A New Year, A New Start
A year ago, I wrote about dealing with difficult times as a means of driving appropriate change. A year later, unfortunately, the same message holds essentially unchanged. For many organizations (those that are still working to make it through these times), we are at a point where we get a second shot at starting the New Year on the right foot. Here’s another business perspective, but it isn’t aimed at your employer. Read more
Planting Seeds
When it’s time to act as a catalyst for change in an organization, the last approach you want to take is the old ‘bull in a china-shop’ method: taking charge, giving orders, ignoring feedback, making demands. While you may end up delivering the proposed changes and maybe even an accurate analysis of what really needs to be done, you will fail in the end. There will be massive overt push back and passive resistance, and you will likely sour the team’s attitude toward change in general. A better approach is to think of yourself as a farmer, and to plant seeds. Read more
Where Do Lessons Go?
A good part of a formal closing for any project is a discussion of lessons learned. An even better approach is to get the stakeholders together to gather these lessons, both good and bad, in the form of a comprehensive retrospective. Unfortunately, in most cases, these lessons learned would be more appropriately called “things we should learn but are doomed to identify as lessons again on our next project.” Read more
Misguided Consistency
In almost every process improvement initiative I have seen, whether based on some sort of guidance (such as CMMI, ISO, RUP, Scrum, or…pick your favourite) or not, there is significant emphasis on standardization of process. PMO implementations usually provide a process binder, maybe a bunch of templates to complete on each project. Often, the people that drive these implementations see the job as done once these ‘deliverables’ are delivered. All this consistency is completely misguided. Read more
Working with People You Hate
Quite often, there are situations where a couple of teammates have stepped on each other’s toes too many times. While the easy way out might be to go find another team, this is not always possible. How to continue to work with someone you currently loathe? Read more
