Think Diversity

Yesterday was a bank holiday here in the US to honor Martin Luther King Jr, the great civil rights activist. It got me thinking about diversity and the benefits it can bring.

As a project manager, I’ve had diverse teams to work with. I’ve come to realize diversity isn’t just a skin color or the country where someone is born. Diversity may be experiences, opinions, or even the type of food someone likes. If you've had a team potluck lunch and enjoyed some different recipe someone brought in, you were appreciating diversity.

What it comes down to is that everyone is unique. As a project manager, recognize uniqueness and how it can bring value to the project. When having a discussion on possible approaches to a problem, a diverse group of participants will bring about more options. So next time you’re recruiting for a team, think diversity.

New Year's Resolutions

The New Year has arrived. My children were asking me about any New Year’s resolutions I had made. I told them I don’t make any specific resolutions on New Year’s Day, that I try to always keep my goals and dreams a part of my life.

Our family recently watched the movie What the Bleep Do We Know. It was really thought provoking, tying spirituality and physics together. One topic that stuck with me was how we can create our future by first envisioning it. One of the commentors talked about how he takes time at the beginning of each day to think about how he wants that day to turn out, and things do turn out the way he wants.

As an athlete, I have found I do better in races when I take the time in advance to mentally rehearse the race. I now do the same thing for work. I get to my office, take some time to check for any urgent emails or voice messages, and then get ready for the day. First, I read a daily spiritual message I receive via email. Then I take time to think about how I want my day to turn out. I think about my projects and what I want to accomplish. If I have a conflict to work through, I think about how I want that to turn out. I even think about my workout for that day and what I want to accomplish. Then I get to work, knowing what I want to accomplish that day.

Try it for a few weeks, see what happens. Goethe once said if you can believe in yourself, anything can happen.

Drop me a line and let me know what you think of the blog, btarne@yahoo.com

Namaste

The Meaning of Christmas

Our church had an intersting service this week. The minister incorporated the story How the Grinch Stole Christmas into her talk. At first this might seem a bit odd, after all this is just a kid’s story. The point she was trying to make was how Christmas was an opportunity to let our hearts be open to love. We don’t try to find love; we just have to drop the barriers that keep it from finding us. That happened to the Grinch when he realized Christmas wasn’t about the gifts or the food, but that it was about people.

So there’s no real connection to project management here, or is there? Is project management about the tools and technology? Will we be happy if we have a get a great WBS for a present? Or is it about the people we work with?

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Peace!

Volunteering

Thanksgiving was last week here in the US. This is a unique American holiday to focus on giving thanks for all we have. It’s also a time to think about those that may not be as fortunate and how we can help them. For the first time this year, my family (including my 12 and 15 year old kids) and I volunteered to serve food at a church for those that couldn’t afford their own Thanksgiving meal.

As project managers, there are plenty of opportunities to volunteer. I have been on the board for the PMI IT & Telecom specific interest group for the past 6 years. There are others in PMI that have volunteered to help victims of hurricanes and tsunamis around the world. Our unique skills at running projects can be a great benefit for people in need. So this holiday season take some time to share your skills by volunteering.

Agile Project Management

“The sage says little and does not tie the people down; and the people stay happy believing that what happens happens naturally.” Tao Te Ching, Chapter 17

I have been doing some work lately with Agile project management, focusing on how to set up just enough process to successfully run the project without creating so much process that it “ties people down.”

I’ve seen projects fail due to lack of planning, and others that get stuck in the planning phase and never really deliver the product. One time I was hired by a company that was trying to launch an internally built sales force automation (SFA) project. The project had been going on for about 6 months and there were lots of programmers hired that were typing away at their keyboards. A huge project schedule had been put together and posted on the wall of the project room, and there was an extensive requirements document; however, it didn’t seem like any real progress was being made. By simplifying the work and breaking it up into iterations I was able to deliver some value to my customer quickly. This first release went out to the field so they could start using it while we kept moving forward with additional features. The key, as is with any Agile project, was to deliver value to the customer quickly.

Servant Leader

“Why is the Sea the King of a hundred streams? Because He is below them.”
– Toa Te Ching, Chapter 66.

This quote expresses the idea of the leader as servant, which has been an idea that has been discussed by many authors such as Robert Greenleaf, Stephen Covey, Ken Blanchard and others. How do we, as project managers, serve our teams.

I was on a project one time that as the PM, my main role was keeping the team isolated from “management” so they could do their work. I kept my boss informed on what was going on, so he didn’t have to go to the team for status. I kept other, non-project related work from being dumped on them. I made sure they had the tools they needed to do their work. The results spoke for themselves, the project was on time, on budget, and the customer was delighted with the results.

So next time you’re leading a team, think about how you can serve them to help make them successful. It will make you successful also.

On 9-11

I've seen this quote attributed to Confucius. I thought it was appropriate for today.

To put a World in order: we need to put the nations in order.

To put a Nation in order: we need to put the government in order.

To put a Government in order: we need to put the state in order.

To have a State in order: we need to put the community in order.

To have a Community in order: we need to put the society in order.

To have a Society in order: we need to put the family in order.

To have a Family in order: we need to put the family members in order.

To have the Family members in order: we need to put ourselves in order.

To put ourselves in order: we need to put oneself in order.