Last week I spoke at Madison, WI InBusiness Annual Expo, on the topic of Improving Project Management. Not something I'll do again.
I am writing from the PMI Global Congress in Dallas - first time I've attended one of these without being a speaker. No pressure! This is the PM profession's Big Dance. Watching the PMIEF award presentations now - had lunch with one of the presenters.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Evil Boss Story and PMI NA GC
Want to share a true story of an evil boss while on a break during PMI NA GC:
True Story of an Evil Boss
Someone very close to me works for a major university's school of medicine. She coordinates medical research for multiple doctors. She and her colleagues are highly educated researchers and nurse-practitioners, and their job also involves a lot of project management. She and her immediate supervisor report to the head of the whole school of medicine at this university - a doctor and very demanding boss - how demanding, I am about to tell you.
A couple of weeks ago, the immediate supervisor had acute appendicitis and had emergency surgery when it ruptured. Her appendix ruptured before it could be removed because, despite being doubled over in pain, she did not feel that she could leave work because of her workload and the demands put on her by her boss (the head of the school of medicine).
If your appendix ruptures, you often develop a systemic infection called peritonitis. The ruptured appendix spills poison into your body cavity, and unless immediately controlled with heavy doses of antibiotics, you can die. So, when this gal's appendix ruptured, she had the emergency surgery and was then hospitalized to recover and undergo rounds of antibiotic therapy to fight the infection boiling in her abdomen.
Day after the surgery, this gal's boss, the head of the school of medicine, came up to visit her and see how she was doing. How she was doing was "bad" - imagine having an infection in your guts so bad that the doctors are contemplating putting a drain in you so the goo can seep out. Keep in mind that the boss, the head of the school of medicine, is a doctor. However, seeing that she was conscious and upright, she said "oh, you can work - we should get you your laptop." Fortunately another doctor in the room nixed that idea.
This and the other stories I've heard about this boss (never refusing a new project but won't add sufficient staff, refusing to prioritize projects so that her people are getting barked at equally by all of their study sponsors and doctors) are great reminders that there are still a lot of really clueless people who rise to positions of authority. They have great drive and talent in specific areas, but somehow get the idea that the rest of humanity is there to serve them and their egos.
True Story of an Evil Boss
Someone very close to me works for a major university's school of medicine. She coordinates medical research for multiple doctors. She and her colleagues are highly educated researchers and nurse-practitioners, and their job also involves a lot of project management. She and her immediate supervisor report to the head of the whole school of medicine at this university - a doctor and very demanding boss - how demanding, I am about to tell you.
A couple of weeks ago, the immediate supervisor had acute appendicitis and had emergency surgery when it ruptured. Her appendix ruptured before it could be removed because, despite being doubled over in pain, she did not feel that she could leave work because of her workload and the demands put on her by her boss (the head of the school of medicine).
If your appendix ruptures, you often develop a systemic infection called peritonitis. The ruptured appendix spills poison into your body cavity, and unless immediately controlled with heavy doses of antibiotics, you can die. So, when this gal's appendix ruptured, she had the emergency surgery and was then hospitalized to recover and undergo rounds of antibiotic therapy to fight the infection boiling in her abdomen.
Day after the surgery, this gal's boss, the head of the school of medicine, came up to visit her and see how she was doing. How she was doing was "bad" - imagine having an infection in your guts so bad that the doctors are contemplating putting a drain in you so the goo can seep out. Keep in mind that the boss, the head of the school of medicine, is a doctor. However, seeing that she was conscious and upright, she said "oh, you can work - we should get you your laptop." Fortunately another doctor in the room nixed that idea.
This and the other stories I've heard about this boss (never refusing a new project but won't add sufficient staff, refusing to prioritize projects so that her people are getting barked at equally by all of their study sponsors and doctors) are great reminders that there are still a lot of really clueless people who rise to positions of authority. They have great drive and talent in specific areas, but somehow get the idea that the rest of humanity is there to serve them and their egos.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Fun updates
I'll be presenting Tools and Tactics for Recovering Troubled Projects at the PMI Global Congress later this month. I've been adding more content and activities for Agile projects to this course - I'm looking forward to the latest iteration.
Last week I was at University of Wisconsin E-Business Consortium's annual IT conference. The keynote was the CEO of Macys.com, Peter Sasche. Great presentation - eye-opening in how we as both providers and consumers of information and technology need to adapt, innovate. Very interesting perspectives on the role of IT - yet another senior marketing and technology exec predicting that IT departments will go away and we will see corporate computing as a utility... This has been a prediction for awhile now - unlike power, which does not contain trade secrets and proprietary data, IT does - companies will remain fearful of not having ownership and control on their premises.
Great points on the convergence of search and social media as well as analytics and collaboration. More data, more channels, more ways to interact with customers means more interesting projects.
I'm planning on taking advice from Michael Lopp (Rands in Repose) and staking out turf at a bar at PMI Global Congress, sending out invites through various social media, and seeing who shows up. See you there?
Last week I was at University of Wisconsin E-Business Consortium's annual IT conference. The keynote was the CEO of Macys.com, Peter Sasche. Great presentation - eye-opening in how we as both providers and consumers of information and technology need to adapt, innovate. Very interesting perspectives on the role of IT - yet another senior marketing and technology exec predicting that IT departments will go away and we will see corporate computing as a utility... This has been a prediction for awhile now - unlike power, which does not contain trade secrets and proprietary data, IT does - companies will remain fearful of not having ownership and control on their premises.
Great points on the convergence of search and social media as well as analytics and collaboration. More data, more channels, more ways to interact with customers means more interesting projects.
I'm planning on taking advice from Michael Lopp (Rands in Repose) and staking out turf at a bar at PMI Global Congress, sending out invites through various social media, and seeing who shows up. See you there?
Monday, September 12, 2011
Better doing than writing about it, I guess...
Being way current and visible on all forms of social media is the 2011 equivalent of being all over the Web in the late 1990's. The difference, I am finding, is that I am too busy DOING to write well and meaningfully about WHAT I am doing. And I refuse to Twitter.
As a consequence, my last blog post here was nine months ago. It is interesting to go back and recall what I was up to at that point and what spurred me to write. Glad it mostly passed.
I should be pleased these days. Back in 2006, I started a Project Management Community of Practice at my main job. It took root and was active for about a year or so. Since I was the only one really organizing it, when I became very busy in early 2008, it kind of faded. I and some others had hoped then that it would take root and spur the growth of project management as an important business practice here.
It took awhile, but it seems this has finally happened. The company is continuing to grow and expand physically and into other markets, and our senior leadership is seeing the need to get leverage project management. We've also finished the first phase of our SAP implementation. As a result, we've added project managers in areas that have not had them before.
With all of these PMs around, the CEO sees a need for some common discussions and understanding of how to do project management, and directed a PM in another area (closer to our core functions - I work in IT) to resurrect the PMCOP I had started. Good news.
On other fronts, I am pleased to be busier than ever teaching and speaking. I continue to teach for UW-Platteville in the finest PM master's degree program in the world. It's also great to be back at UW-Madison Exec Ed on a long-term basis, teaching an online course for them as well as developing an Agile Project Management seminar we will start running later this fall.
I continue to work with UC-Irvine and Lakeland College, and periodic SeminarsWorld presentations for PMI rounds out the schedule. I continue to bang away on a book here and there. I've threatened to put some sample chapters out here at some point - watch this space.
As a consequence, my last blog post here was nine months ago. It is interesting to go back and recall what I was up to at that point and what spurred me to write. Glad it mostly passed.
I should be pleased these days. Back in 2006, I started a Project Management Community of Practice at my main job. It took root and was active for about a year or so. Since I was the only one really organizing it, when I became very busy in early 2008, it kind of faded. I and some others had hoped then that it would take root and spur the growth of project management as an important business practice here.
It took awhile, but it seems this has finally happened. The company is continuing to grow and expand physically and into other markets, and our senior leadership is seeing the need to get leverage project management. We've also finished the first phase of our SAP implementation. As a result, we've added project managers in areas that have not had them before.
With all of these PMs around, the CEO sees a need for some common discussions and understanding of how to do project management, and directed a PM in another area (closer to our core functions - I work in IT) to resurrect the PMCOP I had started. Good news.
On other fronts, I am pleased to be busier than ever teaching and speaking. I continue to teach for UW-Platteville in the finest PM master's degree program in the world. It's also great to be back at UW-Madison Exec Ed on a long-term basis, teaching an online course for them as well as developing an Agile Project Management seminar we will start running later this fall.
I continue to work with UC-Irvine and Lakeland College, and periodic SeminarsWorld presentations for PMI rounds out the schedule. I continue to bang away on a book here and there. I've threatened to put some sample chapters out here at some point - watch this space.
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