Change, Life & Big Data

Recently I was having a chat with my son and he asked me if I had an arm holder for my iPhone when I was a kid?  I tried to explain the Walkman and a cassette tape, but I am not sure he really “got it.”  He understands the cloud…

We watched Home Alone 3 and the bad people have a Palm Pilot.  I tried to explain the Palm Pilot and its significance to my boys as they surfed the web, listened to music, watched You Tube, and played games on their iPods.  But again, I don’t think they really understood the Palm Pilot.  Why did it need a cable to synchronize?  Why didn’t it use Wi-Fi?  Why wasn’t it your phone?

If you’ve purchased a new phone and had to move your life from your old gadget to the new one, you realize how destabilizing the process can be.  I apparently depend on 60 some apps to know where I am (Google Maps, Foursquare), remember everything (Evernote, Egretlist), manage travel (Concur, Expedia, [pick an airline]), bank, relax, socialize (Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), and carry more than 10G (digital books, photos, music, videos) of stored stuff around with me.

During my lifetime, music has moved from analog recordings on 12-inch wax disks to digital recordings on solid-state drives that you measure in millimeters.  Cassette Tapes, Compact Disks, MP3’s, Napster, and then iTunes in between.  My digital footprint in the cloud and the number of digital accounts I own, manage, and remember the passwords for is staggering.

In High School, I could call most of my friend’s phone and pager numbers by memory, used a rotary standing next to a phone jack or occasionally quarters when dialing, and paid the phone company extra to get the number of the person calling.  Now I pretty much only remember my wife’s number, have to check my own email signature for my number at work, regularly risk injury walking around staring at a little screen, and am blessed that my phone translates the incoming number to someone’s name and picture.

During college, I had a paid print newspaper subscription and enjoyed riding the train and reading the printed word.  Today my “paper” is delivered wirelessly overnight and it’s another one of those apps I depend on.

Earning a Leg Up with Distribution Lists

Ask someone for advice on how to “move up” in corporate America and you are bound to hear “work yourself out of a job”, by which they mean train someone else to do what you do so you can move on to presumably bigger things.  While good advice, “work yourself out of job” does NOT give you anything particularly actionable - especially as a project manager where more than 90% of your job is communication - to complete.  But that is why we have distribution lists.  Using an E-mail inbox as a queue for work items has its pitfalls, but why not build distribution lists as a means to leave your replacement established communication channels?

 

Early in your role as a project manager set up a distribution list that goes to the [blank] Project Manager, or the PMO, or the solution or product owner.  During the project, establish the distribution list as a choke point for communication.  Set up repetitive and periodic communication to email the distribution list instead of your individual email address.  If you are managing systems, set up one list for the “system owners” or “system maintainers” which is for human readable communication.  Set up one distribution list for the system users or project consumers so you (and your successor) have a single address to communicate.  It is also helpful to set up two distribution lists: One list for informational emails that might have statistics that you need to check in on from time to time.  The second for “Alert” emails; things that require the team or the PM to react.  On large projects with multiple executive sponsors or a steering committee, it may also be helpful to establish a distribution list for status reporting.  The main driver in establishing multiple incoming distribution lists (human readable, informational, and alerting) is because you can configure email endpoints (outlook, blackberry, iPhone) to present information differently; highlighting alert emails (vibrating your blackberry) and ignoring the arrival of informational items.

 

Once you have incoming and outgoing communication established via distribution lists you can begin transitioning your role to your successor by adding them to the distribution lists.  You can speed things along by creating a playbook for what should happen when particular emails are received and document the communications the PM or system owner is expected to send and when.  If you are particularly ambitious, you can include a link to a Wiki page that allows the future receiver to update the playbook as change occurs.  Wiki pages contained in alert emails are a particularly helpful way to build an institutional error response and recovery playbook.

Intelligence in War: A framework for Project Status Reporting

I’ve often found that some of the best models for business, project management, and computer science come from the military.  Many of the problems the military has worked to solve have parallels in business and project management.  The military demonstrates discipline, is filled with engineering minds, and military history is long and storied.

In Intelligence in War author John Keegan articulates a framework for intelligence and the stages it must pass through to be useful.  The risk associated with gathering project intelligence, and the gadgets aren’t as cool as military intelligence, but the framework provides a good model to apply to project status reporting.

1)      Acquisition – “Intelligence has to be found.”  For project status reporting acquisition requires  gathering quantitative information on the costs incurred, the time elapsed, the work complete, the quality of completed work, the work remaining, etc… and also qualitative information; things like team moral, organizational will to charge forward, risk tolerance, etc…  On small projects, the information needed might be gathered in a status meeting while a larger project might require a full PMIS with work authorization, timesheets, change request queue, etc…  In corporations, you probably need the input of the finance and AP departments.

2)      Delivery – “Intelligence once collected has to be sent to its potential user.  Unless sent in timely fashion, preferably in “real time,” which allows it to be acted upon, it loses its value.”  In project management delivery means getting the information to the project manager, executive sponsor, steering committee, risk response owners, executing team members, the project management office, and other interested stakeholders.  The nirvana of “delivery” is the project, program, or portfolio dashboard; the illusive one-stop-shop for the latest project information.  Project intelligence can also become stale, a risk response owner missing an opportunity to execute preventative action for example.

3)      Acceptance – “Intelligence has to be believed.  Agents who volunteer their services have to establish their credentials.”  Everyone has bias and angles.  Optimists – the project is always doing well.  Pessimists – the project is always progressing badly.  Early Adopters – that helps me, thank you.  The Laggard – explain how this helps me again?  Depending on the environment, the level of contention, and the dollars at risk acceptance can also be contentious or plagued with resistance.  I was once on a project where it took almost 120 days to get a vendor’s invoice and that was only the beginning of the negotiation of the “actual” cost.  In organizations that haven’t tracked actual project costs, it can be difficult for executives to believe how much even “small” projects actually cost.  This is particularly difficult if you are in a project environment where internal employees are salaried and the organization views their contribution as a fixed cost (expense bias) rather than a variable cost based on where they provide benefit.

4)      Interpretation – “Most intelligence comes in scraps.  For a complete canvas to be assembled, the scraps have to be pieced together into the whole cloth.”  Here is where the PM and other stakeholders use baselines, change controls, Earned Value Analysis, and other techniques to decide if the project is on schedule and on budget, and whether risk responses should occur and what corrective action to recommend.

5)      Implementation – “Intelligence officers work at a subordinate level; just as they have to be convinced of the reliability of their raw material, so also they have to convince the decision-makers, political chiefs and commanders in the field of the reliability of their submissions.”  Implementation is the process of the PM convincing the organization that something requiring corrective action has occurred, why the recommended course of action is prudent, and then forecasting the impact to the remainder of the project.  Implementation is also where executive sponsor education is helpful.  Project management developed a vocabulary, like the lexicon of accounting, and executive sponsors trained in the vocabulary have an advantage on those that do not.  Having a common lexicon makes communication between the executive sponsor and the PM easier; when the precise meanings of things like crashing and fast tracking are mutually understood.

FOSE Keynote

Today at the FOSE conference (www.fose.com) in Washington DC Craig Killough, VP of Organization Markets at the Project Management Institute summarized some of the key findings of PMI’s 2013 Pulse of the Profession report (www.pmi.org/pulse). 

The highlight is that low performing project organizations risk 14 times more value than high performing ones.  Significant given that they also found that organizations risk $135 Million for every $1 Billion they spend.

High performing project organizations appear to succeed 90% of the time - compared with low performing organizations that succeed 34% - by focusing on:

1. Talent Management – hiring, training, and defining career paths and development opportunities
2. Standardization – policies, practices and tools
3. Strategic Alignment – aligning project efforts with strategic firm objectives

Parenting and Project Management

Being a parent requires quite a bit of Project Management, especially with young children.  It is a project to get anywhere, and a project to get toddlers to change tasks.  I found two approaches with my kids that are applicable to project management.

When my youngest moved into his first toddler bed, and was finally free to get out of bed and wander the house freely, we got worried that he would fall down the stairs or explore rooms we hadn’t “child proofed.”  We wanted to manage risk (child falling down the stairs), but also wanted him to maintain his ability to wander and explore with structured choices.  We installed a child gate with a lock, a strong barrier to exploring the stairs.  At night, I kept all of the doors along the hallway between his room and mine closed.  He could wander, but only along a path that finally got him to my room, where I could figure out what was appropriate.  Was it early enough to get up and make breakfast?  Or, did I need to escort him back to his bed?

In a similar way, in project management, once the path is defined, you want to manage your risk.  Erecting strong barriers to paths that might cause injury, but leaving the project team with the ability to wander and explore.  Some paths might need more childproofing than others, but keeping the path the project needs to travel the path of least resistance is the project manager’s job.

One of the other meltdowns we generally avoided was the battle we observed other parents having with their kids when it was time to leave the play area at the local mall, playground, or fast food establishment.  We got in the habit of practicing shared listening: articulating a timeline, and asking for acknowledgment.  “Beeman boys we are leaving in 5 minutes.  How many minutes?”  We repeated the countdown each minute, soliciting a response for each child. 

I believe it worked for two reasons: 1) it was a gradual transition rather than abrupt and 2) it was repeated several times.  In project management, periodic status updates provide a similar opportunity; reviewing where the project is going next, in how long, and asking for acknowledgement from each member of the team.

The Irony of Protesting Corporate Control with the Aid of Corporations

Reading “Spreading Protests Yet to Jell” (WSJ Oct. 17th) I was struck by the irony of a couple of aspects of the “Occupy” movement; the use of media and social media to organize - inherent dependence on corporations, and a lack of structure - incorporating is a way to structure an organization.


A movement “grounded in a general discontent with … corporations” is empowered and dependent on multiple corporations. 1) Media organizations like CNN, Fox News, and the Tribune Company. 2) Corporations that generate and distribute electricity 3) Corporations that provide bandwidth and internet services like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast. 4) Corporations who produce devices and chips like Dell, Apple, Motorola, and Intel. And 5) the medium providers themselves: Facebook, Twitter, and other service providing corporations.

“Finding a functional decision-making process and structure” is of course what a corporate charter creates, a statement of how an organization will form and behave. It seems fitting that a movement struggling to organize would benefit from a statement of how they will form and behave.

Difficult Conversations: Nine Common Mistakes

The content of this post was generated from a slideshow by Sarah Green for Harvard Business Review, but the format made it difficult to see all nine tips at the same time. Please visit the original slideshow here.

The content of the slideshow is based on Failure to Communicate: How Conversations Go Wrong and What You Can Do to Right Them by Holly Weeks.

Mistake #1: We fall into a combat mentality. Mistake #2: We try to oversimplify the problem. Mistake #3: We don't bring enough respect. Mistake #4: We lash out - or shut down. Mistake #5: We react to thwarting ploys.

Mistake #6: We get "hooked." Mistake #7: We rehearse. Mistake #8: We make assumptions about others intentions. Mistake #9: We lose sight of the goal. Conclusion

Mistake #1: We fall into a combat mentality.

When difficult conversations turn toxic, it's often because we've made a key mistake: we've fallen into a combat mentality. This allows the conversation to become a zero-sum game, with a winner and a loser. But the reality is, when we let conversations take on this tenor – especially at the office – everyone looks bad, and everyone loses. The real enemy is not your conversational counterpart, but the combat mentality itself. And you can defeat it, with strategy and skill.

Mistake #2: We try to oversimplify the problem.

If the subject of your argument were straightforward, chances are you wouldn't be arguing about it. Because it's daunting to try and tackle several issues at once, we may try to roll these problems up into a less-complex Über-Problem. But the existence of such a beast is often an illusion. To avoid oversimplifying, remind yourself that if the issue weren't complicated, it probably wouldn't be so hard to talk about.

Mistake #3: We don't bring enough respect to the conversation.

The key to avoiding oversimplification is respecting the problem you're trying to resolve. To avoid the combat mentality, you need to go further - you need to respect the person you're talking to, and you need to respect yourself. Making sure that you respond in a way you can later be proud of will prevent you from being thrown off course if your counterpart is being openly hostile.

Mistake #4: We lash out - or shut down.

Fear, anger, embarrassment, defensiveness - any number of unpleasant feelings can course through us during a conversation we'd rather not have. Some of us react by confronting our counterpart more aggressively; others, by rushing to smooth things over. We might even see-saw between both counterproductive poles. Instead, move to the middle: state what you really want. The tough emotions won't evaporate. but with practice, you will learn to focus on the outcome you want in spite of them.

Mistake #5: We react to thwarting ploys.

Lying, threatening, stonewalling, crying, sarcasm, shouting, silence, accusing, taking offense: tough talks can present an arsenal of thwarting ploys. (Just because you're trying to move beyond the combat mentality doesn't mean your counterpart is.) But you also have an array of potential responses, ranging from passive to aggressive. Again, the most effective is to move to the middle: disarm the ploy by addressing it. For instance, if your counterpart has stopped responding to you, you can simply say, "I don't know how to interpret your silence."

Mistake #6: We get "hooked."

Everyone has a weak spot. And when someone finds ours - whether inadvertently, with a stray arrow, or because he is hoping to hurt us - it becomes even harder to stay out of the combat mentality. Maybe yours is tied to your job – you feel like your department doesn't get the respect it deserves. Or maybe it's more personal. But whatever it is, take the time to learn what hooks you. Just knowing where you're vulnerable will help you stay in control when someone pokes you there.

Mistake #7: We rehearse.

If we're sure a conversation is going to be tough, it's instinctive to rehearse what we'll say. But a difficult conversation is not a performance, with an actor and an audience. Once you've started the discussion, your counterpart could react in any number of ways – and having a "script" in mind will hamper your ability to listen effectively and react accordingly. Instead, prepare by asking yourself: 1. What is the problem? 2. What would my counterpart say the problem is? 3. What's my preferred outcome? 4. What's my preferred working relationship with my counterpart? You can also ask the other person to do the same in advance of your meeting.

Mistake #8: We make assumptions about our counterpart's intentions.

Optimists tend to assume that every disagreement is just a misunderstanding between two well-intentioned people; pessimists may feel that differences of opinion are actually ill-intentioned attacks. In the fog of a hard talk, we tend to forget that we don't have access to anyone's intentions but our own. Remember that you and your counterpart are both dealing with this ambiguity. If you get stuck, a handy phrase to remember is, "I'm realizing as we talk that I don't fully understand how you see this problem." Admitting what you don't know can be a powerful way to get a conversation back on track.

Mistake #9: We lose sight of the goal.

The key in any tough talk is to always keep sight of the goal. Help prevent this by going into conversations with a clear, realistic preferred outcome; the knowledge of how you want your working relationship with your counterpart to be; and having done some careful thinking about any obstacles that could interfere with either. (Remember, "winning" is not a realistic outcome, since your counterpart is unlikely to accept an outcome of "losing.") If you've done the exercise described in Slide 7, this should be easier. And you'll be less likely to get thrown off course by either thwarting ploys or your own emotions.

Conclusion

When we're caught off-guard, we're more likely to fall back into old, ineffective habits like the combat mentality. If you're not the one initiating the tough conversation, or if a problem erupts out of nowhere, stick to these basics: keep your content clear, keep your tone neutral, and keep your phrasing temperate. When disagreements flare, you'll be more likely to navigate to a productive outcome - and emerge with your reputation intact.