Jamie On Stuff

These articles were originally posted on an internal blog in my department of the CBC. They have been edited to be more generally applicable.

On Driving Change

"Change is hard" is a cliché. Living through change means uncertainty, challenge, and effort and those aren't always welcome. What I actually want to talk about, though, is the other side of that cliché: that causing change is hard. I often see well-intentioned and well-delivered presentations meant to…

On Communication

Consider this thought experiment. What if you wrote down what you thought your role on your team is. Then every member of your team wrote down what they thought your role on the team is. If you all shared what you had written, would the answers be consistent? If they…

On Motivation

Despite working in different roles and in different organizations, questions around motivation seem to be asked consistently. How do we motivate our workforce? How can I stay motivated about my work? Why are some people more motivated than others? My thinking on the subject was radically changed a number of…

On Prioritization

I have more things to do than time to do them. I know I'm not alone in this. We are constantly fielding requests, interruptions, notifications, communications, and distractions. Being able to prioritize how we spend our time is essential. It's so essential, that we actually ask in our boarding interviews…

On Value

I have this idea of a hypothetical work unit. One work unit is the amount of value an average worker adds in a given time frame. This is similar to idea of Story Points and Velocity in Agile. The average number of Story Points a team accomplishes in a sprint…