Tom Peters and the Dozen Truths

I have posted before about Tom Peters before, and he is someone I really admire. In reviewing some of his materials I came across the "Dozen Business Truths" below. Mr. Peters isn't about doing things the way that have always been done. I like his approach to business and it fits right in with cutting edge project management practices.

Successful Businesses' Dozen Truths: Tom Peter's 30-Year Perspective

1. Insanely Great & Quirky Talent

2. Disrespect for Tradition

3. Totally Passionate (to the Point of Irrationality) Belief in What We Are Here to Do

4. Utter Disbelief at the BS that Marks "Normal Industry Behavior"

5. A Maniacal Bias for Execution and Utter Contempt for Those Who Don't "Get It"

6. Speed Demons

7. Up or Out. (Meritocracy Is Thy Name. Sycophancy Is Thy Scourge)

8. Passionate Hatred of Bureaucracy

9. Willingness to Lead the Customer... and Take the Heat Associated Therewith. (Mantra: Satan Invented Focus Groups to Derail True Believers)

10. "Reward Excellent Failures. Punish Mediocre Successes"

11. Courage to Stand Alone on One's Record of Accomplishment Against All the Forces of Conventional Wisdom

12. A Crystal Clear Understanding of Story (Brand) Power

Business Process Improvement and the Project Manager

Project managers need to ensure that customer's are satisfied with a project's deliverables.  Part of this process is ensuring that the customer's business processes are optimized.  You can't provide the best possible project results if your customer's processes aren't efficient.  Improving processes is about improving quality while reducing costs and waste. 

Processes need measures.  If you don't have measures then your processes aren't worth the paper they are printed on.  Processes have to meet the needs of the organization, business unit that executes them, and the customer's requirements.  Measures also help to identify and solve process problems, and help to ensure they are meeting the customer's requirements. 

When it comes to process improvement, a good project manager understands:

How to develop team skills

How to break down work into processes

How to solve problems and to find the root cause of  the problems

How to recommend solutions to problems that are acceptable to the majority

How to lead a team and when to let the team lead

Measure the effectiveness of a process by:

Looking at the cycle times between process steps

Identifying bottlenecks that cause unnecessary delays

Identify problems that cause defects to occur

In order to help develop good business processes, a project manager must have the knowledge, skills, and experience to ensure that the right people are doing the right things at the right time, using the right tools and delivering the results that are expected.

Project Management Professional Responsibility Questions Part 2

As mentioned last week, a few years ago Frank Saladis and Al Zeitoun compiled a list of Project Management Professional Responsibility Questions. These questions are an example of what might appear on the the Project Management Institute's (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP) exam. I posted the first fifteen questions last week, and the remainder are listed below.

Here is the second set of questions.  Comments are welcome. 

16. In order for the project manager to fully and effectively understand a stake holder's personal concerns or grievances it may necessary to:

1. Ask for a written description of the problem and submit it through the project office
2. Schedule a project review session with the entire project team
3. Attempt to empathize with the stakeholder
4. Involve the project sponsor as an arbitrator

17. As the leader of a project team, the project manager may be required to assess the competencies of his or her team members. Occasionally, some weaknesses or areas for improvement will be identified. The project manager should:

1. Remove any team members who have demonstrated weaknesses in critical knowledge areas
2. Communicate those weaknesses and establish a performance improvement program
3. Hire additional resources to compensate for weak areas
4. Wait for the team members to fail in an assignment to justify termination.

18. You have just changed jobs and discovered that your new employer routinely violates OSHA/EPA and affirmative action requirements on projects. You should:

1. Do nothing; it's not your problem
2. Start by asking management if they are aware that regulations are being violated
3. Talk to the corporate legal department
4. Inform the appropriate government agencies about the violations

19. The project manager must be an effective communicator to ensure that project stakeholders receive and understand project related information and status. Prior to delivering information to the stakeholders the project manager should attempt to:

1. Research and understand the region of experience of the stakeholder before transmitting information
2. Identify only those stakeholders that have a the same background experience as the project manager
3. Filter the information to remove any details
4. Restrict information to specific technical details

20. As part of your project plan you must develop an effective method of communication for your multinational team of stakeholders. You have several choices of media available. The appropriate action to take in the development of the communication plans would be to:

1. Discuss the available options with the stakeholders and obtain their input
2. Use the standard media that has been in effect for your previous projects
3. Use multiple forms of media to ensure that everyone receives the information
4. Obtain additional funding from the project sponsor and develop a project specific communications infrastructure.

21. One of your employees is up for promotion. If the promotion is granted, the employee will be reassigned elsewhere causing a problem for you on your project. You can delay the promotion until your project is completed. You should:

1. Support the promotion but work with the employee and the employee's new management to develop a good transition plan
2. Ask the employee to refuse the promotion until your project is completed.
3. Arrange to delay the promotion until the project is completed
4. Tell the employee that it is his responsibility to find a suitable replacement so that the project will not suffer.

22. The integrity of the project manager is often challenged by stakeholders who attempt to use personal power or influence to change the scope of an agreed upon deliverable. In these situations the project manager's most appropriate response would be:

1. Refer the stakeholder to the process for change documented in the approved contract.
2. Agree to the change because customer satisfaction is the goal regardless of cost.
3. Contact the legal department and suspend all further project work
4. Determine the risks and rewards for implementing the change before taking any action.

23. During project implementation the client interprets a clause in the contract to mean the he is entitled to a substantial refund for work recently completed. You review the clause and disagree with the client's conclusion. As the project manager which of the following actions should be taken

1. Disregard the customer's conclusion and continue to process invoices
2. Document the dispute and refer to the provisions of the contract that address interpretations and disputes
3. Advise the customer that ambiguous information in contracts is always interpreted in favor of the contractor
4. Immediately correct the clause to remove any possible misinterpretation by the customer

24. Your executives, in appreciation for the success of your project, have given you a $10,000 bonus to be disbursed among your five-team members. One of the five, who is a substandard worker and accomplished very little on your project, is in your car pool. You should:

1. Provide everyone with an equal share
2. Provide everyone a share based upon their performance
3. Ask the workers to decide among themselves how the bonus should be subdivided
4. Ask the sponsor to make the decision

25. Before reporting a perceived violation of an established rule or policy the project manager should

1. Determine the risks associated with the violation
2. Ensure there is a reasonably clear and factual basis for reporting the violation
3. Ignore the violation until it actually affects the project results
4. Convene a committee to review the violation and determine the appropriate response

26. Project Managers can contribute to their organization's knowledge base and to the profession of project management most effectively by:

1. Developing and implementing a project review and lessons learned process
2. Establishing strict guidelines for protecting intellectual property
3. Promote the use of ad hoc project management
4. Ensuring that all project plans are developed before the project team is formed

27. You have been assigned two concurrent projects. Because of the nature of the projects, you have a conflict of interest. You should:

1. Do the best you can and tell no one
2. Ask to be removed from one of the projects
3. Ask to be removed from both of the projects
4. Inform your sponsor and ask for his advice

28. You receive a contract to perform testing for an external client. After contract award, the customer provides you with the test matrix to use for your 16 tests. The vice president for engineering says that the customer's test matrix is wrong, and she will use a different test matrix, which should give better results. This is a violation to the SOW. You should:

1. Use the customer's test matrix
2. Use the engineering test matrix without telling the customer
3. Use the engineering test matrix and discuss the reasons with the customer
4. Ask your sponsor for clarification, assuming that the vice president is not your sponsor

29. An effective method for improving an organization's project management knowledge base is through:

1. Coaching and mentoring
2. Referent power
3. A weak Matrix organizational structure
4. Fast Tracking 

5. Answer Key

   1=c    8=b    15=d  22=a

   2=d    9=b    16=c   23=b

   3=a    10=a   17=b  24=c

   4=a    11=c   18=b   25=b

   5=c    12=b   19=a   26=a

   6=b    13=b    20=a  27=d

   7=c    14=d    21=a  28=d