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Articles by Alex McDonnell
Alex McDonnell, our co-founder, writes on complexity, operational excellence and how service organisations are managed. His newest articles come first, then everything he has written since 2020, by year and by topic. His podcasts and newsletter are on alexmcdonnell.com.
Latest from Alex
1 October 2026Building for AI right first timeRead on alexmcdonnell.com1 October 2026What Ireland’s AI plans mean for your businessRead on alexmcdonnell.com30 September 2026Why most organisations are never designed, and what to do about itRead on alexmcdonnell.com8 September 2026Who Designed Your Organisation?Read on alexmcdonnell.com23 August 2026Concurrent ManagementRead on alexmcdonnell.com9 August 2026Who actually owns how your business works?Read on alexmcdonnell.com
Start here
Everything Alex has written, by year
Open a year to see its articles. Newer articles are on alexmcdonnell.com; earlier ones are here.
2026
- Building for AI right first time
- What Ireland’s AI plans mean for your business
- Why most organisations are never designed, and what to do about it
- Who Designed Your Organisation?
- Concurrent Management
- Who actually owns how your business works?
- The Integrated Execution Governance Architecture
- You bought the Enterprise level platform. So why are the numbers still in spreadsheets?
- The capability mix every growing business needs!
- Structured Collaboration on a Page
- When nobody owns process, everybody owns the chaos.
- Fixing What’s Broken Isn’t Enough
- Masters Tip #1: If Bob Rotella was coaching Managers……….
- Masters #2: If You Want Better Results, Stop Focusing on Results!
- Masters Tip #3: What Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy Would Do If They Were Business Managers!
- ………….But You Can’t See Which Half!
- The Silent Killer of Performance: Unstructured Collaboration
- Why Most Problems in a Business Lurk in the Lead-to-Cash Process.
- Designing Collaboration to Prevent Problems, Not Just Solve Them
- There is a better way !
- The Futility of Organisations Pursuing Advanced Technologies While Holding on to Legacy Thinking.
- Why Empowerment Without a Collaboration Architecture Creates Ambiguity, Not Performance
- What Tim Cook Learned from Steve Jobs About Simplicity, Complexity, and Leadership
- Structured Collaboration: The Difference That Makes the Difference
2025
- Beyond the Code: Why Modern Organisations Need Engineers More Than Ever
- Untamed Complexity, Spreads Like Wildfire so you need………..
- Team Effectiveness Audit — 16 Diagnostic Questions
- What Modern Managers Can Learn from Software Engineering.
- Structure is not a constraint. It’s a competitive advantage.
- From Startup Flow to Scalable Flow: Part 5
- From Startup Flow to Scalable Flow: Part 4
- Bridging the Great Divide: Management Innovation in the Age of AI
- From Startup Flow to Scalable Flow: Part 3
- From Startup Flow to Scalable Flow: Part 2
- From Startup Flow to Scalable Flow: Part 1
- From Organization to Habitat: Designing for the Modern Workforce
- The Five Biggest Challenges Facing Modern Organisations — And What to Do About It.
- So, You Don’t Like Silos? What’s Your Alternative?
- Connecting the BMC, VPC and ABEC
- Traditional Management Worked—But Now It Needs an Upgrade
- Do the Teams in your Organisation Propagate or Absorb Complexity?
- The Architecture of Complexity and Structured Collaboration
- The Hidden Complexity of Service and Knowledge Work—and an Alternative
- From “Can-Do” to “How-To”
- Growing Beyond a “Can-Do” Culture: The Journey to Organisational Excellence!
- Becoming a Future Ready Organisation
- 5 Hidden Costs of Unmanaged Processes
- Leadership and Management: Different Competencies, Shared Roles
- The Engagement Equation: Unlocking Leadership Strategies for an Inspired Workforce
- David Neal: Leadership Guide for the Reluctant Technology Leader / Manager
- Microsoft’s Deployment Advice: Begin With Your Business Processes.
- The Perils of Building a “Can-Do” Organisation
- Beyond Keeping the Lights On: Why Execution is the Key to Competitive Advantage
- The Hidden Costs of Unmanaged Processes
- Beware of Simple Solutions to Complex Problems
2024
- Seamless Execution for a Complex World: Powered by Structured Collaboration
- Structured Collaboration
- Complexity Explodes When Ingenuity Runs Wild!
- Seamless Execution: The Path to Digital Success
- Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success
- Complexity: The Next Management Frontier
- “The Single Biggest Reason Why Start-ups Succeed” by Bill Gross, founder of Idealabs
- Two Things to Stop Doing with Teams that Will Dramatically Improve Performance in Complex Organisations.
- Bureaucracy is major contributor to wasting your most precious resource: Middle Managers
- How to Release the Full Potential of Your Frontline and Mid-Level Managers.
- The Benefits of Developing The Skills of Frontline and Mid-Level Managers.
- Bridging the Operational and HR Obligations of Line Managers and Mid-Level Managers
- The Strategic Importance of Active HR Planning
- 60 Seconds on Losing Founder’s Mentality®
- The 5 HPO (High Performing Organisation) factors and their 35 characteristics.
- Amy Edmondson: The Science of Failing Well
- How Well Does Your Organisation Communicate?
- 10 Minutes with Roger Martin: A Plan Is Not a Strategy
- Managing Complexity!
- Excessive Complexity & Bureaucracy Score Highest in Bain “Management Tools & Trends” Survey 2023
- Your Intellectual Capital Walks Out the Door Every Night, What Happens If It Doesn’t Return?
- Growing Fast?: So is Your Operational Debt.
- Solving Operational and Organisational Debt
- 60 Seconds with Jonathan Raymond: Addressing Organizational Debt (nothing to do with money)
- 60 Seconds with Aaron Dignan: Are You Building an Organisation with Traffic Lights or Roundabouts?
- 60 Seconds with Ann Miura-Ko from VC FLOODGATE: Minimising Technical & Organisational Debt.
- The Management Paradigm Driving The World’s Most Valuable Firms
- How The Discipline Of Management Grew To Be Cool
- Management & Leadership: Claire Hughes Johnson, ex COO Stripe.
- Bob Sutton: “Friction is simply putting obstacles in front of people that slow them down, that make their jobs more difficult “
- 60 Seconds with Sam Altman: How to Start a Start-up
- 30 Seconds with Ben Horowitz: How to Manage!
- 60 Seconds with Keith Rabois: The Role of the COO is to Simplify.
- 60 Seconds with Keith Rabois: The role of the COO is that of an Editor not a Writer.
- 60 Seconds with Paul Lillrank: Achieving Industrial Efficiency in Healthcare.
- 60 Seconds with Amy Edmondson: Teaming
- 90 Seconds with Jody Gittell: Relational Coordination
- 60 Seconds with Amy Edmonson: Psychological Safety
2023
- The Cost of Complexity
- 60 Seconds with Russ Ackoff: The Purpose of a System is What it Does!
- 60 Seconds with Mike Jackson: Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity
- 60 seconds with Dr. Heidi Gardner: Smarter Collaboration
- 60 Seconds with Dave Snowden: The Cynefin Framework on Complexity
- 60 Seconds with Prof. Richard Jolly: Handling Complexity
- 60 Seconds with Steve McConnell: The 10 Deadly Sins of Estimation
- 60 Seconds with Roger Martin: Strategy and Figuring out the Human System
- Strategy Deployment and OKRs
- Enabling Constraints: Lessons from the Rules of the Road
- Minimising High-Growth Complexity
- Cultivating a Culture of Simplicity & Learning
- Navigating Complexity: Our Approach to Achieving High Performance
- Complexity, Simplicity and Simplexity in Organisations
- The Organisational Big Bang
- First, Capture the Hearts and Minds of Your Workforce.
- Orchestrating for Excellence
- Six Simple Rules How Middle Managers & SIPOCs Can Simplify Unnecessary Complexity.
- Covey’s 4DX Framework and Operational Excellence
- When Employees Are Open With Each Other, But Not Management
- The Case of Reluctant Managers
- Why nobody ever gets credit for fixing problems that never happened?
- Confusing “Getting Things Done” with “Executing Well”
- The Indispensable Role of the Chief Operating Officer in Driving Operational Excellence
- Solving Problems: A Paradigm Shift from Excuses to Excellence
- The Imperative of Strategy Deployment in Achieving Operational Excellence
- Why Many Organisations Lack Formal Processes
- How Operational Excellence Empowers People to Make Better Decisions
- SIPOC + CLOU = Game Changer
- Simplification Through Commitment
- Complexity Is Not Doing The Simple Things Well
- The Tangible Benefits of Operational Excellence
- Why Todays Problems Often Come from YesterdaysSolutions……..and How to Break that Vicious Circle!
- Why Actively Managed Processes Tame Complexity and Empower People.
- The Futility of Planning for Certainty in an Uncertain World
- The Pitfalls of Being a Results-Driven Organisation.
2022
- Entanglement: The Core Driver of Frustration and Poor Productivity in Service and Knowledge-Work Organisations!
- Quality versus quality? Why knowing the difference can help change your organisation for the better.
- The 4 Root Causes of Poor Effectiveness and Efficiency in Service and & Knowledge-Work Organisations (S&KWO)
- Without Substantiated Reasons, Can Managers Really Ask for More?
- Team Leaders Without Training?: Just Dodgem!
2021
2020
- Ryanair: A Lesson for Leaders, Managers, Unions and Society
- Ryanair: When Complex Adaptive Systems bite back!
- Easiest Way To Improve Performance? Step 1: Stop Making Things Worse!
- “Whistling Past The Graveyard” of Bad Performance Measures.
- Why “Cause” beats “Urgency” every time.
- Service Sectors Biggest Problem Solved: How Long is a Piece of String?
- Transforming Lean: Is Leans Roots in Japanese Religion and Culture holding it back?
- What is Lean Enterprise Excellence & Operational Excellence
- Joined-Up Thinking and the “Germ Theory of Management”
- Confusing Common Practices with Best Practices
- When Fixing What’s Broken Doesn’t Work
- “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
- Why TPS is not “Lean for The Masses” ….hint, the answer is in the name!
- Demand and Capacity Management of Remote Working Teams in the “Post Covid” Era
Earlier articles by topic
Complexity and simplicity
- Minimising High-Growth Complexity
- Cultivating a Culture of Simplicity & Learning
- Navigating Complexity: Our Approach to Achieving High Performance
- Complexity, Simplicity and Simplexity in Organisations
- Six Simple Rules How Middle Managers & SIPOCs Can Simplify Unnecessary Complexity.
- The Organisational Big Bang
- Simplification Through Commitment
- Complexity Is Not Doing The Simple Things Well
- Why Todays Problems Often Come from YesterdaysSolutions……..and How to Break that Vicious Circle!
- Entanglement: The Core Driver of Frustration and Poor Productivity in Service and Knowledge-Work Organisations!
- Ryanair: When Complex Adaptive Systems bite back!
Operational excellence and Lean
- Orchestrating for Excellence
- Covey’s 4DX Framework and Operational Excellence
- The Indispensable Role of the Chief Operating Officer in Driving Operational Excellence
- Solving Problems: A Paradigm Shift from Excuses to Excellence
- The Imperative of Strategy Deployment in Achieving Operational Excellence
- How Operational Excellence Empowers People to Make Better Decisions
- The Tangible Benefits of Operational Excellence
- Why Service & Knowledge-Work Teams are “Pre-Lean” and Can Therefore Quickly Double Their Productivity or better!
- Why TPS is not “Lean for The Masses” ….hint, the answer is in the name!
- What is Lean Enterprise Excellence & Operational Excellence
- When Fixing What’s Broken Doesn’t Work
- Transforming Lean: Is Leans Roots in Japanese Religion and Culture holding it back?
- Why “Cause” beats “Urgency” every time.
Process and collaboration
- Confusing “Getting Things Done” with “Executing Well”
- Why Many Organisations Lack Formal Processes
- SIPOC + CLOU = Game Changer
- Why Actively Managed Processes Tame Complexity and Empower People.
- Collaborative Management and the “Planned Percent Complete” KPI
- Joined-Up Thinking and the “Germ Theory of Management”
Management and leadership
- First, Capture the Hearts and Minds of Your Workforce.
- When Employees Are Open With Each Other, But Not Management
- The Case of Reluctant Managers
- The Futility of Planning for Certainty in an Uncertain World
- The Pitfalls of Being a Results-Driven Organisation.
- Team Leaders Without Training?: Just Dodgem!
- Without Substantiated Reasons, Can Managers Really Ask for More?
- “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
- Confusing Common Practices with Best Practices
- Ryanair: A Lesson for Leaders, Managers, Unions and Society
Measuring service performance
- Quality versus quality? Why knowing the difference can help change your organisation for the better.
- The 4 Root Causes of Poor Effectiveness and Efficiency in Service and & Knowledge-Work Organisations (S&KWO)
- Measuring and Improving Service Productivity
- Service Sectors Biggest Problem Solved: How Long is a Piece of String?
- Easiest Way To Improve Performance? Step 1: Stop Making Things Worse!
- “Whistling Past The Graveyard” of Bad Performance Measures.
- Demand and Capacity Management of Remote Working Teams in the “Post Covid” Era
Videos
Short explainers from the Expertivity team: Active HR Planning; Beyond Cooperation: Structured Collaboration; and Taming Complexity to Unlock Your Organisation’s Full Potential. They load from YouTube only when you press play.
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Expertivity does not publish a newsletter of its own. Alex McDonnell, our co-founder, writes one from alexmcdonnell.com: new articles and practical tools on execution, complexity and collaboration, sent occasionally. Sign up here and you will receive it.