Via Tech Republic:
This commercial for EDS Consulting is supposed to inspire confidence in the company’s ability to build your business as you run it, but what it also does is illustrate the supreme idiocy of trying to use a software product while it’s still being coded.
Last week I attended a seminar hosted by the NYC chapter of a prominent professional organization with the intention of sharing and adding to any wisdom I may have gained from the experience. However, it didn’t go quite the way I’d anticipated, so instead, I give you:
How Not to Conduct a Seminar
Show up 20 minutes late. In a city like New York, "there was traffic" is the lamest possible excuse possible for being late. There is ALWAYS traffic. You should plan for that. You should also plan to arrive early to check out the venue and introduce yourself to attendees before your presentation. That way if you're running late, you'll still show up on time.
Make no attempt to look presentable. You don't have to be a supermodel to give a presentation, but you should at least look like you cared enough about your appearance to run a comb through your hair. You may also want to ensure that your shirt is buttoned properly.
Be sure any handouts are riddled with grammatical errors and typos. There is no excuse in this day and age for more than one or two typos in any written material. If word processing isn't your strength, have your work proof-read by someone who knows how to use a spell checker.
Via Network World:
“Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner. Swearing was as a social phenomenon to reflect solidarity and enhance group cohesiveness, or as a psychological phenomenon to release stress, ” the study stated. “Most of the cases were reported by employees at the lower levels of the organizational hierarchies and it was clear that executives use swearing language less frequently. "
More here.
In my own house, among my own friends, I have a mouth like a sailor. I don’t think swearing by itself has anything to do with stress relief. I think that supressing parts of your personality in mixed company is stressful, and that the relief of that stress comes when you have a casual/friendly enough relationship with co-workers that you can be yourself. Executives use swearing language less frequently because they have less casual/friendly relationships with most staff. It’s more important for them to maintain a professional demaenor, lest they lose respect as an authority figure.
Try replacing the every instance of the word "swearing" in this article, perhaps even in the study itself, with terms like "dressing down," "coming out," "cracking jokes" or anything else you normally curb in mixed company & it’s probably just as true.
Many of the things you can’t stand about your manager are the very skills it takes to be one.
Have you ever heard yourself saying, "This guy is an IDIOT! How could he be my boss when he doesn’t even have half the skill I do? I could do his job better; why aren’t I running this department?" Here’s why.
1. You don’t play politics
Why does one employee get the same compliment for a mediocre job as another employee for an outstanding one? Maybe the boss knows that this mediocre employee needs to feel appreciated, or not only will his mediocre performance become terrible, he’ll also be a general pain and make life unpleasant for other outstanding employees. Seemingly inexplicable management decisions sometimes have reasons you just can’t see from your vantage point. When management’s priorities don’t align with yours, it’s dismissed and disdained as "office politics."
2. You refuse to make sacrifices
Juggling the needs and priorities of your staff and the business means making sacrifices. Sometimes one option jumps out at you as being the best one, but sometimes there is no clear best option, and you’re stuck shooting down a great idea for one that’s only marginally better/cheaper/easier. If you’ve ever been accused of procrastination, you likely have difficulty making decisions that aren’t clear-cut.
3. You pay great attention to detail
Attention to detail is a great attribute if you’re a designer, programmer, instructor, analyst, etc. But as someone charged with the overall success of an operation or project, you’ll need to keep your head out of the details and keep an eye on the big picture. It’s near impossible to do both effectively at the same time.
4. You hate paperwork
Managers spend anywhere from 30 to 85 percent of their day with various forms of paperwork. Status reports, budget reports, project plans, performance reviews… the list is endless. Sounds exciting, no?
5. You refuse to take heat for others’ mistakes
If you think it’s unfair that your boss occasionally gets credit for your accomplishments, consider that they will just as often be blamed for your mistakes. Be prepared to take responsibility not only for your own screw ups, but for all the screw ups of everyone you supervise.
With 15 years of experience at a variety of organizations in
roles ranging from programmer to project manager to business/systems analyst, Niki Hammond has become an expert in the practicalities of real-world IT projects, large and small.
Niki’s career began in 1995 in the financial technology department of a major trade magazine
company. After teaching herself HTML and PERL, she took
ownership of 5 of their high-traffic websites. While pursuing a full
time University curriculum on evenings and weekends, Niki spent her
days working her way up to Webmaster and playing a critical role in the
implementation of the company’s first online content management system
before completing her degree in 1999.
From there, Niki
moved on to an e-commerce start-up company and rode the dot-com wave
until it crashed, taking her company with it. In 2001, for a change of
pace, she took a senior development position at one of the world’s
oldest and largest financial institutions, and after being bored to
tears there spent the next few years running her own consulting
business, teaching elementary school science, and creating a technology
department from scratch at an award-winning SoHo design studio. In her
current role as IT project manager for an internationally-lauded
non-profit organization, she’s using her skills and experience to help
lead nimble, diverse teams of programmers, analysts, engineers and
testers in a high-profile enterprise software project.
Niki
holds a B.S. in Information Systems Management from Pace
University and PMP Certification from the Project Management Institute.
She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and daughter.
Niki can be contacted by sending email to nhammond@perspectivepm.com. She promises not to refer to herself in the third person in her reply.
Via http://wolphination.com/linux/:
…many Open Source projects fall apart before they see the light of day, mostly due to management reasons. You are receiving this directly from someone who has had an Open Source project disintegrate … and has had to pick up the pieces, so the common pitfalls listed below are frighteningly genuine and happen to the most motivated of project managers. They all, ultimately, result in developer dropout and thus the death or dormancy of the project…
I would add to the list: lack of project justification. In the corporate world, the very first step in any project is to define the business need. Whenever decisions have to be made, the initial business reason behind the project is revisited to help determine what path to take. I find that many open source projects start with an idea that's really cool from a programming standpoint, and at the first sign of a challenge everyone asks, "what are we working so hard to accomplish again?" and starts to drop off. There has to be a reason to stick through the times when it just doesn't seem like any fun anymore.
Via Tech Republic:
10 Signs you aren’t cut out to be a project manager:
- You’re a poor communicator
- You don’t work well with people
- You prefer the details
- You don’t like to manage people
- You don’t like to follow processes
- You don’t like to document
- You like to execute and not plan
- You prefer to be an order taker
- You are not organized
- You think project management is "overhead"
As I commented there, most of those qualities make you unfit not only for project management, but pretty much any job that involves working with the public or a diverse group of people at all. Number 2 implies number 4. If you don’t like working with people but you do like managing them, you’re probably just bossing them around. That’s not managing.
To me, two key attributes that separate those who might be good at project management (in just about any industry) and those who might not are their ability to multitask and their ability to prioritize. Can you separate the critical issues from the minutiae? Can you get neck-deep in an issue but still switch gears smoothly if needed? Can you decide between costing your company lots of money or hurting its reputation? Are you as willing to take the blame if it all falls apart as much as the glory when it all comes together?
If you answered yes to all of the above, you’re probably a bit of a masochist. You’d also make a terrific project manager.
Heather Maxwell Chandler has a great piece on Gamasutra about using project management in the gaming industry. From the article:
Because most game developers are suspicious of formal processes it is natural for them to be wary of any procedures the “suits” want to impose on them. So if the team views the producer as a vital part of the of the development team, the more willing they are to listen to the producer’s ideas how to improve the working conditions through project management techniques.
I’m often asked if I think it’s worth getting certified as a PMP. In addition to catapulting your resume to the top of a recruitment manager’s pile, it often commands a higher salary and even the envy of non-certified colleagues. Yes, the PMP is a desirable thing indeed.
Unfortunately, it’s often desired for all the wrong reasons, namely, earning a higher salary and the envy of colleagues. Worse, after countless hours of studying PMI’s narrowly defined processes and cramming for an exam, many people begin to look at their real-world projects as academic exercises and start to get a little crazy with things like formal communication, protocol and documentation. Don’t get me wrong; there’s nothing wrong with wanting to earn more, and I am all for adhering to standards and using best practices. In fact, I’m a fairly active member of PMI and intend to maintain my certification status. However, only a small part of my value as a project manager can be attributed to what I learned while studying for the credential.
The two best reasons to take the PMP exam are:
If your only goal is to improve you abilities as a project manager, your time is best spent reading up on project management techniques and finding ways to work closely with more experienced project managers.
People who work in technology fall into one of three camps when it comes to their opinion of formal project management practices. Which camp are you in? Take this quiz to find out.
That’s it! How did you do?
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