Interviews and Clippings

Executive Excellence Editorial

At Brightline, our mission is to help organizations transform the way they transform. Since the birth of this Project Management Institute (PMI) initiative, together with leading global organizations, we have strived to research, design and share all those resources and tools that help organizations to close the expensive and unproductive gap that exists between the strategy design and implementation. Our effort to learn first-hand about the real and daily needs and difficulties of managers to achieve this purpose has been reflected in surveys, reports, guides, webinars and all kinds of materials, available on the Brightline website....

What Lies Ahead: Three Fundamental Changes to How We'll Work Post-Pandemic

The future of work requires that we change our mindset, the way we view work, our relationships with our employees and employers, and our careers.

As the number of new infections from the coronavirus slows, and economies around the world ease restrictions and begin to plan for recovery, uncertainty remains and there is increasing talk about what the world will look like in the post-pandemic world.

What is certain, however, in all the uncertainty, is that workforce playbooks will require a comprehensive overhaul post-pandemic. The world of work before the crisis will never look the same again after.

How Today’s Crisis Can Become Tomorrow’s Opportunities—at Warp Speed

With all the data, technology and connectivity that defines the world in which we currently live, how is it that almost no one saw the COVID-19 crisis coming?

There were plenty of warnings. News of a new and potentially dangerous virus in China broke late last year. As we headed into the New Year, epidemiologists and public health officials around the world waved red flags and advised governments and businesses alike to prepare.

Simple Solutions for Complex Problems

We live in an accelerated period of changes. The impact of digitization on society is being so strong that more than a time of change we are experiencing a change of time. The exponential evolution of emerging technologies such as big data, blockchain or 3D printing, is giving rise to the appearance of new professional profiles that must respond to new habits and expectations of clients who demand services that are quickly and easily implemented with full transparency and security.

Brightline: employee engagement is key to delivering a successful transformation

Transformation is often a difficult, expensive and doomed organisational endeavour. According to Harvard Business Review, 70 percent of large-scale digital transformations fail to meet their goals, with $900bn being wasted on restructuring efforts in 2018 alone. Yet, a recent survey by The Wall Street Journal indicated that transformation risk remained the number one concern among directors, CEOs and senior executives. Clearly, not everyone has been put off by past failures.

It has become increasingly clear that organisations need support to deliver changes that work for their employees, customers and bottom line. At Brightline, we have developed a guide for transformation that helps organisations and their leaders achieve sustainable performance improvement. The Brightline Transformation Compass, as it is known, is built around five mutually reinforcing building blocks: the North Star; Customer Insights and Megatrends; the Transformation Operating System; Your Volunteer Champions; and Inside-Out Employee Transformation.

Talking About Innovation with Alex Osterwalder and Daniel Pink at Nordic Business Forum

Alex Osterwalder and Daniel Pink were two of the featured names of the Nordic Business Forum 2019, celebrated in Finland. Experts in innovation and motivation, respectively their theories and investigations mark the course of the current management, where it turns out critical to emphasize innovation. Ricardo Vargas, executive director of Brightline, the initiative without the spirit of profit promoted by Project Management Institute, which helps organizations to bridge the gap that exists between the design of the strategies and the implementation of the same, had a chance to sit down with both thinkers, thanks to Executive Excellence. So was their talk.

Transformation—Turning Innovation Into Reality

Ricardo Vargas and Tahirou Assane interview with Tegan Jones for the PMI Projectfied Podcast.

"Hello, this is Tegan Jones. We talk a lot about transformation here on Projectified. And it’s clearly top of mind for CEOs. But turning those big ideas into reality is a whole other thing. In fact, the Harvard Business Review reported that 900 billion U.S. dollars were wasted in digital transformation last year.

So, to get a better idea of what organizations should be doing differently, I spoke with two leaders from the Brightline Initiative while I was at the Global Conference. Let’s go to that conversation now."

PMPodcast: Episode 437: Brightline Is Bridging the Gap Between Strategy Design and Delivery

There's no shortage of great ideas, whether you are going through a transformation or adapting to digital innovation, but not every great idea becomes a reality. Pinpointing 'why' is at the core of the Brightline initiative's mission.

Brightline (www.brightline.org) is a new strategic arm of Project Management Institute (PMI)®. And as stated on the website: "The Brightline™ Initiative delivers insights and solutions that empower leaders to successfully transform their organization’s vision into reality through strategic initiative management."

Today, we welcome Ricardo Vargas (LinkedIn Profile) who is Brightline's Executive Director.

This interview was recorded one day before the Project Management Institute (PMI)® Global Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. We talk about the history of the initiative, the 10 principles developed to help your organization bridge the costly and wasteful gap between strategy design and delivery, and we look at how you can apply this on your projects. And we also identify issues that prevent strategies to become a reality.

Transforming Against Crisis

In this keynote session, we learn how leaders in business and government are predicting in a world of constant change and disruption. We analyze the idea of opportunity in chaos and ask how a 'crisis' mode of operations can help organizations, from startups to global giants, better prioritize, mobilize resources to realize their innovative ideas.

Discovering talent: The silver lining of crisis

93 percent of high performing organizations believe crisis uncovers talented leaders, said Ricardo Viana Vargas, Executive Director, Brightline Initiative at People Matters TechHR 2019. Let’s take a look at what organizations need to focus on to make the most of a crisis.