Katherine Haven, PMP®

One of my favorite things we've been doing in the last six months is something we call a Transformation Rally - where we bring together change makers across an org to map how different change efforts overlap (or don't) in terms of outcomes, the people most impacted, and the barriers initiatives have been facing. We've done both in person and virtual sessions, and folks have been finding a ton of value from mapping and talking about the work together. 1) It creates real strength in numbers, individual change makers don't feel alone in making change. 2) It creates order out of what often feels like a scramble; and leaders have actually found they could pool resources and speed up timelines when they look across previously un-aligned programs. If you're curious about hosting one for your org and fellow change makers, let me know. #change #transformation

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Last week, Peter and I learned that our podcast received 1000 downloads, and we are still riding that wave of excitement. Let's keep the momentum going!!! 🙌🏼 Our latest episode is now live. You can listen here 👉🏽 https://bit.ly/dtpep28 or on your favorite podcast platform. #designthinkerpodcast #designthinking #designthinkers #podcast #podcastepisode #newepisodealert

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Timely article from McKinsey & Company Mostly, I see a pretty strong divide between the CEO and the C-suite team. By divide I refer to the level of candor and vulnerability. Going both ways. What I do see is a subset of the C-suite or just one member who truly engage with the CEO in a deeper relationship of trust. Everyone knows. Everyone pretends it isn’t there. One result is an even more guarded team. Conflict is avoided. Real debate never happens. CEO stays isolated. The cure? It’s up to the CEO and the team to make a decision to change. Find a coach. Get away. Have real talk. Thank me later. #leadership #ceociach #culture #vulnerability #team #csuite #ceo

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👀 Is lack of clarity costing your tech team time, resources, and progress? Discover how clarity unlocks your team’s potential to solve the biggest challenges… At recent industry events, one theme has stood out: Clarity isn’t just helpful—it’s essential for tackling every kind of problem. Leaders like Bonnie Evangelista, Jennifer Kron, and Bharat Patel agree that clarity is foundational for addressing both routine issues and complex, high-stakes challenges. When it comes to solving the bigger problems, clarity becomes our most powerful tool. Here’s how clarity drives tech leadership: 🔹 Defining Needs: Clear communication on what’s needed lays the groundwork for every solution, ensuring that all teams—engineering, finance, and beyond—are aligned from the outset. Without it, even the best teams can end up solving the wrong problems. 🔹 Setting Powerful Goals and Success Metrics: Once needs are defined, teams can create specific, impactful goals that clearly define what success looks like. These goals focus efforts on achieving meaningful outcomes that make a difference. 🔹 Securing Funding: Clear understanding among stakeholders smooths the path to funding. When everyone grasps the project’s true benefits, funding approvals follow with less resistance. Without clarity, misunderstandings can arise—imagine finance thinking success means reducing users, when the goal is to increase them. 🔹 Simplifying Decision-Making: Clarity enables faster, more confident go/no-go and crossroads decisions. When everyone understands the direction, decision-making becomes simpler and more strategic. 🔹 Supporting Risk and Change Management: Clarity reduces resistance to change and helps teams identify and mitigate potential risks early on. When everyone understands the goals and reasons behind decisions, teams can adapt quickly and stay aligned, reducing delays and minimizing disruption. 🔹 Streamlining Development: Clarity keeps development on track, enabling cross-team collaboration and reducing wasted resources. No more “false starts” or sidetracks. 🔹 Enabling Seamless Evolutions: Clear goals and shared understanding enable smooth transitions as projects move forward, minimizing downtime as teams adapt from one phase to another. Without clarity, months can be lost just trying to adapt. In the journey through tech innovation, clarity is both our compass and our guide, essential for navigating all problems and absolutely critical for tackling the biggest ones. ✨ It sounds simple, and we know it's NOT! How do you ensure clarity on your team? I’d love to hear your strategies and experiences! 👇 AFCEA Central Maryland Chapter AFCEA NOVA AFCEA International Association of the United States Army - AUSA Stacy Brown Maria Robinson (Tates) #growth #communications #CEO

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When is the last time you got excited about buying a minimally viable dinner? How about a minimally viable car, or a minimally viable lawn mower? I saw a LinkedIn post today advocating for a minimally viable product (MVP) approach to digital delivery. Here’s why I disagree. Most organizations are not savvy enough to use an MVP strategy, and they just use the term “MVP” with partners to negotiate a lower price of delivery. I see two recurring scenarios: 1. A mature organization with an existing publically available digital property (mobile app, or website) tries to take an MVP approach to a technical migration of the digital property. This digital property is integrated to ERP, OMS, customer service, and 20+ other point solution systems. It’s really hard to have an MVP for a mature property with 25 integrations and robust customer facing feature set. If the MVP requires 25 integrations to launch, then there is really nothing minimal about the approach. Realistically, brands can’t deprecate functionality from an existing digital property without hurting the customer experience and losing sales. Scope creep is inevitable, and the migration will blow up. 2. An smaller organization says they want an MVP for phase 1, but they don’t have an aggressive roadmap for phases 2-10. The organization can’t focus on roadmapping future phases because they’re heads down delivering phase 1. Phase 1 launches. It underperforms because it doesn’t really meet customer needs. Funding is pulled from the program because the financial model isn’t valid anymore. We need to move away from MVPs. We need to move towards experiences that exceed customer expectations.

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Dialoguing with a client this week about a transformation initiative we’ll start to scope out soon, I was asked this: what is a technique that’s worked for you to get executive teams aligned quickly? I responded “by defining words.” My client started laughing… and I believed he thought I would participate in the laugh with him… but I didn’t… I kept a serious 🧐 stern look on my face… and I could see in his face that his laughing was turning into a bit of discomfort for him. Now, I did want to laugh with my client but I was able to maintain my composure to show I was serious. After his laugh he stared at me for about 10 seconds and then said “you’re serious”… I said “absolutely.” I explained that over time I had seen many transformation failures where I perceived that leaders had moved forward HOPING everyone understood and was aligned from the start. I told him that Hope Is Not A Strategy. I told him that gaining alignment happens in many places… and that there is a need to get aligned on alignment. He said give him an example. I told him that the Executive/Senior team leading the transformation must be 100% aligned on four words from the start in order to intentionally and most effectively design and create their desired future state… 1. Aspiration = What the organization is desiring to become. 2. Vision = The bold and inspiring thing (s) you will do. 3. Strategy = What will happen written out clearly and concisely. 4. Plan = What will be executed, when, by who, and how follow up and learning for improvement will occur. He said in all his years it was just assumed that experienced, intelligent, and savvy business professionals who knew this all to well individually would somehow land on the same page collectively… and then said “this could work to prevent lots of unnecessary tension and strife from get go”… I’m adopting defining words.” Me: be my guest. Maybe this technique can be added to your toolbox. #leadership #strategy #culture #leadershipdevelopment #transformation

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Achievement unlocked. Finally completed the Prosci Change Practitioner program last week. I figured, all these years doing change communications and change activation programs... It's about time I got certified. Bring on the frameworks! It was full-on for 3 days. I grew a bunch of new brain cells thanks to David William Lee... to the point that by day 3 morning, my brain was scrambled and I was physically exhausted. In retrospect, I would have done my final assignment in a different way if I had taken a moment to clarify the ask for the assignment. 3 takeaways from the program: 1. Change managers need to be there from the start Change managers need to be part of any change initiative, big and small, to ensure a higher chance of successful change adoption -- up to 7X more based on a Prosci Research. 2. Experience is gold Without the instructor and participants sharing real-life examples, the program would not be the same. 3. The end is the beginning Completing the program leads me to the beginning of a new, structured way to look at managing change for maximum impact... I still need to go back to the books to refresh my memory this week! A highly recommended program offered by Prosci Singapore for anyone who is serious about making change work for people.

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Here at Funding for Good we truly believe in the power of well-timed and thoughtful business planning. Right now, we’re planning for the year ahead. This includes scheduling events and webinars, mapping revenue streams, and building content calendars. We aim to start the new year with clarity, energy, and purpose that translates into hitting our revenue goals and creating better life-work balance. We’ve found that the key to achieving both is smart and well-timed business planning. Read our full blog at https://lnkd.in/eDGGWCEm #nonprofit #fundingforgood #strategicplanning #businessplan #consulting

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🎃Happy Halloween from the world of Change Management! 🎃 It’s that time of year when ghosts roam the hallways (or maybe just your inbox), and "monstrous" project timelines lurk in the shadows. At Change Specialists, we know the scariest challenges in change aren’t from haunted houses but from navigating complex transitions, vanquishing resistance, and, of course, banishing the ever-looming "scope creep!" 👻 So, here’s a little Halloween humour: 🕸️ Why did the project manager bring a broom to the office? Because it was a "sweeping" success! 🧹 As we celebrate, let’s take a moment to toast all the leaders out there who face the skeletons in their closets (both figuratively and literally). May your Q4 remain spooky only in spirit, and may you slay every project like a true change champion! 🕷️ Happy Halloween from us all at Change Specialists – because managing change doesn’t have to be a horror story. #Halloween #ChangeManagement #HappyHalloween #ProjectManagement

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Let's focus on what's emerging, instead of who's right. Agile values are perennially useful because they're so simple and leave *lots* of room for evolution and rebirth.

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I'm a little overdue for my weekly recognition and public appreciation of those mentors for whom I am grateful beyond words. That said, I've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks (and years), reflecting on the amazing leader and mentor Richard Denenny was to, and for me. I initially met Richard as our organization's general counsel, and - having spent a large amount of time around lawyers in a professional capacity - immediately saw that, while he was incredible in that role, he was far more. As the organization changed structure and I reported to him as our COO, I was continuously and happily surprised at the ways that he showed true leadership, by example. Among the things that I learned and continue to try to follow in his example: * Stay curious and be open to new ideas: as part of an AI/NLP startup, there was a good culture of innovation, but Richard was always truly curious and interested in possibilities, and had the best elements of a startup thinker, balanced with someone who knew that we also had a P&L to manage. * Trust your team: many of the tools in my toolkit as far as transformative change are new to many orgs, and/or have not been executed well in those orgs, leading to skepticism. Richard gave me a great amount of latitude in making substantial changes in ways that hadn't worked in the company before. They ultimately were successful, but many other leaders wouldn't have entertained approaches that were new or questionable based on prior attempts. * Give credit, take responsibility: as I write these short posts about my mentors, another pattern that's emerged for me is that the BEST leaders take accountability when there are issues, but are humble when there's success. Richard gave me more credit than I was due to some of the positive cultural and financial impacts of the changes we made, but when a given release or customer conversation didn't go quite well, there was never any blame. * Take care of your team: another pattern that is pervasive in all of my exploration and reflection on my mentors - truly care about and be part of your team. Richard was (and I'm sure still is!) one of the best listeners when working through issues with teams and team members, and was always compassionate and caring. This is a virtuous cycle - it inspired a fierce loyalty and respect that enabled the team and team members - myself most definitely included - which enabled us to build, deliver and support some big, great things. Thank you, Richard, for all of the wisdom, guidance and inspiration you've provided. It's an honor to call you mentor, Capitan.

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Want in on the six steps to set your org up for change management success? 🌟 It all boils down to one fundamental principle: understanding and supporting people through transitions. Because it's the people that need adapt and adopt the change for it to stick. I've seen rebellions against new processes sink the most well-intentioned evolutions. Learn proven methods to drive successful CX transformation from the TTEC Digital blog: https://ttecd.co/4hvZciy

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“If you want people to behave differently, the environment needs to change.” – Laslo Bock (former Head of People Operations, Google) Out of the many change management models that I’ve seen, I have found the Six Sources of Influence to be one of the best change management frameworks available. Many more people could benefit from learning this model because Crucial Learning has not marketed it as a change management framework! I'll introduce this model using a story about my blender, read the link to learn more. #changemanagement #leadership

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Check out this latest blog post written in collaboration with the amazing team at CAVU! We dive into the crucial topic of emotional intelligence in Agile leadership. Read more about it here: https://lnkd.in/g-grgRsb

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Ready to throw your workplace into chaos? Meet your Chief Chaos Officer! 👋 Hi! I’m Jim Wayhew! I am not your average “Chief Culture Officer” (which is probably good news for you). I’m the Chief Chaos Officer (CCO)—and if you’re tired of all the “culture” and “execution” talk, you’ve finally found the right corner of LinkedIn. For the past 20+ years, I’ve been the kind of leader who thrives on keeping people on their toes. I’ve perfected the art of overcomplicating strategies, micromanaging every single detail, and making sure there’s no clarity for miles around. Because let’s be honest—the more uncertainty, the better. Then, on October 31st, 2023, it hit me—I’ve been doing it all wrong…or maybe I’ve been doing it exactly right. Because chaos? That’s where I excel. So this week, while Coach Mayhew’s off enjoying a peaceful break, I’m here to share every tip you need to ensure your team stays exactly where they are—stuck. If you’re looking for someone to encourage vision and execution, stop reading. But if you want a CCO who understands disruption, doubt, and disorder, read on! Get ready, because this week, I am taking over "Coach Mayhew's" feed and creating chaos with everything I know, including: • How to Avoid Getting Things Done: Anti-Execution Tips from Your Chief Chaos • Strategy Is Overrated. Here’s How to Derail Yours Completely. • The Art of Finger-Pointing: How to Avoid Accountability in Every Way Possible Drop me a note in the comments, and let me know your most "Chaotic" corporate moments!

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This is a thought-provoking article by Kate Vitasek that speaks to a topic that I can definitely relate to, having spent almost 25 years working in "challenger" organizations, most notably our last decade at Coevolve. If I look back at the best engagements with prospects, they all have some common themes. High levels of collaboration, a solution vs. product focus, and a real willingness to embrace an approach that was truly different than the traditional options available. On the other hand, the very formal RFx processes - entirely focused on normalization, "apples to apples comparisons", and trying to fit a differentiated solution into a standardized response spreadsheet - generally did not result in the best outcomes for any party involved. In our industry, there's just too much variance between vendor products, service definitions, integration capabilities, automation and other solution components to allow for accurate comparisons under a traditional RFP model. It's much more about the partner's capabilities, track record, cultural fit and level of innovation. I'd be very happy to see more organizations go to market in this way, looking for a true long-term partnership. https://lnkd.in/g3dpWP_K

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Today's Jen-ism rallies around our Team Leaders - the very backbone of any organization. I ask 2 introspective questions that need to be talked about (A LOT) within your C-Suite discussions on ways to A: Support your team and B: Put your money where your Jargon is. #ManagementDevelopment #CompanyCulture #RealLeadership Here's the link: Save, share and refer back to this later. And as alway, for this and other introspective ideas #CallJen https://lnkd.in/e7mxuWTT

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