Jan Vormann and an army of volunteers decided to do something about the chipped bricks and decaying masonry around downtown Amsterdam. Rather than slap up some bland plaster or drab mortar, he used that world renowned symbol of Danish cultural heritage: the LEGO brick. I’m not sure about their structural integrity as a building material, but they make up for it in colorfulness and pure-grade awesome.

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We believe that getting the IT staff out into the businesses is really helpful – we have been measuring this ‘onsite presence’ for a few years now and regularly adjusting the rules to make it more effective. It’s time for another change!

Compelling Reasons for Onsite presence addresses three major issues
- surfacing tickets that folks ‘remember’ when we are on site
- perceived value to each business of IT Service
- gaining insights into how to improve the success of each business

Rules of the Game
- Each person puts in 5 hours in one business each week
- Dept hits all businesses over two weeks instead of one
- Rotate businesses in some meaningful way – may be different in holidays
- Measure onsite completion by counting how many of the 5 staff completed 5 hours in one business (plan 5)
- Expect insights from each person each week on how we can make improvements reported in staff meeting
- Measure insight completion by count of how many insights documented (plan 3)

1. Savor Everyday Moments
2. Avoid Comparisons
3. Put Money Low on the List
4. Have Meaningful Goals
5. Take Initiative at Work
6. Make Friends, Treasure Family
7. Smile Even When You Don’t Feel Like It
8. Say Thank You Like You Mean It
9. Get Out and Exercise
10. Give It Away, Give It Away Now!

Read more of the details in the article. For those familiar with Zingerman’s, a quiz: name the points that are taught as part of our internal culture. In general, what’s missing?

It’s useful because most of us have many more activities on our “wish lists” – whether these are bright ideas to pursue, exciting opportunities or interesting possibilities – than we have time available. By choosing activities intelligently, you can make the very most of your time and opportunities.

However by choosing badly, you can quickly bog yourself down in low-yield, time-consuming projects that close down opportunities and stop you moving forwards.

How to Use the Tool:

The figure above shows the basic form of the Action Priority Matrix.  The principle behind using the tool is that you score each activity you want to complete on two scales – firstly on the impact the activity will have, and secondly on the effort involved.

By plotting each activity on the Action Priority Matrix using these scores, you can quickly see the projects that give you the greatest returns on your efforts; and adopt the most appropriate approach for that type of activity:

Quick Wins (High Impact, Low Effort): These are the most attractive projects, giving you a good return for relatively little effort. Focus on these as much as you can;

Major Projects (High Impact, High Effort): While these give good returns, they take a long time to complete – meaning that one “Major Project” can crowd out many “Quick Wins”. If you’re engaging in these, make sure that you complete them quickly and efficiently and that you disengage your effort as soon as you can;

Fill Ins (Low Impact, Low Effort): Don’t worry too much about doing these – if you’ve got spare time, do them, but drop them if something better comes along; and

Hard Slogs (Low Impact, High Effort): Avoid these. Not only do they give low returns, they crowd out time which would be better used elsewhere.  Try to reconfigure these projects so that they take less effort or have a bigger impact.

Al the Octopus

I chose a wall in our front office roughtly 9ft x 12ft. A can of primer is allegedly enough to put three coats on a 7ft x 7ft space, and a can of paint is enough to do two coats. I disagree. Of course the space I painted was larger than that, so I used two cans of primer for three coats and three cans of paint for four coats. Four coats were neccessary since the paint is white and the primer is jet black (that’s the kicker). Using a foam roller instead of nap gave a nice smooth finish, and as the paint dries it becomes very glossy just like a normal whiteboard. It takes two days to fully dry; our wall should be ready to write on tomorrow.