The Hard-Nosed Project Manager

OCMs Role In Communications with Stakeholders and Resistors webinar

First of all; OCM stands for Organizational Change Management.  I did not know that, maybe you did.  As it often happens, the webinar was plagued by technical issues.  Presenter and introducer could not talk to each other.  Adobe connect is nasty.  It’s been over a year with this technology, PMI should fix this.

Points the presenter made:

• You cannot skip identifying and engaging the stakeholders from the get go.  Look at organizational charts.  I’ll add that this has to be expanded to include the people working day to day with the project’s product; they may not be in the org chart but they must be on board.
• Document the findings of your stakeholder analysis.  Document their status (pro or con) toward the project, thei attitude towards change, etc.
• Communicate, communicate, communicate and then think about communicating.
• Identify each stakeholder as part of a group and the group as sponsors, change agents, targets (her term), etc.
• Use a bubble chart to show the size of the various stakeholder groups.  I don’t recall if she suggested the same type of chart but where power is the dimension.  10 mildly powerful stakeholders may have less power than the supremely powerful person.  She justly stated that loudness does not equal power.
• Showed a timeline (like Project 2010) that shows the high level communication plan.  This emphasize that the plan is a living thing, and should include repeat communications.  Underlying the timeline is a number of documents explaining the what and the who of the communications (a bit like work packages really).
• Complainers and resistors should be engaged immediately.  Why are they resisting?  Knowing this points you in the direction of how to address their issue.  Lack of knowledge about the project, no more status quo, potential loss of employment, not consulted, etc. are all reasons for resisting.

Sadly some of the material is not part of the PowerPoint stack, you’ll have to listen to the webinar.  Also it gave me the feeling that the change manager is seen as someone else than the PM.  I think the change manager can be a separate person for large projects or programs but for smaller endeavors, the change manager IS the PM.

All together a pretty good presentation with a very good Q&A session

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

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Peter de Jaeger webinar; 5/24 at 12h00 Eastern - Two Pizzas and More

There will be a Peter de Jaeger webinar titled “Two Pizzas and More“ on 5/24 at 12h00 Eastern. It is free but you have to register.  Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

PMI Consulting CoP webinar; 5/24 at 10h00 Eastern - Project Management Leadership Challenges

There will be a PMI Consulting CoP webinar titled “Project Management Leadership Challenges “ on 5/24 at 10h00 Eastern. Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

Human Resource Project Management CoP webinar; 5/3 at 13h00 Eastern - OCMs Role in Communications with Stakeholders and Resistors

There will be a Human Resource Project Management CoP webinar titled “OCMs Role in Communications with Stakeholders and Resistors " on 5/3 at 13h00 Eastern. Those who can’t attend should look for my comments after the webinar.

Sorry for the late notice; this just popped up in my email

 

The Agile Estimating Revolution

I just read “The Agile Estimating Revolution” in PM Network, April 2012.  Let me punch a few holes:

• “a smaller project could get only slightly bigger, while a large project could have more variance”.  So, project with more features can go wrong in more ways than smaller projects?  Who would have thought?
• “A team identifies the smallest user story for the group, called a backlog, and associates a number – 2, for example – with it.  Next they determine other stories similar in size and nature that could be given the 2 estimate”.  That’s Agile?  That’s a revolution?  Estimating by analogy as been around forever.
• “With story point estimates, a 5 is a 5 no matter who is doing the work”.  Total nonsense!  If I have more experience and skills than you and you agree that my 5 is equal to your 5, someone is going to get hurt if you get the job.

Again, pronouncements without numbers to back them up.

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

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Personal Leadership

I just finished reading the “Smart Moves” article in the April 2012 edition of PM Network.  It is pretty interesting in that it deals with personal leadership; basically how do you make you employment fit you.  Many PMs (and other team members) end up in situations where their job exposes them to burnout.

The article leads you from recognizing your situation, all the way to correcting it.  It’s been said before, a career is a project.  As a good PM it is up to you to fix that project if it becomes “challenged”.

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.

Over deliver

I was reflecting this morning on the “under promise but over deliver” maxim which I believe is attributed to Jack Welch.  What prompted this reflection is a podcast that was discussing the expectations of a pharmacist’s clients; really not project management related.

In my line of work, like many lines of work, we can’t “under deliver” as testing will catch up to us.  If you “under promise”, you simply won’t get the job.  Economics mean that line managers don’t want us to over deliver and again, testing would not allow that either.

I wonder, and I’d like for you to chime in, if it would not be good to over deliver not on scope but on project management and especially on communications.   It may cost a little bit more and not be reimbursable but I believe it would create significant goodwill and give an incentive for repeat business.  Works for me…

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

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The Goldilocks 'Just Right' Style of Leadership webinar (take 2)

The other day I listened to the PMI Leadership in PM CoP webinar called Goldilocks 'Just Right' Style of Leadership. After promptly losing my review, here is take 2.  The speaker is the same “certified” practitioner of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and hypnotherapy as the last webinar I reviewed. Believe in those techniques if you want to.

The Goldilocks 'just right' style of leadership is just that; adjust you leadership to the situation.  Some of his points, packaged by me:

• Don’t be a shrinking violet.  Do let things go it is hurts the project.  Don’t promote harmony just to keep conflict to zero.  If there is conflict, attack it head on.
• Be demanding.  Clearly state what needs to be done and get agreement on who is delivering what part.  Hold people accountable for their deliverables.
• Don’t micromanage.  Team member can and should take most of the decisions needed to accomplish their tasks.  If you start micromanaging you end up taking ALL the decisions and you become the bottle neck.
• Allow mistakes to happen.  People who achieve goals also make mistakes; those who do nothing have a perfect track record (of nothing).  Mistakes are learning opportunities.

The webinar was very interesting on its discussion of toxic environments.  People interested more in information control and Cover Your Ass (CYA) than in delivering.  Rampant absenteeism, doing no more than the minimum expected, backstabbing, and behavior that equates agreeing to something with being defeated.  Recognizing and dealing with a toxic environment is one of talents of the leader.

Basically it was an entry level webinar into leadership.  Still worth listening to; you have to start somewhere and leadership is one of the weak points in project management

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.

 

The Goldilocks 'Just Right' Style of Leadership webinar

Today I listened to the PMI Leadership in PM CoP webinar called Goldilocks 'Just Right' Style of Leadership. 

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.

They're hiring...

I just finished reading the article titled “Unclear on the Concept” in the March 2012 PM Network.  Sadly, I think it is spot on.

Many companies hire project managers without knowing what they do.  They then make them do everything under the sun.  As part of my Linked group CanadianPM I review a large number of job descriptions; I try to be generous and to let many of those descriptions pass, after all I want good job for the members, but I will cut job that:

• Require the hired person to do technical work; coding, technical leadership, business analysis, enterprise architecture, etc.
• Require the hired person to be the minder of the sales team.
• Do not recognize the value of a project manager; $40K/year, $14/hour for a program manager, etc.
• Show that the hiring person knows nothing about project management.  What do you think of this, taken from an actual ad?

Sucessfully (sic) manage XXX, YYY, ZZZ and other projects as assigned achieving a CPI ratio of 1.0 or less.

If you see such an ad with any of these flaws I suggest that you run away.  If I let such an ad pass, please let me know and I'll pull it

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.