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The End of a 9-5 Workday

I came across an interesting post on Dan Schawbel's blog about ROWE - results only work environment. The idea is that we are owe our employer our results, not our time. We work when we want to in order to get our work done. No more 9-5 (or 8-6 as some organizations are).

I've worked in a couple of places where the emphasis was how long you worked, not what you delivered. The smarter companies are recognizing that isn't what's necessary in this day of knowledge workers.

Last Friday my kids were off school. I got up early and put in a very productive 5 hours. Then I went mountain biking with my son, took both kids to lunch, and went back to the office to wrap things up, another 3 hours or so. Some days I will wrap up before 5, go for a run, and then spend a little time answering emails before I go to bed.

Now I will admit there are some days, especially when I'm with a client, that I'll put in 10+ hours in the office. A flight attendant accused me of being a workaholic this week because I was about the only one not sleeping on an early morning flight, but to me, the airplane is a great place to get things done, no distractions. It helps when I'm in first class and have a little room to spread out. It also means I don't have to work late at night and I can go out and enjoy myself.

Out of Control

I conducted an interview with David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, last week. One of the things we discussed is how people focus on what's out of control. The example he used was that if there's a hole in your ship, you're not worried about what course you're on, you focus on fixing the hole.

This makes sense for project planning. Have you been in the situation where you should be planning, but you're busy putting out a fire? You have to get the fire off your plate before you can get to planning. The key is to focus effectively so that you can get to the planning.

The technique provided in Getting Things Done is to identify what the next action is for any project or other task on your plate. When you can clearly identify the next actions, you are more effective in executing. Pick up the book if you want more details and look for an upcoming article in Projects at Work on the topic.

Simplify Things

I came across a great blog post on Zen Habits about simplifying your life. The post gave 10 things you can do to make your life less cluttered.

The fifth one, simplify your to-do list, has been something I've been practicing for some time. I try to start each day thinking about what the most important things I need to get done that day. Most days I have a top 3 work list and a top 3 other list (household projects, volunteer stuff etc). I find if I focus on those things, I'm less likely to get distracted by other activities.

The other thing I like about the blog post is the advice to pick just one thing on the list and try start practicing that today. Tomorrow, pick something else on the list. Don't try to do everything at once.

Today, I'm going to clean off my desk. It gets cluttered easily when I'm traveling a lot because I throw things on it between trips and piles build up. I'm not traveling this week, so it's a good week to do a little organizing.

A View From the Back

Yesterday was the annual Tour de Shawnee, a non-competitive bike ride around my town. In past years, I have ridden in the front with the fast guys. It was a great ride, because the police made sure all the intersections were safe, they had rest stops with candy and cold drinks, so all I had to do was ride.

This year was a little different. My son works for the local Trek store and they were there providing support. So instead of riding in front, we rode in back and helped out people that ran into problems. It was an enjoyable way to do the ride. We were able to talk more, we got the satisfaction of helping a couple riders out, and we saw riders with a different perspective. They weren’t as concerned with keeping their speed up, having the latest bikes, or the most hi-tech clothing. They were there for fun.

It’s good to change perspectives every once in a while. This is a great technique to help resolve conflicts. Once I was having a disagreement with someone in another department because she wasn’t supporting a new process I was deploying. I had executive support and was just steam-rolling ahead, not stopping to think why she wasn’t on the same page. It wasn’t until I took the time to see things from her perspective that I understood it wasn’t that she didn’t support my process, she just didn’t have the resources to help me out. Once I realized that, we were able to reach an alternate solution that everyone was happy with.

So next time you’re facing conflict, think about the other person’s perspective and how things might look from the back.

The Olympics and the Big Picture

Like many people, I have been watching a lot of the Olympics these days. From sports I love like track or cycling, to ones I didn't realize were around, like trampoline. There are so many stories of success out there.

These athletes aren't successful just because they worked hard for the last 6 months. They've been thinking about and preparing for the Olympics for years. We should have this same focus in our careers as well.

In the middle of a big project, it's easy to focus just on getting that project done without thinking about the bigger picture. We need to step back from the day to day chaos once in a while and think about our long term goals. My favorite approach to this is from Steven Covey. Picture your own funeral. What are people going to say about you? What is going to be written on your tombstone? This exercise is a good way to think about what you really want to do with your life.

So as you're watching the Olympics, think about where you want to be in 4 years when the next Olympics come around. Write your ideas down and start planning.

Measuring Success

I received a $30 gift certificate in the mail this week for taking 5th in my age group in a race I did this spring. I was surprised, because it was a big race (around 10,000 participants including walkers) and I didn't think I would do that well. This got me thinking about how we measure success.

In project management, it's always scope, schedule, and budget that determines if a project is successful. But a good project manager knows that isn't enough. The customer also has to be satisfied, but how do you measure that?

One approach I've taken for some time is to define the measures of success as the project is going through the chartering process. This is where key metrics can be identified that can later be used to measure if the project has delivered. In process improvement, the measure can be reducing the number of defects or decreasing the time to complete a process.

So as you're starting off your project, think about all the goals the project should accomplish and how to measure them. With running, my goal is to finish in the top 5% of any race. Anything else is a bonus.