Welcome to my project from hell. Let’s say you’re managing a project. It is two months behind schedule. It’s way over budget. As the deadline approaches, your team is in a visible state of panic. Instead of looking for solutions, they’re looking for reasons to delay the project. Instead of looking for ways to maintain the schedule, there are cries that “we can’t do this”. Instead of working on real problems, such as why users can’t print, there are discussions regarding colours and fonts. New problems pop up about every fifteen minutes and with each problem comes more panic. Instead of spending most of your time solving the issues that would help the project to move forward, you spend time more time dealing with the Chicken Littles that pop into your office about every two minutes.
Welcome to my project from hell.
Sometimes even good project managers go to hell. I know what you’re thinking: I must have done something wrong to deserve this. If you follow PMBOK and do all of those project-management-y things that you’re supposed to do, then the projects don’t go to hell.
Well, let’s go through that list, shall we?
Project Charter which lists deliverables, success criteria, schedule and budget, and signed off by the project sponsor? Check.
Project Schedule? Check.
Project risks managed? Well, a couple of those risks ended up playing on the wrong side which explains the budget and schedule overrun. But other than that: check.
Resources? The right people are dedicated to the project and it’s high level enough that those people have it as their top (and only) priority. Check.
Project’s business case make sense? Check.
So, what else could possibly cause a project to go to project hell?
People.
Those unpredictable, emotional, irrational human beings. Who do not follow the logic of critical path methodology, CPI, or 1+1=2.
It’d be a great job if it weren’t for the people, wouldn’t it?
Managing projects means managing teams. By definition, a project is a unique endeavour with a defined start and finish. Given the “unique” part, chances are pretty good (like 99.9999%) that you need a team in order to execute projects. Which means that, there’s no way around it, managing projects means managing teams. And managing teams means managing people.
Forming: The team comes together, and the members get to know each other. There is very little conflict at this stage.
Storming: Team members are more open with each other and confront each other’s ideas and perspectives. This stage is characterized by conflict, also known as project hell. Some teams never get past this stage. (Did you just cry as you read that? I did.)
Norming: Team members unite around one goal. There is some give-and-take as the individual members give up their own ideas and accept the decision of the team.
Performing: This is team nirvana and it’s where you find high-performing teams: the team functions as a whole, “they find ways to get the job done smoothly and effectively without inappropriate conflict or the need for external supervision”. If you just read that sentence and it sounded the exact opposite of your team, well then, you’re not here.
There are two key messages that you need to understand about these four phases:
You cannot get to nirvana without passing through hell. And hell is the Storming phase.
The Storming phase really sucks. It makes your job suck. It makes the project suck. It sucks your energy and passion. It sucks the motivation out of your team. If the team never gets past this stage, it will fall apart. And so will your project. Which sucks even more.
Team members focus on minute details in order to avoid the real issues. For example, they worry about fonts and colours instead of why all of your printers disappeared from your network.
Team members feel overwhelmed by the work remaining on the project and panic. A task that should take 2 days will balloon out of proportion and suddenly need “two months”.
Every five minutes, Chicken Little comes into your office to announce that “the sky is falling”.
Working on the project is an emotional roller coaster and you feel drained of energy after a team meeting instead of energized and ready to tackle problems. During your lunch hour, you eat a sandwich in your car and cry your eyes out.
Be a Mom to get your team out of the Storming phase
Acting like children? Treat them like children. Try these Mom tactics to get your team out of Storming:
The answer is “No”. If you’ve debated an issue over and over, end the debate for once and for all. Make a decision, make it clear to the team and move on. Do not allow anyone on the team to put the issue back on the table. Instead, distract them with the 50,000 other action items that you have on the project action item list.
Tough love. If someone is behaving in a way that you find unacceptable, book a one-on-one meeting with that person and make it clear what behaviours you need to see. You’d be surprised at how different people behave by themselves than when surrounded by their team mates, especially when the team stuck on Storming. And don’t forget to mention all the strengths that this person has that seem to have all of a sudden disappeared and that you’d like to see come back.
No texting at the dinner table, a curfew and other rules. Lay out the ground rules for your team members, sternly and clearly. Meetings scheduled for 9:30 am start at 9:30 am. Confiscate Blackberries that get opened during a meeting. And zero tolerance for broken rules. You’ve got to mean it. So be prepared to follow through on enforcing your rules.
No whining. A project has enough problems without team members adding more. Sure, list all of the problems, but make sure that more time is spent on finding solutions than whining about problems.
Time outs. There is no tolerance for bad behaviour. Don’t be afraid to punish misbehaviour: sternly, politely, but mostly sternly.
Raising children is hard, but rewarding. When you see your 15-year-old daughter up on a stage at her high school musical belting out a tune and you’re asking yourself where on earth that came from but you’re as proud as hell, that’s when you remember how rewarding parenting is.
And when you’re sitting at the project post-mortem, reviewing the end of a successful (although difficult) project and that dark period in your team’s journey is long past, that’s when you remember how rewarding project management is.
Perfect composition depends on the artist, not the tool
Real photographers use real cameras. One of the first toys I bought with the income from my part-time job in high school was an SLR camera (no “D” in those days) (yeah, I’m that old). As I was 18 years old at the time, it basically means that all of my adult life (uh, a long time), I have equated “being serious about photography” with “having the right equipment”: a “real” camera with several lenses, a tripod, a polarizing filter, etc. I carried this paradigm with me when I transitioned from film to digital about 5 years ago: after my initial purchase of a DSLR, I added a better tripod, a couple of lenses, a remote cable switch and a flash. As for my camera, there was never any question of my getting a “point-and-shoot” camera: such things were for children or for people who only wanted to take snapshots at family gatherings.
You cannot possibly make art without the right, and best, tools.
Then I heard about Chase Jarvis.
The best camera is the one that’s with you. When I first stumbled upon Chase Jarvis’ website about three years ago, my jaw dropped. I dream to take pictures like these…and he was doing it with an iPhone (the first one, not the 4S). A camera phone. The loser of loser point-and-shoot cameras.
If a loser camera could produce better pictures than I could with my DSLR, then what did that make me? (Don’t answer that.)
It finally dawned on me: my pictures sucked. And they sucked not because I didn’t master focus or depth of field or exposure. I didn’t master composition.
The problem wasn’t the tool. It wasme.
It’s not the tools, it’s you. There was a point in my career over ten years ago when I faced a crisis. I had just finished two projects, one after the other, which were considered failures. The indicators were awful: –50% gross margin, eight months late and a pissed-off customer. You don’t pull in numbers like that (and do it twice in a row to boot) without getting a whole lot of phone calls from a whole lot people asking a whole lot of questions that you’d rather not answer. But the one question I knew they weren’t asking out loud was: was it the Project Manager?
So, I had a little performance review with myself and asked myself the one question that no one had asked me: did I suck at this?
There were many reasons why these projects pulled in such dismal results. One of my favourite reasons, that I held onto like a crutch, was that I just didn’t have the right tools to allow me to control my projects. Getting even a simple report of budget versus actuals out of our woefully inadequate ERP system was like pulling teeth.
However it was only during that performance review with myself that I was finally able to admit the painful truth behind my failure.
It wasn’t the tools.
It was me.
I had totally and utterly failed to control my scope.
The art of project management is scope control. Controlling scope is the single most important thing that will result in project success, and it also happens to be the hardest thing to do well. All the S-curves and Gantt charts and PM Dashboards and flashing lights in the world won’t save your project unless you are in control of your scope. When project scope grows unchecked, you end up doing more than you planned, which makes it look like you took longer and spent more to do your project. But really, the only reason that the project took longer and cost more is because…well… you did more. And if you let scope increases “just happen” without telling anyone that you need more time and money (in other words, you didn’t update the project schedule and budget to take into account this additional work), you look like a really crappy Project Manager.
Like I did.
It’s really very simple: if you do more stuff, it takes longer and costs more. So, before you do more stuff, you need to make sure that everyone, especially your customer, knows that you’re doing more, is willing to pay for it and will give you more time to do it. Finding out at the end of the project that you did more is too late.
Scope control is more art than science: not only do you have to clearly identify your project scope (and look for the “gotchas” before they get you) at the beginning of the project, but you have to work daily (even hourly!) to protect your scope from changes.
Once I came to this realization, I decided to give myself one more chance before I went off and looked for another career. I decided to control the hell out of the scope of my next project.
That “next project”? It finished on-time, at double the revenue and 20% more gross margin than I started, with a happy customer. And how did I do this?
I controlled the hell out of that project scope.
I guess I didn’t suck after all.
How to control the hell out of your project scope. In six easy steps no less…
Define the scope. You can’t control what you don’t know. So it’s crucial to spend time to understand your project before you dive in. Make sure that you can answer these questions: What does “done” look like? What are the list of things (deliverables) that the project will produce? When are they due? At what agreed cost? How do you know that the deliverables are good? (What are the success criteria?)
Agree on the scope. The kick-off meeting is the forum to present your understanding of the scope, and to get an agreement from your customer / project sponsor as to what that scope is. Keep your representation of the scope as simple as possible without forgetting anything: use lists, tables and lots of pretty pictures to represent your scope. And don’t forget the schedule and budget: scope drives the project schedule and budget and not the other way around.
Agree on how you will change the scope (the change process). Let’s not be naive: there is no way that your project scope will be static. Changes are inevitable. So it is best to agree at the beginning of the project (preferably at the kick-off meeting) on how you will change the scope. This change process must define: who will submit changes, what the format looks like, and who will approve them. As for the “who” on your side? You, of course. And only you.
Publish the scope. Once you have an agreement on scope, publish it. Use whatever means are appropriate for your project (it could be as simple as an email). Just make sure that everyone who needs to know what the scope is knows it.
Protect the scope. This is the hard part: protecting your scope. Remember how change is inevitable? This means that you have to be on the alert for clues that your scope is changing without you knowing about it. Learn to read (and listen) between the lines of any conversation you have with anyone even remotely involved in your project. Beware of sentences that start with “While you’re at it ….” or in French “Tant qu’à y être…”. And call a spade a spade: don’t be afraid to say things like “That’s a change. Let me look into it for you and I’ll let you know what the impact is on the schedule and the budget”.
Update the scope. After you have agreed on changes (remember that change process you defined at the beginning of the project?), be sure you update and re-publish the scope. All that fun stuff you documented at the beginning of the project (the deliverables list, success criteria, schedule, budget, etc. etc) needs to be updated with your agreed changes. This way everyone knows that the “teeny tiny” whileyoureatit / tantquàyêtre will add another six months to the schedule and 50% more budget.
My super-duper scope control tools. To help me control the hell out of my project scope, I decided I would no longer hide behind a crappy ERP system. (Aren’t they all crappy?) Along with those six easy steps (that all of sudden I remembered I knew), I decided to use some magic tools of my own. Are you ready?
My attempt at scope control.
The org chart tool in Power Point. For every element of work in the project, I drew a box. And I didn’t stop until I had drawn all of the boxes.
A pad of lined paper and a pen. Every time anyone mentioned anything that even remotely affected one of the boxes in my drawing I wrote it down on a list, in numerical order. And I called it my “change log”.
Excel. Ah, the duct tape that can fix any crappy ERP system. I got the costs out of the ERP system, slapped them in a worksheet, added a few columns and called it done. Every Monday, I updated it. A few hours a week was all it took to figure out if I was on budget.
As for the most important tool? Me.
Scope control is to project management what composition is to photography. No matter what expensive lens you buy, no matter what top-of-the-line DSLR camera you own, if you don’t master composition, you don’t master photography. Composition is what turns a photograph into art. And taking a photo with a camera phone forces you to block out the noise associated with tools (stuff like aperture, exposure, f-stops and filters) and focus on the art. Every time I take a picture with my iPhone (I no longer look down on camera phones), I am able to focus on that one thing that makes a photograph good: composition.
This is the same process I employed at that turning point in my career when I decided to control the hell out of my project scope. I ignored my frustration with inadequate tools, took out a pad of lined paper and focused on the one thing that makes a project good: scope control.
The best project management tool is the one that’s with you.
My first night with an iPad. I remember my first night with our brand new iPad: I curled up on the couch, fired up the TED video site and watched several videos. And then got so wired up I couldn’t sleep.
It’s no wonder that my bookmark for this website is filed under “Inspiring”: it truly is filled with “riveting talks by remarkable people”.
If you don’t know TED (and even if you do), here are my three personal favourites. Having watched each of these dozens of times, I can promise you: boredom is not an option.
Even if you are not a geek, you will love everything about this TED talk. The SixthSense technology, which is all about uniting the digital world with the real world, is mind-blowingly cool. How about taking a picture with your hands, then sending it by email from the nearest wall? Or turning a piece of paper into a laptop, like that scene on the train in the Caprica pilot? Or pinching a graph on a piece of paper to copy it to your computer? Pranav does all of these things and more in this talk. Which probably explains why it remains one of the most viewed TED videos of all time.
This talk dates from before the events in Egypt and the Middle East, which makes it all the more visionary. If you are still one of those people who thinks Facebook is for 14-year-olds and Twitter is just a fad, think again.
After listening to this talk, I read Clay Shirky’s excellent book “Here Comes Everybody” during my vacation last year and proved to myself that, yes, I can finish a business book…when it’s this good.
You will never look at a graph the same way after seeing what Hans Rosling does with numbers and statistics. Thanks to some clever animation and his play-by-play narration, he makes numbers sing. (I really need to get my hands on the software that he uses, it’s remarkable.) And not only will you be enchanted by his dry Swedish humour, you will actually learn something about world economics.
Caution: Inspiration ahead. Unless you’re trying to stay up late, I don’t recommend watching a TED video after 9pm: any one of their videos has the firepower of about 20 espresso. I also don’t recommend checking out their very well designed home page when you’re in the middle of doing something else.
This blog post got delayed so many times because I did just that.
25 years of experience on LinkedIn makes me an expert. There is no denying the popularity of LinkedIn: they reached 100 million users in March 2011…and counting. With these kinds of numbers, it’s inevitable that there’s a whole lot of newbies committing a whole lot of LinkedIn crimes.
Don't be a Herb Tarlek.
This month, it will have been three years that I have been on LinkedIn, three years since I got over my irrational fear of posting my professional profile online, public, for anyone to see (gasp! the horror!), three years since I made the transition from “social media is for 14 year olds” to social media junkie.
Since social media years are like dog years, my three social media years actually translate to about 25 years of real experience on LinkedIn, which I figure makes me an expert. (Why not? Everyone else is.)
So as a self-proclaimed expert, here’s my Top Ten list of heinous LinkedIn crimes that you should avoid. Why are these actions crimes? Because they violate the main purpose of LinkedIn: to build a community of connections.
And because I said so. (I’m an expert, remember?)
Have an objective. As project managers, we should all understand the purpose of defining an objective. That’s what a project charter is for, right? In the same manner, take some time to define your objective and answer this simple question: “Why am I on LinkedIn?” Maybe you’d like to sell more widgets to more customers. Maybe you are looking to make a change in your career path. Maybe you are looking to add talent to your organization. Or some other reason. Or all of the above. Each of these objectives will have a different impact on how you manage your LinkedIn presence and your community of connections. Answer this question, and the rest is easy.
Use the IRL (In Real Life) test. Next to having an objective, this is the second most important rule to apply to any social media presence, including LinkedIn, and it has become my Golden Rule of Social Media. If you wouldn’t do it In Real Life, don’t do it online. An offshoot of this sacred rule is “If you can’t be positive, don’t say anything”.
Don’t be a connection whore. Early in my LinkedIn experience I noticed people posting on project management forums “please connect with me, I don’t use ‘I don’t know’”. Frankly, this type of behaviour shocked me. Look, if “winning” on LinkedIn was related to having the most connections, do you really think you can compete with Barack Obama or Guy Kawasaki? Personally, I liken this to the IRL behaviour of handing out your business card willy-nilly to every person you meet, Herb Tarlek-style, plaid blazer and all. Although having connections is important, if not essential, to leveraging the power of LinkedIn, it’s the quality of those connections that will help you build your community of connections.
If you are a connection whore, be up front about it. Having said this, however, there are people who believe that having 10,000+ connections means you’re more fully leveraging the power of LinkedIn. These people, fortunately, identify themselves as LinkedIn Open Networkers (LIONs) and will display…wait for it… a lion logo on their profile. Remember what I said about having an objective? If your objective is to cast as large and as wide a net as possible, then this strategy is worth exploring. Ironically enough, even though LinkedIn frowns on LIONs, there is nonetheless a clear etiquette to follow, one of which is to be upfront about your LION status by displaying the logo on your profile. And to NOT act like a spammy robot (coming up next).
Stop acting like a robot. The thing that annoys me the most on LinkedIn is the spammy robotic form message to invite someone to connect, whether it’s “Since you are a person I trust, I wanted to invite you to join my network on LinkedIn” or my personal favourite: “I’d like to add you to my professional network”. Really? Really? This is your community, people! Remember what I said about the IRL test? Would you walk around at a party and robotically repeat the same phrase over and over to introduce yourself? Of course you wouldn’t! There is no excuse for not taking 10.5 seconds to write a personal invitation. Anything like “It was great talking to you last night at the wine and cheese” or “Of course you used to play football in university. That explains…everything” or even “I enjoy our conversations, let’s continue online.” In the words of an executive friend of mine: “If you can’t be bothered sending me a personal invitation, I can’t be bothered answering you.” Really, people, there is no excuse for this. None whatsoever. If the LIONs aren’t doing this, why the heck are you? You cannot build a community of connections if you are a robot.
Don’t be shy (and do some math). My earlier comments about connection whores aside, there’s no denying that in order to take full advantage of your LinkedIn presence, you need to have connections. It makes no sense to build a profile, and then stop at 6 connections, unless it’s only been a week since you joined. Consider this simple equation: if you have 100 connections, and each of those people have 100 connections, that’s 10,000 people in your first two levels and 1 million if you include the third level. If you have only 6 connections…well…you do the math. Not so impressive, is it?
Craft your headline. The default headline in LinkedIn is the job title of your current or last position, which you can, and should change. (Click on Edit Profile.) Remember your objective? Your headline should reflect your objective and should not be generic. “Expert in Turbo Encabulators” says way more than “Mechanical Engineer” and just might lead you down some interesting pathways the next time someone googles “Turbo Encabulators” and your name comes up first on the list.
Go back, go waaaay back. You’ll get more mileage out of LinkedIn if you post all of your employment information, not just your current position. And don’t leave out any volunteer work! The best way to add diversity to your community of connections is to include people you have met throughout your career, including post-secondary studies. Personally, I chose not to go as far back as high school, although if you went to as unique and interesting a high school as Dryden High School, then by all means, go for it.
Are you on the FBI’s Most Wanted? Why would you create a profile on LinkedIn and keep it private? How does this make sense? If you are in hiding from the law or engaging in illicit activities you shouldn’t be on LinkedIn. The rest of you: go public! It is, after all, a social media site and the whole point is to find others. And, of course, to be found. And it’s pretty hard to be found if your profile is not public. (Click on Settings.) Furthermore, you should change the default URL to something with your entire name in it. It’s your name, and your brand: wear it with pride. Need more convincing? Read this. (I recommend the whole article but you can also just skip ahead to number 3.)
Keep it short and sweet. And avoid the business-speak. Your summary should be just that: a summary. It’s the two-minute elevator speech that you would give to a potential customer or employer summing up who you are and what you bring to the table. And for heaven’s sake: speak English (or French). Stay away from that awful MBA-speak: avoid these boilerplate phrases and these six words that suck. (Guilty as charged: I am still serving my time for this horrible crime.)
Need more crimes? Here’s a whole lot more, some of which I already mentioned above. All worth reading and pondering.
Build it when you don’t need it. The biggest crime is waiting until you need a community to build it. The day you get that $50 million contract for which you need to hire 450 people or the day you get laid off is a little late to join LinkedIn (just ask an employee from HP). Remember: the whole point of LinkedIn is to build your own community of connections. And the best time to build your community is when you don’t need it.
It’s the summer where I live, which means vacation. Which also means a time to read and reflect about things. If you happen to be tired of improving your Angry Birds or Sudoku scores on your favorite mobile or tablet device, here are 3 YouTube videos that changed my life.
You’re welcome to let them change yours.
The 22 minute meeting. If the chatter on the internet is any indication, we are all obsessed with the inefficiency of meetings in the workplace. With good reason. Because most meetings suck so badly, it’s painful. This amusing video is only 5 minutes long and, after listening to it several times last year, I actually considered replacing that poster in our washrooms on “How to Wash Your Hands” with Nicole’s handy-dandy poster. In fact, I just might still do that.
As for the “changing your life” part, I was so intrigued by the challenge of giving a 5-minute presentation that I promised myself that I would try it. Which I did, earlier this year.
The Impossible Hamster. After watching this short video, I lost 3 hours surfing the nef website, which lead to more thinking that the 2008 / 2009 financial crisis is a sign that maybe our system is seriously flawed.
RSA Animate: Crises of Capitalism. I picked up an RSA Animate video from my Facebook NewsFeed and I enjoyed the experience so much that it has quickly become my favourite YouTube channel. Again, take a lesson from watching any of these videos to notice the power of pictures and key words to communicate an idea or message, no matter how complicated.
Scrolling through the videos in the series, I tripped over this one by David Harvey. After I picked up the bits of my exploded head from off the dining room floor, I have since discovered his website, his free video podcasts in iTunes U, and a book coming out on the Kindle this summer.
And yes, that’s Marxism he’s talking about on his website.
Did you just squirm? So did I, self-styled fan of neoliberalism, when I typed it. Challenging your paradigms hurts, doesn’t it?
The way we were. Throughout my career, I always seem to find myself in business process review and implementation. As I am very comfortable questioning…well…everything, I end up …er…helping people let go of the “way we used to do things”.
It’s hard work. Mainly because people really love their paradigms. Here are some of the business process paradigms that I have come up against:
What they say to me…
What I wish I could say back…
The only way to tell if a document is controlled is if it’s signed. In ink.
Document control can be done by software. Which runs on a computer. Welcome to the 90s.
I need to approve this form so that I can know what is going on.
You can subscribe to the RSS feed so that you’ll be informed each time the form is generated. Welcome to the 90s.
It only takes me 15 minutes so why worry about that step?
It happens 300 times a year, which is 4500 minutes or 75 hours. That’s the equivalent of a 2 week vacation that’s wasted on…nothing. Don’t you keep saying you’re too busy to (fill in the blank)?
Transferring costs from one budget code to another takes no time. Why worry about it?
But there are 100 of you generating requests for transfer which keeps an entire team busy for one week. That’s about $100K a year spent on…nothing. There, now we can afford that new expert I keep telling you we need to hire.
I, of course, have no paradigms. None whatsoever. Because I am perfectly open-minded and never resist change.
Except when it comes to turkey.
Welcome to my paradigm. During our planning meeting for our Christmas 2010 Turkey dinner, my Dear Husband (DH) brought up some process improvement ideas. During our post-mortem of last year’s dinner (what? you don’t do a post-mortem on all of your projects?), we noticed that we were still spending too much time in the kitchen in that crazy period when the turkey comes out of the oven and it is time to get everything on the table. In an effort to improve on this madness, DH suggested that we do as much cooking as possible either the day before or even the morning of the dinner: the gravy, the cranberry sauce, the tourtière and even the mashed potatoes. Our resulting schedule was a complete re-engineering of the Christmas turkey dinner and I was onboard for every single change that he suggested and even came up with some myself. Because, as I mentioned, I am completely open-minded to change.
But towards the end of our planning session, DH made one more suggestion. He kept it to the end for a very good reason. Because he knows me.
“We could also make the turkey one day ahead.”
Say…what?
“I was talking to this woman at work, she loves cooking just like you do, and she makes the turkey in advance, then cuts it up, puts it in a shallow roasting pan, pours homemade chicken stock over it, covers it with aluminum foil, pokes some holes in it, then just heats it up in the oven. This way when the guests arrive, they smell the turkey but you get none of the hassle of carving it to serve it…”
I looked at him, absolutely horrified. Cut up the turkey? When you take it out of the oven, it’s in pieces? Chicken broth?
It has taken me this long just to be able to write about such a travesty.
Welcome to my turkey paradigm.
Shifting paradigms and other MBA crimes. Before we get into my turkey paradigm, or any of the paradigms that I encounter in my business life, we need a common understanding of what exactly is a paradigm. In simple terms, a paradigm is a thought pattern or a framework of ideas, a set of rules if you will, that is accepted to be true. The term was originally coined to describe a set of practices that define a scientific discipline at any particular period of time, but it has now suffered such abuse at the hands of MBA-wielding professionals that it has almost lost its meaning. (Ooops.) But for the sake of this discussion, let’s consider it as “the box”, as in, when you think “outside of the box”, you move outside of your paradigm or what you accept to be true. Because we haven’t killed that analogy enough either.
These days, paradigms are shifting all around us. (Double oops.) Here are examples of paradigms that I see everywhere, as well as the challenges to those paradigms which will cause them to shift. (See? I can’t stop.) I plan to write a blog post on each one of these subjects…eventually.
The paradigm
The shift
A book is something that you hold in your hands with real pages that you turn. I will NEVER read books on an e-book reader.
I named my new Kindle “Never say never”.
There is no place for democracy in a company functioning in a capitalist framework.
If we give access to all employees to the wiki, they’re going to delete important information.
Right. Because Wikipedia doesn’t work.
It’s my paradigm and I’ll cry if I want to. So as you can see from the above table, I am not afraid to challenge any paradigms. This is because I am a very open-minded person who embraces change.
Except when those ideas are totally ridiculous and silly. Like cooking a turkey one day before, cutting it up, putting it in a shallow roast pan, and pouring chicken broth all over it.
Because everyone knows that there is only one way to prepare a Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey: you brine it the day before, you stuff it, you roast it in the oven until it reaches an internal temperature of 160 degrees F, you take it out of the oven, you put it on the table so your guests can “ooh” and “aah” how perfect it looks, then you carve it and serve it.
Which brings me back to my Turkey Paradigm.
We all resist change. Every single one of us clings to set of ideas and principles that we just can’t let go.
Even me.
I’ve always done it this way but for a good reason. According to John Fisher’s transition’s curve, which describes the process for personal transition, I ran off the curve at Disillusionment in my Turkey Paradigm when I decided that “this wasn’t for me” after surfing the web for about 15 minutes and (thankfully) finding nothing about advance cooking and cutting up of turkey. According to Kotter’s 8-step model for organizational change, I certainly saw no urgency in trading off the beauty of presenting a roast turkey against the questionable convenience of this cook-cut-reheat approach. And, sure, when it comes to roast turkey, I’ve “always done it this way”, but I have a much better reason than, say, the reason for the “0″ on this form.
Not the greatest picture but I was a little busy
Never say never. Our re-engineered Christmas Turkey Dinner 2010 was a huge success. We were able to enjoy time with our guests and still pull off a full-course turkey dinner, complete with homemade tourtière, made-from-scratch Christmas Log cake and cookies, cranberry sauce, gravy, mashed potatoes and green vegetables.
As for that turkey?
It tasted as delicious as it looked when it came out of the oven in its glorious roasted splendour.
Whole. In one piece.
Will I ever cut up a turkey to save time and hassle?
Never.
But then, I also said I’d never read books on an ebook reader, didn’t I?
You’ve come a long way, baby. The other day, I was most surprised when my daughter was watching “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen” starring Lindsay Lohan, from way back in 2004 when her star was on the rise, long before her DUI convictions and spectacular fall from grace. But it was not Lindsay that struck me, it was her nondescript best friend, a rather plain-looking blond girl who was clearly standing in Lindsay’s long shadow.
Lindsay's shadow
I knew I had seen that face somewhere. It was driving me nuts.
Thanks to the bounties of the Internet, in the form of IMDB web site, it took me all of 30 seconds to place her: Alison Pill. I had seen her most recently in the second season of the magnificent In Treatment as well as the glorious TV mini-series adaptation of the best-selling novel The Pillars of the Earth.
And my jaw dropped.
Alison’s come a long way from playing Lindsay’s sidekick.
Hanging out with Ian and Gabriel. If you haven’t watched In Treatment, it is very much an actor’s series. There are no car chase scenes, no special effects, no doctors running around yelling “stat”, no computer special effects. There is only a therapist, played by Gabriel Byrne, and a patient, in a room, locked in verbal combat. Sounds boring? It is anything but. The show is carried “the old fashioned way”: story, dialogue and…well…acting. Every day of the week the therapist sees a new patient, with Friday being reserved for the therapist’s own therapy. The likes of Blair Underwood, Dianne Wiest and John Mahoney (yeah, Frasier’s dad) have all played roles in this series. And wouldn’t you know it, so does our Alison Pill, all grown up and showing her acting chops as she plays a young woman who deals with her cancer diagnosis in her therapy sessions.
She is nothing short of wonderful.
Alison also caught my eye in “The Pillars of the Earth”, with her portrayal of the beautiful Maud, the dead king’s daughter, whose contest with her uncle Stephen for England’s throne serves as backdrop for the mini-series. Her performance shows that she belongs in the company of such great thespians as the magnificent Ian McShane and the-best-Mr.-Darcy-ever Matthew Macfadyen, who star in the mini-series.
The rise… Alison’s career trajectory is in stark contrast to Lindsay’s since they worked together in 2004. Fresh from her role as Anna in “Freaky Friday”, a film which grossed $160 million and 88% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Lindsay did “Confessions” with our Alison. In the same year, she also starred in “Mean Girls”, released the album “Speak”, which peaked at number 4 on the Billboard 200 and, at 17, become the youngest-ever host of the 2004 MTV Music awards. This girl’s star was clearly on the rise.1
…and fall. Sadly however, in 2005, things started to go downhill: her second album didn’t do so well, there were problems on the set of “Herbie Fully Loaded” and her parents separated. But it was in 2006-07 that the unraveling started, and just didn’t stop. Peppered in between a couple of movies that did “okay” were three stints in rehab, two DUI arrests, a felony charge of cocaine possession, 84 minutes in jail, and a three-year probation sentence. In 2010, after some TV appearances and attempts to break into the fashion industry, a failed DUI progress appearance in violation of her probation earned her a 90-day jail sentence (of which she served 14) and more rehab, followed by another failed drug test which garnered her more jail time and still more rehab. Sadly, it’s not finished: earlier this year, a charge of felony grand theft for a stolen necklace has been added to her résumé, for which she will stand trial later this month.2, 3, 4
Having seen “Freaky Friday” about 200,000 times (it is my oldest daughter’s favourite movie), I never cease to be saddened to see someone who showed such great potential so early in life fall so spectacularly low.
Look what patience, practice and focus did
Patience will get you a chance to hang out with Gabriel and Ian. The reason Alison’s story resonates so much with me is that it’s sometimes easy for us to envy the Lindsay Lohans: those people whose star rises early and high, who seem destined for greatness, while we “plain Janes” stay in their shadow, watching from afar. You know the “Lindsay Lohan” types in our world: the 39-year-old President who is younger than your youngest brother, your ex-classmate who is CEO of a Fortune 500 company, your friend who gets promoted to VP Operations; all this while you’re just proud to have finished that “small” $1M project on-time, on-budget and with a happy customer. If you are feeling that way, take a page from Alison’s book, as I have. She went from playing Lindsay’s sidekick to honing her acting skills alongside the likes of Gabriel Byrnes and Ian McShane. How much do you think she learned from just being in the same room as such greatness, while Lindsay partied and went to jail?
The lesson here is simple: be patient while you stand in the shadows of others. Rather than playing the celebrity, practice your craft, hone your skills and get better at whatever it is that you do. Attend seminars, read books and blogs, learn something new, meet new and interesting people, get out of your comfort zone. Focus on what you need to get better.
Patience, practice and focus. These are the ingredients that you need to work your way up to the Fifth, not celebrity. Self-actualization is not about others knowing you: it’s about knowing yourself. Ironically enough, as you focus on your own potential, you might just find yourself in the same room as a Gabriel or an Ian…and who knows where that might possibly lead?
Who knows where will you end up? I have no doubt that Alison Pill is going places. Where she will end up, I have no idea. But there is one place I am absolutely certain she won’t end up.
Blasphemy! I have already written that there is only one kind of Project Manager, and they don’t “play violin”. Let’s now get to the crux of the matter: in my opinion, technical knowledge for a Project Manager is pretty much irrelevant. A true Project Manager can switch industries, products, companies, and their job will essentially remain unchanged.
Yeah, I know. Blasphemy!
Bob and me. In order to illustrate my point, I’d like to tell a story of conversation that I had with “Bob”. In a past life, I once worked in a company populated entirely with people who shared the opposite opinion: the project manager must be technical. When I joined this company, I made it clear to them that I was not in this camp. They claimed that this was good, they wanted “real” project managers. (I was to learn later that “talking” and “doing” were two rather different things. But that’s another story for another day.)
One day Bob, a designer on my project team, came to see me. Here’s the conversation we had…well…more or less.
Bob: I need your approval on a design decision regarding the Retro-Encabulator.
Me: (oh-oh) Say, what?
Bob: In order to reduce side-fumbling, I was thinking of fitting six hydrocoptic marzul vanes to the lunar wain shaft. But I am wondering if I should instead replace the lunar wain shaft entirely with a fault-tolerant optomodal cavity, which creates the population inversion condition at the outset.
Me (trying not to let my eyes glaze over): Why on earth are you asking me?
Bob: Because you’re the Project Manager.
Me (staring at Bob): Okay then. How long have you been designing?
Bob (proudly): Twenty-six years.
Me: Ah. Longer than I’ve been working.
Bob: I guess so. (The answer is yes. He’s far too polite to say so.)
Me: So I’m guessing you know something about lunar wain shafts, right?
Bob (proudly): Well, yes.
Me: Here’s the thing. I’m a Project Manager. I care about these things: your work package has to meet this budget (I pull it out) for your hours AND for the material cost. And you have to meet this date (I pull out our master schedule). But, you can’t cheat. In other words, if you cut corners, and Production can’t make your design work, and I have a bunch of non-conformances on my desk, that doesn’t work. You can be sure I’ll be back to see you. And I won’t be happy. AND, when we ship it to site, it has to work. So, you have to meet budget, and schedule and quality. Without increasing risk.
Bob: (Doesn’t even pause.) In that case, I’m going with a fault-tolerant optomodal cavity.
Me: Difference in purchase price between the lunar wain shaft and the optomodal cavity options? (Relieved I got the words right.)
Bob: No real difference. The optomodal solution will cost about another 10% more the lunar wain shaft solution, but it is still within my budget. (Shows me the quotes from the suppliers. I am impressed because he actually brought the quotes with him into my cubicle. I love it when that happens.)
Me: Schedule?
Bob: The optomodal cavity takes an extra week but it still works in the schedule. Here’s the lead time that the supplier has quoted. (We check the Master Schedule together and, yes, it works.)
Me: Quality? Risk?
Bob: The optomodal cavity is a superior design. It is smaller, more compact, and the higher S-value means that, not only is side-fumbling eliminated but so is sinusoidal depleneration.
Me: (Frankly, he had me at “superior design”.) Well then, optomodal it is.
Bob: Okay, then. Thanks for your help.
Me: I didn’t do anything. You did. Remember: no non-conformances. We pass acceptance testing on the first try, right?
Bob (bristling just a little): Tsk. Of course.
And we did.
About the Retro-Encabulator…? For those of you not familiar with Retro-Encabulators, you can watch this instructional video:
And, yes, I am totally pulling your leg. (Engineers are such geeks, even in our sense of humour.)
The same conversation over and over again. My conversation with “Bob” did happen, but the technology we discussed was the decision to use linear versus roller bearings in a mechanical design. But really, it doesn’t matter what technology we were discussing because I keep having the same conversation over and over again. It might be about configuring a DCS, making a tunable laser from a fiber Bragg grating, programming a simulator, testing an electro-optic module, using linear or roller bearings or the merits of Sharepoint as a Project Management Information System. By substituting a bogus technology based on an geeky engineering spoof when spinning my tale of “Bob”, I was hoping to make this point: substitute whatever technical jargon you’d like, real or imaginary, and the conversation will always be the same. As Project Managers, we focus on schedule, cost, budget, risk, quality, customer, scope. Or anything else in those nine knowledge areas of those 42 processes that compose the Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling and Closing processes of Project Management.
In other words: the work of the Project Manager is technology independent.
Back to you, Bob. My colleague Bob had a reputation of being “difficult”. Oddly enough, when I announced my resignation from this company, Bob came to see me. “I’m disappointed you’re leaving. I liked working with you.” I have to admit, I was a bit taken aback.
Could it be I was the first person that actually let a designer like Bob design, because I was too busy managing the project?
The project manager as symphony orchestra conductor. You can’t follow anything about the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (MSO) without tripping over Kent Nagano. Appointed musical director in 2006, his contract was recently extended for another three years. Even after my husband and I finally got around to attending an MSO concert, conducted by Mr. Nagano, I remained mystified by what exactly a conductor does. What did a man in a tuxedo waving a baton have to do with the beautiful music that I was listening to? The reason for my fascination was simple: the metaphor of a Project Manager as a symphony orchestra conductor remains one of the most popular and over-used ones. Like this one for example.
A symphony orchestra conductor? A project manager? Both?
In order to learn what exactly the conductor does, I decided to ask someone who knows. My 14-year old daughter plays violin in her school’s orchestra, under the careful guidance of Mr. T. (And, no, that’s not his real name.) Here’s what she explained to me:
The conductor controls the pace of the music (tempo): fast, slow and in between.
If you lose your place in the piece, you look up at the conductor, who will help you find your place again.
Mr. T plays the cello. But he doesn’t teach the cello, or any other instrument. Each instrument has a dedicated teacher who teaches the students their particular instrument. In the case of my daughter, she has a violin teacher. As she explains to me: “Mr. T doesn’t play the violin very well at all. I mean, he can show me some basic things but, if I really want to get better, I listen to my violin teacher.”
Sometimes, during music practice, Mr. T needs to leave the room. “We try to play the piece without him. But, it’s all wrong. Everyone comes in out of order. We need Mr. T.”
The conductor is a Project Manager alias. In case those points didn’t hit you over the head with the essence of project management, let me sum it up for you.
Tempo: the Project Manager is responsible for ensuring that all the work starts and ends at the right time. You have to program before you can test, and you need stuff delivered and put together into which you load the program. Before you weld, you assemble, and you paint only at the very end, when you are sure that assembly is complete. And you can’t start testing until everything is pretty much done. Sound like the “planning” process to you?
Find your place: We all know that stuff happens: the moment after we have printed out the project schedule, it is already out of date. Customers change their mind, critical team members resign, and suppliers can’t deliver on the date that they told you. As things come up during the course of project execution that threaten the plan, the Project Manager rearranges things so that all team members can still find their place.
Subject Matter Experts: Those teachers that specialize in their various instruments are called “Subject Matter Experts (SME)”. Every good Project Manager surrounds herself with SMEs, but knows that, like Mr. T, you don’t need to be one in order for your project to be successful.
Leave the room: I have seen what happens on even “small” projects that don’t have a Project Manager assigned to them: chaos. A simple series of events quickly spirals out of control because there is no one overseeing the entire project. Do you want beautiful music? You need a conductor. Do you want your stuff to finish on time, on quality and on budget? Then you need a Project Manager.
And yet we just don’t get it. If you want to have some fun, either in a forum or in real life, ask the question: “Does the project manager need to be technical?” I did just that at a PMI Round Table last year…and ducked. So many Project Managers with technical baggage cling to the belief that because they can challenge their team with “smart technical questions”, they are doing their job. However, smart technical questions are not what make projects successful, it’s all of those “other” things, those 42 processes that comprise initiating, planning, executing, controlling and closing.
The conductor doesn’t play an instrument, but knows what beautiful music sounds like. As Musical Director of the MSO, Kent Nagano clearly understands what it takes to make beautiful music. In the same manner, as a Project Manager, I know enough to have a conversation with a SME, to understand what slipping schedule looks like, to recognize scope creeping out of control. I do this without programming, drawing, designing, testing, painting or welding. And yet, I continue to see job descriptions like this one. Does this sound like a Project Manager to you? Or someone “playing the violin”?
Does this sound like a conductor? Or a violinist?
I don’t play the violin, I conduct. I am very clear on what I do for a living. I make beautiful music without playing an instrument. The projects under my watch consistently finish on time, on budget and with satisfied customers. I haven’t “been technical” for many years now. I am hardly special: the same is true for anyone who practices the art of Project Management.
When my husband and I were watching the MSO in concert, we would have found it most preposterous to see Kent Nagano suddenly pick up a violin and start playing it. And yet, so many organizations, even other Project Managers, continue to expect the Project Manager to “be technical”: to program, to configure, to write bills of material, to check drawings for technical accuracy, to be experts in SQL.
But really, when you think about it, this really doesn’t make much sense, does it?
About as much as sense as Kent Nagano playing the violin.
I am an adult. I have been for some time actually.
It started when I turned 16 years old, and the government of Ontario decided I was old enough to drive. It continued when I turned 18, and the government of Canada decided I was old enough to vote. One year later, I was deemed old enough to order alcohol in a bar. (Yes, it’s ironic, but that’s Ontario for you.)
Eventually, I bought a car (the bank decided I was adult enough to pay back the loan), a house (ditto for the mortgage), and another (ditto for the bigger mortgage). I got a credit card, then a couple more. I got married, had two children. Together with my husband, we’ve raised these children into teenagers, which is a superhuman adult feat in and of itself.
I pay my taxes, my mortgage and my credit cards. I put savings aside for my retirement. These are things that adults do. I know this because my teenage children do none of these things.
I am a professional who takes her career seriously. When I was pregnant with my first child, I went back to school part-time in the evening to get my MBA. When my second child was born, I took time off from my job, at my expense, to finish that degree for once and for all. Years later, I studied weekends and evenings to get my PMP certification.
And last year, I started this blog. It’s my blog: I bought the domain name, I pay the host fees and I squirrel time away to write it in it. About, what else? Project management.
On my 45-minute drive into work, I listen to podcasts about business, marketing, project management, technology, social media and other head-exploding subjects.
In other words, not only am I declared an adult by various governments and financial institutions, I act like an adult. I act like a responsible professional and citizen. And, you know what? I am hardly special. Most of us are adults, doing adult things.
So please explain this to me: why is it that as soon as we walk through the doors of our employers, we are treated like children?
According to this survey of 1400 CIOs, 54% of companies do not allow employees to visit social networking sites for any reason while at work. It’s done under the guise of promoting productivity: “Using social networking sites may divert employees’ attention away from more pressing priorities, so it’s understandable that some companies limit access,” said Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology.
What utter and complete poppycock.
It is in reality all about control. And lack of trust. It reflects the Theory X management style which presumes that the employee is lazy and does not want to work, cannot be trusted, is a potential thief, a child, someone who needs to be controlled, supervised, who doesn’t know any better than the wise and oh-so-benevolent management overseeing them.
How insulting.
As always, Scott Adams puts it so much more eloquently, doesn’t he?
Blocking social media sites is equivalent to the company us telling us “Sorry, dumbass employee, you are too stupid to understand how to control your time. So we’ll do it for you.”
At this point, I’m tempted to write about how social media is revolutionary (it is), about how it’s good for organizations to learn and understand social media to grow their business (it is), about how social media actually increases productivity (it does). But I will write that blog post another day.
Because that is not the point. The point is that I do not need a company, a CIO or a CEO to decide how I spend my time at work. I am capable of doing that all by myself. Why?
Because I am an adult.
Lessons from a 14-year-old. I don’t block sites on our home network. Because I refuse to treat my children…well…like children. I figure the best “family filter” is me and my husband, peering over my daughters’ shoulders saying “Whatcha doin’? Whatcha looking at? Who’re you chatting with?” And they answer if they don’t want Administrator (that would be me) blocking their access. (Yes, I do know how to do that. I simply choose not to.)
So, one day, I asked my 14 year-old about her Facebook use and getting homework done. Here’s what she explained to me:
“Facebook is great. I love it for staying connected to my friends. But if it’s on, I get distracted and I don’t get any work done. So, when I have homework to do, I turn Facebook off. And when I’m done, I reward myself by going on Facebook and chatting with my friends.”
So, let me get this straight: shemanages her computer time, keeping an eye on her personal productivity. And, when she has work to do, she shuts it off. All by herself.
Gasp! Is this possible? You mean she didn’t need a CEO or a CIO or her Mommy blocking sites on her computer so that she gets her work done?
Wow. Do you think that maybe I, an adult, and a professional to boot, could possibly acquire that skill? Just like my 14-year-old?
Apparently not, according to 54% of those 1400 CEOs and CIOs.
Do knowledge workers only work between 8am and 5pm? Here’s the thing: knowledge workers are not factory workers. We don’t punch timecards. We are not always “on” just between office hours. And we’re not always “off” outside of the office.
Just as I sometimes wake up in the morning thinking about that project problem that’s bothering me, or I stumble on a solution to a business problem while doing tomatoes, or I am struck by leadership inspiration while watching Friday Night Lights, sometimes, sometimes, when I’m sitting in my cubicle, I need a break from work.
Like on those really bad days when I’ve spent the morning in a conference call getting beaten up (metaphorically of course) by an irate customer, when I’ve had to explain to stakeholders why that “itsy-bitsy” change they asked for actually adds six months to the schedule, when my lead engineer resigns and her only replacement already resigned one month ago, when our supplier is late on delivering a critical part for the third time in a row, when that expensive widget with an 18-week-lead-time fell off the truck just as they unloaded it…
…on those days, it’s nice to take a three-minute break and watch a YouTube video of three 14-year-old Italian boys singing a one-hundred-year-old Neapolitan song that used to make my homesick immigrant Italian parents cry.
It uplifts my day, makes everything just a little bit brighter, and sort of makes me believe that maybe tomorrow might be a better day.
May 13th, 2012
