ah-ha-moments yearbook 2010

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Ah-Ha-Moments Yearbook 2010

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About this Yearbook

This eBook includes all the posts onAh-Ha-Momentsduring the year of 2010, thefirst year of existence of this blog. The objective of this yearbook is for you to

have an easy way to get to all the information posted on the blog. I hope you find

it useful.

Please use this information as you please. The only thing I ask is to mention its

origin.

To formalize this, all content is under the Creative Commons license:

Ah-Ha-Momentsby Luis Seabra Coelho is licensed under aCreative Commons

Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
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Articles

Project Management and Change

Management

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Late last year I was asked to write a newspaper

article about project management that was never

published. The topic I choose was this very one as

I thought it would be an easy introduction to

project management as a way to change things in

an organization - and make the organization a

better one. And then I had a kind of an "Ah ha"

moment: actually there are things that are not all

that obvious. Later on I was surprised by this

year's topic for the Research Working Session

(part of the PMI EMEA Congress) was Change

Management. Who would have guessed I was

following PMI's research trend? And that made

the 2nd "Ah ha" moment.

The link between Project Management and

Change Management is pretty straight forward: if

you want to change something in an organization

you do a project (or a program). On the other hand, any organization's activity

can be classified either as an operation or a project. Operations serve the

organizations purpose of producing value by means of recurring activities: making

lamps, building cars, lending money or whatever. In contrast, projects are the

way organizations adapt to their ever changing context: basically, organizations

build a strategy to fulfill their vision and then they define strategic objectives to

implement strategies. Now some of these strategic objectives require a change in

the organization. When this is the case, projects and programs are the way to go:

it can be the construction of a new highway, a new hospital, a new product or

whatever fulfills the proposed objectives.

Now imagine a company that has the vision of being the top national

construction company on a small country like Portugal. Also imagine that last

year they had 20% market share following the 2 current market leaders. One way

this company has to gain market share in Portugal is to start operations in Spain

so they are recognized as a leading company and take some construction projects

from their competitors in Portugal (the strategy is internationalization). In order

to do that they decide they have to (i) have 10% of their human resources

speaking Spanish by the end of this year and (ii) change their ERP software so it

complies both with Portuguese and Spanish laws and practices like fiscal

reporting by the 1st quarter of next year (the strategic objectives). So it's quite

straight forward that this company has to start some projects to reach these

objectives and comply with the defined strategy. In order for this company to

change they have to get some projects going .

Before I continue with this example, let me introduce the Change Management

topic by introducing John Kotter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kotter).

Kotter is a leading author on Change Management. He studied how organizations

make changes happen and why some succeed and some don't. That's how he

came up with his 8 Step Change Model
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(http://www.kotterinternational.com/KotterPrinciples/ChangeSteps.aspx). You

can check for details on Kotter's site, but in short these steps are:

1. Acting With Urgency2. Developing the Guiding Coalition3. Developing a Change Vision4. Communicating the Vision Buy-in5. Empowering Broad-based Action6. Generating Short-term Wins7. Don't Let Up8. Make Change Stick

I don't want to go into much detail on Kotter's model, the point is that you can

group these steps in 3 stages much like in habit changing models (defrost -

change - refrost). That is:

1. Allow changes to happen2. Make the changes3. Turn them into habits

Projects belong to the "Make the changes" part which include the steps:

"Empowering Broad-based Action" and "Generating Short-term Wins".

The same example I used to show the link between Project Management and

Change Management can also be used to show something not so obvious. The

fact is that in any situation you can think of, changes in the organization start long

before the projects do, and changes will continue long after the projects end.

In this case, learning Spanish (imagine a couple of projects to address this like

selecting the people who have an interest in working in Spain and develop a

formal classroom in the office where these people learn Spanish) started with the

vision of being the leading construction company in Portugal - not a very obvious

connection. Furthermore, the purpose of these projects don't end when 10% of

the employees can speak Spanish. And the project's results don't continue inside

the organization just turning them into operations like after building a bridge you

start charging tolls and maintenance.

So, before the project exists several things happened in the organization that

made the project justified - in a minimum, building a vision, selecting a strategy

and developing strategic objectives. And after the project ends the change

process is still running by enforcing the project deliverables use thus making

these changes incorporated into the organization.

Going back to the example, before you start any project to help this organization

start operations in Spain you should prepare the people in the organization for

that change to happen and gain their support. If you don't do that you'll probably

get so much resistance that the projects may actually fail even if they are a

success - that is, the project may deliver the desired results but they can't be

incorporated into the organization. The same goes to what happens after the

projects end. If you don't find a way to incorporate the changes they made,

things will go to the way they were before, much like the steering wheel of a car

after a curve: all you have to do is let the wheel go and immediately the wheel

goes to the "less effort" position and makes the car go straight again.

So, in short:

Organizations have operations and projects Unlike operations, projects are done in order to change something in the

organization

In order to change something in an organization you have to go through3 stages where projects fit in the middle stage
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And that means that there's something that caused the need for theproject and

After the project ends, you need to somehow incorporate that change

into the organization

Bottom line is that in most cases you can look to Project Management as a part of

Change Management. And if you understand the need for a project and the

impact it is intended to have in the organization...

Then you can be a better project manager!

Meet the most wanted Project

Management tool: the dog!

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Recently I was told in two different occasions that the most wanted and needed

Project Management tool was... THE DOG!

Both times the speech and reasoning were quite straight forward and did amuse

me. It went like this: if you are able to take

enough distance from the events that you're

involved in you can take a different

perspective of things. And a dog can help you

get the time to do it when you take him for a

walk. Now a different perspective can bemore than a more objective one, it can also be

a more high level one. That is, instead of

looking at stuff happening at the heat of the

moment (an argument on who will do some

project task), you can look at what caused it (there's a team member performing

way behind all the others). And this is not only interesting but you can take

advantage of it as a Project Manager. If you take your dog for a walk after dinner

you have the chance to take a look at that day's events with a certain distance.

And... Ah ha!, that can make a difference (in this example, if first you know

there's a team member that is under performing then you can find out what's

wrong with him, hopefully find a solution and get this team member to perform

better). Much like going from positions to interests on negotiating, you change

the focus from the events that happened to their context, causes and

motivations. So, taking enough distance from events can give you at least these

additional perspectives:

more objectiveness higher level causes learn from your mistakes

I don't mean that you need to get a dog if you're a project manager or that

everyone that owns a dog should be a project manager, but it can certainly give

you an edge. Have you ever wondered why everyone is insisting so much on soft

skills? It's just because the hard skills are much more common on project

managers. So, if everyone knows about Earned Value Management, Gantt charts

and resource leveling what difference can you make if you just know the exact

same stuff? It's pretty easy to find someone who knows about these topics, but

what about international virtual team building? And about negotiating? And

leadership? If you know the hard skills (like EVM) and on top of that you add softskills (like leadership) you have an edge over the professionals that just have the

hard skills to offer. This gives you a competitive advantage.
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Albert Einstein once said that insanity was "doing the same thing over and over

again and expecting different results". I don't think he was refereeing to

competitive advantages, but it fits just the same. If you do like everyone one else

is doing all you can expect is doing as good as everyone else. If you're looking to

be better than the rest than you have to do things differently even if it means

taking risks and going against the standards and conventions. On the last PMI

Global EMEA Congress I heard someone tell a story about an Italian company that

went international and on some point decided that their IT had to be

standardized. When he was asked "What was the Project Management

methodology used?" he answered: "The CEO was the methodology". The fact is

that they took a different approach that worked for them in that particular

context. And they would probably fail if they did that particular project in a more

conventional way.

One thing I usually do on the most stressful moments when I have people over

my shoulder anxious for results is going for a smoke. This gives me the chance to

cool down enough so that I get focused again. Moreover, when I'm not thinking

about the problem at hand, I often get solutions that somehow pop up in my

mind. Again, I don't mean that you should start smoking, ok?

So, if you:

take enough distance from the problems at hand if you are critic on how everyone's dealing with issues and if you can deal with the issues in a different way

Then you have an edge that may lead you to get results on complex contexts and

so...


Project Management? Yeah, I do that too

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Time after time I've been asked "What do you do?" and I have a hard time trying

my best to explain what exactly I do... Project Management is not all that easy to

explain to some people working in the area, so how do you explain it to someone

who doesn't know the first thing about it? How do you explain it to your kids at

home? Here's a possible dialog:

- Kid: Dad, what exactly do you do at work?- Project Manager: Well son, dad's a Project Manager.- K: Yeah, I know that. But what do you do?- PM: What do you mean? I manage projects, that's what I do...- K: Ok, and what is a project?- PM: Err... a project is what dad manages...
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I don't think you can explain what Project Management is without recurrence,

that is, you'll have to go through what a project is so you can explain what project

management is.Thus, Project Management is managing projects. And a project

is...?

Well, you can define what a project is in many different ways, the safest way to

go at it is saying that any project must have 3 components in it:

something unique as a result a temporary effort a continuous effort

So a project can be almost anything, right? Yeah, that's about it. And also,everyone is doing projects. Developing a new product, building a house or some

piece of software, putting a satellite on orbit or some medicine on the market in

the form of a pill, you name it... those are all projects. And what is *not* a

project? Well, if one of those three conditions fail then you don't have a project.

So what is not a project?

Having dinner is not a project (probably you have dinner everyday,right?)

Your kids are not a project (they're not really temporary, are they?) Your next vacation is not a project (probably you don't make a

continuous effort on it)

But why do these examples look like projects? Actually, there are a few reasons

but the main ones are:

1. They share some of the components of projects and so they have someof the same needs. Making dinner, for instance, is temporary and is a

continuous effort. Agree? But it takes the 3 components simultaneously

in order to have a project. Nevertheless, some of the needs are the sameand they can range from making sure dinner is ready on time to plan

your vacation so you get to see and do what you wanted to.

2. And, depending on context, these very same examples of non-projectscan turn into real projects: if you're making a special dinner like a dinner

party for your wife's 40th birthday that's actually something unique with

some unique end results - and so dinner can be a project, depending on

the context.
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And this take us a bit further on understanding what Project Management is (thatis, beyond that Project Management is managing projects) and it's all about these

needs. You can read all about it any Project Management book, but in short these

are (skip this part if you just want to get the juicy parts out this post):

1. Human Resources: You have to get someone to do the work. You can doit yourself sometimes, but someone has to do it - always. Who will do it,

will people be happy to do it, these are some of the things you have to

think about.

2. Scope: What are the project results? What will it deliver? You have tomake sure that you know what you want to get at the end. Is dinner

going to be pasta? For how many people? Does everyone like pasta? Are

there enough seats for everyone at the table? What needs to be done?

3. Quality: Will these project results fit what started the project in the firstplace? You can make dinner just to feed yourself and the family but you

can also want a dinner party because it's someone's birthday or you can

do something really elaborated for fun, to please your senses and the

senses of those coming for dinner. It looks like the same dinner dish

can't really workout in all these different contexts, doesn't it?

4. Time: Who is doing what needs to be done? How long will it take? Whenwill it be done? What needs to be done first?

5. Cost: How much money do you need? And when? Do you have enoughmoney for that?

6. Procurement: You'll probably need to buy some stuff for dinner. Do youhave all the tools needed? Who has the stuff you need to buy? How long

will it take to buy it? How will you decide where to buy the stuff from?

7. Communication: Does everyone know what to do? What time is dinnerstarting? And where?

8. Risk: What can go wrong? What can be done in order to prevent that?What will you do if something actually goes wrong? Can you buy pizzas if

dinner is burned?

Now these needs are all interconnected, each of them depends on several others

directly, and so you have entropy set in. Add people to that and entropy becomes

what is technically called a chaotic mess. And so (drums rolls, please...):

Project Management is the art and science of making a mess workout right.

In short, mess management.
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And the people making sure that the mess works out are Project Managers (ormess managers). Which brings us to a distinction that's so hard to explain: if

Project Management is so complex and complicated as it looks, then Projects

Managers don't really have the time to do work on the projects they manage so

they actually don't do project work - and when they do it they perform poorly

(both as project managers and as team members).

Bottom line is: everyone has a mess to clean up sometime, so everyone is really a

project manager and could benefit from knowing a bit more about the tools, skills

and processes involved - what works most of time. The only difference is that

professional project managers are those that make a living out of making messes

workout right, they just do it more often then others - and hopefully have more

experience and knowledge than the others so they do it better.

Bringing this to a conclusion: anyone on this planet who is a project manager

(professional, part-time, amateur or even not knowing that he/she is a project

manager). And if you know where you stand and what you need to know to get

better at it, than you can know how to improve and...


Images taken and adapted fromProject Cartoon.

Developing leadership skills

Sunday, June 13, 2010

In the beginning...

I thought that leadership was some kind of

attribute that all public people had and that all

the others didn't have. Leadership was the skillthat enabled them to be "famous" - and I didn't

need that. I guess I confused leadership with

notoriety which later on I found was a quite

common mistake. Then I thought that there

were leaders and followers and you'd be either

a leader or a follower - you were born one or another and you couldn't possibly

be both. Later on I found I was wrong and, again, that this was a common

mistake. Then I thought that leadership was a way to predict success: if you were

a good leader you would be somehow successful. Guess what: I was wrong again!

I don't change my mind easily but I did change my mind a lot on the topic of

leadership. And that's what really got me interested on - what's with this

leadership thing that makes me change my mind so often? What is there so

difficult to capture?
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Well, this post has the main objective of saving you time if you're just starting on

this topic and put you on the same stage where I am. But be warned: I may soon

change my mind again!

What is leadership?

Every leadership author has a different definition but all of them include (i) the

ability to influence people, (ii) orientation to results and (iii) all give the idea that

leadership is a social skill. So if I had to define leadership myself I'd say that it is a

social skill that allows someone to make other people want the same one thing

and use that will from others to make it happen.

On one hand, social skills are built on top of emotional intelligence and not the

regular intelligence that is measured by IQ tests (basically reasoning and logic);

on the other hand it involves other people, it's not something you do alone. So

leadership is something you develop when relating to other people and you don'tneed to be a rocket scientist to do it!

Ok, this is a start...

...but in practice...

...this doesn't seem very helpful, does it? What exactly does a good leader? The

correct answer is: it depends! You can imagine a perfect leader for each given

context but not a perfect leader for any context - and so the answer depends on

the context. And context vary on several variables like:

The leader itself (his/hers values, personality, culture, skills,experience,...)

The people being lead (again, their values, personalities,...) What they're set to do (putting a man on the Moon feels different than

developing some piece of software or wining the World Championship)

The environment where they're set to do it (leading a remote teamsounds quite different from leading a team from your office)

So, lesson no. 1 is: a good leader depends on the context.

Example

A good example of a leader, in fact one I always try to keep in mind, is a coach. If

you think of a coach, he must have:

Social skills: he has to deal with the players, the managers, the fans, thepress,...

Making people want the same thing: the coach has to make the playersbelieve and want the team's objective (a greater purpose that each of

the players want to achieve)

Channeling of that will to make it happen: so the teams works on it,keeping in sight the major goals but always working on smallerobjectives towards that goal

One thing that comes out of this example is that the coach doesn't play the game

with the players, he just makes them play as good as they can. So leaders don't

need to do the work, they just need to make the work flow in the direction that

suits his/hers objective...

And we have lesson no. 2: a good leader doesn't need to do work! How do you

like that?

Another example

Imagine you have a plant and you want to make it grow. A simple fact is that

plants know how to do it, they can grow by themselves. In fact, that's what

they've always done. If you command the plant to grow yelling at it regularly do

you think it will give any results? Well, probably not... but if you provide the


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natural conditions they need to grow like water and light you will probably get it

to grow, right? That's what a leader does: (i) he finds what makes others move,

(ii) provides that conditions and (iii) directs their energy towards the results

he/she wants to get.

So lesson no. 3 is: a good leader is a provider. Or a roadblock remover. Or both.

He/she makes sure everyone has everything they need to get the job done.

Leadership competencies

Depending on who's thinking about leadership and on what perspective(psychology, human resources, general management, project management,...)

you'll see different sets of competencies necessary for effective leadership. For

instance, on "The extraordinary leader" by Zenger and Folkman, you'll end up

with 5 clusters of 16 different competencies. On "The leadership machine" by

Lombardo and Eichinger you have 67 different competencies - which would

probably make you wonder if they're talking about the same topic. Try googling

for leadership competencies or leadership skills and check out how many

different sets you'll find... What I concluded from this is that the competencies

themselves are not important as whole, there's something behind them that

plays a much more important role. In fact, you even have...

...opposite competencies!

If you look at any of these lists of leadership competencies you'll find out that's

impossible for the same person to master all of them and that some are almost

the opposite. For instance, Zenger and Folkman talk about "Solving problems and

analyzing issues" and "Championing change" which are somehow contradictory,

do you agree? Also Lombardo and Eichinger talk about "Results focus" and

"Visioning and strategy" which again are a bit contradictory... do you think you

can find someone with all of these competencies developed? Well, probably

not...

The thing is that depending on what kind of a leader you're looking for, that is,

what kind of context the leader is in, you'll want different sets of competencies

embedded on the leader. Think of the military: both a General and a Sergeant

are leaders. But you'd probably prefer a general with the ability to "Championing

change" and "Visioning and strategy" rather then "Solving problems and

analyzing issues" and "Results focus". And for a Sergeant you'd probably go the

other way around, that is:

For a General, prefer the following leadership competencies:

Championing change and Visioning and strategy
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Over the leadership competencies:

Solving problems and analyzing issues Results focus

Selecting competencies to improve

So imagine you are thinking of

competing either by running the

marathon or by weight lifting just

because you enjoy both. If you do

both the marathon and weight lifting

you'll have to develop a set of

competences in order to run the

marathon and a different set of skills

in order to lift weights. Do you agreeso far? Now, to run the marathon one

thing you'll have to develop is

resistance; and to lift weights you'll

have to build strength. But

developing resistance means that you

have to give up some strength; and

building strength means you'll have to

give up some resistance. So if you

want to both run the marathon and lift weights you won't do as good as you

would if you just picked one and developed the set of competencies necessary

either to run the marathon or lift weights. Ah ha! If you do both, the best you can

expect is to be average; if you pick the one you like best or that you have more

"natural talent" you have a change to be great!

And this is counter intuitive, my bet is that you you'd imagine that the ideal

process would be to evaluate how good you were at each competency and then

try do develop those that you were worst at, am I right?

Going back to the military, it's pretty easy to imagine how hard it would be forsomeone to be a good General and a good Sergeant at the same time. And if you

want to be a better General you should develop the competencies necessary for

a General, not those that are necessary for a Sergeant, right?. And the same the

other way around, if you want to be a better Sergeant you should develop the

competencies necessary for a Sergeant, not those that are necessary for a

General.

This does make sense after all!

Better yet, if you already have some "natural talent" to do something you

probably enjoy more the skills you need than the skills you don't need, so youhave to do better at what you already enjoy doing and do best!

You may be surprise but this in fact a simple and old truth, even Abraham Lincoln

once said "Whatever you are, be a good one."...

And this is the bottom line: if you want to be a better leader, you should develop

the skills and competencies that you enjoy best and that are better at - or the

ones you're worst at for the kind of leader you are.

And this is lesson no. 4: to improve as a leader you should improve what you

already do best!

Walk the talk
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There's one thing I think it's safe to say that all leaders should be able to do and

that is to build trust. Even if you think of the most controversial leaders like

tyrants and dictators, they only last as long as there's some kind of trust - even if

it's just a small group that trust him. If there's no trust their days as leaders are

numbered.

There's a justification for this. On one hand, if you believe that a leader is a

provider, you'll also believe that you have to trust the provider. On the other

hand, some of the good things a leader brings (like someone people look up to,

motivation and a sense of a greater good) are built on top of trust and so if

there's no trust there's no way to build upon that and so you won't be able to get

those good things a leader should.

So in short, a leader has to walk the talk, that is, he must act accordingly to what

he says and demands from others.

Final lesson: a good leader is trustworthy.

And from here...

Assuming you trust what you've read so far, there's a lot to learn about

leadership. It doesn't take much to get started, but you can't take anything from

granted. There's a lot of other things like what we saw earlier about improving as

a leader, that can be counter intuitive - please remember that. Also remember

that this is a starting point on leadership from my point of view - and so some

basic stuff is missing, like the leadership styles that were not included. But you

can read all about it in several places - actually I like Wikipediaas a starting point,

as long as you don't take anything for granted.

The most important thing to remember after reading this is that:

1. a good leader depends on the context

2. a good leader doesn't need to do work3. a good leader is a provider4. to improve as a leader you should improve what you already do best5. a good leader is trustworthy

Just keep in mind these 5 lessons on leadership and I'm sure that...


Working for a better good


National teams

I was discussing over lunch with a friend the challenges of building a good team

for the World Cup and I was arguing that the problems there were basically the

same as in any other team. And that, much like any other team, there were some

specific issues with a National Team which we then agreed that at least were:

making a football star look beyond his belly button in a very short time, fitting together different habits, skills and styles

that each player has

taking away the arrogance from someone who is a young man thatearns more in a week what someone else earns in an year

But then, after a couple of days this conversation took place, it suddenly struck

me: actually, even these specific issues are not different from what happens in
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the office. Ah ha!... in fact, the same problems take place in the office and with

the same root causes - they just take place in a different context...

Do you agree? No? Keep on reading t hen...

What is a team?

Putting it as simple as I can, a team is a group of people working for a better

good. It works in a pretty simple way. Just imagine you are standing in front of

these guys...

Do you feel comfortable? Afraid? Feel like running away from them as fast as you

can? Why's that? Why do they look so mean? For starters, they look pretty

focused on the same thing, don't they? And seeing all of them so focused on you

makes you wonder if this is the best place for you to be...

And then they don't seem worried about themselves, do they? On the contrary,

they look like they have a mission to do and there's nothing going to stop them,

they have something bigger then each one of them. And if there was just one of

these guys in front of you he would probably look ridiculous but all of them

together it's completely different - the only word that pops on my mind is power:

they have the power to do whatever they are set to do! And they're showing it to

you to intimidate you - this is performed just to you. They show the will to go

over anything in order to get what want and build a high obstacle that you must

be prepared to overtake if you face them. Also, they're giving you the chance to

turn away - and call you yellow if you do.

This is what the All Blacks do, they are the New Zealand rugby team and they

mean business... just watch this to feel the power of this demonstration called

the Haka. And pay attention to the opposite team: they are hugged, some can

show a bit of contempt but they look like they're ready to call for their mommy...

And for last, this has absolutely nothing to do with what they are about to do -

playing rugby. It has to do with something on the side - they are a team.

An all of this just because:

they are focused they are not thinking about themselves they are highly motivated together they are more then just the sum of the individuals
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So how do you turn a group of people into a team like the All Blacks? How do you

go from the first picture (the Portuguese team, looking kind of relaxed) to the

second (the All Blacks, focused on wining)? How do you go around the challengesthat arise on building a National team, football, rugby or whatever? And does it

have to do with your team at the office?

Making a football star look beyond his

belly button

How do you do it? Imagine you have

Cristiano Ronaldo (a star Portuguese

football player) on your team. Would

you yell at him like the other football

player on the picture? Well, probabilynot. Yelling at him wouldn't motivate

him to look beyond his belly button. And

we all have stars working with us at the

office that have a hard time looking

beyond their belly buttons. Technically they are called prima donas. The first

thing I want to argue is that prima donas are the same either if they are a

football star or a star programmer as far as the team is concerned. Although each

has their particularities like a different pay at the end of the month they tend to

be individualists, think highly of themselves, they don't consider other team

members as high as themselves, they rely on the support of others to reach their

individual goals and so on.

Think about one of the prima donas you know, is he/she much different then

this? How would you turn this the other way around? How would you make that

prima dona in particular consider the team? And think highly of the team? And

support others to reach the team goals?

Suppose you have a team with skills and capabilities that your star programmer

doesn't have. Suppose that it's obvious that the team is going far, they're reallygoing to get there. In fact, suppose the team is going much much further than the

star programmer would ever go by himself. What do you think your star

programmer attitude would be then? Odds are he would probably consider the

team more because that would be in his own advantage and interest . So the

thing to do is complementing the star skills from within the team, giving the star

the things he can't have and making obvious that the team is going much further

than the star ever would on his own. In short, give the star a goal that he knows

he can't do it on his own - make him work for a better good.

This seems pretty easy and straight forward, doesn't it? Actually no, it's pretty

hard - you have to find what makes each person in your team move, know whateach one is really good at and make them use that skills and capabilities. But

nevertheless, it's the way to go.

Fitting together different habits, skills and styles

I think all these can fit into two categories: tolerance and, again,

complementarity. And every team needs both in order to function properly.

Tolerance is about accepting differences. It's about accepting others like they are

and it's about agreeing to disagree - sometimes you need that. You don't have to

win every argument, you don't have to be the one making every decision and

your thinking is not always the best. Be smart enough to learn from others and

let others do what they do better then you. If you do that, if you are tolerant

enough to let everyone to what they're best at you'll end up with a fantastic

team. But for that you have to be tolerant...
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Complementarity is important for technical skills but particularly important on

styles. In order to have a balanced team you will have to have enough creativity

on the team but also enough rigor; enough stars but also enough hard-workers;

enough emotion but also enough logic; and you could go like this forever... the

advantage of this is obvious: a team with more skills, more versatile and with

more different styles is able to face more challenges.

Taking away the arrogance

Sometimes what seems like arrogance is in fact a simple and

strong message that you believe in your team. That is what

Jos Mourinho (a Portuguese football coach) does. How do

you make someone believe that he/she can really do it?

Yelling or a pat on the back doesn't work, does it? Well, thisguy found a way to do that: he stands for his team and his

players anywhere anyhow. I don't think this is arrogance.

Other times people take for arrogance the fact that someone is really good at

what he/she does and works hard for. Cristiano Ronaldo is an example again: he

is good, he has been the best player in the world and he works harder then most

players do to be that good. Is there a reason to prevent him to acknowledge that

he really is a good player? I don't think so. And I don't think this is arrogance.

But...

Arrogance can come from status. It can come from the fact that someone does or

says something just because he/she can. No reason, no purpose, no pattern, just

whims. Some people do and say stuff just because they can. This is usually the

case of people who are either insecure or disconnected from reality. If you have a

team member that thinks he/she is the best at what he/she does when in reality

other team members are better and he/she really doesn't work hard to be all

that good... well, this leads to arrogance.

I have a couple of tips on how to deal with this. The first one is to show howmuch a team member improves when working on something. If someone thinks

he/she is a great programmer and if you are able to show the improvements

made because of some trainning he/she went through then that person *must*

realize that he/she isn't all that good it...

The second is to have a reality check. If you can show that another team

member, not so considered, is faster and better... either you're insane or you

have to accept the fact that you're not all that good at it.

The whats and the hows

I've been talking about the "what" to do. The "how" to do it is a much more

complex issue. Going again back to sports, you can notice that the best coachs

can do this, they can turn a group of people into a team - but not every coach.

And each of these coachs that can do it, they do it differently. And this connects

to leadership issues, some of them discussed on "Developing Leadership skills".

One thing's for sure though: each case is a case, what works for one particular

coach and team usually doesn't work for another coach and/or another team. My

best advice here is to be alert. If you know what you want it's a lot easier to see

how to get it. At least is easier than if you don't even know what you want, right?

Jut remember that a team is all about a greater good. If you do that...


Images taken fromFIFAandWikipedia.
http://www.blogger.com/http://www.blogger.com/http://www.blogger.com/http://www.fifa.com/http://www.fifa.com/http://www.fifa.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/http://en.wikipedia.org/http://en.wikipedia.org/http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yRrxfYiMBlo/TB3YokdhtyI/AAAAAAAAAPQ/_9GTLBmY1p4/s1600/JoseMourinho.jpghttp://en.wikipedia.org/http://www.fifa.com/http://www.blogger.com/


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It's all about interests, not positions


That's the way into win-win negotiations

How to do win-win negotiations

Remember Camp David Accords after the Six-

Day War back in 1967? It was one of the

toughest negotiations in recent times and it as

a successful one. It was tough because of the

context but mainly because Egypt and Israel

had different positions that could never happen simultaneously - they bothwanted the Sinai Peninsula to be theirs. There was no way that the Sinai

Peninsula could be simultaneously part of Egypt and Israel. But they found a

solution, and both won! How did they do it?

This post isn't about history, religion or war, it's about negotiation. And the Camp

David Accords provides some good examples Project Managers can use. Oh

that's true, Project Managers must be negotiators, haven't you noticed?

In the picture, from left to right: Menachem Begin (Israeli Prime Minister), Jimmy

Carter (United States President), Anwar El Sadat (Egyptian President)

Project Managers are negotiators

This is no big news, but it's good to keep this in

mind. Let's have a go on the why's first. Project

Managers deal with people and where there'speople there's a conflict of interests. Plus, Project

Managers deal with people on different sides of the

battlefield, on one side people that do stuff and on the other side people that

run businesses. And on top of that, a Project Manager is himself dealing with

tough balances because of what he/she does: the balance between time, scope

and cost, the balance between a sponsor who wants the project's results to go on

with the business and the fact that you have to get those results somehow (even

when you don't know what they are for), and also the balance between a happy

and motivated team and a result oriented and productive team. And I didn't

even mentioned sub contractors, different objectives inside the organization,

different professional views (ever worked with an engineer and a marketeer on

the same project?) and so on... In any of these different types of situations there

are conflicts for you, the Project Manager, to manage and so you have to

negotiate, you have to get what you need to get the job done and you have to

give something back.

Yet another example

Ever heard the oranges tale? Two kids

where fighting over a couple of orangesbecause they both wanted them. The fight

goes bad enough to make the parents

step in and make the kids share the

oranges so each of them got one single
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orange. Both the kids were mad at each other because they both needed the two

oranges. But they went to do what they needed the oranges for anyway,

although there were not enough oranges for none of the kids to do what they

wanted to. So one kid cuts his orange in half, squeezes both halfs and gets half a

glass oforange juice. And the other kid got a grater and after grating his orange

used the zest to make an orange cake.

About positions and interests

Positions are what you want to get in a negotiation. Interests are reasons (root

causes, if you will) why you want what you want. Anyone can discuss positions in

a negotiation, right? You just say what you want and that's it. And the fact is that

most times that's enough, so you kind of get used to it. But what happens if the

other side wants the very same thing you want like the two oranges in the above

example or the Six Day War? Usually there's a fight. Again, that's what happened

with the two kids and the Six Day War. What if they told each other what theywanted the oranges for, the "why" part? Both oranges could be used to both the

kids' purposes, one wanted the juice and the other the zest so that could be

done. The problem is that when someone wants what you want you're

"programmed" to fight for it, you fight for what you want; that's what you have

learned ever since you were a baby: you cry and hey, get milk! No one

remembers to stop and ask: why do you want that? And even if you did

remember to ask that, probably the other side would be defensive. Probably they

would think you were gathering information to attack on another front. So the

other side must cooperate too! Going from positions to interests is tough and it

takes both sides to do it. And it takes both sides to be honest and trustful. So it

seems that getting to interests on a negotiation is getting tougher and tougher...

Back to Egypt and Israel

The exact same thing happened with the Camp David Accords. Both sides wanted

the Sinai Peninsula and both sides were right at some extent, at least they could

both give a logical reason for wanting it. So how did they do it? They moved from

positions to interests. Now how do you put Arabs, Jews, cooperation, honesty

and trust in the same sentence? It's not an easy task, that's for sure. What I think

they did was to let their guard down, bit by bit. Honesty and trust can't be won in

an instant, it always takes time to build (and a moment to lose).

And to worsen things, some of these steps you take to gain trust can be quite the

opposite. At the time, Sadat said in a speech that he would travel anywhere to

discuss peace, Israel included. Shortly after, the Israeli government stated that

Israel would invite Sadat to Israel if they ever thought that Sadat would accept

the invitation. And eventually, Sadat went to Israel... This is what I meant with bit

by bit. You give a little, the other side gives a little, then you give a little more, the

other side too, and so on. Until you reach things really big, like the first visit ever

(I think) of an Arab President to Israel. But please notice that this break through

was done based on insinuations and second intentions - not honesty and trust.

But the end result proved there was trust - at a minimum, more trust than

before. Nevertheless, no one ever states in a negotiation everything, you must

always go through this process of giving a little bit turn by turn, you give and

then the other side gives.

Finally the arrangement they made was something like this: the Sinai Peninsula

was still part of Egypt (that was the interest of Egypt as it always has been a part

of Egypt) and Israel would patrol parts of that territory (their interest was

security). Straight and simple, isn't it?


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And win-win negotiations again

We hear a lot about win-win negotiations and how

important they are. I agree. But in order to do it you

have to go after interests, not positions. So keepthis in mind: when discussing interests there must

be cooperation from the other side and both sides

have to be honest and trustful. If on the other side

of the table there's someone who doesn't

cooperate, who is dishonest or not trustworthy,

forget about win-win. In these cases it will get too

much time and work to get anywhere. Unless, of course, the prize is big enough,

like the Camp Davis Accord case.

And that's another thing to remember. Win-win is good but there are other

options. And sometimes, in fact I'd say most of the times, you should go for otheroptions. Win-win takes time, and sometimes you just don't have enough of it.

But in most cases...

But in most cases, like for Project Managers, you should keep it simple. Win-win

negotiations usually take much longer so go for them when it's worth while the

effort. And what can Project Managers use from all this? If you don't have

cooperation, honesty and trust built into your team you are in deep trouble - and

you must have bigger worries than win-win negotiations. But if you do have them

in your team, you can for win-win negotiations with your team as I'm certain that

in many cases it's worth the effort. And so teams look like one good target forwin-win negotiations.

But to do that the teams have to know about win-win also and in many cases you

don't have that. So how do you teach them about win-win? My best guess for a

good approach on this is to introduce the "interests" topic slowly. And I'd bet on

the 5 whys to start with (more on that on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5_Whys

but for a short explanation, the basic idea is to keep on asking why until you get

a root cause for a problem). So if you set this technique inside your team you

have a good chance of switching from positions to interests and the following

example dialog is then possible to have with anyone on your team:

Team member: I'm sorry but I can't do this task, you should ask someone else to

do it.

Project Manager: Why not?

TM: Because there are people that know much more about it than I do and they

should do it.

PM: Right, and so they can also do it. But why can't you?

TM: I've just told you I don't know enough about it.

PM: Well, if I though you didn't know enough about it I wouldn't have asked you

to do it. I think you can do it.

TM: What if i try and fail? On my last project one guy didn't get the bonus at the

end of the project because he couldn't do a task on his responsability.

PM: So that's your problem? You're afraid you get punished if you fail?

TM: Well... yes.

PM: No problem then. You do that task. If you fail I'll get you some training all the

rest stays the same. Ok?

TM: Ok.

And the message is...

Negotiation is part of the Project Managers job. And win-win negotiations are the

ones that bring the most benefits. But in order to do that you have to:

Go from positions to interests Be cooperative and get cooperation
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Be honest and expect honesty Trust and be trustful Be able to invest in time and effort

And remember that win-win negotiations bring the most benefits but demand abig effort so many times you have better options other than win-win. So if you

keep this in mind then you can be a better negotiator. As negotiation is a skill

needed for Project Management...

Then you can be a better Project Manager!

One final note

I'm not much into history so forgive me any inaccuracy about the Camp Davis

Accords story. The purpose of using it was exclusively to illustrate how to go from

positions to interests in a negotiation.

Images taken from Wikipedia, Home Cook'n,Adventures in unemployment and

Search Engine People.

Lessons learned from my first "Doing the

right thing" project

Monday, July 5, 2010

Sustainability, Social Responsibility and Charity are all used to mean the same

thing - I'll use my own phrase, doing the right thing. When in projects, "Doing the

right thing" can be much the same as any other project. But when you have

people giving their work for free these projects acquire some specific

characteristics that are worth while exploring. I just ended my very first "Doing

the right thing" project and so it's a good time to make a balance and check what

can be learned from it. My plan is to tell you what this particular project was,

what we did, what went well and what could be done better the next time -

that's called Lessons Learned, I've been told. This is a Project Management blog

so the focus will be on Lessons Learned part. Hopefully it will be useful for you

when you get a project with characteristics and features similar to these. I don't

find these characteristics and features all that common but at least they canoccur on some "Doing the right thing" projects as it happened in this case. And if

that ever happens to you, well, you can use them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accordshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accordshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accordshttp://www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2009/july/tabletalk2.htmlhttp://www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2009/july/tabletalk2.htmlhttp://www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2009/july/tabletalk2.htmlhttp://misspinkslip.wordpress.com/2009/07/http://misspinkslip.wordpress.com/2009/07/http://misspinkslip.wordpress.com/2009/07/http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/improving-search-traffic-using-social-media.htmlhttp://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/improving-search-traffic-using-social-media.htmlhttp://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/07/lessons-learned-from-my-first-doing.htmlhttp://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/07/lessons-learned-from-my-first-doing.htmlhttp://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/07/lessons-learned-from-my-first-doing.htmlhttp://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yRrxfYiMBlo/TC32Twc0t3I/AAAAAAAAARA/YRfoQiB9LhE/s1600/Lion.jpghttp://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/07/lessons-learned-from-my-first-doing.htmlhttp://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/07/lessons-learned-from-my-first-doing.htmlhttp://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/improving-search-traffic-using-social-media.htmlhttp://misspinkslip.wordpress.com/2009/07/http://www.dvo.com/newsletter/monthly/2009/july/tabletalk2.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_David_Accords


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Let me just add that charity is something that have always bothered me for the

simple reason that it's the easiest way for someone to feel good about someone

else's misfortune: you just write a check and that's it, you feel good because

you've done something about it. At least that's the basic principle. And I think

that in order to feel good you should work for it. This post is not about charity,it's really about projects that sometimes acquire some very different features

from the "usual everyday stuff".

Are you wondering why I associated a lion's picture with a " doing the right thing"

project? Keep on reading then...

Some context first

Some children have chronicle or terminal diseases. That's the kind of world we

live in and we better get used to it. But. Some people take the time an effort to

make their lives a bit better and make the lives of people that live around them

(like their parents and brothers) a bit better too. This is not about money, as

some of them are from high social-economic environments. It's just about kids

and bad luck. And to get involved you don't just write a check and make a

donation. You have to work face to face with the kids, parents, brothers and

friends.

The basic idea is to get a small group of people making such a child's dream come

true. This is done in the following steps:

1. Find out who is close to the child, starting with h is/her parents2. Talk to them in order to find (i) a way to approach the child and (ii) what

his/her dreams might be

3. Talk to the child to get 2 or 3 of h is/her dreams confirmed4. Get approval for the dreams5. Make his/her dream come true

And our project was...

...to take a 14 years old girl with some nasty disease to the Zoo. Surprised? So

were we, but yes, it's possible for a teenager's dream to be as basic as going to

the Zoo. I'm not sure if she has never been to the Zoo just because of lack of

money but the fact is she never did go to the Zoo. And it was a natural dream for

her because she loves animals and she has cats and dogs. But most of all, she

loves lions. When we talked to her the first time her eyes shone when we got her

to talk about what animal she loved the most - the lion.

We started last September and it took us over 9 months just to take her to the

Zoo, she was already 15 when it finally happened. This was somehow justified by

each member of our team, the point being that actions took much, much longerthan in any normal circumstance to the point of almost despair.

Anyway, all is well when it ends well and this was the case. Going to the Zoo was

a huge success and she enjoyed it very much. The highest moment was when we
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got there before the Zoo opened and our Zoo guide took us straight to the lions

that were about to be fed. She immediately spotted 2 lion cubs which was a great

unexpected bonus. We were with our Zoo guide and the lions' keeper and talked

about the lions and the keeper's job at the Zoo. In short, all this made her feel

special, not only by going to the Zoo, but mainly because she was able to seethings and talk to people that weren't available to most Zoo visitors. I do think

we made her dream come true and I'm pretty sure that she won't ever forget it.

Starting off with the Project Management stuff

The first thing I want to make explicit here is that this was not a project because

it wasn't a continuous effort - it took us 9 months just to take this kid to the Zoo.Nevertheless there were some Project Management tools, processes and

knowledge that we could use.

Differences from regular projects included the fact that all members of our team

were doing this on free time exclusively which made progress a hard thing to

accomplish. Even gathering the team in one place and one time was impossible

most of the times. This was bad enough in itself, but actually seeing that getting

some work done in the office was systematically more important than to take akid with such a health problem to the Zoo that was hard to deal with. Projects

don't deal with emotions as strong as this and in such a direct way. The other

thing that working on free time does is that there is no way to set authority. On

one side no one felt comfortable making pressure like asking if something was

done as agreed; on the other side when I said I'd do something I'd know that I'd

be excused if I didn't do it so things got to the point where I'd say I'd do

something and then forget all about it! When that first happened I was kind of

chocked with myself, I mean, I'm a better person than that but it actually

happened. And I don't think I was the only one taking advantage of this lack of

authority, even if not intentionally or on purpose.

But working for the good of someone else really gives you a good feeling. We

knew we were doing the right thing and that was reassuring. I mean, the

difference between actually doing something for a kid like this and writing a

check for some institution that we think will use the money wisely for someone

we don't know is really huge!

In short, this project was di fferent from other projects because:

it was not a project (big difference!) team members used only their free time for the project dealing with strong direct emotions lack of authority the "feel good" effect
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Self organizing teams

The problems that Agile addresses are much the same as the ones found in these

projects. In both cases there is a call for creativity, there is a path that no one is

able to see so you have to keep on going and keep checking where you are and

where you want to go and a complete lack of structure in any sense other than

some very wide guidelines. In this particular case, our biggest problem was the

lack ofauthority, the attitude of letting things go whatever way they were going

with no worries. For instance, to give someone the responsibility to do something

the Agile way is to let that someone assume in front of all the other team

members that he's going to do that. It's a lot more difficult not to care about

some task you assumed in front of other that you were going to do.

This works when people are together, which was not this case, we met from time

to time only. So one other approach was to this virtually but some of us didn'tuse the internet on a daily basis so it was hard to find a way to do this. It would

have been helpful if we took little some yellow papers, like the Scrum way, even

if would have done it on some web application. I didn't mentioned before but

there are no project managers on these projects so Scrum did come to mind.

Anyway, what I missed on this project was the lack of responsibility and

initiative. Most of the time we would be waiting for someone to come forward

and say he/she'd do something and that's what I'll have to fight harder the next

time.

Information radiators

I believe this was our second miss, a way to let everyone know how we were

doing. Again, it was a miss because (i) we were not together at the same place

and (ii) some didn't use the internet on a daily basis. Next time I'll work harder on

this too because it's something really important, it provides a very needed bigger

picture, like the things I discussed on "Working for a better good". A sense of a

bigger picture is needed and knowing where you stands is a must. Like feedback

is, which I haven't talked here yet - but will sometime soon.

Retrospectives

Everyone does good and wrong. The problem arises when you don't know if

you're doing one or the other. Or if you can't talk about it with pinpointing

someone and say "it's your fault". Somehow we had a hard time dealing with

these issues. I'd definitely go for a honest and trustful attitude here but it was

something we couldn't really do for reasons that should go on another post. The

point being: look for what is going wrong (not who) and what is going well (and

why).

Coaching
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This is a bonus, I mean it's something required but... it makes sense when you

have people that are doing this on a regular basis. If they're better at it they can

influence other people on doing it better also and it might work n some cases. I

don't have much free time, but if I was going to do this on a regular basis I'd

definitely want someone on my side helping me do it better. I'm a pretty good

project manager and I know I went wrong several times along the way. If I had

someone along the way with me pointing that out I'd me a much better team

member on this project and, better yet, I could help other to be better at it.

Unfortunately, I only realized these "wrong doings" sometime after they

happened.

What we should keep doing

Not everything went wrong, sorry if it sounded that way. My main purpose with

this post is to give you a warning sign to stuff you should look out for because

they went wrong with me. But somethings went great, the main thing being that

"our kid" had her dream come true! And let me tell you that it's something

worth, no matter if there's no pay, no recognition or whatever. It pays by itself

and it's so overpaid that you have to experience it for yourself to know. But to

give some examples, when we interviewed "our" kid she was in the hospital for

some treatments and something really good happened there: although our plan

was completely broken by some good intended nurse we pulled it through verynicely. One of the rules of these projects is that it must be a surprise for the kid.

This nice nurse didn't know that and so she asked the kid to think about

something she really wanted to do so we could make that happen. When we got

there and saw what she's done we kind of panicked but the team member who

was with me started talking with her about the kids with same limitations she had

and how we could help them overcome them and all of the sudden the dream

was forgotten. And that did it, as simple as that.

One other thing that went particularly well was that all interviews were done in

pairs and with people with different kind of mindsets, if you will, different takes

on stuff. In the case of the interview I was talking about we planned for me to

conduct it. But as the other team member did so well at the start she continued.

And then eventually when she started stammering. That was when I stepped in

and continued the interview normally. Until it was my turn to stammer and the

roles reversed. It worked very well, really smooth.

In conclusion

Some of the Agile ideas are applicable in cases such as these, namely the ideas

related to:

Self organizing teams Information radiators Retrospectives and Coaching
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Don't be stuck on these but please keep them in mind when you have a similar

project at hand. I do wish I had someone telling me about them when I started

this last September but I didn't. I mean, how much hard can it be? To take some

kid to the Zoo? Well, in my case it was 5 people and 9 months hard...

Keep this info in the back of your mind even if it's not useful for you right now

because if you have such a project...


Images taken from National Geographic Magazine

Mastering Motivation

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Did you know that a better pay could lead to a

poorer performance? Oh you already did?... And

did you know why that happens and when a

better pay could lead to a poorer performance?

Really? Well... sorry, this post isn't for you then.

Otherwise please keep on reading.

Actually this post is just a re-post of a video on

You Tube, but on one side it is a summary ofwhat motivates people and on the other side it is

funny and really good - and so it's worth sharing

with you here. The video translates in a very plain language a study conducted

jointly by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago

andCarnegie Mellon.I'd like to get it but couldn't find it, yet.

Check out the video anyway, it's really worth it...

Why this video?

I never felt like money worked for me the same way it is said it should for most

people. Even those people that say that work only for money and the more

money they get the harder they work, well... I've seen some of them going

through Hell and back just to get something that was needed or some other

reason that didn't have any more money or power involved.

But for now I just really want to share this great video with you and make a short

summary of it even if it's already quite summarized.

In short, what's behind this motivation thing?

Only 3 factors lead to better performance and personal satisfaction:

autonomy: on the very least, asking people to do something and lettingthem decide how to do it;

mastery: making people better at what they do; purpose: like in businesses, you start with a vision, the same goes here,

if you want more details check out "Working for a better good";

If you think of Open Source Software, like it is mentioned on the video, it all

makes sense, doesn't it?

The principles

Just two basic rules here:
http://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/07/mastering-motivation.htmlhttp://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/07/mastering-motivation.htmlhttp://web.mit.edu/http://web.mit.edu/http://www.uchicago.edu/http://www.uchicago.edu/http://www.cmu.edu/http://www.cmu.edu/http://www.cmu.edu/http://ahhaoralmost.blogspot.com/2010/06/working-for-better-good.htmlhttp://ahhaoralmost.blogspot.com/2010/06/working-for-better-good.htmlhttp://ahhaoralmost.blogspot.com/2010/06/working-for-better-good.htmlhttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yRrxfYiMBlo/TD3nv6Z3jmI/AAAAAAAAAR4/5R0S0U7djtA/s1600/Fantasia.JPGhttp://ahhaoralmost.blogspot.com/2010/06/working-for-better-good.htmlhttp://www.cmu.edu/http://www.uchicago.edu/http://web.mit.edu/http://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/07/mastering-motivation.html


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1. For mechanical skills, the performance gets better with the pay2. For cognitive skills, the larger the reward the poorer the performance

So what's in it for you?

Always pay people enough to take money out of the negotiation (does it sound

close to utopia?). For simple mechanical tasks, reward with money to get a better

performance. For all other, focus on autonomy, mastery and purpose to get a

better performance.

As Project Management is about making people give their best, if you follow this

simple guideline...


Images taken fromDisney, video from You Tube but found on aPortuguese post onMentes Brilhantesby Ricardo Costa, thank you

for your blog.

Learning from examples

Friday, September 10, 2010

...Or lessons learned

I was recently at a high school event that had the purpose of

giving recognition to the students who got the best marks. Many

of the people present there kept talking from start to end. The

school's Principal decided to take action at one point and so she

stopped talking to the person next to her, took the microphone,

made a loud shhh while a student was playing violin for the

audience and then continued to talk to the same person again.

I was astonished with the all thing but to everyone there itseemed normal, just business as usual. What kind of an example were those

people giving to the students? Students that age are very active learners and they

learn a lot by example, by looking up to parents and teachers and act like they

do.

Pretty much everything was wrong from the very beginning of the event and the

all thing, including the lack of leadership skills of the school's Principal, really

bothered me. And they do several events per year that must go as bad as that

one did. What was wrong there? Why can't they learn? So I decided to write

about it here for 2 different reasons:

1. What happened in that school is something that can happen in manyproject management situations, at the very least you can learn from

that.
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2. Hope is the last thing to die. Who knows? Maybe some of those people,the Principal included, will read this post and decide to do things

differently next time.

The beginning

Surprisingly for me, the event started just 3

minutes late. And I was impressed. That was

something positive.

But people were talking and they never stopped,

not even when the Principal started a small

speech. She really was able to look cool and relaxed talking to a large audience

where most people was talking to someone else and so they weren't paying any

attention. One thing she could have done was to politely ask for silence so the

event could start - and wait until there was silence. Or just saying "Welcome!"

really loud and make a pause waiting for silence. Or whatever. As long as she

didn't start the thing without anyone paying any attention... This I found odd

because it's a standard that is difficult to break afterwords. Then I wondered if

she taught any classes and if she behaved the same way on her classes. Scary

thought...

Same mistake again

A government official followed with another short speech and the exact same

thing happened. He talked while everyone in the audience was talking and

making so much noise that it was really hard to listen to him. The fact is that he

really didn't have anything interesting to say, not to the students neither to their

parents. The same advice as before goes to him...

Is there an agenda?

Then one student went on stage to play saxophone. Cool. He played one tune.

Then another. Then another. He played 5 tunes altogether. More than 30

minutes passed and no certificate was given - and that was the reason for the

event. I started to worry. How long would this take?

They could have handed a program for the event. Or say what was going to

happen. Or at what time the events would take place. Or something. But no, we

were just there waiting for things to happen, not knowing what exactly was going

on.

What about organization?

Finally the Principal announced they would be giving 140 certificates. And she

started calling the students, one by one, starting from the senior classes. This was

really time consuming and for no reason. If they just called all senior classes the

students would get up, go on stage, get their certificate and the whole process

would be a lot faster. It would also be faster to take the photos of all the students

instead of one by one. Again, a lot of time was spent. And in "non-project related

tasks" because the objective of this event was to give the certificates to the

students. Sounds a bit like gold plating, doesn't it?

Shhh...

The story of the violin and the shhh I told at the beginning of this post took place

immediately after the seniors got their certificates. In order to do worst then this

you'd really have to put an extra effort. Let's look at what went wrong:

The Principal was talking to the person next to her while a student wasperforming to the audience

She interrupted the student's performance And she continued her conversation
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How could she have handled the situation assuming she started the event with

everyone in silence? And assuming she wasn't talking also? She could have

gestured for those who were seeing her and she could have walked discretely

asking for silence for those who weren't paying attention to her. Anything would

be better than the 3 things she did...

Few resisted till the very end

As the event took so long, people started to leave as they received their

certificates. Both students and parents. And teachers too! When their students

got all their certificates most teachers left too! I must say that I also wanted to

leave but was persuaded to stay. And I'm glad it was so. Even if the event didn't

have any more interest for me I was with students and I should set an example.

And I did.

The link to Project Management

I think it was Epicurus, an ancient Greek

philosopher, that said something like: "Do

everything like you would if someone was watching

you" (I'm sorry I don't know the exact quote - I

looked for it but couldn't find it). This is a simple

but very powerful piece of advice. All your actions

should set an example so other people can admire

you and look up to you. The problem is, what do

you have to admire? What do you want others to

admire in you? Do you want others to admire

something that you don't have (another scary thought...)? These are some tough

questions you probably should try to answer.

And this is the same for whatever you do, if you're a teacher, a politician, a

parent or a project manager. For instance, the way you conduct meetings isdecisive: if you interrupt someone on a meeting to say something you can be

sure you are passing a message that probably is not a very positive one. The way

you present stuff to others, the way you respect what others say and do. If you

have this kind of attitude, others will respect you and eventually they will have

the same attitude. And if you spread good values like that...


Images taken from Wikipedia

Team playersMonday, October 4, 2010

Imagine that your company has this policy

that makes every top manager change

function every year. Crazy, no? Well, I know

of a company that does exactly this. Each

year the head of the Financial department

becomes the head of the IT department,the head of the IT department becomes the

head of the Marketing department and so

on. Is there a purpose that justifies
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurushttp://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/10/team-players.htmlhttp://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/10/team-players.htmlhttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_yRrxfYiMBlo/TDLo6YF3CeI/AAAAAAAAARg/QnxNHxfjaes/s1600/E82.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yRrxfYiMBlo/TIoBNPc53eI/AAAAAAAAATI/ci4CY-c4gjQ/s1600/Epicurus_Louvre.jpghttp://1.bp.blogspot.com/_yRrxfYiMBlo/TDLo6YF3CeI/AAAAAAAAARg/QnxNHxfjaes/s1600/E82.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_yRrxfYiMBlo/TIoBNPc53eI/AAAAAAAAATI/ci4CY-c4gjQ/s1600/Epicurus_Louvre.jpghttp://www.ah-ha-moments.net/2010/10/team-players.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicurus


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something a bit crazy like this is? There is, and they have two objectives: on one

hand, to force interdependence between the top managers; on the other hand

to grow each of those managers as professionals.

Why would a company want to something like this? What would they gain?

Curious enough? Keep on reading then...

First things first

The main thing when you do something as bold as this is

to have an objective. Don't do it because some other

company did it or even because some guru said that's

what you should do. In fact, don't do it even if it is a

best practice. Think first about what you want to

achieve and then how to get there from where you are -

"As Is" and "To Be" scenarios can be a starting point.

Will these steps get you there where you want to be? There are a lot of things to

think about when you want to change something. The truth is that's why we

came up with Change Management, it is an area complex enough to have its own

discipline.

This is really important because when you apply good ideas, processes or

whatever in a different context you have to make sure that they will bring you

the expected benefits. In most cases people apply best practices without taking

into consideration the differences in context (even if it's just cultural differences)

and at the end the results are not what they expected. And in some cases they

may even get worst than they were initially.

Interdependence

Just like the picture above by M. C. Escher

shows, the shape of each figure is defined

by the shapes of the figures next to it. But

at the same time it also defines the figures

next to it - and thats interdependence.

That is, a shape defines and at the same

time is defined by the shapes next to it.

How do you do it in real live? Well, this

company does it like this: Suppose you're

about to lead the Human Resources department. Suppose you don't know the

first thing about it, suppose your background is Finance. An

ah-ha-moments yearbook 2010

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