I am reading a new book called Projectegrity by Rick Valerga and it’s turning out to be a very good read.
Rick has a lot of very wise things to say about the right way to lead projects, with some awesome examples to illustrate the concepts. For example, I love his use of Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger as one who full captures what “ownership” means.
Landing In The Hudson River
Sully is the pilot who did all the right things on the morning of January 15th, 2009 and saved the passengers and crew of a US Airways flight by taking full ownership of the situation after the plane encountered a large flock of geese, disabling both engines.
“Sully wasn’t cursing his boss, his maintenance crew, the birds, or anyone else—he was too busy owning the rescue of 155 people.”
The Integrity Formula
Rick has this list of practices he calls “The Integrity Formula” which I love.
- Ownership
- Perspective
- Expectation Management
- Alignment
- Engagement
So check out the book to learn more about what Rick has to say. I am reading the kindle edition (I downloaded the free kindle app for my iPhone) and well worth your time to read.
If you have any questions about the book, leave a comment below. I can ask Rick to answer them directly as well. I’ve conversed with Rick several times in the past, and he’s a man of integrity 
So I know he’ll be happy to answer your questions.
I had a really productive day yesterday in my role as a project manager and senior systems engineer for my two teams.
And yet, I only moved one item forward between both team kanban boards.
How Can That Be?
There are other days where I knock out 4-5 items I had planned. Schedule updates, documentation, analysis on change requests, etc. But they don’t compare to how productive I felt yesterday. Why?
Because yesterday, I eliminated several obstacles for my project team members.
Real Productivity
While I strive to continuously improve in my personal productivity, my primary goal as a project manager is not that ‘local optimum’ of just my own tasks.
My primary goal is the productivity of my teams. Period.
So when I do a particularly good job of removing obstacles from their path, so they can go crush it, I feel especially productive.
We have a ‘blocked’ status in our kanban process. It helps the team and I to identify cards which are blocked in some way. Sometimes it’s an unanswered question that we need a decision on to move forward. Sometimes it’s waiting on another outside party to finish before we can continue on a task or user story.
The most important parts of my role on our teams are:
- Provide direction and course corrections as necessary to the teams
- Empower my teams to utilize their abilities within the constraints of our high-level primary objectives
- Remove obstacles from my teams’ paths
Number of Face-to-Face Conversations
In general, my truly productive days also correspond with:
- A minimum of time interrupting my team members, outside of our daily tag-ups, questions from them, and coming back to them with the answers they need
- A maximum number of face-to-face conversations with people outside my teams, getting decisions made and documented and in general pushing for the things my teams need to succeed
So what do you think? Is my definition of a truly productive day in line with your own experience or expectation for a project management role?
