The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

Be wise

Yesterday, on the train back home, I listened to this TED video with Barry Schwartz.

TED videos are good to amazing; actually I’ve found only one to date that I found boring.  Anyway, I think this video on being wise applies quite a bit to project management.  Listen to it and see if you concur.  Even if it starts with a mention of Obama, force yourself to listen to the whole thing.

I know this will read like a list of common sense items but here are my takeaways:

• Procedures and rules should guide people not rule them.  If you must stick to rules at all times, either you are in the wrong organization and should run away or you are the wrong person for the job because you are plain dumb.  In the same vein, a schedule is just a plan; if you expect to stick 100% to the schedule, expect to fail.
• As an incentive, money has a limited effect.  If money is a person’s only driving force, you may run out of driving force before you reach your goal.  That person should leave.  Given a choice, appealing to greed is likely to be the wrong one.
• Tell your team members what needs to be done, not how to get it done; they already know that.  Don’t micromanage, lead.  If you micromanage because you have to, you have the wrong people on your team; clean house.  If you micromanage because that is your way, you will fail because your team members will expect you to decide everything; you will run out of time.

Be wise.  Lead, mentor, let the main incentive you offer your team members be free agency.  They will trust you because you trust them.

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Abusing the PMP designation

Among other things, I “own” the CanadianPM group on LinkedIn.  Because of that I get requests to join from a number of people and I allow them to join based on a set of criteria.  This means that I do read everyone’s profile.

I have seen an emerging trend lately, which I consider an abuse of the PMP designation.  Some people are documenting their current or previous positions as “PMP at such and such”.  Actually, this happened again this morning.

 

For those who don’t know, the PMP is not a position, it is a designation linked to a certification.  The only reason I can see for using “PMP at such and such” in a LinkedIn profile or in a resume is to get ahead based on search criteria.  Doing this is lame.

 

The PMP should not be a ticket to employment as a project manager.  I know a hell of a lot of PMs that are not PMP and do good work, some are actually awesome.  I also know some PMP that are crap at project management and passed the exam purely because they have a good memory and know how to play the multiple question exam game.

My opinion is this; if the only way you can get a PM job is because you have PMP tagged after your name or because you put “PMP at such and such” in your LinkedIn profile or resume, you might question why you did that and who you want to impress.  Either of you may be jackasses…

 

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Military teamwork benefits project teams

I had some free time and a PMI Community Post caught my eye; it baited me with a reference to the military in the June 2010 issue of Project Management Journal.  I just could not resist…

Overall it is an interesting article, the full version being more interesting than the condensed version in the PMI Community Post.  My interpretation of the article is:

• You can’t use predefined coordination methods developed for routine environments in a project environment. I would call that a tautology as projects are not, by definition, routine endeavors.
• Theoretical decision frameworks do not work well when uncertainty increases.  Again, this is a tautology.  Theoretical models and frameworks are just that; theories.  Reality is more of the SNAFU flavor.  By the way, F does not stand for fouled; use your imagination…
• Planning is essential and contributes greatly to success but the ability to adapt to changing conditions is also essential.  Looks like the old saw “No plan survives contact with the enemy”, attributed to many but probably due to Helmuth Karl Bernhard Graf von Moltke still holds true.

• Using a common language and methods helps.  As in everyone speaks the same language but also uses the same terms, concepts, and methods with a common understanding of those terms,concepts, and methods.  Especially important when the fur starts flying.

I would think most project managers would not be surprised by the items in my bullet list.  Most of this stuff is common sense I think.  By the way, you can get the benefits listed in the Project Management Journal article fairly easily; just hire an ex-soldier to be a project manager or team member.  It could do wonders for you and your projects…

I have a beef with the teaser in PMI Community Post; it says that Ms. Godé-Sanchez (the author of the original article) warns against soldiers spending too much time together and developing habits and methods that stifle their ability to think creatively.   That is not my reading at all; I believe she calls for changing team composition to increase the shared experience level of the team.  Throw in a few cherries with the old crusties; that should do it.

Finally, one thing that really gets me is Newspeak.  Why did the author feel the need to use “warfighter”?  This is a term that has been popularized by the Bush administration and the pseudo-news outfits since about 2003.  Warfighter?  Really?  Soldier was not good enough anymore?

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Kill, kill, kill

No, I’m not angry and no, I’m not going postal.  Anyway, we don’t have weapons up here in Canada.  Do you need a chief killing officer? is the title of an article I read a couple of day ago in The Globe and Mail.

The main premise of the article is that you need to clear out the clutter, the accumulated baggage.  And that applies to products, product features, people, standing (as in regular) meetings, reports, investors (partners), processes, HR practices, and software code.  Give it a little thought and I’m sure you can’t find other things that are in need of a good pruning; for example the project that doesn’t end and for which all hopes of an ROI have long since evaporated.

A couple of anecdote that illustrate the topic:

• In Steve McConnell’s book Code Complete he mentions the case of a lady who cuts the ends of a roast before cooking it.  She does that because he mom did it and mom did it because grandma did it too.  Looks like a best practice to me…  Eventually the lady asks grandma why she used to cut the ends of the roast; grandma’s answer?  Because my roasting pan was not big enough.  As I said, looks like a best practice to me…  

• A couple of years ago I took a couple of courses with Dr. Harold Kerzner.  Let me go in a tangent to say that it feels pretty good when a guy with 40+ years of project management says the things that you think about in your little corner of the world.  Anyway, Dr. Kerzner was advocating periodically weeding out best practices libraries and doing the same with project portfolios.  That sounds like a job for the CKO although the tendency is for project manager to reuse best practices and fight to complete their projects at all cost.  I don’t advocate giving up easy but you don’t want to have your own “Charge of the Light Brigade”; somehow the cry of “For the glory of project management” does nothing for

Now, I’ve always said that I didn’t want to be a CxO; I’d rather be a NOO (that’s a NO O), but I might just change my mind.  Elect me Chief Killing Officer; I promise to be ruthless…

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Agile? Me too or 2?

Craig Brown (Better Project) commented on my previous “Agile? Me?” post.  My main take away from the points he makes are that Agile, although not entirely new, packages software project management in such a way as to make it appealing to teams.

Other important points are:

• The command and control approach to software project management does not really work.
• A fool with a tool (or methodology) is still a fool or, in his words, “Smart people get it right. People that struggle with common sense will fail at this management system as much as any other”.

As previously stated, I see Agile as a different language or dialect of project management; I do understand that some (many?) project stakeholders do not “get” traditional project management.  I lost count of how many times I’ve been asked for a schedule only to have the person asking go totally blank when receiving it and then asking very basic questions about Gantt charts. 

However, talking with someone experienced in scheduling, EV, etc. you don’t get the blank stares.  This goes to say that speaking a language that all stakeholders understand gets you a long way down the path to success.

The aspect that is still evading me is, assuming that the Agile practitioner is not a fool or a micro manager, what is the economic benefit to the project organization that takes the Agile path?  Can I expect 15% shorter schedule, 17% lower cost, 8% lower rework, 21% fewer bugs, etc.?  The numbers are not that important but they would help me make a decision while investing my time and money training myself.

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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Agile? Me?

I try to continually improve myself.  I know, it’s hard to believe, but it is still possible for me to do so…

So, I’ve been thinking of expanding my project management skills some more but, what do I pick?  I already have the piece of paper that proves that I know something (the PMP) and I work in Manufacturing IT so I could go ITIL, I could go PRINCE2, I could go IPMA.  All of those are PMP look alike certifications with various strong points.  For a comparative review lookup this post from the How to Manage a Camel blog.

I also trained on RUP a few years ago so I could go Agile/Scrum or some other approach.  In my current work environment Agile methods are not really in fashion; my clients typically insist on gate reviews and a waterfall approach. 

That being said I can appreciate that understanding Agile could be useful to me it is like speaking more than one language or knowing more than one culture.  On that level, it appeals to me because, after all, you’d have to be an idiot (I was going to say [20100712 - PR - expletive deleted] but it is not polite to do so…) to think that there is only one good, fits everything approach/language/culture.

So assuming I decide to go Agile, can anyone out there engage in a conversation with me on benefits they have realized from going Agile?  I am not looking for dogma (e.g. waterfall is crap), for preaching on the Agile Manifesto (I hate motherhood statements), for how Agile is better that sliced bread/the 4-hole button/the wheel.  What I am looking for numbers on hard benefits (consistently cheaper, consistently shorter schedule, etc.) or soft benefits (easier to lead the current generation, higher customer satisfaction, etc).

Go ahead, convince me to go Agile.  I’m open-minded about it; I’m just looking for good arguments before I invest my time.  Thanks in advance to those who chime in.

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The Lonely Project Manager

I just read Josh Nankivel’s latest post; “The Lonely Project Manager”.  In it he speaks about his motivation for blogging and on how to reach out to other like minded individual.

This resonates with me as I share the same motivations.  I’m sure many other project management bloggers feel the same way too.  As a bonus, you get to learn a lot by listening to all the other “voices” out there.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.  I am a LinkedIn Open Networker (LION); you can use “Friend” to add me to your network, please mention the blog in your request.

Laser beam

I love making weird, some say intractable, analogies.  Let me throw one out; maybe it’ll resonate with you.  I don’t know, I may just be the next Yogi Berra…

Having your team members multitask is like trying to cut steel with a light bulb; you end up wasting a lot of energy with little result.

Do you see where I’m going with this?  Do you give up? 

The point I am trying to make is that multitasking wastes energy by scattering it; with 1000W of lighting you generate a lot of heat and some light, with a 1000W laser you cut through steel.  The difference?  Focus.  The same applies to teams and their members; we scatter the energy of teams in a number of ways:

• Not properly closing projects, leaving phantom tasks that need to be taken care of, which creates distractions and frustration.
• Assigning the same person, at a reduced utilization percentage, to a number of projects. This forces the person to switch and regain focus over and over again.
• Holding meetings with unclear agendas or that involve too many people.

I contend that if project were to follow Balanced Score Card (BSC) principles, greater focus would be achieved, team members would enjoy a greater sense of accomplishment, and energy (and $$$) would not be wasted.  When I first made mention of Balanced Score Cards, Glen Alleman contributed this document; you might want to steal a copy!

What do you think?  As always comments are welcome.

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