Courage

The Ultimate Question

by kwiefling

What SEEMS impossible, but if it WERE possible, would transform your job, your team, your company, heck . . . YOUR LIFE . . . for the better?  That is the paradigm-shifting question that I learned many years ago from Joel Barker, a Futurist who made a movie called “The Business of Paradigms” a way back in the last century.  The movie has been updated, and now it is cleverly called “The New Business of Paradigms – 21st Century Edition”.  No matter, it’s timeless.  (It had BETTER be, it is only 18 minutes long and it costs almost a thousand bucks!  But the preview is free. Check it out here if you haven’t seen it.  Tell them I sent you and you might even get a discount.)  This question has the power to unlock possibilities that otherwise would never make it through the cloak of consciousness.

Human beings are animals, and we spend a lot of our time on auto-pilot.  We live many of the minutes, hours and days of our lives in some kind of trance state, highly functioning, no doubt, but not exactly consciously aware.  I mean, really, haven’t we all found ourselves at the end of a busy day wanting to shout out “Has anyone seen where the day went?”  And I have personally been on long drives in the car when I suddenly wondered who had been driving the last 100 miles.  Most of my brain was off scampering around somewhere, but fortunately some part of it was driving the damn car!

“What seems impossible, but if it were possible, would transform your life for the better?” is what’s sometimes called a “hypnotic” question because it momentarily suspends the critical thinking of our current assumptions and beliefs about reality and transports us to a future possibility free of any practicality.  Usually we’re pretty adept at screening out avenues of thinking that are a complete waste of time.  Practically speaking, the evolution of the species hasn’t necessarily depended on people having flights of fancy about seemingly impossible outcomes.  And the modern world certainly doesn’t give us a lot of encouragement to roam through a jungle of dreams.  The pressure to be “realistic” and avoid doing anything that might result in a mistake, failure or public humiliation is pretty strong.  I just watched a hilarious YouTube video by Ken Robinson that claims schools are to blame for some of this.  Check out “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” But it doesn’t stop there.  Bit by bit I’ve seen the spirit crushed out of people in the corporate world, what’s left of their souls slinking out the door at the end of a long day, perhaps a few tattered remains of their dignity intact.  It’s a devastating consequence of the wage slavery that is epidemic in this world, and worsening with the current economic crisis.  People need to work at jobs they hate in order to afford the houses they live in to be close to the jobs they hate.  Fascinating!

That’s why I ask this question to people every chance I get.  It frees them from their shackles, if only momentarily, and allows their mind to soar to heights from which they might glimpse their own potential.  As a project leader I want every single person on my team to feel fully alive, appreciated, and in touch with their extraordinary potential.  Oh, sure, there are people who drive me nuts and I’d rather go to the dentist than work with them, but if those few moments when I’m at my best this is my sincere intention.  As project leaders we are more than a means to get the next software release out there, or the next product out into the market.  We’re creating an ecosystem for our people, and I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to create a place where they can grow and thrive.

Once a conversation for possibilities begins it transforms everything in its path, including the project.  When people know each others’ dreams some kind of magic happens that must be experienced to be understood.

Don’t believe anything I say – try it for yourself.  If you have the courage to ask such questions you’ll be rewarded with a few blank stares, but an ocean of opportunities.

- Kimberly Wiefling, Author, Scrappy Project Management

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Point and Shoot Project Management

by Adam.Clark

My day job entails helping companies implement new project management software. Of all the companies I have worked with, including a number of household names, I would estimate that less than 5% of the managers I work with have any formal project management training. Most managers have project management training by experience in the trenches. Unfortunately, most never leave the trenches and get a better view and experience of project management. It is my experience that while there are many project managers, there are few excellent ones.

About ten years ago, I decided I wanted to learn to be a real photographer. I was tired of the point and shoot experience where more luck than skill was involved in the success of the picture. However, I quickly learned that becoming a serious photographer was quite the expensive undertaking. Besides the expense of upgrading to a professional camera, I was lacking training on how to actually use the machine. Not to mention, the cost of additional equipment ranging from lenses to tripods, and bags to filters. Lastly, the cost of film and development was high. These all became a large barrier to becoming the photographer I wanted to be. Being a college student at the time, I could not really afford to learn photography at a satisfactory pace.

However, over the past few years, new technology has largely reduced the barrier to entry and photography is now a hobby for the masses. In fact, my ability to take endless pictures without film and development costs along with the new built-in tools of my newest camera provides me the ability to progress rapidly. In many ways I can also make up for my mistakes using software and other photography tricks. I am no longer in the gloomy trenches of poor photography, but find encouragement and joy in my success.

I have observed that project management as a whole has paralleled somewhat the changes we have witnessed in photography. Project management also has been a skill for the few, with the barrier to entry being quite high. However, people have still been required to manage projects. Now, similar to photography, we are seeing a boom in technology that is leveling the playing field and giving opportunities for the average manager to be an excellent manager. From new software that is principle based and collaborative to online blogs, courses, books, and other excellent resources, project management is more accessible than ever.

The key to this change from mediocrity to excellence is not simply technology, however. No technology is by itself enough to make a manager excellent. Like photography, the barrier to entry is lowered, but the effort to take advantage of it still requires an investment.

Point and shoot project management just isn’t sufficient. Project managers need to learn the basic principles and best practices for project management. Many, if not most, of these principles are methodology-independent and can be learned for free or low cost through online resources, books, or even courses. The project management tools now available do not require a degree in project management or a PMP. They do, however, require a basic understanding of project management.

Most managers have grown up learning point and shoot project management. Trial and error project management is far too expensive, but it continues to be the most dominant. Organizations and individuals need to put forth the investment to learn. The lower barrier to entry should encourage us all to take project management to the masses!

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The Anti-PMBOKxidant – Courage

by kwiefling September 24, 2008 Leadership

When the doo-doo hits the fan a tru project leader asks “How did I contribute to this and what do we need to do now to deal with this?” It seems like a simple enough lesson, but that doesn’t mean it is easy to learn.

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