The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

Leadership in Project Management CoP webinar; 3/22 at 13h00 Eastern - Goldilocks 'Just Right' Style of Leadership

There will be a Leadership in Project Management CoP webinar titled "Goldilocks 'Just Right' Style of Leadership" on 3/22 at 13h00 Eastern.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

The 7 Deadliest Communications Sins of a Project Manager webinar

Today I listened to the PMI Leadership in PM CoP webinar called The 7 Deadliest Communications Sins of a Project Manager.  The speaker is a “certified” practitioner of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and hypnotherapy.  That kind of psycho babble and wooo turns me off like you would not believe.  If a leader need to game or trick people, he should move on to something else. 

I’m sure that I am susceptible to suggestion.  Everyone is to some extent and I’m not going to delude myself by thinking otherwise.  That being said, his little NLP examples did not work from me.

Some of his “sins”; for example procrastination, multi-tasking causing inattention, etc.  have nothing to do with communication.  They do have to do with leadership but not communication.

I will not claim the PDU.

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

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Updated: Human Resource Project Management CoP webinar; 2/28 at 11h00 Eastern - Effectively Managing Project Resources

There will be a Human Resource Project Management CoP webinar titled "Effectively Managing Project Resources" on 2/28 at 11h00 Eastern.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

Update:  I won't be able to attend due to professional commitments.  I will listen and comment on the recording when it comes out.

Learning, Education, and Development CoP webinar; 3/2 at 12h00 Eastern - Emotional Intelligence in Project Management

There will be a Learning, Education, and Development CoP webinar titled "Emotional Intelligence in Project Management" on 3/2 at 12h00 Eastern.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

Updated: Innovation and New Product Development CoP webinar; 4/17 at 13h00 Eastern - Four Skills You Need to Survive an Agile Project

Just to let all know that this webinar has been pushed again to 4/17.  I will not make an easy joke about agile scheduling...

Leadership in PM CoP webinar; 2/27 at 14h00 Eastern - The 7 Deadliest Communications Sins of a Project Manager

There will be a Leadership in PM CoP webinar titled "The 7 Deadliest Communications Sins of a Project Manager" on 2/27 at 14h00 Eastern.  I'll try to attend and, if not, listen to the recording.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

Just noticed that I've been doing this for over two years...

Damn!

Behaviors that Lead to Exceptional Performance webinar

Today I listened to the recorded PMI IS Cop webinar called Behaviors that Lead to Exceptional Performance.

This was a Neal Whitten webinar; basically a top ten list on leadership.  The top ten:

• Think like a leader.  Great companies are great because of leadership.  I subscribe to his view that leaders do not believe in fatalism.  Nothing is scripted all the way to the end.
• Manage to your top three priorities/problems every day.  Leaders do not sweat the small stuff.  Leaders delegate to others the details.  Getting small thing done and skipping over the big stuff is a recipe for trouble.
• Never avoid necessary confrontation.  The keyword here is necessary.  No picking up fights for the sake of picking up fights and no appeasing from the sake of harmony.  Forming, storming, norming, and performing they say.  No storming equals no team.
• Check your ego at the door.  It’s not about you.  Making things personal will get you and you project in trouble
• Think for yourself.  That would not be leadership would it?  Listen to opinions from everyone and then make up your mind.  Also play you game, not someone else’s game.  Hold others to their commitments, for example delivery dates.
• Embrace integrity in all you do. It is all about trust.  If you do not act in a trustworthy way others won’t either.
• Don’t require the approval of others to function.  Don’t be an ass
• Live in your present moment.  I’m on the fence on this one; the past is the past but the future can be influenced.  A leader’s time is best spent looking in the distance for looming problems.  If you don’t consider the future, I think you will succumb to fatalism.
• Treat others as you’d like to be treated.  Again trust.  Also decency.
• Define who you choose to be.  I guess this is slightly repetitive since you should not require the approval of others and think for yourself.

The webinar can be seen as a motivational talk but that is OK, leadership is significantly about motivating people.

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.

Tearing Down Project Barriers Between the Business and IT webinar

Today I listened to the recorded PMI IS CoP webinar called Tearing Down Project Barriers Between the Business and IT.

The webinar speaks to IT as a tool to achieve business goals of an organization as opposed as IT as its own beast with it own goals.  I believe the same focus, on business goals, should be applied to other business entities like marketing, accounting, and production (includes engineering, construction, software development, etc.).  Business entities serve the business, not the other way around.  Just look up business score card approaches for more on the subject.

The webinar identifies problems with project inception or concept as a major culprit.  Imprecise scope, inflated expectations, immature technologies, and hype.  Business user many not speak the language of your domain; you have to align and adapt. Business users may want something that is hard to do but you have to help them understand that and that difficulties may have to be surmounted for them to get what they need.  Hype usually “forgets” that there are implementation difficulties. 

Alignment between stakeholders or business entities is essential but very tough to reach.  By the time the project is recognized as such, expectations (realistic or not) have already been brewing for a while.  Often time the inception process has been going on in a vacuum.  Various stakeholders may add requirements that satisfy their business entity but take the “project” away from actual business goals.  Think of a product designed to sell at a given price point; it may not be enticing to the consumer because it lacks certain features.  Think of a product designed to yield a given profit margin, it may be very inexpensive to produce but no one wants it because it is perceived as cheap.  Think of a product that I seen as easy to bring to production; maybe it is already obsolete compared to what the competition has.  Also, if the expectations are not aligned with the capabilities of the organization, there will be pushback from the project team.

Gaining alignment requires active guidance.  This process documents requirements, assumptions, risks, organization capacities, etc.  At this point you have a project manager, maybe a system architect, maybe a business analyst, maybe a quality assurance person, but no project team.  At this point you are just not ready to roll.  If you did you may run into one or many walls around technology, schedule, or economics.

Maintaining alignment also requires guidance.  The same team of people guides the project team in staying the course, preventing scope creep and likely unmet expectations on features, schedule, or cost.

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.

 

Innovation and New Product Development CoP webinar; 2/21 at 13h00 Eastern - Four Skills You Need to Survive an Agile Project

There will be an Innovation and New Product Development CoP webinar titled "Four Skills You Need to Survive an Agile Project" on 2/21 at 13h00 Eastern.  I'll try to attend and, if not, listen to the recording.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.