Project Management, initiative, leadership

Mentoring experiences

2011-06-26T00:06:00.000+03:00

An important part of my role is working with people in day-to-day interactions, but also to help them grow on the long term.

It's always motivating to see how people can change and evolve in the right direction when the right feedback is provided - when the dialogue is open, when the sender is open and honest in the comments and observations, and when the receiver is also interested in what others have to say.

It's not that when somebody tells you did something wrong, that you have to immediately agree with them - I'm the first to be against. Still, when two or more people tell you that you are drunk, you definitely go to bed.

I've had one guy who was always gloomy, never satisfied by anything, and always expressing his concerns and reasons to be upset with loud voice. After two years of working together, although he did not become the most positive person, he learned how to listen to others, how to contain his anger, and how to express his ideas in a way that favors listening and understanding. Moreover, he managed to be seen as a valuable contributor to the team he was part of, and - although keeping his "grumpy" title - to be listened to.

Now I'm on for a new challenge: a really strong technical person, but with whom people don't like to talk, and whose advices are not sought after - because he is too hursh, too direct, sometimes even arrogant and mean to the poor guy that doesn't know a thing.

Did you have this kind of people in your team? How did you manage them? What worked best?

Key to success: preparation

2011-02-27T16:27:00.000+02:00

I've watched today "The Mechanic" with Jason Statham in the main role, as a paid killer. As always, ingenious ways of making the most well guarded people lose their defence, and get them killed, and a lot of action and muscles.

One quote though raised my attention and was a guiding line throughout the whole action: "amat victoria curam", or "victory goes to those who prepare", or... in order to succeed, you must first prepare. It is not a new discovery, just a restatement of something that we've known since ever, and that we always forget about in the rush of our lives. So I am not going to teach you how to leave your life...

When we try to apply this principle to project management, it becomes obvious that this is what we have to do, and this is what the theory states so boldly. When preparing for the PMP certification, for example, the topic where you spend most of your time is on planning: you have to plan everything: your resources, your communication, your financial, your procurement, the quality, the acceptance, and of course the risk.

It is important to leave nothing to chance, and try to foresee almost everything about your project. You also need to find the right balance between planning and execution, of course - if you spend most of your time in planning, and thinking about what might go wrong, it's not good - but rushing into execution is as dangerous.

But... what is the right amount of time to spend in each phase of the project? There are many answers to this question, and - depending of the project type, domain, business needs, clarity of objectives, existing expertise - you might spend anything between 10% to 30% in drafting your plan.

What I usually do is plan the major milestones of the project, and go down into the details of the first phase, and maybe the second one as well, and the rest stays a little bit in the fog. As the project progresses, you will uncover more details, you will better understand the project environment, your stakeholders, the expectations, and you will be able to detail each phase.

During the project plan development (and as the project progresses), it is important to review your assumptions, and make sure that they still hold true - or re-assess them. You should avoid being too over-confident about your plan, as circumstances can become deceiving. Use the incremental development method, in a rolling wave style, and your project will be a successful one.

Coming back to the movie, you might believe that finally the son of McKenna has accepted that Arthur has killed his father and he's fine with that - but the end proves it completely wrong. No, I won't spoil the ending, I let you watch it first.

Oh, one last point: you should not confuse planning with scheduling: you should start the scheduling only when you are done with the planning, and you know WHAT you want to schedule. You need to decide WHAT your project is about and HOW you want it done, before scheduling all steps.

What are are success factors, from your point of view?

Motivation Reward Compensation

2011-02-12T15:47:00.001+02:00

We talk a lot about what are the best ways to keep our employees motivated, and which would be the most appropriate way of rearding the good and top performers, in a manner that continues to be attractive to them year over year.

In order to better understand the motivators behind each of my team members, I've started with an open discussion about what motivates them. One or two told me that indeed salary is a motivator, and as we digged further more we have uncovered that money was actually only the means to attain some of their objectives.

Returning to my initial question, we have uncovered quite a few interesting motivation drivers for each of them, quite unique from one individual to the other, and not so much related to money as you might think.

Here is what made it to the list from some of them:
- travel opportunities (for job purposes)
- access to knowledge (technical trainings or materials, time to do self-study)
- formal recognition of their performance (email to officials, some internal prizes, just a pat on the back)
- team members (the atmosphere at work, collaboration) and the ability to choose them
- pleasant environment (although ranked quite low overall by all employees)
- career development opportunities and options
- fairness in conversations
- constant feedback
- work-life balance
and the list continues.

I was quite amazed to see what was actually important to each of them - as this has also helped me in re-directing my efforts into creative ways of recognizing their achievements in a way that was actually meaningful to them.

There is also a downside to this approach, if you as manager fail to take into account their motivator factors, and do the same things after having discussed with the employee about it. One approach that I've used was to let them know immediately if something was not really possible, now or never, so that we were aligned.

Another thing to take into account: the motivators may change over time, and you should re-check their relevancy after some while. Many factors can be "blamed" for this, to count only progress of the individual (maturity, personal life changes), changing needs, other opportunities etc.

What's your approach to motivation and reward? What worked, what didn't?

Is this IMPORTANT? or just URGENT?

2011-02-04T22:27:00.000+02:00

Our life is inevitably assaulted with urgent, important or both urgent & important requests. Nothing is no longer unimportant, almost nothing can wait until tomorrow, everything has to be done TODAY, NOW, IN THIS SECOND. Like reading this post :-) You just couldn't stop clicking on it.

And you did well, as I'm going to share you the secret of sorting out between all these concurrent requests, separating Urgent from Important, putting them in the right order and making everybody happy. And if there are still some guys mumbling, it's just because they did not know the most important thing: what's important FOR YOU.

Yes, it all starts with YOUR priorities, with what you want to achieve, and not with what others want from you. But how do you distinguish between the two?

You might want to classify as IMPORTANT what helps you reach your own goals, and as URGENT what helps others.
IMPORTANT is also something that has to be done at some point in time - maybe not right now, but you would better give it enough time or otherwise will fall under IMPORTANT & URGENT.

It happened to me just this week: I had to do an analysis to evaluate some options, and - while I knew it was IMPORTANT - I kept postponing it (due to more urgent requests), until my boss said it's becoming URGENT... not great, as I had to work longer hours just to finish it.

Also, IMPORTANT does not mean it will take a lot of time - but it might require some focus, and some careful thinking about the best approach to do it.

On the other hand, URGENT is something important for the others - just like the above IMPORTANT in my example was suddendly urgent for him.

URGENT is also when it has to be now or never, like a fire burning, or child crying, or a birthday you forgot about :-) and you need a present.

My suggestion for you on how to manage this delicate balance between URGENT and IMPORTANT:
- make sure you keep an eye on your priorities
- maybe the urgent can be: delayed, delegated, changed
- understand the why's behind every request - you might be solving the wrong problem
- put some deadlines (or intermediate milestones) on your IMPORTANT. When deadline is there, the IMPORTANT becomes both IMPORTANT and URGENT. With no deadlines, you might procrastinate, and never get it done.

I have also learned that no matter how well you plan your time, the impredictable will happen, so save some time in your calendar for the unknowns.

What does your system look like?

Decision making

2011-01-19T17:34:00.005+02:00

"A wrong decision is always better than no decision". Yes, this is well-known to everybody, it's no innovation, I did not invent the wheel - yet, we tend to sometimes forget that it's better to make a step into the wrong direction, and assume that decision, than stay foot and wait for the time to go by.

What happens if you take no decision?

Will the problem get solved by itself? NO. Will it be easier to take the same decision tomorrow than it would be today? NO. ok, most probably no. Will you get more data tomorrow if you wait long enough? Maybe, but it may also bring more questions than answers.
Instead, when no decision is taken, your image as projected outside will suffer a lot. You will be seen as a weak person, not able to make a move without having all the information, not a risk taker (so why give to you the big project?), not a leader (why should we follow you when you only wait?), usually creating a mess by letting problems linger around.

What happens if you take the wrong decision?

There will always be someone blaming you for doing it this way or the other way, and it can actually be the best way given the context and the information at hand. So why bother?
A wrong decision will also mean eliminating one (wrong) option from your pool of solutions, so... one thing to worry less about.
If you know that with that amount of information, that was the only logical decision to be taken - then you should be fine. If it was wrong, recognize the error, try to correct it, and move forward. People are more appreciated if they took a wrong decision, and then admit the mistake.

So, what do I do, in the end? Of course - you make the decision.

Still, it would be great if you could minimize the errors, and if you could take the right decision upfront. There are a few techniques that could help you achieve this. And while there is no error-proof solution, using these simple ideas will help a great deal.

Step ZERO: define the problem. Define it fully, and correctly, and as accurate as possible.

1. Write down what you know. These are called "know what you know"
2. Write down what you don't know. the known unknowns
3. Keep in mind there are also some unknown unknowns :)
4. Agree on a few key criteria that your decision should meet.

For example, if you want to buy a new laptop, what would be the main criteria to decide on? Size, weight, performance, pre-installed software, privacy etc.
If you need to choose between a few candidates, what are the must-have of the final choice? Good-looking (yes, if it's for modeling :)), smart, good potential, or already has all the knowledge?

5. Identify solutions, and for each of them, weigh in all the criteria - put some relevancy to each criteria (some might be less important than others)
6. Use the objective (or less objective) criteria to make a decision.
7. Implement the chosen alternative.
8. Evaluate its success.
9. Modify the decision and the actions taken based on the evaluation did in the previous step.

Where does the gut feeling come into play? you will ask me. Nowhere, if you are a rational person. Everywhere, if you are at the other extreme.
While a lot of written literature writes against using gut feeling when making decisions, to me it did wonders - so I encourage you to listen to the gut feeling, and look for arguments to sustain the feeling. There usually exist quite a few, you just have to look for them.

Well, this is how I do it - or at least try to, especially if I have enough time to measure all factors. Usually, you also have to move fast, and take the best decision within the limited time you have, with little to no information. Funny enough, quite often it proves to be the right decision. :)

Anyway, if you need more materials to go in-depth in the decision making process, here are a few references:

Harvard Business Review on Decision Making
Harvard Business Essentials, Decision Making: 5 Steps to Better Results

How to Avoid a Work Burnout

2010-12-02T11:25:00.005+02:00

How many times didn't you feel like "Monday again", or "I haven't done nothing today", "I'm swamped in work", "I feel so tired after my vacation", "I have no more energy for anything"?

Burnout at work is too often a common topic amongst all of us. There is a lot of literature around work overload, burnout, energy management, and all these buzz words which in essence tell you that you have been working for too much, and too long, and too intense.

Many of the authors I've been reading have various recipes to help us overcome the tough periods in our work or life, and get back to a normal and bearable status. While there is no common or single solution, the five points listed in the below video will definitely help to start from one point, and - moving gradually - you can get back in shape.

From this perspective, I have also liked a lot a book I'm currently reading: The Way We're Working Isn't Working: The Four Forgotten Needs That Energize Great Performance, which can also help avoid work burnout.

It goes back to the basics of how we should manage ourselves, not only time, but our lives. It's like a return to what we were taught then we forgot in the past, it's like a return to a paradise of well-being that we all fear - what if we will actually feel good about ourselves, about the life we live, and about our achievements?

The book reviews the four core areas that are at the heart of great performance: sustainability (physical needs), security (emotion), self-expression (mental) and significance (spiritual). It is essential to stop thinking that we are computers, running in multi-tasking at high speed for the whole day long (sometimes even night) - we should pulse rhytmically between expending and recovering the energy across each of the four needs.

I also appreciated that there are some downloadable tools that can help you evaluate your current status, and identify ways how to address the four core areas to enable yourself to provide maximum energy at work, and in your personal life.

But how do you start to make the change?

It becomes a matter of personal choice how you feel - and it only takes some effort and discipline in the beginning. Of course - if you don't have enough energy to do your stuff now, how would you make it to add more into your shorter and shorter days?

I have started with the simplest and easiest thing: going to sleep a little bit earlier, giving up on my cool Windows 7 phone, and getting more rest. Energy is already at a better level. And it can only get better, as I can now focus more on the relevant stuff, and getting done the most important points on my long to-do list.

Next point for me will be to add more outdoor exercise - be it only walking to/from work.

And I am also cutting on interruptions - ignoring emails (already cleared all notifications of new email), answering to IM chat requests only if they are short, otherwise using the phone for speed, using the calendar to block time for important items and making myself unavailable if I don't want to be disturbed.

I recommend you to pursue some of these small steps in improving your worklife balance - and adding one point that always worked for me: keep a smile on your face, no matter how complicated it gets, or how tough - tomorrow can only be worse :)

http://www.watchmojo.com/tv/5min/BNET/259836881/

Performance management process

2010-11-24T22:07:00.002+02:00

Every now and then, depending on the company, a manager has to evaluate the people in the team. If you are a project manager, you might have it when the project is over, or when you release some of the people from the project.
If you are a people manager, and have directs in your responsibility for the whole year, formal performance management will probably happen once or twice in the year.
Either way, the performance evaluation process is the most official and an important step in providing formal feedback to your employees. It is a good opportunity to formalize the feedback that you provided along the year, to recognize progress or to take corrective actions.

But how do you deliver an effective performance review?

First of all, and the most important step, well known by all of us, is that the performance review should not be a surprise to the employee. As a manager, you have to provide feedback about the way the employee executes on the job during the whole year. Use every opportunity to discuss with he/she about how the specific task was done, either as a way to thank for the great job, or to give constructive ideas.

For this, I highly recommend "The One Minute Manager", an excellent book about how to manage your people, how often to provide this kind of feedback, and which is the most effective method. All done in just a minute. :)

So, step 1: continuous feedback through the year.

Step 2: Have concrete examples prepared and available. If you did the job right during the year, the examples will be already well-known, obvious for both of you, and you will both agree on the meaning of each. Of course, you might also have employees that would not be honest during this discussion, and might even pretend that they don't remember having had that discussion, but... you have all the notes shared with the employee. Again, good preparation.

Step 2 bis: Ask the employee to document his performance in the template you are going to use. It is essential that the employee does his part of the job, and builds the necessary self-awareness about how he meets the expectations based on established criteria.

Step 3: Draft the plan of the conversation you plan to have. As an agenda, it can look like this :
- start with stating the objectives of the meeting, and explain the standards you used in the evaluation
- create a safe environment where opinions can be shared (agree that you may disagree)
- allow the employee to present his/her point of view of the performance
- discuss the points where you disagree (I also confirm what I hear, if I agree)
- prepare to provide recommendations
- plan for the next meetings
- send a summary.

If you now have a plan for your discussion, you should also do a "what-if" analysis, and have some answers ready regarding the performance criteria, how you measured, and where you expect to have objections raised.

Step 4: Plan the time of the discussion
The meeting should take place in a period of the day where both of you are at a maximum of performance. You want to have an effective conversation, where the employee is not tired, distracted, or too agitated because of the day-to-day activities. And you should also foresee some free time after the meeting, to allow for some expansion if needed. Not too much though - if the discussion becomes too long, it might lose its effectiveness, so you might want to prepare a fallback plan in case you are not done - and propose a second meeting to finalize.

Step 5: Perform the discussion
As you have prepared very well, you should not have any surprises, and it should work out smoothly. Still, plan some unknown unknowns, because you are working with people and they tend to be unpredictible in some situations.

Step 6: Follow-up
The last step is extremly important: you should follow-up the meeting with written notes, send them for confirmation to the employee, and discuss about them in the next one-on-one's. The performance review results should not die in a drawer on a sharepoint, or in any system, but should actually be a living document that enables the employee to develop him/herself.

Step 7: (yes, there is another one) Ask for feedback
Do not forget to ask for feedback about the effectiveness of the meeting, and check if the employee felt it was useful and relevant. While the process might be imposed by your company, since you have to do it, it should be something that both of you enjoy. If make it constructive, and not accusative, not too negative, but not excessively positive, I am convinced that the feedback for you will be a stellar one.

Alternatively, you can continue the performance discussion with development ideas, so that the employee can also start working on their development plan. But this is another topic... and it depends on how you want to structure your conversation: focused on the past, or as a jump start for the future. Let's discuss this in a future post - that was my view on performance management, a formal process which starts on day 1 of the year, and never ends.

Apple and Microsoft - the continuous debate

2010-11-18T23:56:00.001+02:00

I will probably be in agreement with most of you, when I say that Apple has definitely re-invented the computer through their innovative design, characteristic colors, transparent plastic and cool shapes.

After seeing such a great design, with an easy-to-use (although sometimes still cumbersome) interface on their OS, people might think: what could be best? Is there anything better than iPhone, could anyone innovate more than them?

Beating a successful design, coming up with even greater ideas is not an easy task - lots of brainstorming happens, long nights spent in imagining other ways of creating a lot of practicality combined with a cool touch...

And when I was thinking that all was said and done, I have seen this cool ad for Microsoft, and I felt that there is still a lot of great stuff to be brought to life:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAhJTxC1C8w&feature=player_embedded

Watch this video - I find it inspiring, and although it might match to other companies, it comes from Microsoft - so you either love it, or hate it!

Could robots replace managers?

2010-11-08T22:31:00.001+02:00

Yes, exactly: do you think this can help? If yes, by when should we expect to become obsolete?

All of us, or... just the Project Managers, or just the People Managers, or only the CxOs?

Let's take a step-by-step approach to analyse this idea.

- what does a CxO do all day long? Looks at numbers, weighs ideas, run a lot of meetings, join in quite a few, and then decide. This is one job that even a robot could do, right?
- what does a Project Manager do? Looks at graphics, numbers, tasks, activities, costs, weighs in the variables and probabilities of various risks, and then decide. A robot could do that as well, right?
- what does a People Manager do? Looks at graphics, numbers, operational aspects, hire/fire people, give some random advices, and then decide. It seems simple, and straightforward, right?

So... why are we still here? why isn't our place already taken by robots? Maybe in my logic I made some mistake... yeah, there might be a chance that - beyond numbers, and graphs, and decisions - some flair, intuition, and experience play the most important part when taking decisions.

What's your point of view on this? Is it all logical thinking, in a series of "if... then... else" and some alternative paths (some more complex than others)? Where does the human factor come into play?

Office politics

2010-10-20T23:31:00.001+03:00

What do you know about company politics? Did you ever had the chance to stumble on them?

I am very naive person, and I used to think that I could develop and progress in any company, provided the good performance is there, and there is some good reasoning on why some things are the way they are. And that I cannot change everything, like it or not.

What I discover - and I say "discover", not know, because I keep discovering this in many organisations - is that there are always some backstage games that take place, with many different purposes: career advance, getting the easy project, lower targets, more power etc. It often doesn't matter who is wrong and who is right in these discussions, but how a situation is handled. And you might not agree with the politics, but they are there to stay - and in any organisation, be it small or big.

What should you know about politics so that you can properly prepare and navigate in the troubled seas of office politics? Well, there are quite a lot of articles and books about this, but I will give you my personal point of view - feel free to disagree! I think politics takes a great deal of networking, access to information, attention (to detail, corelation of information), all connected by your interpersonal and communication skills.

Network means knowing the right people, as many as possible, and having the ability to interact with every major person in your network often enough to find out the important facts. It also means continually expanding the network, keeping the nodes that give you the right information, and dropping/forgetting about the "nodes" that do not help. And it's also giving back something to the network, so that they keep giving you the vital information that you need.

And it's communication - as you have to communicate a lot with your "nodes", but also with the people that are not part of your network, but have an influence on your objectives. It's also a crucial skills when it comes to communicating plans, explaining the why's, providing guidance, mentoring and coaching your people, giving feedback, influencing your peers, managing up - and in every interaction in your small universe.

You might also need to know the history of the company, how things used to be done in the past, who was the main driver in various key initiatives, who would support you and who would not appreciate your input, no matter how good.

I wonder where friendship and camaradery fit in this picture - most probably nowhere, as you are in a company, which is meant to make profit, not to provide you with friends, and fun, and joy when you work. But this might lead me to a post about happiness at work, a different story.

If you think this game is for you, then go ahead and start playing it. But make sure you are aware of its consequences as well, as it drains a lot of energy from productive initiatives, from innovation, and from management as you know it from the books, while you pay attention to all of the above... and you might not succeed in the end ;)
If you still want to know more, here is one interesting reference to look into:

Secrets to Winning at Office Politics: How to Achieve Your Goals and Increase Your Influence at Work

and some additional ones, if you really like the topic:

Games At Work: How to Recognize and Reduce Office Politics
21 Dirty Tricks at Work: How to Win at Office Politics
Survival of the Savvy: High-Integrity Political Tactics for Career and Company Success

PMP certification - prep questions

2010-10-20T11:24:00.004+03:00

As the Getting PMP certified article got so much positive feedback, I though I should also share some of the providers of free tests.I have also used them during my certification prep period as well, and I've found them really useful.

You should simulate your exam at least 3 times before stating that you are ready for the BIG TEST, so the links below should help you a lot. Still, one word of caution: not all the questions seem to have the rigt response, and not all explanations are really in line with PMBoK - but if you have a good knowledge of the practice part of Project Management, and if you've read the books I've recommended, you can already discover them.

Don't go for the real PMP exam if you don't score 80% in these simulations - they seemed to me a little bit easier than the real exam.

http://www.pmhub.net/pmsuccess/Menu.htm

PMSuccess offers via PMHub.net 400 questions to play with. Not an exam simulation per-se, but you can always try to do 200 questions in a row to get the feeling.

http://www.pmstudy.com/enroll.asp#PMP

There are 2 real-time simulations here: a 200-question exam for the PMP certification, and a 150-question exam for the CAPM certification.

http://www.simplilearn.com/simplilearn/pmp_exam

Directly from their site: "Take a 200 Questions Full length (4 hours) PMP® Simulation Test to crack the PMP® Exam in a single attempt." - definitely worth trying it. I also like them if you want to study more, as they have some free material and course as well.

http://www.headfirstlabs.com/PMP/pmp_exam/v2/quiz.html

A real-time experience with 200 questions. ANd they don't really try to sell you anything, which is pretty cool :)

http://www.pmpprepare.com/pmp/pmp.jsp

"Free 200 question test. This test includes all the final PMP Exam features including Marking Questions,Dummy Questions , Countdown timer and more. "

As mentioned in a previous post, there are several resources that you can use when you are not online. While I have not tried them myselves, you might be interested to go through
Hot Topics: Flashcards for Passing the Pmp and Capm Exams.

I've used the previous version of this book a lot, so I recommend it to you from all the heart:
PMP Exam Prep, Sixth Edition: Rita's Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam

Well, and in the Books section of the site you can also find additional resources that will help you get the certification, but also gain a better understanding of the complex topics in Project Management.

One interesting site that I've found recently is also this one below. I will continue adding more relevant sites as I discover them.
http://www.pmtrainingonline.com/

Project management needs people management skills

2010-10-13T20:34:00.002+03:00

I am still very surprised about the huge amount of focus that is put on general project management skills, and processes, and tools, and the limited attention that people management skills get.

What happens when the PM has no people management skills? quite a lot actually:
- attracting people to the project becomes very hard, as the line managers say no to letting their people handle other stuff

- keeping the people on the project remains as well as challenge

- conflicts inside the team grow unseen until they become uncontrollable

- project meetings become wars

- deadlines slip

- people blame each other

A climate of distrust is thus created, and instead of a productive environment for already difficult customers, the PM will also have to firefight each and every conflict.

As I was mentioning in a prior post, while the PMP certification will not bring as a guarantee that the PM knows how to manage people, it does force every candidate to read through the Human Resource Management Chapter, at pay closer attention to planning, acquiring, developing and managing the project team.

Recognizing the growing importance of people management, the PMBoKoutlines all these processes in Chapter 9, and goes in quite a lot of detail about how to manage the project team, adding more information in the 2008 edition compared to the previous ones.

I would outline here the addition of the Forming/Storming/Norming/Performing/Adjourning stages, which was not described in the past versions, as well as the bigger space reserved for Conflict Management.

And one major update, that I have just noticed: Interpersonal skills made it as a specific T&T for Manage Project Team.

As with a body of knowledge, the information that you find here is only a starting point for going more in-depth when it comes to people management. This is one of the reasons why I've re-started this blog, actually - knowing how to handle the various human typologies is not an easy task, and researching into the ways of communication and collaboration with each of them is essential.

We should of course avoid putting people into boxes - I've been through quite a lot of trainings, and we were asked to do some tests, based on which we've got an assessment saying that you are like that, and in this situation you would react in this way, and this is how others should work/communicate with you. Interesting enough, as time goes by, the results tend to change, the preferences update, and what worked yesterday does no longer work today - so one has to adapt again and again.

Coming back to my initial thought - it is good to know all processes for correctly managing a project, but there is still something more needed: a constructive approach to managing people, flexibility (or should I call it "openess") in communication and in style - without losing focus of your values, and of the goals of the project team: to take the project through a successful journey.

So manage the project work properly, and master the people skills!

Developing your Critical Thinking and the Leader inside

2010-10-06T21:23:00.003+03:00

I am passionate about self-development and ways to improve yourself. Up until now, I can say that I have mastered one critical aspect: continuous learning. Let me explain.

Business today requires us to always deliver great results, by providing decreasing resources to increase profit margin. Or, shortly put: MORE with LESS.

I don't think this is actually possible if we continue to do the things the same way we did it in the past - what worked then, might continue to work today as well, or not... So you have to be prepared to adjust to the new requirements, to change based on how the world around us change, always dapt and discover new ways of doing things.

My key learning was that I have to never stop learning, never stop reading about how others are doing things, how others achieve great results, and see how this might give me ideas on how to change. I might not apply it today, or not even tomorrow, but it does build a different way of thinking, it does open up your mind to new approaches.

I've found today one really interesting article from HBR called "How Companies Can Develop Critical Thinkers and Creative Leaders" - making a comparison of the experiential learning that happens in the army and the one that should take place inside companies, but does not. I suggest you reading it, and let me know how much of your time do you spend it in working at your job, and how much you devote to your learning (formal, informal, coaching, mentoring, reading, experiential)...

Strategic Thinking

2010-09-29T19:58:00.000+03:00

I have been in a nicely called training, entitled "Strategic Thinking". I must admit I was a little bit disappointed that it was a "back-to-basics" of management, i.e. Mission (or Statement of Purpose), Vision, Strategies (Initiatives), and Action Plan (I would rather call it an "actionable plan"). But it's a great refresh actually, as we are always so much dragged into the day-to-day operational business, that we hardly remember that we have to set time aside for thinking about the business, and not only performing it.

Of course, you cannot afford to lose the focus on the operational part, as this is core - but you DO have to stop from doing at some points in time, and start THINKING.

And this was the main idea behind the whole training: STRATEGIC THINKING means THINKING. Something that we don't always do, but the biggest strategists and the biggest achievers do often. In your busy calendar, find half a day when you plan to regularly think about your business - and I mean "regularly", like in every few weeks. Take an airplane view, and think about where you want to be, and where you are now, what is stopping you from being there, and how you can overcome the obstacles. Put everything down and build a plan or update your current one.

A few things to keep in mind about the plans, though:
- plans are meant to help you, but they should not be frozen - keep them up to date depending on the changes that occur
- what is relevant today, might be obsolete tomorrow, so always update the plan
- spend enough time in planning, but not too much.

Planning is also one of the most important activities in Project Management as well - in order to achieve the objectives layed out so nicely in the project charter, you have to plan, and continuously update the plan as the project progresses.
Plans are nothing; planning is everything. Dwight D. Eisenhower

When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people. Chinese Proverb

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. Benjamin Franklin

All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination. Earl Nightingale

If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. Jim Rohn

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.George S. Patton

Four steps to achievement: Plan purposefully. Prepare prayerfully. Proceed positively. Pursue persistently. William A. Ward

In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. Henry David Thoreau

Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan. Tom Landry

Always plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. Richard C. Cushing
Think also about your carefully planned vacation: you know you don't have that much time to waste in your vacation, so you take the time to choose the destination, ways to get there, and activities you want to perform there - all with a great purpose: to make yourself feel great. What stops us from doing the same with our business activities, and with the full personal life?

To help you prepare, here are a few books I have selected to help you:
Strategic Thinking: A Nine Step Approach to Strategy and Leadership for Managers and Marketers
A Sense of Urgency
Leading Change

Managing people diversity

2010-09-22T20:45:00.002+03:00

I've talked some while ago about communication styles in different cultures - but diversity is still on top of my mind even if I speak about people grown in the same culture, working together to a common goal.

Looking at the big picture, you see a team performing at the highest levels. But when drilling down, even in the small teams you can find so many different personalities, so many views about the world or how things should go/be done which is still amazing. You will have a star, or at least someone believing to be a star, or going into that direction. You will have the quiet do-er, sometimes called the silent hero. You can also find the "always complaining", and hopefully you will have an always happy guy (annoying everybody else with a positive attitude).

It's a nice mix, and it's also a great challenge to have. But how do you get to have such a team? Would you like one? How would you manage it?

Well - getting it is really easy: you just hire good professionals that are NOT like you, but can still do a good job. We have a natural tendency to hire people that match our own style, and we do it even without knowing it. They are nice people (of course, because they are just like you), and you get along very well with them. But they will also have the same reactions as you in difficult situations, they will most probably have the same ideas with you, and you will find yourself stuck at times without any solution. Why? Because diversity will also bring a lot of benefits. I will write about them maybe later.

So you changed your recruitment style, and now you have a very diverse team. That you have to manage. Daily. In all situations. Even when you don't know what to do or how to react. And you learn to work with each of them: to smile to the happy guy, to congratulate (and calm down) the star, to push for more recognition of your silent hero... and get good results in all areas of your business, because the team is so diverse.

How do you work with your people? Do you have a project team, or a permanent team? Are there differences in the way you work with your project team?

Incremental development

2010-09-22T20:07:00.003+03:00

Incremental development is one technique used in Project Management to progressively develop your project scope and work, while the project is running. So rather than spending a lot of time and effort in the beginning of the project to discover all the requirements, and do all the estimates, and uncover all unknowns, you decide to start with something that allows you to begin working, and then - as project details uncover - you update your project plans accordingly.

Well, here is the great idea: why not use the same technique when developing yourself? Why not use it when coaching and developing your people?

Rather than saying you need to become somebody else in one year, or two years, or more - you can start the transformation today with one first step. You cannot expect that the transformation happens over night - you have to gradually work on you in order to change one thing, then another, and then another... and while experimenting a new style, or applying a new lesson, you will discover at some point: look where I was two months ago, and where I am today! That's progress!

You can start with little things. Let's say you love to talk a lot, but people avoid you, as you tend to occupy the whole bandwidth in a conversation. Start with one small step: whenever you feel like talking, waiting a few seconds and check if somebody else would not like to say something. Only then you can continue - but watch for the reactions of the other, and if they start to feel annoyed, stop - let them assimilate, and then maybe you can continue. It will be very hard in the beginning, but with every day you will become better - until it builds as a skills, rather than something imposed.

Then, you can work on the amount of complaints you raise - if you do it often, you might think: what if, instead of only complaining, I also bring a solution? what if I can change things, so that next time it will work as expected? After a few iterations, it will be less and less difficult to focus on solutions, and it will be very hard to complain, since you already have the solutions at hand.

So now you are a good listener, and a problem solver! And... it took you only a few weeks! Think about the next big thing you want to change, split it into smaller chunks, and work on those... then you will see the effect on the whole!

And who knows - you might be the go-to person for a wider range of issues, and your opinions will now be listened to, and you might even be the next coach for somebody who talks a lot :)

So... don't just say: "I want to be recognized as the best", but work towards this goal - and do this step-by-step.

Do you have other views? Do you think a workshop can truly change you? What makes a difference?

Why Am I Enjoying Myself Today? (WAIEM)

2010-09-01T22:29:00.000+03:00

This was the first lesson in my most recent management training, done under the umbrella of the Gustav Kaser Training International (GKTI): ask yourself every morning why are you enjoying yourself (WAIEM).

It might sound like a dumb question, but... think a little bit: if you had at least one reason to be happy that day, wouldn't you feel better? It could be anything: your baby saying the first word, winning the lottery, one award that one of your employees received, or just because it's a late summer day, with some bright warm sun in the sky.

And... if you can't find a reason to enjoy yourself... just make up one! Think about the challenges of that day, and how you plan to attack them, and the results you expect - you might already feel better just because of that!

So... WAIEM every day, every morning, and during the day. Be happy and smile - and the people around you will also feel the joy. Why? Because happy people are contagious (well, when they are not stepping on your nerves :)).

My suggestion to you: try this for a week, put this on a paper in the morning, and keep the list open during the day - keep adding to it, repeat the reasons, and tell me how it feels!

If you don't like the feeling - blame it on me :)

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.

- Robert Luis Stevenson

The Power of a POSITIVE NO

2010-08-22T21:47:00.003+03:00

More and more often I hear that one can only earn respect and power only if one can use the NO word as needed.

NO is the most fearest word - it is said to close doors, to shut down opportunities, to bring sadness into one's heart, to make both parties suffer from the consequences of a NO.

BUT... it's also a differentiator, in a world where people are more and more discussing about leadership and how to manage expectations, and how to achieve more with less. NO means making the right choices, in the right moment.

I find it really difficult to use, and I've found one great resource to give me power to use it. I've learned that the NO can also be POSITIVE, and it's really surprising when you hear about this at first.

How can a NO be positive???

Yet, if you say it correctly, if your NO is for the specific situation, and not to a whole relation, if you deny only the possibility of that opportunity, but you stay true to your ideals, to what you value most, and know how to say it, then it is indeed a POSITIVE NO. It's not an easy task to deliver negative messages, but you always have to think about what you want to achieve by saying NO. And it then becomes a lot more simple to say it, and to keep the relationship with the person.

As there are many others that have written about the power of a positive NO, I will not elaborate more on this.

What I would like you to do, is to THINK about one situation where you had to say NO, and how you could have done it differently. If you need a new way to deliver it, please read this book, it's a great example and an inspiring one. It's not easy, but with some practice and with feedback, anyone can deliver a POSITIVE NO.

Getting PMP certified

2010-08-22T19:52:00.006+03:00

I've got a lot of friends asking me about how to get certified. Each time, I had to remember how many hours of experience one had to have, and how many hours of learning, and then which where the links that were most useful for me, as well as all the books and software I have ever used.

In terms of specific requirements for getting certified, the best resource will always be pmi.org, with a direct link to the requirements: PMI site - Obtaining the Credential. The site lists a credential overview, and then there (currently) 5 handbooks for the 5 available certifications. There is also a page with how to prepare for the exam, from an administrative point of view.

If you are new to project management, then you will have to go with the CAPM certification. Then, the rest of certifications are for more and more experienced PMs. I only know well about the PMP certification, as it's the one I've got.

First step is to ensure that you meet the elgibility requirements. At the time of the posting, they are:

for secondary degree:
minimum five years / 60 months unique non-overlapping professional project management experience during which at least 7,500 hours were spent leading and directing project tasks
35 contact hours of formal education
four-year degree:
minimum three years / 36 months unique non-overlapping professional project management experience during which at least 4,500 hours were spent leading and directing project tasks
35 contact hours of formal education

You will have to make all the calculations for this when filling in the application form, and you should be ready to prove what you declare - you might be selected to be verified!

If you know you want to go through the certification, I recommend you to apply for the certification first, and only afterwards to start studying - it takes some time and a lot of effort and determination, so if you are not sure, you'd rather not start it. But as you already paid for it, then you should go through the whole process.

For the study: start by browsing the A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: (Pmbok Guide). You will have some time later on to read it in detail, and learn some parts by heart, but for now just browse through it, and make sure you understand the introductory chapters, where some terms and concepts are defined. Also memorize already the knowledge areas, and the processes in each, as these will be key for your understanding.

I then recommend using Rita's manual, as the best resource for the exam preparation: PMP Exam Prep, Sixth Edition: Rita's Course in a Book for Passing the PMP Exam. It has an excellent summary of the theory, and a lot of preparatory exercises, with explanations why that answer, although sometimes your logic or experience would say differently. You can go even in more practice mode with her PM Fastrack Exam Simulation Software for the PMP Exam: Version 6 with about 1400 questions.

Unfortunately, this only book will not be enough: you will still need to read from Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling by Harold Kerzner, and... yes, there was another one, which I cannot remember now. It will come...

Then, read through tips&tricks on the best site I had found at that time for the PMP certification: http://pmhub.net/ . People post there memory cards that helped them, hints about the exam, how they prepared and what worked better for them, why not to panic :)

While reading Rita's book, and browsing the site, you can also start reading the PMBOK standard. It's important to notice the structure of each chapter, the processes&tools that repeat in the various knowledge area processes.

You can find here a free online course: http://instructing.com/free-pmp-exam-prep/ - yes, I was surprised that they would make it available for no money, but well - why not advertise it, if it's free? :)

The bad news is that you will have to learn a lot by heart, and remember that during the exam. You will also have to go through exam simulations, and re-do them until you get the passing score - otherwise it's not worth going to the exam.

Once you are done with all these books, I suggest you do a full pass of PMBOK, then re-do an exam - just to be sure.

Or, I keep mentioning the exam: it's a 200-question exam, out of which only 175 questions count to the final passing score of 61% (or 106 questions that you have to get right). My advice is to read each question very carefully, and make sure you understand the question in the way it was put, and that you answer taking into account PMI's standard, not what you would do in real life (it might be different sometimes!).

During the 4-hour exam you can take your own breaks (no, the ticker does not stop), and I suggest that you reserve some time (an hour or so) to review all your answers. If uncertain, better not change the first answer ;)

Well, that's all story folks! Please come back after the exam and let me know if these tips helped, as well as what else did help you in passing the exam!

Good luck!

P.S.: If you want even more resources on project management and PMP certification, you can also browse this small site

Women in Technology

2010-08-15T13:15:00.005+03:00

Women in IT is one of the hottest topics - it's actually been for a while, and it continues to be. Working in the IT industry all my life, it's really interesting to see how the idea of Women in IT progressed.

Well, I never felt that people make a difference whether it's about a man or a woman who applied for the job. Yes, the hopes that the candidate is a good one are lower for a woman: but then in the recruitment interview you have to pay even more attention to what the candidates know, but can or cannot demonstrate on the spot. In the past, you had to search a little bit more in-depth with a woman, as they were more shy, more introvert, and less keen to show off.

But in the last few years, I have noticed that the women have made a great progress and started to impose themselves as important values in a company. In the interviews they are more bold, a lot more self-confident than some men even, and show not only a good level of knowledge, but also a stronger will to exceed expectations.

What's great about having more women in a technical environment is that it does bring up people morale :), and it also brings a lot more ideas, different points of view, different ways of doing things, different communication style. And yes, some frustration from time to time, as they are more delicate and you have to take care at the communication style. This holds true actually for men as well: not all of them would understand.

Talking about communication with men/women (in the IT environment, let's say), women are more oriented towards the past and the present, while the men tend to focus a lot on their needs and what can be done for the future. Strictly from this point of view, it's better to have men in the team.

Lately, as the focus has been so much on getting more women recognized for their contribution in the technology field, I have seen more women being given more and more responsibility, and getting the chance to prove their leadership in technology. It's amazing to see how the business has flourished under their command, as they have proven they can be strong willed to achieve, but in a more flexible manner and paying more attention to the environment.

I do recommend to those interested (men or women) to read the personal stories from nearly 50 women in the technology industry as they share what makes a good leader, their most difficult challenges, what advice they would give to aspiring women leaders, and the legacy they'd like to leave behind:

No One Path: Perspectives on Leadership from a Decade of Women in Technology Award Winners

What was your experience with women/men in Technology? How did it influence the way you work? What were the challenges of managing women, and/or being led by women?

Care about your people!

2010-05-10T21:19:00.001+03:00

Yes, you should care about your people, especially when they give in too fast!

I had one situation today that was really amazing: one of my people said they won't pursue an opportunity, although the most fervant demandeur for it!

What would you do in this situation?? As you are in the fast forward area, where everything has to happen yesterday, today does not exist, and we are always building our future... the most logical reaction would have been: fine, let's see who else would be interested.

But I did one surprising thing: I've asked: WHY do you want to not give it try? And we had a chat about it, and then a face-to-face discussion, where I've listened to the other, trying to understand what was going on beyond the "I don't want it anymore", and asking a lot of questions.

At some point of the discussion, and not even too far into it, the other asked me: why do you even bother with me? I'm a bad person, and I've just changed my mind after it took me an eternity to decide on it... so... WHY BOTHER with me?

That was the most surprising question for me - and I still don't know why would the other ask it. It's so unusual in our world to try to go beyond the words, into other's feelings, into other's justifications and judgements and ideas, understanding and then helping the other, without necessarily having a hidden agenda?

What would you have done in my situation? Would you have asked the other about the motivation, or would have moved further on, relieved that no action is required from you?

Storms in the workforce market

2008-03-14T22:04:00.005+02:00

In this troubled times there is no better topic than the storm that is now in process on all recruitment markets.
I am struggling with hiring high quality individuals, both from a job skills point of view, as well as from a personal and soft skills point of view. And yes, the soft skills are really important in my activity, as we work remotely with most of the team members, and need to have good communication skills, really strong proactivity and forthcoming, rather than waiting for things to happen...
And it's actually pretty easy to wait for things to happen to you, but they will not do by themselves - and if you expect that the reality tells different from this, then you are working in a really closed environment. I've seen people that did not progress in their work, because nobody was available to tell them what to do next. Well, if you don't know what's next, go and ask, don't sit and wait.
But I was talking about the workforce market - it's really weired what's happenning here... A statistic says that all companies in the city I leave (a 2-million inhabitant) want to hire around 40% new personnel, while the unemployment rate is 1% (or below). Any idea how we can still do the plan?
Well - steal employees from other companies, expand the research in different locations, build new offices outside the city, in regions where people are unemployed, and happen to have the right skills. But then you run into different issues: the people in those regions might be right from a technical point of view, but their soft skills are not trained, so we need to grow them, and invest... and once you have invested and the person has reached the required level and can be productive... the worst case scenario happens: they are employed by other companies!!!
Is it the same in your location? Are you fighting the people turnover? How do you make your business grow in this environment?

Evaluate your human resources performance

2008-01-05T10:27:00.000+02:00

It's beginning of the year, and for a lot of companies it is the time for looking back to what happened last year and evaluate the performance of the resources.
You all know how to do performance evaluation, so I won't lecture on this, instead, I'm asking you: what are your criteria for evaluating a resource? Do you look only at their performance, do you take into account the context, too, the environmental conditions and all the factors that may impact a person's performance? Or you just look at the evaluations that you did over the year, sum it up, and that's it?
And if you answered yes to the above questions: by taking into account the reviews you collected over the year about a person, without keeping in mind the big picture of the context and needs and demands we had on that person, do we build an accurate image of that person's performance?
These are questions that I need to answer pretty fast, as I need to give feedback to all my team members, and it's not an easy task...

Cultural differences in communication styles in distributed projects

2007-09-26T10:44:00.000+03:00

How often did it not happen to you to ask somebody to do something, wait for the result, and then notice that what you asked for and what you obtained is different? More often than we want to admit, there is a big gap between what you think you have communicated and what the other party has actually understood. And this happens when you talk with your peers face-to-face. Can you imagine what happens when the same request is done across geographic and cultural distances?
There are a lot of things that one has to take into account when working remotely, and these go from process and procedures to interactions and time differences. For solving all these points, there are quite a few tools and tips that one can use. But all these tools and all the processes in the world cannot solve by miracle one of the most critical points: different communication styles.
The communication style is different from one person to another, based on their education, maturity, personality style, and so on. And there is a huge influence that one has also to factor in, and this is cultural differences.
Communication occurs at multiple levels, in all directions:

top-down, from the project manager to the remote team members
between peers, inside the team
bottom-up, from the team members to their remote project manager

.
At all these levels you may have communication issues, and the bigger the cultural gap the bigger the issues.

What you should do to solve this type of issues?

First, start by identifying the actual communication differences that you might have, based on your own observations in the past projects, or on the feedback from other people that worked with the same team before; you can also read specific literature about these differences.
Acknowledge these differences.
Cultivate the desired communication style inside the team, between the team members.
Plan your communications regarding the overall project objectives and current status, client interactions, how the client sees you - these are all important, especially if the team has no direct interaction with the client.
Foster an open communication environment inside the team, where all questions are allowed and it is not bad to let others know that one is stuck and needs help.
Clarify what type of communication you need from the team members in terms of status reporting (such as: progress, foreseen issues, next tasks).

I hope all these tips will help you in getting better when communicating with your peers, with your remote team members...

There are quite a few good articles that discuss communication, here is one that I recently found and liked: Culture Matters: Communication and Culture Tips for Global Managers.

Traveller's notes

2007-06-17T17:03:00.001+03:00

I am really amazed by the people that spend most of their time travelling from one location to another, working with numerous people from different cities and locations. I am not talking about a traveller that is doing a pleasure trip, but of working guys that enjoy meeting lots of people and going to tens of locations just for work... I did only a few business trips, in not so many locations, but still I found it really cool. I'm not sure I could turn it into a work model, but I enjoyed. And took some nice pictures from my trips, too. I will show only one picture now, from Geneva. I want to start a traveller's notes website, with lots of pictures from my trips. Not the professional pictures type, but the amateur... Maybe I will see your pictures there, too.