You Lie!

Oops. Did you say that? Or, just think it? ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~

... As the project manager, do not let your emotions get the best of you. Passion and energy are essential. Disrespect for others (leaders, team members, customers/clients, etc.) is not. Don't let this happen to you. If you don't agree, especially with a specific strategy, say so in confidence and keep an open perspective for the facts. ...

... "Democrats and Republicans alike are denouncing Rep. Joe Wilson for shouting You lie at President Barack Obama during his speech to Congress, an extraordinary breach of decorum for which the South Carolina Republican swiftly apologized. " ...

Via Associated Press: The You Lie Outburst

IT Cost Translator

Turn project costs into operational metrics to bridge the communication gap between IT and business execs. ...

... "The core of our Martian/Venusian phrase dictionary for business and IT is to create unit cost measures of IT and the value added by IT in your organization and your industry. " ...

Via Harvard Business: Discuss IT Cost with Executives

Wave Communications in Projects

Google demonstrates its Wave communication product and you can see its powerful applicability to collaborating project teams. ...

Virtual Collaboration to Engage Your Team

President Obama creates a virtual event that spurs questions, debate and collaboration. Nice leverage of technology to create dialogue. Here's a sample of the discussion on the topic of Green Jobs and Energy: 324,994 votes on 7,442 questions from 20,104 people. ...

... "The idea that a president would want to talk directly to the American people has been around since the days of FDR, but what was new about Obama's online town hall is that it encouraged members of the public to interact with each other ... " ...

Via CNN: Obama Town Hall

Misleading IT project costs

Program, project, phase one, two, or three. Communication about the costs of the current scope and the overall project can be challenging. ...

... "Jeffrey defended the declaration of the GBP2.3bn price, saying that the answer given only related to approved costs. " ...

Via Computing: MoD may have misled parliament

Mobile Communication Project

Beam me up Scotty. ... IBM implements mobile wearable communicator on a hospital IT project that keeps the healthcare workforce integrated into the communications network. ...

... "It can be difficult for healthcare providers to quickly contact a colleague, who may be anywhere on the floor or in the hospital. The new communications system will allow for instant communication through lightweight, wearable, voice-activated badges. The devices can also relay text messages and alerts. The communicator, developed by Vocera Communications Inc. and implemented by IBM, can increase staff productivity, save time and improve patient care response times. " ...

Via IBM: Sainte-Justine Hospital Mobile Solution

Customer Service Communication Channels Expand

New channels, such as twitter and the blogosphere, are available for companies to monitor and engage their customers in a dialogue that can yield better products and services. ...

... "For example, when Travis Johnson, known by the Twitter handle, pastortrav, complained recently about Southwest's check-in process, he received a quick, public response from an airline employee saying, So sorry to hear it! What don't you like about the check-in process? Did your flight get off okay? " ...

Via Boston Globe: Customer has a complaint

Project Management Interview: Lessons from the Super Bowl, Continued

A newly minted PMP interviews for the project manager position ...

Getting the Point Across: Think Like Kids

Project Better Place uses children to test their message for a better earth through an electric car infrastructure. ...

Interpreting Business Results

Tom provides interpretation of Bank of America CEO summary of quarterly results. ... Priceless. ... Read on. ...

... "We made total asses of ourselves, allowing ourselves to be conned by a bunch of out-of-touch Nobel-winning economists with their portfolio-risk smoothing models ... " ...

Via Tom Peters: Vile Bile

Keep Projects on Track

Nice set of tips for keeping your project on-track and staying focused on the goal. ...

... "You should be spending the bulk of your time talking to and corresponding with project constituents – your team, the stakeholders, vendors, consultants and key end-users. " ...

Via Baseline: Save Your Next Project

Project Management on One Page

I just picked up The One-Page Project Manager by Clark Campbell. I'm always looking for ways to simplify things, and am a big proponent of "one-page" type solutions. I've use a one-page business plan, a one-page charter, a one-page business case, and other such tools, always with good results.

Needless to say, I was intrigued by the concept when I saw the book. And I was not disappointed.

Not only does the book offer some good insights, but it offers step-by-step instructions on how to complete a visually appealing, one-page project overview and status for senior management that includes:

- The project's key objectives
- The major tasks and schedule dates
- How the task align with the objectives
- Project cost and schedule status
- Key resources and priorities
- Intangible key criteria
- A brief summary of the project status
- Basic descriptive information

Best of all, as noted in the book, the templates are available as free downloads from the book's website (below). I still recommend reading the book as opposed to just winging it with the template, as the book offers further explanation.

The author notes that this is not meant as a replacement for MS/Project, Primavera, or any other tool you may be using. Instead, it is used in addition, as a way to communicate with senior management, the project team, or anyone else that needs to know the relevant facts about the project without reading a fifty-page report.

Check it out...

OPPM -One Page Project Manager

Project Communication: Social Networking is Here!

I knew it wouldn't take long. Technology for project communication is moving at the speed of light. Organizations are already using project blogs and wikis. Intel is spearheading the move towards WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability of Microwave Access), which will allow people to be wired to the Internet wherever they are at lightning speeds, through cell phones, laptops, televisions, and so on.

And now, a web site called Ning allows anyone to create their own MySpace-type social networks. This is a great way for a virtual project team to get to know each other and share ideas, discussions, and documents. You can create public networks or invitation-only networks. And it's totally free. Soon project social networks will be the way business is done.

Check it out...

Ning - Create your own Social Networks!

Made to Stick -- for project managers

Projects are about implementing new ideas, but it's difficult -- sometimes incredibly difficult -- to translate new ideas into new action. For this reason, the book Made to Stick is a "must read" for project managers and project sponsors. This book will entertain you, but more importantly, it will compel you to be a better communicator. Written by brothers Dan and Skip Heath, this book describes two communication skills:
(a) Find just one core idea. Experts in any subject find this very hard to do, because their enemy is the Curse of Knowledge.
(b) Follow a six-step checklist to make the core idea "sticky." The six steps are summarized by the words Simplicity, Unexpectedness, Concreteness, Credibility, Emotional, and Stories.

I have written a two-page book review for project managers (PMI Tulsa Chapter, June 2007 newsletter, pp. 10-11.) Also, check out the Heath Brothers' blog.

Made to Stick is a book that will transform the way you communicate ideas, and the way your team translates ideas into action.

Business Plan Sets Agenda With Stakeholders

Insights on using the business plan (or case) to get stakeholders aligned on measureable objectives and keeping dynamic story updated. ...

... "A business plan is a way to coordinate, communicate, and collaborate with accountability and tracking. It should get all the key people on the same page. Nobody can execute a plan they don’t know about. " ...

Via How to Change the World: How to Write a Business Plan

Identify and Manage Stakeholders: Position Project For Success

Managing change well on IT projects includes understanding and planning for various stakeholder groups. Use techniques such as customer segmentation to manage communications and stakeholder involvement, as appropriate. ...

... "To deliver both high awareness and support, Everett said that managers should identify key stakeholders, define their current problems, and map how the functionality of a new IT system will improve on these aspects. " ...

Via ComputerWeekly: IT project

Don't Do This

Don't shred your project documentation, unless it has expired based on your enterprise's retention policy. Be as transparent as possible with your project status, especially with the steering team. Be the source of the truth. ...

... "It is hardly surprising that the Treasury wants to hide from the public the details of their badly mishandled computer projects and it seems that Gordon Brown's tendency towards obsessive secrecy ... " ...

Via ITPro: Shredding of IT project reports

Under one roof

It's not a new thought. But it does drive home the point that very different industries have similar issues when it comes to project management processes. The thought is that when you have a project where the schedule is being squeezed, it's good to have your project team working as efficiently as possible.

At a client recently, the question came up - how to recover some lost time and to prepare for expected mandated scope additions? It is a traditional multi-national organisation with distributed departments. Project team organisation follows a medium to strong matrix model. The program comprises several linked projects with distributed teams and the program has very high priority within the organisation.

The response of one project team is to co-locate the team in one space to improve the team communication and efficiency. In justifying the cost of co-locating to management, examples from a drug company, a car manaufacturer and information technology were cited. These examples are interesting because they do underline the similarity of issues in organisations where you would not normally look for them.
Bringing IT under one roof

Glaxo Mimics Carmaker to Speed Vaccine

BlackBerry, The Project Manager's Best Friend, Just Got Better

Get this for your project managers ...

Next Project Presentation: Google Tool On The Way

Google to build web-based presentation tool as part of its office productivity suite. ...

... "First of all, we want to welcome the team from Tonic Systems to Google. Tonic, which we've just acquired, is based in San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia. They have some great technology for presentation creation and document conversion, and it will be a great addition as we add presentation sharing and collaboration capabilities to Google Docs & Spreadsheets. " ...

Via Official Google Blog: We're expecting

Vendor Management: Balanced Feedback Necessary for Healthy Relationship

Drive a vendor relationship through honest feedback with balanced perspective - the good and the bad. ...

... "the generic response is a public, we are very happy and content, or that was great followed by private discussions on just what a disaster the product, event, or meeting actually was. " ...

Via DataMation: Relationship Management

Real Time Communications: Twitter

New internet communication service, Twitter, morphs as users create unintended consequences. Running a global, virtual project. Need real-time info and asynchronous updates. Check it out. ...

... "What was once initially designed to answer the question: what are you doing?, has turned into a free-form communications service where people are having burts of shorthand conversations ... " ...

Via Logic+Emotion: Twitter Love + Hate

Results Project Failure Poll

Communications, resource planning, and scheduling were identified as top root causes of project failures in CompTIA poll. ...

... "Nearly 28 percent of the more than 1,000 respondents to the web poll singled out poor communications as the number one cause of project failure. Insufficient resource planning was the second most mentioned cause of project failure, cited by just less than 18 percent of poll respondents. The third most frequent cause of project failure, according to the CompTIA web poll, was an unrealistic schedule, chosen by 13.2 percent of poll participants. " ...

Via CompTIA: Project Failure - Root Cause Poll ...

Child's Play: Project Management Lessons From the Classroom

Ah, there's someone else that finds project management lessons in everything. It's a sickness I tell you.

Elizabeth Harrin has an article on Projects@Work about project management lessons she extracted from teaching a group of nine year olds in Paris. Whether it's the importance of giving clear instructions, understanding your stakeholders' environment, or negotiating win-win solutions, everything you need to manage a project you probably learned in kindergarten.

Read on...

http://www.projectsatwork.com/content/Articles/235373.cfm

Innovation: More Than Products

Recent study on innovation shows that it is top of mind for executives and means more than new product development. ...

... "Companies are infusing innovation throughout their organizations. Seventy percent of senior business leaders use internal communications to promote innovation among employees, and more than two-thirds believe that driving innovation in their business processes and customer experiences are more important than innovation in product development. " ...

Via Weber Shandwick Worldwide: From Corporate Buzzword to Business Imperative in 2007

Project Management and Driving: Staying Tuned In

It had occured to me the other day that project planning is a lot like driving a car. If you constantly look down at the road in front of you, you won't be prepared if traffic suddenly stops or changes pattern. It's better to look out at the near horizon.

And if you listen to the radio for the traffic reports, you'll be able to avoid problems before you even see them.

It's the same with project management. We need to focus on the current planning horizon as far as we can reasonably see (usually we can only see three-to-six months out with any degree of accuracy). And it's equally important to stay "tuned in" through networking, reading what's happening in your organization and the world, visiting your customers and stakeholders, and practicing MBWA (Management By Wandering Around).

The more we're tuned in to internal and external activities that could impact the success of our projects, the better position we'll be in to address problems proactively and head off a traffic jam or a change in pattern.

Customer Communication: JetBlue CEO on Service Orientation

JetBlue CEO uses virtual medium to connect with customers to affirm committment to service after abyssmal performance. ...

Learning from experience

We've discussed the value of sharing lessons learned before. Here is another good example of a team that took the time and trouble to write up their experiences from real life. Earthquake monitoring is, by its nature, a very distributed activity and a project to support the service involves a very widely distributed set of stake holders.
Lessons learned from the NEES Cyberenvironment project

This paper really points up several critical aspects. Everyone will find something of value. For me, the section on the criticality of effective communication contains some quotable nuggets. For instance "We recommend, in fact, that on the very first day of the project, the project team should make a "mockup" - in as simple a form as a set of presentation slides - available to the user community". The effective use of prototypes as a communication tool across the stakeholder community is described well.