Some time back my son and I participated in a service project to help a young family clean out a back yard. At one time the yard was a wonderful oasis with a swimming pool, lush garden, and beautiful walkways. The once beautiful oasis was neglected over time and became an overgrown jungle of northwest foliage with its prime resident being thorny blackberry bushes. The blackberry bushes were six feet tall and covered most of the yard. What a prickly mess!
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Dean, a project manager, was conducting a project post-mortem with Tania, his VP. “Why the month slip, Dean?” Tania asked. “Well,” Dean started, “we didn’t get on the vendor’s calendar early enough for integration testing. They couldn’t schedule us in when they needed us, so we had to slip.” Tania shook her head. “Hold on, Dean. The vendor is Conset, right?” “That’s right.” “If I remember correctly, we did a project with them last year and the same thing happened; we didn’t get on their calendar early enough and it caused a slip. Were you aware of that?” “I wasn’t.” “I specifically asked the project team to include that in the lessons learned. If I recall, Tarun was the PM. Did you talk with Tarun or look at his lessons learned?” Dean looked down. “Um, no.” Tania kept her gaze. “Honestly, what good are lessons learned if we don’t bother to use them? This was clearly avoidable.” “I’ll make sure to document this for the next time, Tania,” Dean said. “Do you look at lessons learned from other projects?” Tania asked. “Well, not really, they’re all over the place and in different formats. It’s kind of like finding a needle in a haystack.” “Unbelievable. We’re willing to make the same mistake over and over and not bother to learn from past mistakes. What a waste.” Read more at ProjectManagement.com. I always want to ensure I am putting my four decades of experience to good use by helping others grow—and helping them avoid some of the (many) mistakes I made as a project manager, leader and human being. In thinking through my responsibility as a steward, it occurred to me that being effective as a project manager is much more than honing skills—it’s about guiding project managers in not only work skills, but also life experiences. It’s about positioning project managers for long-term success. It’s about helping PMs bounce back from failure, learn from it, and then help others avoid the same failure. It’s about what I call building sustainability, which will be the underlying theme of my content: the Sustainable PM. Read more on my column at ProjectManagement.com.
When I was a kid one Christmas I got a Lionel train set from my parents. It was really cool. The locomotive had a smoke stack that actually "smoked" when you put a drop of oil into it. I can still remember the burning oil smell the locomotive would emit as it raced around the tracks. The transformer which governed the speed of the train went all the way up to "90" (I still believe it was in "miles per hour!") and had three rail cars that were all different colors and a caboose. The train set also came with enough track to form a figure-8 that I would push the tracks together using special pins that fit into the ends of the tracks.
When I was a kid in Connecticut I went with my Father to take my sister and her infant son to the train station. My sister had a lot of bags so my Father helped her carry her things on to the train. I was standing on the platform waiting for my Father to get off the train so we could go home. Then all of a sudden the train started moving with my Father still on the train! Here I am, an 8-year-old boy standing on the train platform all by myself while my Father is on the train heading to Washington DC. I remember seeing the train start to pull away, and my Father waving at me through the window to go to the ticketing office so I can tell them what happened. This was in the days where there were no cell phones, so my Father couldn't communicate with me to let me know what was happening. I went into the ticketing office and through sobs told the ticket agent that my Father got stuck on the train and I got left on the platform all by myself. The ticket agent was very reassuring and told me that everything was going to be OK. Fortunately the next stop was only about 30 minutes away so I was reunited with my Father in an couple of hours. It was one of the scariest times of my entire childhood, being left on the train platform all by myself.
Some time back I spent about three hours writing and doing emails at one of our local malls. I love this place because there are lots of tables to sit at and the mall has free wireless access so I can be online all the time. As I was exiting the mall I noticed a woman about 20 feet away from the entrance heading into the mall. As I walked out the door I held the door open for this woman for a few seconds. As she walked by me into the mall she said "WOW!" She was surprised that I actually took three seconds out of my life to hold a door open for a complete stranger. Imagine what I could have done with those three seconds that I wasted :-).
Project management is changing….it's becoming more strategic, more mainstream, and not just synonymous with technology implementations. Today's PM needs to be more than technically adept or be able to whip out a gantt chart. Get a read on some of these crucial skills the everyday PM will need to succeed:
Just about every seasoned project manager has experienced at least one failure in his or her career. I am always skeptical of the experienced PM who says "I've never failed". They're either lying or don't have experience. Some of my best (and most painful) growth as a professional occurred because of a failed project. Project managers can redeem themselves and maintain credibility by doing the following:
I’m a huge fan of sausages. Whether it be Italian, bratwurst, chorizo, kielbasa, or andouille, I love the seasoning and the snap of the casing when you bite into it. Now I know that the stuff that goes into sausage is of the most undesirable parts of the animal including organs, guts, head, and other parts that I prefer not to think about. I have never had the opportunity to see sausage being made, and as a matter of principle; I don’t want to because I know I’d be grossed out and it would ruin my appetite each time I enjoyed a banger. I choose to remain blissfully ignorant about the sausage making process.
Secrets of success? Oh puh-leeze. There aren't any secrets of success in my opinion. Success is achieved through things that we've been taught to do for years and years. Good old-fashioned hard work is one of your strongest foundations to ensure meeting your life goals. In addition, building the following pillars on the foundation of hard work will increase the likelihood that you can meet those goals and achieve your dreams. Check out these four pillars and see if any resonate with you:
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May 2024
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