Just back from an excellent ScrumMaster training course led by Michael James of Collabnet. Michael is a superb trainer and presenter, and I'll be well-prepped to take the CSM test in a couple weeks thanks to him.
Looking forward to presenting my own course in Washington DC soon... Then off to Taiwan for a week as a visiting professor.
Agile, SCRUM... When you learn and apply the real meat, just another good business practice that will help PMs deliver successful projects. I realized I used to use a lot of these practices in the mid-1990's, except I didn't realize they had a name or an organized process. It just seemed logical to build things, show them to clients, then incorporate their feedback.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Come to my seminars!
If you are going to NA Global Congress, you should really stay a couple of days and come to my seminar. Or, come out to NYC in November and participate there, and see the sites on Times Square!
Tools and Tactics to Recover Troubled Projects
Washington DC
NYC
Tools and Tactics to Recover Troubled Projects
Washington DC
NYC
Monday, September 20, 2010
I'm back... been an interesting 14 months
After a 14 month hiatus, I am back. Since July 2009, I was pulled into a lot of doing both professionally and personally, which left me with no time to add to the blog.
Since July of 2009, I've been busy at my day job, leading a long ERP system selection project, then the pre-work project for an SAP implementation before turning it over to an experienced SAP project manager. I've also spoken or presented at PMI congresses and SeminarsWorld events in the US and Australia, and also attended and presented at an academic research conference in Australia.
This October will be a repeat of 2009: Busy. I will present a seminar after the North America Global Congress (Oct 13 - 14), then the following week I am off to Taiwan to teach as a visiting professor for the International University of Monaco's Master's in Project Management program. More speaking and teaching in November, too for PMI nationally and the Milwaukee, WI chapter's annual Professional Development Day.
I continue to teach for UC-Irvine, Lakeland College and UW-Platteville, although this fall I have a semester off from Platteville as their new full-time faculty member takes on some course load.
Back on the work front, I am diving deep into Agile project management both from a practioner and academic perspective, as I lead a software development project using Agile as well as develop our IT department's Agile PM methodology. I'm hoping to get back in the habit of regular and hopefully thoughtful posting again.
Since July of 2009, I've been busy at my day job, leading a long ERP system selection project, then the pre-work project for an SAP implementation before turning it over to an experienced SAP project manager. I've also spoken or presented at PMI congresses and SeminarsWorld events in the US and Australia, and also attended and presented at an academic research conference in Australia.
This October will be a repeat of 2009: Busy. I will present a seminar after the North America Global Congress (Oct 13 - 14), then the following week I am off to Taiwan to teach as a visiting professor for the International University of Monaco's Master's in Project Management program. More speaking and teaching in November, too for PMI nationally and the Milwaukee, WI chapter's annual Professional Development Day.
I continue to teach for UC-Irvine, Lakeland College and UW-Platteville, although this fall I have a semester off from Platteville as their new full-time faculty member takes on some course load.
Back on the work front, I am diving deep into Agile project management both from a practioner and academic perspective, as I lead a software development project using Agile as well as develop our IT department's Agile PM methodology. I'm hoping to get back in the habit of regular and hopefully thoughtful posting again.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Jeez, I need to post more...
Much action since my April post: I presented a seminar at PMI's MegaSeminars World in June, in Orlando - excellent sessions, although PMI reports attendance down due to the economy.
In May I presented a case study called "When Agendas Override Objectives" at South Central Wisconsin PMI Professional Development Day.
I am currently holding down my day job managing four IT projects, as well as a full load of teaching for UW-Platteville, Lakeland College and UC-Irvine.
Coming up - The week of October 12 will be busy for me, as I will present a paper at the PMI North America Global Congress in Orlando, then fly to San Diego to present at a PMO Summit.
In November, I will present Assessment and Recovery of Troubled Projects again for PMI - this was a well-attended seminar in Orlando in June - people had good feedback. So come down to Scottsdale in November for a late fall return to some warm weather.
I am awaiting word in August on my paper for the Asia-Pacific Global Congress in Melbourne - hoping to return Down Under and see Melbourne-based friends from my 2008 visit to Sydney.
In May I presented a case study called "When Agendas Override Objectives" at South Central Wisconsin PMI Professional Development Day.
I am currently holding down my day job managing four IT projects, as well as a full load of teaching for UW-Platteville, Lakeland College and UC-Irvine.
Coming up - The week of October 12 will be busy for me, as I will present a paper at the PMI North America Global Congress in Orlando, then fly to San Diego to present at a PMO Summit.
In November, I will present Assessment and Recovery of Troubled Projects again for PMI - this was a well-attended seminar in Orlando in June - people had good feedback. So come down to Scottsdale in November for a late fall return to some warm weather.
I am awaiting word in August on my paper for the Asia-Pacific Global Congress in Melbourne - hoping to return Down Under and see Melbourne-based friends from my 2008 visit to Sydney.
Friday, April 24, 2009
NEW PDD April 23 - Project Management Commoditized??
I attended the Northeast Wisconsin PMI Chapter's Professional Development Day on April 23. NEW PMI is a great chapter (I'd say that even if I wasn't a founding officer) and they consistently get great presenters at their PDDs.
This year, highlights included Dr. Ginger Levin, my favorite professor (and now colleague) at UW-Platteville. Tom Mattus of SSI Inc did two presentations, both of which were interesting and fun to be a part of.
Jack Ferraro's closing presentation was interesting, if not alarmist. In a nutshell, Jack told us that project management is becoming commoditized. I can see his point, and he had some solid supporting data and premises. But, I think he's mostly wrong. Here's why:
You can certainly break many PM functions into components and hand them over to specialists. But except on massive projects where things like scheduling, risk management, procurement management, etc are full-time jobs unto themselves, why would anyone want to?
For most organizations, it makes sense to have these PM functions as well as the project leadership in the hands of one person who has only their employer's interests in mind when performing. Outsourcing key PM functions puts them in the hands of someone with a conflicting fiduciary duty - their loyalty is to their company, not yours.
That's why, when you contract or outsource to another firm, they can have an "engagement" or "delivery" manager, but their is only one PM - yours.
Jack did make a solid point - leadership is where it's at - the most respected PMs are able to bring teams together and lead. The magic happens not with perfect MS Project schedules, elegant WBSs, but with successfully led projects. So far, no one has been able to commoditize leadership in project management. I think that's Jack's ultimate message, and he's right on.
This year, highlights included Dr. Ginger Levin, my favorite professor (and now colleague) at UW-Platteville. Tom Mattus of SSI Inc did two presentations, both of which were interesting and fun to be a part of.
Jack Ferraro's closing presentation was interesting, if not alarmist. In a nutshell, Jack told us that project management is becoming commoditized. I can see his point, and he had some solid supporting data and premises. But, I think he's mostly wrong. Here's why:
You can certainly break many PM functions into components and hand them over to specialists. But except on massive projects where things like scheduling, risk management, procurement management, etc are full-time jobs unto themselves, why would anyone want to?
For most organizations, it makes sense to have these PM functions as well as the project leadership in the hands of one person who has only their employer's interests in mind when performing. Outsourcing key PM functions puts them in the hands of someone with a conflicting fiduciary duty - their loyalty is to their company, not yours.
That's why, when you contract or outsource to another firm, they can have an "engagement" or "delivery" manager, but their is only one PM - yours.
Jack did make a solid point - leadership is where it's at - the most respected PMs are able to bring teams together and lead. The magic happens not with perfect MS Project schedules, elegant WBSs, but with successfully led projects. So far, no one has been able to commoditize leadership in project management. I think that's Jack's ultimate message, and he's right on.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Been a long time...
Wow - I haven't posted since mid-December. This coincides with the start of some Tectonic changes in my personal life and the ramp-up of a lot of volume in my professional life, so it all adds up.
An update: I am currently teaching courses for UW-Platteville, Lakeland College and UC-Irvine Extension. I am developing a new course for an interesting new PM program at UC-Irvine focused on project management for the life sciences.
I presented on effective time management for managers of multiple projects at NEW-PMI a couple of weeks ago, and will be presenting at Madison PMI's Professional Development Day in April. Got an invitation last week to present at the PMI North America Global Conference in October, which is sweet!
Doctoral work is on hold for a few weeks while I focus on teaching, course development and challenging project work at my primary job. I'll hopefully be back with something insighful here very soon!
An update: I am currently teaching courses for UW-Platteville, Lakeland College and UC-Irvine Extension. I am developing a new course for an interesting new PM program at UC-Irvine focused on project management for the life sciences.
I presented on effective time management for managers of multiple projects at NEW-PMI a couple of weeks ago, and will be presenting at Madison PMI's Professional Development Day in April. Got an invitation last week to present at the PMI North America Global Conference in October, which is sweet!
Doctoral work is on hold for a few weeks while I focus on teaching, course development and challenging project work at my primary job. I'll hopefully be back with something insighful here very soon!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Begging for feedback - project close
I've talked to PMs recently who are almost literally crying for feedback from their project teams in order to improve and still get nothing. In organizations with project post-mortem procedures, not reviewing the lessons learned and estimates vs. actual data to come up with recommendations and revised practices for future projects is a terrible waste.
Perhaps because many project teams are eager to be done and move on to the next project, the process is hard to manage. When it is being done, it may be that many organizations feel good about having done the close work and then forget that review, analysis and follow-up is required to get value out of the closing process. Depending on the organization's culture, the issue may be a resistance to change inclusive of any data that indicates a need to do things differently.
I digested this and then looked at my department's own processes for closing a project (which I mostly designed...). I realized we are pretty much guilty of not systematically looking for process improvements out of our documented lessons-learned. So here's what I am going to do about it:
1) Add a section to our SharePoint portal where all lessons-learned will be posted for department access. This way they are not buried in the close documents, but rather are on a searchable project management site.
2) Propose a quarterly review and write-up of trends and findings from this information and hopefully publish it to the department, better still all PMs in the company (informally).
3) See if we can facilitate this partly through a quarterly project management retreat where we can concentrate on this stuff and really get into why certain things are happening and what the root causes are.
Focus on a different problem that one of my colleagues from another area shared with me: How to get project team members to offer honest feedback on project manager performance. This colleague is new to project management and hungry for feedback on ways to improve his own PM performance as well as the practices he and his department use to execute projects. His frustration comes when team members offer little or no feedback for improvement when he knows from the project's performance that there are many opportunities.
His post-project completion lessons-learned sessions are not yielding the feedback he needs and wants, so he's trying to figure out other ways to get this. Possible obstacles:
1) Team members uncomfortable offering feedback in public settings - perhaps offer anonymous surveys.
2) Sense that the culture is too deeply ingrained for any changes to take place - seek executive sponsorship to drive real process improvements tied to cost savings and time-to-market speed.
3) Inertia... "we've always done it this way"... comfort. This is hardest to overcome. He'll have to get people to see the value and want to change their PM practices.
He's passionate enough to keep after this even in the face of slow progress. It's worth doing, because it will help us get new products to market faster.
Perhaps because many project teams are eager to be done and move on to the next project, the process is hard to manage. When it is being done, it may be that many organizations feel good about having done the close work and then forget that review, analysis and follow-up is required to get value out of the closing process. Depending on the organization's culture, the issue may be a resistance to change inclusive of any data that indicates a need to do things differently.
I digested this and then looked at my department's own processes for closing a project (which I mostly designed...). I realized we are pretty much guilty of not systematically looking for process improvements out of our documented lessons-learned. So here's what I am going to do about it:
1) Add a section to our SharePoint portal where all lessons-learned will be posted for department access. This way they are not buried in the close documents, but rather are on a searchable project management site.
2) Propose a quarterly review and write-up of trends and findings from this information and hopefully publish it to the department, better still all PMs in the company (informally).
3) See if we can facilitate this partly through a quarterly project management retreat where we can concentrate on this stuff and really get into why certain things are happening and what the root causes are.
Focus on a different problem that one of my colleagues from another area shared with me: How to get project team members to offer honest feedback on project manager performance. This colleague is new to project management and hungry for feedback on ways to improve his own PM performance as well as the practices he and his department use to execute projects. His frustration comes when team members offer little or no feedback for improvement when he knows from the project's performance that there are many opportunities.
His post-project completion lessons-learned sessions are not yielding the feedback he needs and wants, so he's trying to figure out other ways to get this. Possible obstacles:
1) Team members uncomfortable offering feedback in public settings - perhaps offer anonymous surveys.
2) Sense that the culture is too deeply ingrained for any changes to take place - seek executive sponsorship to drive real process improvements tied to cost savings and time-to-market speed.
3) Inertia... "we've always done it this way"... comfort. This is hardest to overcome. He'll have to get people to see the value and want to change their PM practices.
He's passionate enough to keep after this even in the face of slow progress. It's worth doing, because it will help us get new products to market faster.
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