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Five things you need to know today, Woodstock, zoo photos and games people play (even me)
Five things you need to know today, Woodstock, zoo photos and games people play (even me)

Business Journals

time3 days ago

  • Business
  • Business Journals

Five things you need to know today, Woodstock, zoo photos and games people play (even me)

Good morning, Boston. Happy National Relaxation Day. Don't forget to nominate someone for the BBJ's Power 50 — nominations close on Sunday. Here are the five things you need to know in local business news to start your last day of the workweek. 1. Boston's only direct flight to Hawaii is discontinued Hawaiian Airlines is suspending its direct flight from Boston to Honolulu starting in November, Isabel Hart reports. GET TO KNOW YOUR CITY Find Local Events Near You Connect with a community of local professionals. Explore All Events 2. Former Bridj CEO to take AI aviation company public via SPAC Matt George, whose defunct-and-resurrected bus startup once dreamed of driverless vehicles, is now behind a company is building AI software to assist aircraft pilots — and it's planning to go public via a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, Lucia Maffei reports. 3. Mismanagement, inequities found at cannabis commission An audit of the state's cannabis regulatory agency found that mismanagement and a lack of internal controls at the commission resulted in violations of state regulations and procedural inequities, Isabel Hart reports. Sponsor this page! Want your brand aligned with the 5 Things You Need to Know? Contact Jill Cohen for more information and sponsorship opportunities. 4. Fired Market Basket execs ordered to stay away from stores Grant Welker reports that a Middlesex Superior Court judge issued an injunction on Thursday against two fired Market Basket employees, ordering them to stay away from the grocery chain's properties. 5. Lilly's latest billion-dollar-plus obesity deal The latest obesity bet from Eli Lilly and Co. involves a Boston biotech based out of the pharma giant's new Fort Point R&D center, Hannah Green reports. What else you need to know On the radio This morning at 6:45 or 8:45 on GBH Radio's "Morning Edition" listen for Jess Aloe's report, the "Boston Business Journal Minute," a quick highlight of the week's top stories. Not near the radio? Listen here. What's going on? The BBJ's first-ever 'Summer Soiree at the Zoo' event was a smash hit. Check out the photos. Today in history On August 15, 1969, the Woodstock Festival kicked off at Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. (On This Day In Music) (Scroll down for an AI-assisted walk down Memory Lane.) What's good on WERS-FM Dancing Barefoot, by Patti Smith Group What I'm watching The Goes Wrong Show, on Prime Games people play (even me) Happy Friday, everyone! I'm getting ready for a quick trip to Nashville to visit my son, but don't worry — I'll be back here in this space first thing Monday morning! Meanwhile, since I'll be spending some time with my son and future daughter-in-law and my wife, I am already preparing for the board games they will want to play. All of them are board-game lovers. I, on the other hand, am not a board-game lover. Whenever my son would come home from college, my family would make me play Settlers of Catan. I can tolerate that game. The one board game I do enjoy playing is called Wingspan, which I've mentioned in this space before, and which I recommend to people who like board games or who like birds but not to people who like neither board games nor birds. Are there other board games I'd try? That's a good question. The New York Times recently mentioned a game I'd consider — called Ticket to Ride — but only because it wrote specifically that Ticket to Ride is a board game for people who don't like board games. It's like they know me. According to the Times, it's simple to learn, quick to master and 'strategically plentiful.' The point of the game? Players race to position colorful trains along routes across North America — from Boston to New York, Omaha to Denver, Salt Lake City to San Francisco, etc. Seems simple and doesn't take hours to complete. I haven't played it yet, but if it's as good as the Times says it is, I would be open to giving it a try. As you think about what to do in your summer house these last few weeks before school starts again, maybe it's a game for you and your family too. PARTING SHOT Classic photos from Woodstock, taken by Henry Diltz were brought to life using AI: Subscribe to the Morning Edition or Afternoon Edition for the business news you need to know, all free. Largest Business Advocacy Organizations in Massachusetts Total revenue Rank Prior Rank Organization/Prior rank (*unranked in 2024)/ 1 1 Union of Concerned Scientists 2 2 MassBio 3 4 Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association View this list

Why Hypothesis-Driven Strategies Help Companies Navigate Uncertainty
Why Hypothesis-Driven Strategies Help Companies Navigate Uncertainty

Forbes

time02-07-2025

  • Business
  • Forbes

Why Hypothesis-Driven Strategies Help Companies Navigate Uncertainty

Laureen Knudsen is CTO of Empower Consultant Group and an industry leader in Transformation, Member of Power50, Top 100 Women in Tech. About twenty-five years ago, the software industry admitted a fundamental truth: We couldn't plan development work upfront because we didn't know what we didn't know. This realization birthed the Agile Manifesto. Today, we face a similar challenge at the strategic level: We don't know what we don't know about how to best achieve our strategies and objectives. Many executives have a hard time admitting that they don't know the best path forward to meet their goals. Yet, when we examine how businesses actually operate, how we place bets when funding products or projects, we must acknowledge that our annual plans rarely lead to the outcomes we anticipated. This year presents unique challenges. With explosive AI growth and an uncertain global economy, companies must be ready to pivot at a moment's notice. Organizations must, therefore, embrace flexibility in their approach to reaching their goals. The Opportunity Advantage Companies with the flexibility to pivot quickly will have a competitive edge over those following fixed, long-term plans that can't adapt to change. The era of three-year strategic plans that remain unchanged is over. Today, between the economic, technological and geopolitical disruptions over the last few years, even three-month plans may require constant adjustment. Consider supply chain management. Companies must monitor market conditions regularly, as even a slight delay in reacting to competitors could lead to significant financial losses. While long-range planning remains necessary, they must be intentional about our objectives while assuming our methods for achieving them will evolve. The Hypothesis-Driven Business Model Drawing from Lean UX principles, the hypothesis-driven business operates on this belief: We know our strategies, goals and objectives, but we cannot know the best way to achieve them. This sounds simple, but transitioning from traditional operating models to this approach requires fundamental changes in leadership and execution. The framework requires setting clear company objectives, then checking frequently to ensure you're taking the optimal route to your goals. While planning and articulating strategies remain valuable, spending months creating detailed plans is not. Following those plans without validating that they represent the fastest path to success can leave you behind competitors. Plans are hypotheses, best guesses for achieving outcomes. Recognizing this distinction is crucial. Traditional approaches involved creating annual plans and strategic visions, then forgetting the strategy to focus solely on plan execution without checking if business objectives were being met. Today's approach inverts this model. As soon as plans are complete, each team should verify whether the chosen path remains the quickest route to your goals. If not, pivot the organization toward a better path. This doesn't create chaos when proper processes and guidelines exist. Effective processes must: • Facilitate the seamless flow of work throughout the organization. • Reduce bottlenecks. • Include fast feedback loops. • Align tightly with customers. • Generate data naturally. • Enable quick data interpretation and response. The Plan-Do-Check-Act Framework Rather than inventing new methods, you can adapt proven approaches. The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) method provides an iterative four-step management method for continuous process and product improvement. At the executive level, PDCA, or similar frameworks like the observe, orient, decide and act (OODA) loop, helps focus on reaching goals rather than simply completing plans: 1. Plan: Teams create hypotheses to achieve objectives. 2. Do: They design experiments to test hypotheses and begin implementation. 3. Check: Assess business objective progress at regular intervals, sharing both successes and failures to identify the best path forward. 4. Act: Align on the best results and repeat the cycle. The Mountain Summit Analogy Consider the analogy of climbing a mountain when implementing this strategy: 1. The Summit: Your objective is a mountain peak. All teams share the goal of reaching it quickly and efficiently. 2. Guardrails: Provide constraints (e.g., "the west side offers better routes"). 3. Path Selection: Teams assess their skills and choose their fastest route. Some select short but steep paths, others choose longer but less steep routes that they can navigate quickly. 4. Regular Check-Ins: Leaders meet weekly or bi-weekly to compare results, sharing what worked, what didn't and what inhibited progress. 5. Evolution: Adjust plans and guardrails based on learnings and repeat. Real-World Application Here's how this looks in practice: A division targets 8% sales growth (the non-negotiable "summit"). Each product manager collaborates with their team (including engineering), sales territory manager and marketing to develop the fastest path to this goal. The hypothesis isn't the goal itself, but the method for reaching it. Each team tests their hypothesis and tracks results. Marketing and product management monitor news, global changes and customer pressures, helping sales teams pivot quickly when new information emerges. Engineering develops new features rapidly. Organizational leaders convene regularly to compare results, share effective strategies and modify plans based on findings. Successful teams share their methods, as do teams that have struggled. Every team uses the learnings to modify their approach, creating consistent goals while allowing each to determine their best method to success. Moving Forward Long-term strategic planning grows more challenging each year. Strategic planning assumptions, especially this year, may not remain valid over time. Even decisions backed by historical data can be disrupted by external factors. While you can develop strategies effectively, determining execution paths becomes increasingly complex as world politics and economics continuously impact your approach to success. These uncertainties can paralyze planning, or you can use them as catalysts to create processes that enable you to compete effectively in the future and pivot as needed. Hypothesis-driven business acknowledges these uncertainties and enables rapid organizational pivots. By embracing this approach, companies can transform uncertainty from a threat into a competitive advantage, staying agile enough to capitalize on opportunities while maintaining focus on their core objectives. Forbes Technology Council is an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs and technology executives. Do I qualify?

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