All Projects Are Unique

All Projects are unique.  Because they are unique, the risks are often great and failure to deliver "on time" is always an option.  Minimize the risks by informing your sponsor that until you are finished with your initial project planning activities you may not be able to provide realistic budget and time estimates.  Once you have completed your initial project planning activities, (project planning is continuous) provide your sponsor with an estimated budget and time range, and remind him or her that as planning progresses these ranges may be adjusted to closer reflect reality.

Doubt and the Door

‎"Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door.". Benjamin Jowett

What are you denying?

Estimating Laws

Found over at the very good Project Connections website


1. Everything takes longer than you think (sometimes a lot longer)


2. Thinking about everything takes longer than you think


3. Project Managing and leading a project team is a FULL TIME job, and then some


4. Software Engineers are always optimistic (generally REALLY optimistic)


5. Schedules are (almost) always wrong


6. If you under-estimated an early task when you wrote the WBS (schedule), you probably under-estimated middle and later tasks. Revisit the later phases of the schedule as early as possible when you discover early phase schedule (estimate) errors


7. Business types (upper management) REALLY do use your estimates for planning. For example, head count, money, customer deliverables, shipping dates, ordering materials, scheduling manufacturing lines, advertising timing, etc. Be able to express your level of confidence on various estimates when you provide them to others


8. Initially, a good schedule estimate is 80% confidence for near term deliverables, 60-80% for long-term deliverables. Revisit the schedule and revise your estimates after the Initiation Phase (Kickoff) and again after the Design Phase to improve on these early confidence levels


9. Don’t let yourself be bullied into committing to something you cannot achieve


10. Don’t bully someone else into committing to something they cannot achieve


11. Notify “Need To Know” people AS SOON AS POSSIBLE if there is a significant problem or potential problem in meeting the schedule. Remember that there was a certain degree of optimism in the schedule originally. Note: It's an art to not over-do this


12. Let team members know that you, the project manager, expect early notification of schedule problems as a courtesy. You decide on the severity or risk of the problem and its impact to the schedule, what actions to take, and what contingencies are appropriate


13. Most people’s estimating skills improve with experience; some don’t


14. Learn your own estimating flaws and compensate for them. Then learn the flaws in your new estimations and compensate for them. Repeat continuously while employed as a project manager


15. Learn others' estimating flaws and learn to compensate for them. Mentor them on improving their flaws and then compensate for their improvements. Repeat continuously while they are on your project team


16. In some environments, some people are hedging their estimates, some people are expecting them to hedge the estimates and some people are doing neither. It’s an interesting problem to get all of them to stop this behavior and have people give honest, best-effort estimates. Laws 14 and 15 are useful for dealing with this variability while you are working to get your team members to be more honest with you. Laws 13-16 are part of the "people aspects" of the project management job - like it or not, we have to deal with these "real world effects" on the projects we manage


17. Be wary of anyone who wants 100% confidence in an estimate. 90% confidence is an exceptional human achievement for any complex task, even with extremely good data


18. Look up the word “estimate” in the dictionary. You may find it useful in a meeting

Projects as Art

"A great piece of art is composed not just of what is in the final piece, but equally important, what is not.  It is the discipline to discard what does not fit - to cut out what might have already cost days or even years of effort that distiguishes the truly exceptional artist and marks the ideal piece of work, be it a symphony, a novel, a painting, a company or, most important of all, a life"

Author Unknown

Awesome Life Tips

Various Quotes by By Bruce Lee

“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”

“Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own.”

“Simplicity is the key to brilliance.”

“Using no way as way, using no limitation as limitation.”

“Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.”

“Real living is living for others.”

“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”

“Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.”

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”

“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.”

“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.”

“As you think, so shall you become.”

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.”

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”

“To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.”

“Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.”

“Knowledge will give you power, but character respect”

“Obey the principles without being bound by them.”

“Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.”

“You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.”

The Power of Words

Very inspiring short video... Well worth two minutes of your time...

Click Here to View Video

Good Listening Tips

Stop Talking!

Put the talker at ease

Show him/her that you want to listen

Remove distractions from your behavior

Empathize

Be patient

Hold your temper

Try not to argue or criticize.  Don't evaluate, just listen

Ask questions

Summarize occasionally to confirm understanding