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Eagles and AQ Leaders
This past weekend, my friend Bernhard took me to an amazing place in the Bavarian Alps. High up in the mountains above the famous town of Berchtesgaden you will find a small colony of actors. No, not your normal type of actor. Actually, birds of prey. Yes, there is a guy up there who works…
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The new K.O. criteria for jobs?
To be honest with you, I am still a bit puzzled. But it totally makes sense. Over the past 9 weeks, I ran into three different people that I had met through my work at IBM. They all had three things in common: They used to be a Business Analytics advocate and driver at a…
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How to create happy business people
“Projects could be so much fun if it wasn’t for the users.” Well, I have often heard this from different project teams. And there is some truth to this: Too many projects fail to ‘wow’ an organization because the business is disappointed about the final results. Based on my personal experience, I believe that the…
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A Few Thoughts About Planning
There is an interesting discussion going on right now. Actually, it’s been going on for a few years. There are some people that argue against planning: “Why plan today? The world is so volatile! Any plan is typically rendered useless within a few weeks or months.” And then there are others who argue that planning…
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7 must-have business books
Do you love to read? I do. Business books are high up on my personal favorite list. Luckily, the Kindle and the iPad make it so super easy these days to find and enjoy new books. While I was returning home from a recent trip to London, the person sitting next to me on the plane…
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What “Brain Rules” teaches us about Business Analytics
The other day I took some time to review a few chapters of John Medina’s excellent book ‘Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School‘. It is a great read. There are a lot of interesting stories and insights that apply to various different aspects of our lives. One chapter…
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Why improving your AQ is critical for personal and organizational success
Do you know your AQ? AQ stands for Analytical Quotient. It is a new measure that provides you with insights about your organization’s ability to leverage business analytics. Most importantly, AQ helps you determine how to best go about improving your capabilities. I would highly recommend taking the self-assessment test on the IBM Website. It…
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Improve your forecasts – 6 things we can learn from weather forecasters
Back in April, I posted an interview with a master forecaster: Franz the Frog. Interestingly enough, this post is one of the most popular entries on this blog. But all jokes and irony aside: Weather forecasters are indeed world champions in forecasting and there are some lessons that we as finance professionals can learn from…
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A simply awesome idea for your projects
“Make sure the teams get to know each other! It’s a lot easier to collaborate once you have had a drink together.” That was the ubiquitous advice from my former boss. We were discussing some communication problems related to a large international project. Some team members on a global project were running into some issues.…
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Is Working Capital Management dead (again)?
WORKING CAPITAL MANAGEMENT Things come and go. One day we love a certain hobby, a few years later we are utterly bored with it. The same thing is true for management practices. What is hot today seems out of fashion tomorrow. A few days ago, I had an interesting discussion with a group of senior…
Got any book recommendations?