Steve Neiderhauser

Clarity is King

In business school I had to read a book each semester and write a brief summary. This practice developed my skill to condense an idea into a short summary.

Studying screenwriting has sharpened my ability to limit the words needed to convey meaning.

Consider these ways to make your writing stronger.

Like the Sun's rays, the more concentrated the words, the deeper they burn.

Five-Day Design Sprint

Jake Knapp of Google Ventures shares how to run a product design sprint and verify your business ideas.

Jake says this approach takes 6 months of work and compresses it into 5 days.

Who else wants to learn about Kanban

Karen Greaves gives an excellent overview of Kanban.

Multimedia Version of Resonate

Nancy Duarte has released a free multimedia version of her book "Resonate."

If you have to give even one presentation in 2014, pick up this book and don't put it down until you understand how to use story to delight your audience.

Test-Driven Development and Integration Time

I'm coaching teams on Test-Driven development and give them multiple reasons why they'd want to practice TDD.

In his blog, James Grenning explains how TDD helps reduce the time a team spends in integration testing.

When you practice TDD, the only bugs you should find in Integration testing are related to integration. And when a developer fixes a bug, the thousands of automated unit tests act as a safety net, allowing the developer to modify code with confidence. Confidence that his fix will not cascade one new bug after another.

Why Hierarchies Must Sign Their Own Death Warrant

Steve Denning describes why companies must change and allow teams to decide what to do and how to do it.

Over twenty years ago, business schools were teaching org theory. Guess what?

In the information era, companies are best served by a flat, organic model. Although, managers who made it held fast to their perks -- corner office, command-and-control... Who would want to give these up.

The Internet and more importantly, Agile techniques will force companies to become flat, or flat out disappear from the competitive landscape.