The workshops were very well received. We are proud to say that Paul received a well deserved round of applause at the end of his workshop. One attendee in Wellington informed Paul that it was not what he had expected but much more than he had expected.

Attendees were introduced to f-Laws, "truths about organisations that we might wish to deny or ignore—simple and  more reliable guides to everyday behaviour than the complex truths proposed by scientists, economists,  sociologists, politicians and philosophers,” (Russell Ackoff) and practical tools to implement a more successful SharePoint outcome.

The take home messages of this governance workshop were not limited only to SharePoint but were rather pertinent to a large range of projects.

The Seven Sigma SharePoint Governance f-Laws will be part of the Information Architecture course, which Paul will present on 9th August, 2010 in New Zealand.

Our half-day f-Laws internal workshop will be held on request. Open half-day and full-day workshops will be advertised soon so stay tune to this space.

For more information on the Seven Sigma SharePoint Governance f-Laws workshop, please download the course information below.

Session: SharePoint 2010 Killer App: Who let the content out?

“Despite its integration and collaboration ascendency, SharePoint lives in an Enterprise ecosystem where the effort to expose and integrate with the many existing content silos is still just too great. Well, help is at hand. I will cover what form this help takes in SharePoint 2010, how to prepare for it, how to beat your recalcitrant suppliers over the head, what it delivers and what it doesn’t.

I’ll do this while avoiding many of the boring technical bits and trying not to use the word ‘standard’ too many times.”

Target Audience: IT Pros, Decision Makers and Architects (only the one trekkie badge).

Contact:
Paul Culmsee
http://www.sevensigma.com.au/contact-us.html

Phone: +61 8 94742601

Seven Sigma’s unique sensemaking methods continue to impress in the public sector. Most recently we have been engaged by the WA Department of Transport to provide strategic advisory, envisioning, problem structuring and goal alignment services for a long term, key ICT project. By applying a unique combination of the principles of Breakthrough Thinking with the craft of Dialogue Mapping and Seven Sigma’s own problem structuring techniques, we provide a rigorous, systematic process that allows the project team and stakeholders to rapidly converge to a shared understanding of a complex, multifaceted project.

Breakthrough Thinking is a systematic problem structuring method that aligns particularly well with traditional project management methodologies. It is described by its authors (Nadler and Hibino) as “extending the creating process to determine the right purposes to be accomplished, generate a large number of imaginative and useful options and develop the systems you need to implement effective solutions”.

Dialogue Mapping is a novel facilitation method, practiced exclusively by Seven Sigma, that allows groups to better deal with the sort of tricky, complex problems that typically cause a group stress, chaos and pullback. This is achieved by a trained dialogue mapper, facilitating the conversation, while capturing the various threads of an issue and then expressing it visually in the form of an argument ‘map’. This visual map represents the collected rationale in a simple, easy to understand form that allows participants to see all of the points of view in a cohesive fashion. The ultimate purpose of the map is to capture and share the collective knowledge of all the participants without prejudice. The map is presented in a format that can be easily understood by all observers.

Seven Sigma Business Solutions is a Perth, West Australian, strategic advisory and sensemaking practice, specialising in SharePoint and Dialogue Mapping. Seven Sigma is uniquely skilled in the discipline of Dialogue Mapping, the only recognised Cognexus Designated Partner in the world. This partnership will now be open to New Zealand through Knowledge Cue. Seven Sigma director Paul Culmsee is a well-known figure in SharePoint planning and governance via his Cleverworkarounds.com web site. Knowledge Cue will provide introductory Issue Mapping Courses and Training in New Zealand in the coming months.

Knowledge Cue specialises in SharePoint planning, architecture and training in New Zealand and with their training partnership with Combined Knowledge Asia Pacific provide end to end SharePoint training solutions in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore , Hong Kong  and Malaysia.

For more information please contact sharepoint@knowledgecue.co.nz

Seven Sigma specializes in the “people” side of SharePoint, using tools and methods that help a diverse group develop the shared understanding and commitment to seeing their investment succeed.

Teaming up with our partners at DebateGraph, Seven Sigma’s DebateGraph WebPart is a free tool that represents an experiment in meeting the goal of truly “living” document that tries to demystify SharePoint governance in a novel way.

Place the web part on any SharePoint site and view our latest group-thinking on this critical, yet misunderstood topic.

Key features and benefits of the Seven Sigma DebateGraph webpart:

• Unique method to explore complex, interrelated topics in an intuitive way.
• Leverage the DebateGraph argument rating and visualisation engine to validate arguments on merit
• Promotes shared understanding of SharePoint governance among all participants of your project.
• Augment your own governance planning within your organisation.
• Simple to install, deploy and configure.
• Display any of the hundreds of excellent maps on the Debategraph site inside your portal
• Never stale every time your site loads, the latest “thinking” is displayed.
• Directly contribute to the governance map for the benefit of all.
• Create your own Debategraph maps and render them inside SharePoint.

More on this project to come.

Fortunately for Seven Sigma, we have not been affected. Paul, Chris and Peter have been in constant demand, our clients keeping them busy on their toes throughout the year. Mike,stationed at Chevron, also equally busy.

This is Seven Sigma’s second year in operation. And it has been a successful year. To thank our clients we took the opportunity to celebrate Christmas 2009 with them mid last week at the Broken Hill Hotel. Due to the lateness of our invitation, we were not able to share a few drinks with everyone.

The event was a very relaxed and informal affair. All appeared to leave thoughts of work behind them at the office while they mingled with each other.

To those who took the time out of their busy schedule to come and join us in our very first Christmas celebration, we are honoured by your presence.

To those who were unable to attend, we hope to see you next year.

From Seven Sigma, we wish you and yours a wonderful and joyous holiday.

We look forward to seeing you again next year.