The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

IS CoP webinar 12/7

There will be a PMI Information Systems CoP webinar titled "Take the Stairs" on 12/7 at 12h00 Eastern.  It is described as a motivational speech.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

Leadership Skills for Managing Projects 2 of 2 webinar

Today I listened to the PMILearning Education and Development (LEAD) CoP webinar on Leadership Skills for Managing Projects, part 2.

The presenter discussed the culture of leadership as a success factor.  I would second that and add that a culture and attitude of success is also necessary.  Believing that you will succeed does not guarantee success but it makes it easier than always living under a cloud.

Also discussed was the good of the team instead of the good of the leader.  I guess you can call that servant leadership. The project is the goal, the good of the team is the enabler and the good of the leader flows from the first two.  The leader must foster the good of the team to achieve the goal and must show backbone if and when the going gets rough.

One item that I don’t hear too often is the special status of the leader in the team.  The leader must care for other team members while not expecting anything for him, listen to all information and opinions, and also keep some distance so as not to show preference for particular team members.  The army teaches leadership like that while the corporate wrongly sees the leader as just one of the guy.

The honor (respectability) and fairness are highlighted as providing the basis for the power of the leader.  Fear is also mention but of course that should be used sparingly, if at all.  Again, when I was in the army, some leader where fond of the saying “I don’t care if they love me as long as they respect me”.  Very true; team members may not love you but if you are respectable and fair they will respect you.  If they fear you they won’t.

One thing I don’t agree with is the Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing of team.  I do believe that once you have gone through the first three steps at that you have a performing team you should apply the same team to the future projects instead of forming a new one.  It is much less costly both in money and ego in my opinion.  See my previous posts on the subject (1, 2).

The webinar ran long and a very good pace; there might have been enough for a three part webinar.

Sound quality was good with very little warbling and just a few cuts.  That’s a first with Adobe Connect.  And the bad lag from the presenter was also gone.  Kudos.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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KISS

I have tons of amazing ideas for software products.  The only problem is that most amazing ideas violate the KISS principle.  When I was is the army, KISS stood for Keep It Simple Stupid (or Sir).  Basically non-KISS ideas are those that only an engineer or project manager would like.  You know the type.

I was reminded of the KISS principle while listening to episode 197 of The Project Management Podcast.  In that episode a product called Eppora is discussed.  Listening to the guy behind Eppora was like listening to me when I have an amazing idea; he was actually describing project management software I had thought of years ago but thankfully dropped.  The problem?  Grandiosity… 

Some features that rubbed me wrong:

• Most project managers and the companies that employ them don’t have the time and money to keep statistics about every person working on projects.  If only some project managers use it, the return on investment disappears.
• Those statistics are wrong anyway.  For example, easy task plus great programmer equals great productivity, hard task plus great programmer equal normal productivity, normal task and so-so programmer equal normal (maybe) productivity, and hard task plus so-so programmer equals… So match the wrong person to the wrong task and your statistics mean nothing.
• You can’t pay people on productivity statistics. Hard task plus great programmer equals normal productivity and normal task and so-so programmer equal normal productivity.  The two guys are worth the same?  Like hell they are.
• Many clients will not let their schedules live on or be accessed via “the cloud”.  Schedule information can be highly sensitive.
• Selling a critical chain approach is hard.  Most people are threatened by that kind of approach as they think it may cause them to sit on their hands if they are too productive.

I understand that the guy was kind of selling his salad but if you are going to make extraordinary claims you’d better have extra ordinary proof.  He has not given me the proverbial warm and fuzzy feeling.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Remembrance Day 2011

Lest we forget.

Traditional Agile

I’m no fan of religious wars like the one around waterfall and Agile so episode 190 of The Project Management Podcast was refreshing.  Among other things there was this concept that you take what fits you from two or more methodologies.  I can go for that.  No more one size fits all…

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Communication is everything

It is said that project management is mostly a people/communication thing.  Yet most communications are handled badly, especially communications about exceptional events or situations.  When things go wrong or off the beaten path you have to make sure that you message is understood.

Let me tell you about an hypothetical (not really) situation.  You are coming back from a business trip and your flight from Raleigh, NC to Montreal, Canada makes you transit through Newark, NJ.  You notice when you check-in that the flight number is the same for both legs of the trip, let’s say CO 5153, and you are given only one boarding pass.  You’ve seen this before a few times, it means the same plane will go to Montreal after Newark passengers deplane.

You get to Newark were the friendly flight crew thanks you for flying with them and announce that this is the end of the flight.  You’re puzzled and ask an attendant.  She looks a bit confused but tells you have to deplane too.  More puzzlement on you part because, in the past, you stayed on the plane in those situations.  Must be a security thing you think.  You deplane.

As you walk out you turn around and see that the gate announces a Montreal flight 2 hours from now.   Great, a delay!  You do not check the flight number, it says Montreal, right?  You walk around a bit and see another gate, with your flight number, departing in 5 minutes.  Rats!  You board and get to destination on time.

How many occasions where missed to properly communicate about an atypical situation?  Could this have been handled better?  Do you ever assume that your project stakeholders will , by themselves, understand there is a problem, that it is being handled, that they agree with the way it is being handled, and that they will have a common understanding?  Food for thoughts I think.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

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Leadership Skills for Managing Projects 1 of 2 ; webinar

I just finished listening to the PMI Learning Education and Development (LEAD) CoP webinar on Leadership Skills for Managing Projects, part 1.

Again sound quality was bad (breakups) and the slides not changing.  I think this is either the Adobe software or the infrastructure being used.  Monster lags in the sound; sounded like a reporter from across the world on CNN.  It shows badly on the Leadership CoP and PMI, diminishes the effort of the poor presenter, and partially wastes the time of the attend2es. I may not be listening to the second part of this presentation due to this bad quality.

This is sad because it sounded interesting.  The author was talking about leadership being a skill that can be acquired instead of being something you are born with or that magically comes to you with time.  Also the importance of trust; if your team members don’t trust you, they won’t follow and you fail as a leader.  Discussed the very important difference between manager (deals with things) and leader (deals with people).  One thing that was not discussed is that all levels of leadership must sing from the same song book otherwise directions will be unclear.

What do you think?  As always questions and comments are welcome.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.  I am a LinkedIn Open Networker (LION); you can use “Friend” to add me to your network.