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Planning Doesn’t Have to Be the Enemy of Agile

Harvard Business Review

Early in the twentieth century Henri Fayol identified the job of managers as to plan, organize, command, coordinate, and control. The capacity and willingness of managers to plan developed throughout the century. Management by Objectives (MBO) became the height of corporate fashion in the late 1950s.

Agility 15
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The Management Thinker We Should Never Have Forgotten

Harvard Business Review

Eliminate MBO. Management by objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable. Eliminate exhortations for the work force; instead, focus on the system and morale. Eliminate work standard quotas for production. Avoid numerical goals.

Deming 12
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There’s No One System for Paying Your Global Sales Force

Harvard Business Review

Performance Metrics: Pay on revenues (timing determined locally) for individual (not team) performance; pay incentives rarely for management by objective (MBO) achievement (e.g. Increased effectiveness and fewer errors through consistency in data collection and reporting, and the creation and use of operational best practices.