article thumbnail

Planning Doesn’t Have to Be the Enemy of Agile

Harvard Business Review

Management by Objectives (MBO) became the height of corporate fashion in the late 1950s. Later, MBO evolved into strategic planning. Why engage in a slow, painful planning exercise when you’re not even going to follow the plan? The capacity and willingness of managers to plan developed throughout the century.

Agility 15
article thumbnail

The Freelance Economy Still Runs on Word of Mouth

Harvard Business Review

But we’re not quite there yet, according to a new survey conducted for MBO Partners, which provides back-office services to independent workers — which it dubs “solopreneurs.” million estimate, derived from an online poll of 2,017 people, is up from 17.7 What follows are edited excerpts of our conversation.

MBO 8
Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

How VC John Doerr Sets (and Achieves) Goals

Harvard Business Review

Edited excerpts of that conversation follow: HBR: Why did you write this book? Andy had created this system for goal setting that was deceptively simple, but also the polar opposite of the conventional management by objectives (MBO) systems, which tend to be top down, hierarchical, annual, and linked to compensation.

Goal 8
article thumbnail

The Management Thinker We Should Never Have Forgotten

Harvard Business Review

Deming offered up 14 principles that stood in stark contrast to the sorts of practices he thought were eroding the performance of top corporations in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. Eliminate MBO. Eliminate exhortations for the work force; instead, focus on the system and morale. Eliminate work standard quotas for production.

Deming 10