the goal of workflow optimization.
Let’s explore how to achieve optimal delivery speed all while relieving team overburden →
Monte Carlo Simulation Explained: Everything You Need to Know to Make Accurate Delivery Forecasts
All right. Next up is “Monte Carlo Simulation Explained: Everything You Need to Know to Make Accurate Delivery Forecasts”. This one is so good. Take a read:
“The only prerequisite to producing reliable delivery forecasts is to optimize your workflow for predictability. It’s all about taking control of your management practices to ensure you deliver customer value in a consistent manner.”
As an alternative approach to making delivery forecasts, getting to grips with Monte Carlo simulations can be challenging, especially if you’ve been stuck estimating your work using story points (or hours) for quite some time.
And there are so many questions that come with the Monte Carlo method. Do we need to slice our items into even sizes? Does the simulation consider our current work in progress? What data is required for it to produce reliable outcomes?
These are just a handful of the questions that I’ve been asked over and over again. So, I decided to bundle the most common ones (and their answers!) together, to help you reveal the full potential of the Monte Carlo simulation.
Here is everything you need to know to make accurate delivery forecasts →
5 Kanban Myths You Should Stop Believing
Moving on to the next article in my top Nave blog posts, this is “5 Kanban Myths You Should Stop Believing”. Take a read:
“Many teams believe that Kanban is only applicable when work is popping up unexpectedly and so it is not suitable for project or product development that requires additional planning activities. This is one of the biggest Kanban myths out there.
In fact, the very first implementation of the Kanban Method at Corbis in 2007 has been applied for a very complex product development work. Later on, it’s been used for planning a $10million+ ERP project.”
Let’s take a look at a few more statements:
“Kanban is just a board!”, “There is no commitment in Kanban”, “Kanban requires all work items to be the same size”.
Question: What do all these arguments have in common?
Answer: They’re all Kanban myths.
Kanban myths are not uncommon, but they are detrimental to understanding the effectiveness of the Kanban Method and how it actually works.
But, in this blog post, we are not going to take that history class. Instead, we are going to reveal the top misleading beliefs that people – from Kanban practitioners to wannabes – are still holding on to and, for some reason, are finding hard to get rid of, let alone explain their origins. It’s time to separate the misconceptions from the facts!
Here are the top 5 Kanban myths debunked →
How to Turn Your Daily (Status Update) Meetings into Outcome-Driven Events
All right. Next up is “How to Turn Your Daily (Status Update) Meetings into Outcome-Driven Events”. Take a read.
“When we perceive our daily call as a status update meeting and ask people, what’s the status of their work every day, the interfering spark of micromanagement starts to build. Slowly, but surely.
The team’s engagement and motivation levels go down and with it, the daily call starts to feel like another thing that’s distracting people from doing their work.
So, you should ask yourself, “Is a status update appropriate in the first place?.”
Let me tell you this. Back in the day, it was a tradition to spend the daily morning call asking everyone in the team what they did yesterday, and what they’re doing today.
Now, I see a new trend evolving, which pretty much reverts us right back to our old bad behavior.
Your daily meeting is not and should not be a status update meeting. Trust me when I say that, if the purpose of your calls is to get a status report, you run the risk of drastically impacting your improvement efforts!
Explore how to turn your calls into outcome-driven actionable events →
How to Meet Your Long-Term Goals Using Continuous Forecasting
Last, but certainly not least in my favorite Nave blog posts list is “How to Meet Your Long-Term Goals Using Continuous Forecasting”. Take a read.
“Imagine you are the coach of a team and you observe the probability of your team winning going down. If that’s the case, you’d probably want to make some changes, switch the positions of certain players, let new players enter the game, or swap the initial strategy altogether to increase your chances of winning.
Either way, when provided with that information, it would be simply unreasonable not to make any changes. Your tactics have to adjust based on the new information you’re gathering. This is a classic example of continuous forecasting.”
Continuous forecasting is a strategy that enables managers to track the progress of their projects as the work is already in progress and adjust the course accordingly.
To be able to deliver on your commitments, you need to make sure that you have your finger on the pulse of the project. That’s why continuous forecasting is so essential. It enables you to stay on track in the long run.
Here you’ll learn how to implement the continuous forecasting approach →
There you go. I hope you enjoyed this list of Nave blog posts. Now that you know more about them, hopefully, you’re like, “Okay. Where I’m at right now, I could really use that article.” If that’s you, go ahead and have a read.
Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. And if you’d be so kind, if you have a colleague (or friend) that’s struggling to deliver on their commitments and hit their targets consistently, please share this post or the Nave blog with them. I’d be forever grateful!
And, if you love what you’re reading, subscribe to our newsletter (linked at the bottom of this page) for lots more managerial goodness.
I wish you a productive day ahead!
