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The MIX Toolshed

jan-robert-johnsen's picture

The MIX Toolshed

By Jan Robert Johnsen on February 8, 2013

Whenever I'm in discussions with people about management innovation, people are very interested in the work that has been done on MIX, and I encourage them to read and learn about new principles and ideas. This is positive, but in a busy workday — people don't really have the time to develop tools and methods for themselves. We have done a lot of the ground work, but we can do more I think. I would love to have a toolshed for Management 2.0 tools. To be able to say, "Look here, you loved the idea on Meritocracy - here are some tools and guidelines to get you started". I would love to find some developers who could help us make some easy HTML 5 tools that you could use every day. Each tool have a forum connected, where you can get help and discuss ideas for further development. Maybe even a whole framework can be developed over time. This can save a lot of time getting started and will be very helpful, especially for those who must work in stealth mode in their own organizations.

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alberto-blanco's picture

This is one of things that we can showcase in our toolshed: http://hackmanagement.com/m20-principles

fiona-gifford's picture

Hi Alberto - this link take you to the intro page, but the link to principles is broken,

mix-administrator's picture

Hi Fiona, This feature seems to be working properly for me. If you're still having a problem accessing the principles, can you please let me know what operating system and web browser you are using?

agustin-jimenez's picture

Great idea Jan! As innovators, it is very useful to get feedback about our ideas. I am sure that many of us have developed methods and tools that facilitate the implementation of a management 2.0 approach and we would like to share and to improve them. I love the idea of a forum for each tool where you can get help and discuss ideas for further development.

For example, as far as I know, there is no tools or methods to implement strategy with a management 2.0 approach. I've been working for more than 6 years implementing strategic planning processes trying to use this approach, but the models and tools I know are not very helpful. I have already developed a method but I am deploying it with a combination of Office tools, and it is not easy to adapt them.

jan-robert-johnsen's picture

What you say is really important and I talked to a consultant in one of the big management consulting agencies, and he noted that he loves the management 2.0 ideas, but says i lacks both a good method for implementing and also a alternative organization model to go along. I guess most CEO's would not move to a WL Gore organization over night, but since many management principles are easy to understand, they should have a tool/model/method to allow for transformation from 1.0 to 2.0 management. Let's hope MIX can provide us with some tools and a arena to experiment how this can be develped further.

fiona-gifford's picture

This is a great, practical idea. The content could be usefully categorised:
Reading & Current Thinking - for books, articles etc
Diagnostics - the "how are we doing today?" question and tools that help to sign post where you need to pay attention
Activities and Exercises - resources for exploring and doing
Examples of what others have done and learnt - case studies

michele-zanini_4's picture

Thanks Jan--this is really helpful feedback. We totally agree that equipping people with some practical tools to become effective management innovators is as important as inspiring them to act, and that this should be a key priority for the MIX going forward. One of the things we're going to be working on this yeas is a MIX "Academy," where we'll have some instructional content/tools to help management renegades light the fires of management innovation in their organizations. Some of the content will be created by us (including our own "MOOC"), but the idea is also to have some of our community contribute as well.

Would love to hear what you and our fellow MIXers think would be most helpful/ cool tools to develop, e.g.:
1. A management innovation "diagnostic"
2. Templates/worksheets to facilitate a discussion with one's colleagues on how to hack specific problems (e.g., from identifying the barriers to creating a hack)
3. HTML 5 versions of some of the hacks we have on the site--so for instance, on Meritocracy, an on-line tool to assess who in your team is a "natural leader"
4. Collection of tools/content tackling specific topic areas that some of our MIXers have deep expertise in, like introducing serious play at work (something that Ross Smith of Microsoft knows a ton about), or busting the budgeting process (Bjarte Bosgnes of Statoil has done it successfully at his company, so I'm sure he could share some practical ways to get started to others)

thanks again for submitting such a thoughtful idea

M

agustin-jimenez's picture

The management innovation diagnostic would be a nice tool. Something like "tell me how innovative are your management and organizational practices and I will tell you how innovative is your company at all". I have some ideas about it. I would love to contribute with this tool.

jan-robert-johnsen's picture

I think this could be a great tool. It would be very helpful in analyzing a company, and maybe more important - let management know about challenges. I think a lot of managers say they are "innovative" and "thinking new", mostly through short-lived programs or initiatives. But in everyday practice, they do and operate the same way. Let's show them how to inject management 2.0 principles into every employees spine, and empower innovation everywhere in the organization!

jan-robert-johnsen's picture

A lot of good initiatives here, I think all of them are important, but I'm not quite sure what you mean about "diagnostic"?

I think a tool, a template, a forum, expert tips and library for each principle would be great. Since at tool and a template must be quite generic, some tips from a library and comments from users is also important to get on the way.

I'm also interested in the framework to support this as well. Someone from the professional management advisory industry asked me about what organizational model would support the principles and though there is ways of radical network models like WL Gore's, this might be a to exstreme change for many companies. So some overall tips on how to disrupt you company hierarchy, bottom-up change processes etc. must also be available.

And maybe a dictionary? Management Innovation Exchange, the Stoos Network, the Drucker Society Global Network, the Beyond Budgeting Roundtable, the Scrum Alliance, the Agile Alliance, the Society for Organisational Learning and the Daedalus Trust have all a lot in commom. Radical Management, Management 2.0 Creative Economy - it's all part of this movement. Time to consolidate a bit and get the vocabulary right? :-)

JR

michele-zanini_4's picture

Thanks JR, very helpful. On the diagnostic, what we had in mind is some sort of tool (e.g., survey) that would allow people to benchmark their practices against what we might think to be a "Management 2.0" standard. We hear you loud and clear on creating a common dictionary across all the like-minded communities...

Best,

Michele

stefan-blobelt's picture

Hi Michele - regarding the Managment 2.0 diagnostic, have a look at: http://brandvelocity.com/files/documents/Six-Box-Leadership.pdf
The author, Vlatka Hlupic, was a member of the Managment 2.0 Hackathon.

maddie-grant's picture

Agreed. Also a list of resources MIXers love, like books or blogs or other things from our community that would be easy for people to read more about particular areas of management innovation.

chris-grams's picture

I love this idea--simple too!!

michele-zanini_4's picture

Hi Maddie, thanks for such a great idea. Do you see this as something that is curated (whether by the MIX team or MIXer volunteer) or rather a more "unfiltered" space where people can submit links/docs--and where the "good stuff" emerges as a result of votes/likes (e.g., reddit)?

thanks

Michele

maddie-grant's picture

I think definitely user-generated. Not sure about the voting piece (a +1 might be better, where people can indicate they like a resource but it doesn't move it up and down).

I think it could still be curated, or in other words have to be approved by a moderator (not sure what the admin resources are on the MIX side). But the moderator could help make sure everything had some tags, for example, so once it's in the list it comes up in keyword searches.

jan-robert-johnsen's picture

Yes - that is a very good idea Maddie, all you need in one place :-)

taylor-tomasini's picture

I second that.

susan-resnick-west's picture

It would be interesting to see how often different tools/books etc are mentioned in the mix. What about something like Amazon's system of "you might also enjoy"

michele-zanini_4's picture

Thanks Susan, this is a great idea and something we are definitely considering to make sure people can easily find related content!

M