Dec 22, 2015 | Cardsmith, Creativity, Design, Productivity, Products, Project management, Strategy, Thinking tools, Uncategorized, Work
In the first part of this series, I explored using agile project milestones for creative endeavors. In this case, we’re using that term to broadly describe projects that need to be planned and tracked, but perhaps aren’t as concrete or knowable as projects that... 
Dec 15, 2015 | Cardsmith, Productivity, Project management, Strategy, Thinking tools, Uncategorized, Work
At Cardsmith, we spend a lot of time thinking about project management. I’m not just referring to making project management faster, more responsive, and more rewarding. We also reflect on what it means to “manage” a project and, beyond that, how we define and... 
Dec 2, 2015 | Cardsmith, Productivity, Project management, Strategy, Work
Have you ever worked hard to design the ideal work process and then been disappointed when your team just doesn’t see things the way that you do? Perhaps they pretend to follow along when you describe how the process should work, but then you realize a few weeks later... 
Nov 16, 2015 | Cardsmith, Creativity, Design, Portland, Productivity, Project management, Startups, Strategy, Thinking tools, Work
How are people using Cardsmith? We sat down with one particular user this week to find out her story. Ann Sanderson is a planning machine. As a small business owner and political activist, she needs to be able to keep all her projects organized and track their... 
Sep 21, 2015 | Cardsmith, Portland, Productivity, Project management, Startups, Strategy, Thinking tools, Uncategorized, Work
I’m a fan of a weekly meeting when working with a small team on a creative project that goes for many weeks or months. In a well-functioning team, a well-executed collaborative meeting of no more than one hour sets a kind of cadence that energizes and aligns the...