Embracing Change at the PegaWorld Conference
Last month, Eric Norton and I attended Pega’s annual conference, PegaWorld2019, along with 5,000 professionals from across the globe. Pega is an innovative platform that has automated business processes for large and small organizations, including a growing number of State of California departments. Highlands Consulting’s…
Read MoreThinking about Change Globally, Acting on Change Locally
I recently attended the 2019 ACMP Global Conference in Orlando with a new perspective this year. Having recently been appointed as Treasurer to the ACMP NorCal Chapter Board, my mission was twofold: to absorb the latest global thinking about change management, then to bring those…
Read MoreTeam Bonding Fun
In March, the Highlands Consulting team enjoyed a group retreat to celebrate recent successes and join in some team bonding fun. Catching a break from the rain – for the most part – we spent the afternoon at Safari West, a 400-acre wildlife preserve in…
Read More5 Ways to Manage Your Emotions During a Change
Maybe your organization’s big audacious goal involves changing technology and processes. Or perhaps you set some ambitious personal goals and are in the throes of marathon training or dieting. Whenever change is involved, some good, bad, and downright ugly emotions are bound to turn up.…
Read MoreA Workflow Management Tool for Everyone: Kanban
Perhaps one of the things I love most about the consulting field is the ever-expanding, creative ways that project managers and teams look to increase communication and workflow efficiency. One of my favorite tools is Kanban. Developed in the late 1940s by Taiichi Ohno of…
Read MoreFI$Cal: A Non-IT Project?
The Financial Information System for California, known as FI$Cal, is setting records for state IT project expenditures. But from the perspective of departments transitioning to this new technology, it’s not an IT project in the traditional sense. For these departments, success depends upon their ability…
Read MoreO Tannenbaum!
Highlands Consulting donated five Christmas trees to the Sacramento Children’s Home this week. To make things fun, we divided into teams to decorate the trees and had an internal competition before donating them. It turns out we’re a pretty competitive group, at least when it…
Read MoreShowing that We Care!
During this holiday season, legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden’s words come to mind: “Seek opportunities to show you care. The smallest gestures often make the biggest difference.” Since our founding in 2002, Highlands Consulting has embraced this philosophy and made it an essential part…
Read MoreHuman Learning Theory… for All Ages!
All projects require learning of some kind – to work with a new team, to understand new processes, and/or to use new systems. As managers lead teams through the learning process, they can draw upon learning theories such as andragogy, constructivism, behaviorism, and cognitivism. But…
Read MoreSelection to Success in Three Months
Is it conceivable to automate a 100% paper-based process in less than three months, even for a complex State environmental program? The answer is yes! This week, one of our clients at the State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) delivered a presentation that recounted…
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