My Love/Hate Relationship with Project Teams (Re-run)

Project teams can be a project manager's greatest resource or can be a huge impediment to getting things done. I have a lot of opinions about project teams and most people would find them to be controversial. I will state them here and hope for feedback.

My general theories about project teams follow:

Project teams tend to waste a lot of time, and like to blame others (outside the team) for lack of project process

Project team members are rarely on the same page

Internal politics doom many project teams from the start

Project managers usually don't have the ability to reward or punish bad behavior

One or two "bad apples" can spoil the whole bunch

Many functional managers don't believe they have to support project teams, and at times they do all they can to undermine the team approach to managing projects

A team "visionary" is a person that is usually disengaged from everything and accountable for nothing

Lack of leadership, direction, and follow-up from top management is the number one cause of project team failure

If you have a member of your project team that would rather be doing something else, do everything you can to grant their wish

Most project managers are wimps when it comes to managing individual members of their teams

Lots of organizations talk a good talk when it comes to project management and teams, then go about managing change using the same old failed processes

Many project team members are loyal to their functional departments, not to the project

Teams by nature are dysfunctional, and because of this fact the project schedule and estimates should reflect this

Dysfunctional project teams are the fault of senior management because of their refusal to attend important project team meetings

Many project teams are composed of the wrong people doing the wrong things at the wrong times.

Eight Stage Process of Creating Major Change (Re-Run)

I like the process below for creating major change. It was taken from the book "Leading Change" by John P. Kotter (see source information at the end of the posting).

1. Establishing a Sense of Urgency
a. Examining the market and competitive realities
b. Identifying and discussing crises, potential crises, or major opportunities

2. Creating the Guiding Coalition
a. Putting together a group with enough power to lead the change
b. Getting the group to work together as a team

3. Developing a Vision and Strategy
a. Creating a vision to help direct the change effort
b. Developing strategies for achieving that vision

4. Communicating the Change Vision
a. Using every vehicle possible to constantly communicate the new vision and strategies
b. Having the guiding coalition role model the behavior expected of employees

5. Empowering Broad-Based Action
a. Getting rid of obstacles
b. Changing systems or structures that undermine the change vision
c. Encouraging risk taking and non-traditional ideas, activities, and actions

6. Generating Short-Term Wins
a. Planning for visible improvements in performance, or “wins”
b. Creating those wins
c. Visibly recognizing and rewarding people who made the wins possible

7. Consolidating Gains and Producing More Change
a. Using increased credibility to change all systems, structures, and policies that don’t fit together and don’t fit the transformation vision
b. Hiring, promoting, and developing people who can implement the change vision
c. Reinvigorating the process with new projects, themes, and change agents

8. Anchoring New Approaches in the Culture
a. Creating better performance through customer and productivity-oriented behavior, more an better leadership, and more effective management
b. Articulating the connections between new behaviors and organizational success
c. Developing means to ensure leadership development and succession

SOURCE: Adapted from John P. Kotter, “Leading Change,” Harvard Business School Press 1996

Project Management for Networking Geeks

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Another Project Goes Live

As many of you know I manage IT projects. While I don't work in an IT department, I still have to manage many of the issues that involve technology. One of the challenges I have had with my current project is getting everybody to agree on and put status updates to the Project Issues List.

A project issues list is key tool to track issues as they arise during and after implementation. If you aren't using one you are setting yourself up to fail.

The issues list should contain:

* A description of the issue

* The person responsible for resolving the issue

* When the issue was opened

* When the issues is expected to resolved

* Notes regarding the ongoing status of the issue

Remember in project management, "what is not in writing has not been said".

Keep and issues list and update it regularly. Finally, negotiate expected resolution dates with those that are responsible for resolving the issues.

The "19 Es" of Excellence by Tom Peters

You can also find it as a PDF on Tom's website

The "19 Es" of Excellence:

Enthusiasm. (Be an irresistible force of nature!)

Energy. (Be fire! Light fires!)

Exuberance. (Vibrate—cause earthquakes!)

Execution. (Do it! Now! Get it done! Barriers are baloney! Excuses are for wimps! Accountability is gospel! Adhere to the Bill Parcells doctrine: "Blame nobody! Expect nothing! Do something!")

Empowerment. (Respect and appreciation rule! Always ask, "What do you think?" Then listen! Then let go and liberate! Then celebrate!)

Edginess. (Perpetually dancing at the frontier, and a little or a lot beyond.)

Enraged. (Determined to challenge & change the status quo!)

Engaged. (Addicted to MBWA/Managing By Wandering Around. In touch. Always.)

Electronic. (Partners with the world 60/60/24/7 via electronic community building and entanglement of every sort. Crowdsourcing rules!)

Encompassing. (Relentlessly pursue diverse opinions—the more diversity the merrier! Diversity per se "works"!)

Emotion. (The alpha. The omega. The essence of leadership. The essence of sales. The essence of marketing. The essence. Period. Acknowledge it.)

Empathy. (Connect, connect, connect with others' reality and aspirations! "Walk in the other person’s shoes"—until the soles have holes!)

Experience. (Life is theater! Make every activity-contact memorable! Standard: "Insanely Great"/Steve Jobs; "Radically Thrilling"/BMW.)

Eliminate. (Keep it simple!)

Errorprone. (Ready! Fire! Aim! Try a lot of stuff and make a lot of booboos and then try some more stuff and make some more booboos—all of it at the speed of light!)

Evenhanded. (Straight as an arrow! Fair to a fault! Honest as Abe!)

Expectations. (Michelangelo: "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it." Amen!)

Eudaimonia. (Pursue the highest of human moral purpose—the core of Aristotle's philosophy. Be of service. Always.)

Excellence. (The only standard! Never an exception! Start now! No excuses! If not Excellence, what? If not Excellence now, when?)

Great Moments in Presidential Speeches

Winter Dogs in Florida

It was cold in Florida today (64F High, 38F Low). Perfect for golfing.

Stay Warm!