Taiwan and NYC

You should have seen the size of the frog's legs I had in Taiwan... my hosts didn't think I knew what they were, but I did. They really do taste like chicken - bad, dark meat, like Copps-broasted fried chicken. I mostly fulfilled my self-promise not to eat anything western while in Taipei, although at the height of Typhoon Megi's torrential rains, so help me I did get Haagen-Daz and Pringles from the 7-11 across the street from my hotel.

Anyway - my students in Taipei all needed this course to graduate with their master's degree in project management from International University of Monaco, and were well-prepared and attentive. It was interesting to see the similarities in project management whether practiced in Taiwan, China or the United States. Seems we all have problems with unreasonable sponsors and stakeholders, challenging team members and how to best balance theory and practical application of the PMBOK process areas.

It was an amazing trip, and a tremendous learning experience. Aside from teaching, my hosts took me to the National Palace Museum. Look this up - the history of this museum is almost too stunning to comprehend. On another scale, the same applies to the 2nd tallest building in the world, Taipei 101. The shopping mall there was identical to any you'd find in, say downtown Chicago, but Taipei 101 is taller than the Sears Tower and truly awe-inspiring, even when the views are diminished by typhoon rains.

Just last week I presented my final SeminarsWorld of the year in New York City. PMI outdid themselves by selecting the Mariott Marquis right on Times Square for the location. Had a full load of 30 people for Tools and Tactics for Recovering Troubled Projects. I hadn't been to NYC since before 9/11, and it was fantastic to be there again, and to get more feedback from a diverse group of students from Colombia, the Netherlands, Norway as well as across the United States.

Closer to home I spoke at Milwaukee PMI's Professional Development Day on November 8. This chapter always draws good attendance for their events, and so we had a large room for my talk on "When Agendas Override Objectives" case study. Time to retire that one, except for when it appears in my book. Yes, I've been working on a book for about two years now. It's a collection of essays detailing my career in project management and providing case studies and lessons learned for many of the more interesting projects I managed along the way. And I've had more than my share of interesting projects.

Scrum Master training; ready for SeminarsWorld

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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!