Ricardo Viana Vargas's Blog, page 5

The Ebb and Flow of Ideation and Its Role on Brainstorming

In this week's episode, Ricardo shares a concept he saw in a Design Thinking course he did recently: The Ebb and Flow of Ideation.

Dev Patnaik introduces this straightforward and effective concept in the Product Development Best Practices Report. It is centered on the concept that better ideas are interspersed with absurd ones during ideation, and a wild idea is the fuel to generate new brilliant ones.

Leveraging your Product Development Results with the Kano Model

In this week's episode, Ricardo introduces the Kano Model, one of the easiest and more effective ways to prioritize product and service's features based on their potential to satisfy clients. Listen to the episode to learn more about the five patterns or categories created by Noriaki Kano to classify the features and identify those you should focus on developing.

You Should Learn How to Manage by Exception

In this week's episode, Ricardo discusses one of the critical principles of the PRINCE2 method: the management by exception.

Managing by exception is a key pillar to save time and the overload of communications by setting boundaries of action and escalating issues. This principle is useful in every type of project and every method.

Listen to the episode to learn more about avoiding unnecessary reporting and communication, empowering your teams to manage their work boundaries and keeping your focus on exceptions.

5 Tips to Minimize the Challenges of Virtual Meetings

In this week's episode, Ricardo gives tips for optimizing virtual meetings. As everyone knows, this type of arrangement has become a "nightmare" for many. Endless hours in front of a small screen have become a torment for productivity and performance. There are 5 simple tips that are much more related to discipline and behavior than to any type of technology.

Who Should Make the First Move in a Negotiation: The Anchoring Bias

This week's topic goes back to negotiation and who should make the first offer. Many researchers claim that the Anchoring bias provides an edge to those who make the first offer since the human tendency supports that counter-offers tend to be proposed around the initial starting point.

But there is a way around this if you don't make the first offer...

Listen to the episode to find out more.

Why Shouldn't You Outsource What You Do not Know How to Do?

This week, Ricardo reflects on companies' benefits and challenges with the visible increase in interest in outsourcing activities, especially concerning outsourced activities due to incapacity and lack of knowledge about work.

He ponders the damage that the lack of knowledge, mastery of technology and know-how, can generate in the project's sustainability and its benefits.

More Abstract Work Suffers More from the Dunning-Kruger Effect

This week Ricardo returns to discuss the Dunning-Kruger effect and how it is usually more visible in projects and initiatives with more abstract deliveries and products.

It is important to remember that the Dunning-Kruger effect occurs when the professional demonstrates confidence and a sense of competence incompatible with his job's real ability.

This time, he goes back to discussing one of the most critical aspects of cognitive bias and how it is less evident in projects with clear scope and deliveries and much more apparent when the product, service and purpose of the project are less tangible.

Understanding the Major Global Risks with the WEF Global Risk Report 2021

The WEF just published the Global Risk Report 2021. In its 16th edition, the report addresses the significant global risks like war, natural disasters, infectious diseases, and several other events and hazards that could jeopardize companies and governments' operations. In this episode, Ricardo highlights the report's main finds and goes back to 2020 to see how the landscape changed with the COVID-19 pandemia.

Outputs and Outcomes: When Movement Does Not Necessarily Mean Progress

Nowadays, all those leading projects and initiatives only talk about outcomes. In this week episode, Ricardo reflects on the concept that outcomes are everything while outputs are irrelevant. For him, outputs and outcomes are equally important because outputs are the only way to produce outcomes. The problem is the disconnection between the outputs we product and the outcome we want to reach. We need to understand that many times a lot of movement, does not mean a lot of progress towards your strategic intent.

The New PMP Exam and Its Relationship with the PMBOK Guide

With the new PMP® Exam just released by PMI, Ricardo has received several messages asking about the new exam and the relationship with the PMBOK® Guide 6th Edition and the new PMBOK® Guide 7th Edition that is close to being released.

He approaches the main differences in the exam and that until the new PMBOK® Guide is released, the part of the exam that MAY cover the guide will be based on the 6th edition as mentioned by PMI at https://www.pmi.org/pmbok-guide-stand...