Principles are mile posts that help to guide our conduct. They come from natural laws that are recognizable by all cultures. Principles have been around since the dawn of time. They are timeless and aren’t dependent on us making them a permanent part of our lives.
I believe a most of our problems in society come from the fact that many of our leaders and manager don’t live principle-centered lives.
What are principles that are easily recognized? These are a few: Patience, Kindness, Tolerance, Integrity, Honesty, Encouragement, Trustworthiness, Empathy…
Principles should guide our conduct, and when they do, they are easily recognizable by others. When our leaders decide to reject principles in order to gain power, influence or money, the organizations they lead are in deep trouble.
Many times leaders attempt to put aside principles to get short-term gains. They believe by making speeches filled with empty promises they will gain the trust of others. This happens all the time in our organizations, and results in the same mistakes repeated over and over. Having said that, we keep electing the same people to office over and over, don’t we? Where has this gotten us?
Albert Einstein said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”. To solve the tough problems we need to look at our paradigms and habits and be willing to change them. Sometimes this means firing (not re-electing) our current leaders.
Do we really think we can just buy our way out of the current mess on Wall Street without fundamentally changing the way things work (paradigms and habits) and putting principled leaders in place? Can you or your organization really change things for the better without focusing on principles and rethinking your paradigms and habits? Do organizations really believe that layoffs alone change anything when their current broken paradigms and habits are left intact?
I have seen the results of unprincipled leadership, and the behaviors these “leaders” exhibit can have a profound, lasting, and negative influence on others. The sad part is these leaders believe they are part of the solution, however we know better. You can’t lead your way out of a problem that you don’t fully understand, and if you try to do it without principles the results are easily predicted. DISASTER!
Big problems cannot be solved by small people and small mindedness. Remember, principles aren’t values. The Mafia has values, but their practices certainly aren’t related to principles. As Stephen Covey say’s “Principles are the territory. Values are the map”.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
My Love/Hate Relationship with Project Teams - Revisited
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 often tend to waste a lot of time, and like to blame others (inside and 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 often 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 "visionary" is a person that is usually often disengaged from everything, and accountable for nothing
Lack of leadership, direction, and follow-up from top management is the number one cause of project 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 and many 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 change, 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 usually the fault of senior management because of their refusal to attend important project team meetings. Ultimately the project manager is still accountable for project team dysfunction.
Many Some project teams are composed of the wrong people doing the wrong things at the wrong times.
Internal politics doom many project teams from the start
Project managers usually often 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 "visionary" is a person that is usually often disengaged from everything, and accountable for nothing
Lack of leadership, direction, and follow-up from top management is the number one cause of project 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 and many 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 change, 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 usually the fault of senior management because of their refusal to attend important project team meetings. Ultimately the project manager is still accountable for project team dysfunction.
Many Some project teams are composed of the wrong people doing the wrong things at the wrong times.
Project team dysfunction is normal. Staying dysfunctional is typical, but in the end detrimental to the careers of those involved.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Project Management Sayings - Rewind
Part 1 - I thought the statements below made a lot of sense, or were humorous. Look for part two next week.
Good estimators aren't modest: if it's huge they say so.
The sooner you begin coding the later you finish.
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
What is not on paper has not been said.
If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.
If you fail to plan you are planning to fail.
If you don't attack the risks, the risks will attack you.
A little risk management saves a lot of fan cleaning.
The sooner you get behind schedule, the more time you have to make it up.
A badly planned project will take three times longer than expected - a well-planned project only twice as long as expected.
If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, you haven't understood the plan.
When all's said and done a lot more is said than done.
If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you ever tried.
Feather and down are padding - changes and contingencies will be real events.
There are no good project managers - only lucky ones.
The more you plan the luckier you get.
A project is one small step for the project sponsor, one giant leap for the project manager.
Good project management is not so much knowing what to do and when, as knowing what excuses to give and when.
If everything is going exactly to plan, something somewhere is going massively wrong.
Everyone asks for a strong project manager - when they get him they don't want him.
Overtime is a figment of the naïve project manager's imagination.
Quantitative project management is for predicting cost and schedule overruns well in advance.
Good project managers know when not to manage a project.
Metrics are learned men's excuses.
For a project manager overruns are as certain as death and taxes.
If there were no problem people there'd be no need for people who solve problems.
Some projects finish on time in spite of project management best practices.
Good project managers admit mistakes: that's why you so rarely meet a good project manager.
Fast - cheap - good: you can have any two.
There is such a thing as an unrealistic timescale.
The more ridiculous the deadline the more money will be wasted trying to meet it.
The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time the last 10% takes the other 90%.
The project would not have been started if the truth had been told about the cost and timescale.
To estimate a project, work out how long it would take one person to do it then multiply that by the number of people on the project.
Never underestimate the ability of senior management to buy a bad idea and fail to buy a good idea.
The most successful project managers have perfected the skill of being comfortable being uncomfortable.
When the weight of the project paperwork equals the weight of the project itself, the project can be considered complete.
If it wasn't for the 'last minute', nothing would get done.
Nothing gets done till nothing gets done.
Warning: dates in the calendar are closer than you think.
There is no such thing as scope creep, only scope gallop.
Anything that can be changed will be changed until there is no time left to change anything.
If project content is allowed to change freely the rate of change will exceed the rate of progress.
If you can interpret project status data in several different ways, only the most painful interpretation will be correct.
A project gets a year late one day at a time.
A project isn’t over until the fat check is cashed.
Powerful project managers don't solve problems, they get rid of them.