Setting Goals

Well I ran Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth Minnesota over the weekend. I didn’t go as fast as I wanted. I was originally thinking 3 hours 10 minutes. As I got going, I settled into a pace to get me to the finish in 3:15. However, it started warming up, I started slowing down, and I finished in just over 3:25.

It’s good to set goals to move you forward, but some times you just can’t reach your goals and you have to know when to re-adjust. If I had tried to finish in 3:10 from the start, I probably would have dropped out by around 18 miles. It happened to me once, so I know. However, by knowing when to reset my goal, I was still able to finish.

I’ve been on projects that set off with some lofty goals, but is that really good? Is it really motivating to give people an impossible target, or is it more demoralizing? As project managers, our objective is the success of the project, but we have to know how to define what that means.

I don’t consider my marathon a failure because I didn’t hit my original target goal. I still ran over 26 miles in less then three and a half hours. I finished in 472nd place out of 9800 runners, so I was in the top 5%. I know there will be other races in my life that I will exceed my goals, so I’m happy with the results.

Lessons Learned

I'm back in New York City this week. I got in some runs in Central Park and around the reservoir. It's been 5 years since I was last here, but the park hasn't changed.

I keep a running log so that I can go back and see what kind of training brought me success, and how I was racing in past years. As I get ready for my marathon (9 days away!), I can assess what kind of shape I am in compared to past years and how I will do. I'm predicting around a 3:10. I wanted to break 3 hours, but I know my training hasn't been that good.

I also keep a personal journal so I can track what has brought me success in work as well. It also has my observations of how I can improve. Sometimes (like this week), I'm to busy to think about it. Over the weekend though I plan on taking some time to check my log and make some entries on the professional side.

Post Modern PM

Dave Prior has an interesting post in his blog, DrunkenPM talking about the Post Modern Project Manager.

The quote I liked was when he talked about a project manager "Getting past the point where you consider one approach to be the “one true way”, and on to a place where you see each approach as viable and important"

Just as each project is by definition unique, we need to think about how we approach each project, rather than trying to shoe-horn a standard approach every time. It might be waterfall or agile or spiral or somewhere in between, we need to figure out the best way to get it done.

Do Clothes Make the Man (or Woman)?

My son was off to his job at the bike shop wearing a t-shirt and shorts. I made the comment that I could almost dress that casual in my new job. It got me thinking about clothes and work.

Before landing at Lombardi Software, I interviewed with few other companies. In a number of cases, they were moving away from business casual back to business formal dress, which meant either a shirt/tie or sport coat. While I like dressing up, and I did my share of it in the Navy, I have to wonder, does it really matter what we wear?

Obviously, anyone can take it to an extreme, and anytime I'm with clients I make sure I am dressed as well as them, but if I'm in the office with my co-workers, does it matter if I'm in jeans?

I think the military had it right, it's about conformity. Some public schools are also going to uniforms for a similar reason. If we're all dressed about the same, no one is going to feel singled out because of what they wear, and ideally, everyone will work better together. I don't need a suit to make me a better worker, I'm fine in my jeans and polo shirt as long as that's what everyone else is wearing.

Culture

So what's the culture like at the place you work? Is it focused on the success of the company, or individuals? Do people work well together or is there friction? What have you done to make the culture better?

I worked in one organization that started to rank employees as part of the annual performance evaluation. The people ranked high got raises, the ones at the bottom of the list were at risk for loosing their jobs. This made for a very competitive workplace (i.e., backstabbing). I am glad not to be there anymore and as I was looking for a new position, I asked about the culture and how they handled performance reviews to make sure I didn't get into the same boat again.

At my current company, they took the time as part of the on-boarding process to talk about the culture of the organization, and it wasn't just an HR person reading off a set of slides. It was one of the VPs that had been with the company and could talk to how the culture has evolved over the years. This step keeps the culture evolving in a positive manner so that the company continues to be successful.

Projects at Work

I am officially part of the Projects at Work editorial board, see this (you have to scroll all the way down to find me).

Strong Opinions, Weakly Held

This is a theme where I work. The company looks for people that are passionate about what they do, whether it's someone like me who's passionate about process improvement and project management, or one of the developers being passionate about developing outstanding software.

The idea is that we should have this passion, but at the same time, be open to new ideas. Based on my research, this quote originated with Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future.

As an example, while I am passionate about project management, in the last few years I've moved more toward agile project management. What are you passionate about? Are you open to new ideas in this area?