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I use techniques I learned as a project manager in my everyday life all the time. Do you?
If you are learning to become a project manager, have you started experimenting with these tools and techniques on your own, so that when you do start managing your own projects you will already be familiar with them?
0 Comments Continue readingOne of the aspects of managing projects I love is continuously learning about new approaches and figuring out how I can apply aspects of them for positive change. Kanban and Lean are of particular interest to me right now and I came across this presentation by David Anderson to share with you.
And here is part 2:
0 Comments Continue readingPawel Brodzinski - The Kanban Story – Ups and Downs of Implementing Kanban from Krakow Tech Conferences on Vimeo.
I have always respected Pawel Brodzinski for his pragmatic style and views on software development.
Recently, I started to get very interested in Kanban and have spent some time researching the topic since it is something I have not yet used in practice. Shortly, I came across this excellent series by Pawel on his struggles and process of implementing Kanban with his team.
Then, I came across this video of Pawel presenting on the topic and just had to share it with you here.
Pawel, thank you so much for your contributions, this is really great stuff!!!
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Going to an existing project team is a unique challenge.
Doing it twice in a few months makes you reflect on lessons learned.
There are a whole new set of stakeholders, and whole new team. Every individual has their own history, contributions, and incentives in relation to the project at hand.
I have said for a long time that the primary quality I respect in other project managers and try to develop in myself is empathy. My lessons learned of late are in accordance with this insight. Empathy is really about trying to fully understand where your stakeholders are coming from as human beings as well, not merely their “role” on the project.
Team Empathy
Some rights reserved by Patrick Hoesly
You may discover that Joe has experience with a type of work that Matt is doing, and Matt is really struggling with it. Joe was never asked and never volunteered this information, but now that you’ve spoken with him on a human level you understand this and can make positive changes as a result.
Customer Empathy
Whether it is one individual representative or a myriad of end users and managers, understanding how they feel about various aspects of the project is critical. Requirements can be interpreted many ways without this context, and there are usually design preferences that it will benefit you to understand.
In a complex project environment, you may have multiple key stakeholders as customers and their expectations from you as the project manager will vary widely. Some may expect meticulous reporting, some may not care. Preferred communication methods and styles vary from person to person. The list goes on and on.
Sponsor Empathy
Your sponsor will also be coming at this project with a unique set of goals for you and the project itself. If you have a relatively “hands off” sponsor they may give you lots of room to breathe. On the flip side, there can be a striking lack of autonomy or just a big chunk of your time taken up by a sponsor who wants to be constantly informed of every little detail or has you running on wild goose chases all the time.
It’s important to know where your stakeholders are coming from very early on so you can be proactive.
Build trust early by:
Glen Alleman recently pointed me to a paper by Jorge Aranda among other material on software estimation.
I sat down and read Anchoring and Adjustment in Software Estimation and it was well worth my time.
by Andrew Stawarz via Flickr
To cut to the chase, the subjects were tasked to give estimates for software tasks in a controlled manner, in 3 groups with various “anchoring” methods being used. The only difference between the groups was the expectation statement by the manager before estimation.
Group 1 (control – no explicit anchor given)
“I’d like to give an estimate for this project myself, but I admit I have no
experience estimating. We’ll wait for your calculations for an estimate.”
Group 2 ( ’2 months’ condition)
“I admit I have no experience with software projects, but I guess this
will take about 2 months to finish. I may be wrong of course, we’ll
wait for your calculations for a better estimate.”
Group 3 (’20 months’ condition)
“I admit I have no experience with software projects, but I guess this
will take about 20 months to finish. I may be wrong of course, we’ll
wait for your calculations for a better estimate.”
You will need to read the full paper to see all the goodies (and to determine if you think it is relevant to your domain), but I would like to summarize some of the results I found striking.
These were the results among all participants, and there are other slices of the data available in the paper including only experienced participants and also by estimation method chosen.
’2 months’ condition
control – no explicit anchoring
’20 month’ condition
The results in general coincide with my own experience on this matter. An important point to note is that even though they were supposedly estimating the exact same software requirements, it is very likely that the ’2 month’ group would have produced a significantly different product than the ’20 month’ group.
Food for thought.
When you and your team are putting together estimates, what influences are creating these anchors? From my experience there are many of them, some of which are likely to be arbitrary or set (even inadvertently) without sufficient knowledge or experience. They may be coming from stakeholders, sponsors, the project manager, or even a team member/lead.
My favorite example of this is when a team is asked to provide a “back of the envelope” estimate without really understanding the scope yet. It produces a bad estimate and sets a rather arbitrary anchor for future estimates.
What do you think?
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Project estimation can be a headache for new project managers. There are lots of opinions out there and not much that weighs various methods…rather you find people who feel strongly about one way or another. To give a quick overview of some ideas and then call for your input, I recorded this video. Please leave a comment and share your thoughts on this topic!
Social media/networking is awesome. Here’s an example.
See? AWESOME.
Now here is my question for anyone reading this who has an opinion on the matter.
Looking at the four, I can identify with one of them in particular, but with some elements of another – perhaps even all four. This leads me to ask what kind of PMO I would establish had I the choice.
by Tambako the Jaguar via Flickr
Mark’s article speaks to the need for the archetype to be in alignment with the organization. While this seems like a reasonable goal to me, I am questioning it’s validity and perhaps you can help me think this through.
To some extent, the industry and organizational culture play a role. Certainly. If you are running projects in relation with the nuclear power industry you have a completely different set of processes that emphasize control and adherence to standards among other types of rigor. A company producing software may be completely different.
To me, the main driver for these archetypes is going to be those PEOPLE who have influence over the PMO. If this person (or small group of people) tend to be the quarterback, perfectionist, scorekeeper, or facilitator they will focus on the aspects and process that are important from the perspective of their world view.
For instance, when I look at those four archetypes the one I identify with is “facilitator” with a leaning towards “quarterback”. That’s how I manage projects and (of course) how I would like a PMO to run. As long as there are no external constraints (as in the nuclear example given above) I venture to hypothesize that the personality and approach of the PMO director (and higher management that enable it) will determine the archetype more than anything else. We’re talking about a matter of management style.
So, if I were an executive looking to hire someone to lead a PMO for my organization, an analysis of the best archetype for the organization is very useful. I argue however it’s not a matter of picking the best candidate in general to lead a prescribed PMO; I want someone who is qualified, experienced AND also has a management style and organizational process mindset that is in harmony with the PMO archetype that will best serve my company.
Thoughts? Comment, tweet, facebook, or whatever you like.
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The Promotable Business Analyst is about helping business analyst professionals discover and take the next step in their career. Like the project management role, the business analyst role varies widely across organizations and this can make career development a real challenge. The eBook starts with a section on how to start improving your career in small ways, then explores career paths within business analysis, and ends with a section on doing all the normal job-related activities in a career-oriented way. Each part contains a guidebook and multiple worksheets and templates that the reader can use to apply what they read about to their career development. In all there is over 150 pages of guidebook content and 20 worksheets and templates.
From what I’ve been hearing, a lot of project managers are doing business analysis work. We spoke a bit about this last week in the post “Does your PM job include BA work?”. The Promotable Business Analyst is all about helping you be more career-minded about this sort of activity. It would support a project manager in completing a brief competency assessment of their BA skills and creating a career plan that builds on these skills. We also go into a discussion of combined BA/PM roles, considering both their strengths and weaknesses in terms of individual career progression.
To be honest, many of the concepts in The Promotable Business Analyst are universal. And since so much of what project managers and business analyst do is closely related, even the PM who is not looking to build a BA career could find large pieces of value in the content. For example, in part 3 we discuss ways to prepare for a job performance review by completing a self-evaluation of your recent project history. In Part 1, we discuss the pros and cons of various professional development opportunities and provide an in-depth discussion of in-person and online networking as part of your career development. Part 2 is mainly an overview of the types of BA roles that exist today. This could help a PM gain a broader understanding of the BA role and how variations in the role in any given organization might impact their project.
A lot of professionals tend to separate professional development activities and the work they do every day. As a PM or a BA, your projects are your opportunities to advance and build new experiences. Many of the barriers we find to professional development, such as lack of funds for training, disappear when we start to think about our project experiences as professional development opportunities. Combine this with a few free webinars, a reference book on a technique, and some informal peer support and you’ve got a low cost, but effective professional development strategy. So, my advice is to develop a career-oriented mindset about your work. This can take the form of practicing a new technique, integrating a new practice, or just working on your soft skills, such as listening, in your next meeting. Every project experience, big or small, is an opportunity to learn something new. Don’t waste it!
My second piece of advice is to just get started. As a PM, you are probably used to helping others get unblocked so they can finish a task. You use all kinds of tools to help others plan, prepare, and implement. Do you apply these techniques to your career? I wrote a blog post about how to take the stress out of career advancement and the basic message was, just take one small step. And then take another and another and another. Each step doesn’t have to be 100% perfect, just try something and see how it works. Unlike a project, there’s rarely a fixed deadline for your career. Getting started in a direction is the best possible way to make things happen quickly.
My team does a daily tag-up (Scrum-ish in nature) and just started going outside now that it’s feasible for us to quickly get to our meeting spot. We meet in the cafeteria area when it’s not so nice outside, and I think either way it’s good to get out of a conference room and offices.
I feel refreshed and focused when we are able to meet in the sunshine, and I can see the difference in morale with lots more smiles and laughter throughout the meeting and the rest of the day. If you can find a way to make work more enjoyable for everyone, go for it I say.
(I was itching a bit in the video due to mosquitoes about. Don’t worry, I shot this miles away from where my team meetings are held and this was right next to a river. Don’t take your team to a location where they are apt to be eaten alive!) :-)
Do you take your project teams outside on a regular basis? If so, do you get weird looks from other people in the organization since this is not considered “normal” team behavior in many companies?
1 Comments Continue readingWe’ve all been there.
Lonely by m o d e via Flickr
When I started blogging at pmStudent.com part of the motivation for me was to see if anyone else cared about project management as a formal discipline as I was starting to. Until that time, I had just barely heard “project management” be referred to as a formal discipline and most people I worked with who also managed projects either (1) didn’t do it as their primary job or (2) managed their projects fairly helter-skelter and mostly with an operations paradigm. It wasn’t so much “plan the work, work the plan” as “get it done when you can, in addition to your regular job.”
None of them wanted to discuss the details of how to influence people who don’t report to you, the theories and practices involved, approaches to requirements and scope definition, etc.
When you feel all alone and like no one else cares, what can you do?
Find Other Zealots
The great thing about being obsessed with any given discipline is that there are plenty of other people who are just as crazy as you are.
About the topic, I mean.
The problem is, they may not be in your department or even your organization. If so, it’s time to branch out.
Local project management groups are out there waiting for you. If you live in or near a city, chances are there is a local group of project managers meeting at least once a month. If not, why not start one yourself? You can use sites like Meetup.com to find other people who are interested in project management.
See the video I recorded on finding local project management organizations at http://pmstudent.com/getinvolved
Go online! Using LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking tools can be a great way to find people who share your interest in project management. You could conceivably form a local group just meeting at a coffee shop or pub with the contacts you’ve made online. I don’t recommend meeting at someone’s home (because that’s a bit creepy unless you already know them well); keep the venue at public locations.
In the end, you can start creating interest in project management within your own organization or department, or end up being so well connected and informed that you’ll know which organization to move over to when an opportunity presents itself.
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