What’s That PMO Doing?
I was running a workshop on project management yesterday, and one of the first things I did (as usual) was to go around the room to ask what people were looking for in the session. One person volunteered that back on their project, they have a PMO that drives things, and what he wanted to get out of the session was to “find out what goes on behind those doors”. I may not know what does go on behind those doors, but I do have thought or two to share. Read more
The Rule of Three
When I first started focusing on improvement initiatives (over a dozen years ago now), the typical approach was to perform a deep analysis and come up with a big laundry list of recommended changes. That never did much more than pad the wallets of the consulting firm that provided the recommendations. For that reason alone, I’m sure the approach won’t be going away soon. For the improvee, though, the victim of these massive recommendations, there remains hope for a better way. Apply the Rule of Three. Read more
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
Precision With a Wide, Moving Target
One of the requests that I don’t think will ever go away in training and mentoring is the request for a recipe. Many people in this YouTube world of short attention spans aren’t interested in taking the time to understand topics in depth, they just want to know what will work, and simply apply it. Sorry, but I don’t think that makes for things more complex than chocolate brownies or IKEA furniture. Read more
Top of Mind
A few months ago, I posted some data that suggests that when we compare performance against different approaches to developing software, no particular brand stands out. Each approach appears to provide some net value in some area of performance, but there is no clear winner in the broad-based “this is the best way to develop our products” competition. There might be a couple of well known effects at play here. Read more
Simplify
One of the greatest challenges with conflict is that by the time we deal with many issues, after there has been some unbearable situation that forces us to do something, the conflict has become a gnarly hairball of different issues, some actually related to each other. In many situations, trying to find a solution to the conflict as it presents itself is impossible. Instead, try to divide and conquer. Read more
