The Project Sponsor

A project sponsor's role is to help make project decisions (formal authority), and additionally, he or she is ultimately responsible for the project's success. The sponsor comes from the executive or senior management ranks (depending on the size of the project) and should be influential, a respected politician, and have a track record for getting things done.

The sponsors authority and stature should be such that they are independent as much as possible of the project's goals and objectives so they can cut through the political landscape to get critical project decisions made.

Sponsors don't just support projects; they support the project manager and project team. They are the project champion and won't allow others to sabotage the project manager, the project team, or the project's goals. They have authority that comes from their title and position within the organization. In order for sponsors to be effective they must have organizational respect, proven leadership qualities, and be honest in their dealings.  They aren't political sharks and they are adept at rallying the troops (project team and stakeholders), presenting a clear message, and are supportive of the project manager.

Ideal Sponsor Responsibilities

Writes the Project Charter

Help to define project team roles and responsibilities

Acts as an advisor to the project manager

Removes obstacles

Has control of project funding

Reviews and Approves any Statements of Work/Contracts and Planning Documents

Bad Sponsor Characteristics

Always too busy to meet with the project manager and project team

Doesn't have time to write a project charter

Won't get involved in assigning project roles and responsibilities

Doesn't have time to approve documents, or delegates all sponsor responsibility to others.

Blames others when things go wrong, and/or won't work to resolve project issues

Always takes credit for any project success

Is surprised when the project's deliverables aren't what they expected

A bad sponsor is a project manager's worst nightmare. Avoid them at all costs if possible.

Project Role Definition and Responsibilities

What are your thoughts?  Do these roles exist in your organization?  Do you agree with the definitions? 

Executive Steering Committee - Sets the strategic vision and objectives for a given program or project. The team leads efforts to build consensus through the organization to support the project or program’s objectives.

Governance Board - Formal team of executives from across the organization that ensure projects will meet/are meeting enterprise goals.

Project Sponsor - Provides clarity of the project vision, and directs the activities of the project team. Allocates funding and resources to the project. Provides executive authority necessary to overcome organizational obstacles and barriers. The guardian of the business case, and ultimately responsible for project success.

Performing Organization - The organization whose personnel are most directly involved in doing the work of the project. This organization usually provides sponsorship for the project.

Project Management Office - An organizational body or entity assigned various responsibilities related to the centralized and coordinated management of those programs/projects under its domain.

Project Stakeholders - Persons or organizations (customers, sponsors, performers, public) that are actively involved in the project or whose interests may be positively or negatively impacted by executing or implementation of the project.

Program Manager - Person responsible for the centralized, coordinated management of a program (group of related projects) to achieve the program’s strategic objectives and benefits.

Project Manager - The person assigned by the performing organization to achieve the project objectives. The project manager is responsible for coordinating and integrating activities across multiple functional lines, and managing stakeholder communications. The project manager accomplishes the above by managing project scope, time, cost, and quality. Finally, the project manager applies project management, general management and technical skills, as well as team management, negotiation, financial and business acumen, combined with an understanding of organizational politics to meet project objectives and to meet or exceed stakeholder expectations.

Project Team - All the project team members, including the project management team, the project manager, and for some projects, the project sponsor.

Functional Manager -  In regards to projects, the person responsible for ensuring agreed-upon project tasks are completed using pre-defined resources under the functional manager’s control within scope, time, budget and quality constraints.

Project Team Leader - Responsible for ensuring that agreed-upon project tasks and assignments are completed on time, on budget, and within quality standards for personnel under their realm of control or influence. The team leader should be knowledgeable of the principles and practices of project management and understand the business unit’s strategic and operational issues.

Technical Manager/Liaison - Responsible for the technical implementation of the project as measured against the project requirements, quality targets, and budgetary constraints, and timelines. Ensures technical deliverables are consistent with the overall technical strategy of the enterprise.

Business Analyst - Primary interface between projects and business partners. Responsible for understanding current and future processes, including processes for the entire enterprise. Documents business requirements, generate business cases, assists in defining project benefits/ costs, and participates in project reviews

Mastering Your Work

David Allen is known for great training and tools to help people and organizations efficiently manage work.  Check out David Allen's website for some great information!


David Allen wrote an article for the NYT this past weekend. Check it out here!


Click the image below to enlarge.

Estimating Project Management Tasks

As stated so eloquently by Bob Lewis in his book "IS Survival Guide", There is no way for you to successfully estimate projects. Take that as a given. It can't be done, and for a very simple reason: Every one of your projects is one-of-a-kind. Mr. Lewis makes a very good point, however in my experience, I have yet to have met a manager that will let me get away with saying "I can't estimate this project".

SO WHAT IS A PROJECT MANAGER TO DO?

I like to call the solution to this problem rolling-wave estimating. By that I mean when the project is in the initiation phase and you have very little information your estimate should reflect that fact. This means very early in the project your estimate(s) could be off by as much as +200/-75% (or more). As you progress through the project planning phase you will breakdown the project into smaller, more manageable pieces of work (decomposition). This process helps to narrow the range of your estimates.

Do not be fooled into thinking that because you have broken down your project into phases and/or small manageable pieces of work that you can just add up the estimates and have a total overall project estimate. Many times, especially on IT projects, there are integration issues that are difficult to estimate and are usually ignored in the planning phase. Do not forget to add time for these critical integration activities. Also, while padding of estimates is a no-no, don't forget to account for risk in your project estimates. PMI advocates for contingency and management reserves to account for risk events, but I have not worked in an environment where these exist so I have to plan for risk in my estimates.

Be smart when estimating and realize that in the IT world estimates are always wrong and tasks are always underestimated.

What is Project Management Value?

Project value can’t be dictated; it must be planned, agreed upon, and easily recognizable.  We can't be told something has value.  We must be shown its value and left to form our own opinions.  In all cases the value of a project must be measurable.

IT IS EASY TO BE SUCCESSFUL WHEN SUCCESS HAS NO MEASURE!

Projects that produce little to no value aren't unique to any one industry or business segment.  They are often a result of a project manager or project team with the mentality that says we know best, and we believe we are smarter than everybody else.

We can sum up this type of behavior in one word...Arrogance.

As taken from the website the Inner Frontier:

ARROGANCE - "Those to whom much has been given sometimes suffer from arrogance; or rather the people around them suffer. Arrogance is doubly a pity, because the talents of the arrogant serve primarily themselves. The arrogant assumes his views and opinions are The Truth. In arrogance, natural confidence goes sadly awry. Rather than the self-assurance born of knowing his own strengths and limitations, arrogance admits no limits. The arrogant brooks no weakness in himself and may even secretly rejoice to find flaws in others."

Don't be arrogant and don't manage a project that doesn't have value.

Organizational Strategy and Project Plans

We have a strategic plan where I work, however we don't have a portfolio planning office to manage the output of the strategic plan (the projects). A strategic plan is basically an outline for a list of strategic projects. Strategic projects are focused on mid and long term goals and are authorized by senior management. Without a strategic planning office there is not an effective strategic plan, and a strategic plan that isn't effective isn't worth the paper it is printed on.

According to some research, 50-80% of strategic plans never come to fruition. I would bet that most of these failed strategic plans were due to organizations not having a strategic planning office. As I mentioned, my organization has a strategic plan, and while well thought out, it doesn't appear to be very effective at consistently delivering measurable results. I say this because I don't see a project portfolio or list of strategic projects, and there is no organization to oversee these projects at the enterprise level. Also, the projects that do come out of our strategic plan aren't usually very S.M.A.R.T. - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Resource Constrained/Relevant, Time-bound.

If your projects aren't S.M.A.R.T they aren't worth planning and executing.
Organizations, especially local governments, can tweak and refine their strategy over time. This can be due to the ever changing political winds, environmental factors, customer demands, changing priorities, resource constraints, a lack of political will, or executive apathy, but more often it is because of a lack of an enterprise project management focus. Whatever the case, a strategic planning office can help an organizations focus on what is important in regards to the management of strategic projects.

When thinking about strategic projects think about the following:

• How the projects will be selected?
• How the projects will be funded?
• How the projects will be monitored and reported against?
• How will project audits be conducted?
• Who sponsors the projects?

One final thing, review PMI's OPM3 (Organizational Project Management Maturity Model) to help you transform your organization's strategy into action, and remember the Strategic Planning Circle - Strategy ---> Ideas ---> Projects ---> Change

Can You See Me Now?

Do you manage your projects mostly from your desk? Are you falling into the trap of managing projects via e-mail, voice mail, fax, letter, and failing to communicate with your customers and stakeholders face-to-face?

People value one-on-one conversations. A project manager that doesn't spend significant time on his or her project speaking directly to their customers will not be as effective as the one the takes the time to conduct meetings in person.

As project managers we are selling "experiences" and "solutions". Can you effectively sell your ideas as a faceless e-mail machine? Can you "WOW" your customers with tired voice mails and bland status reports?

Good customers want to see you as much as possible. They want to feel your enthusiasm, experience your excitement, and have you tell them eye-to-eye that "it’s all good".

Don’t cower (and sour) behind your keyboard sending status reports and e-mails and think your are doing your job. You can't gain your customer's trust unless you speak with them one on one.

As Tom Peter says, "If there is nothing special about your work...you won't get noticed, and that means you won't get paid much either".

It is hard to get noticed when people can't see you. BE VISIBLE!

Keep Hope Alive

Practice hope. As hopefulness becomes a habit, you can achieve a permanently happy spirit - Norman Vincent Peale

Office Gossip

This Soviet war poster conveys the message: "Don't chatter! Gossiping borders on treason" (1941).

According to Marilyn Haight, at BigBadBoss.com Office Politics “is the use of one's individual or assigned power within an employing organization for the purpose of obtaining advantages beyond one's legitimate authority.” Those advantages may include access to tangible assets, or intangible benefits such as status or pseudo-authority that influences the behavior of others. Both individuals and groups may engage in Office Politics."

I think most people would agree that those participating in office politics seek to gain an advantage. Being a skillful office politician may get you recognized or promoted, but it may also come at the expense of your or another’s integrity.

Remember, gossip is usually destructive (at a minimum unfair) to somebody, and should be discouraged whenever possible. If we are honest, we would all admit that we participate in office gossip. We need to limit office gossip to be the exception, not the norm in our daily conversations with others.

Be accountable for your words in the workplace. Work should be fun and our work relationships should be positive and healthy. Healthy work relationships are dependent on gossip being kept to a minimum.

The Perfect (IT) Project Manager

I have a book entitled “What Makes a Good Project Manager” by James S. Pennypacker and Jeannette Cabanis-Brewin. In the book, there is a reference to a ComputerWorld article that discusses “The Perfect Project Manager”. The consensus of the article was in the world of Information Technology (IT) there are three general areas of Project Management competency: Technology, Business, and Behavior (in no certain order).

One of the CIOs interviewed in the ComputerWorld article stated “in order to motivate IT workers, you need … an understanding of human behavior and how to motivate teams.” Do not miss this important point. Project Managers are primarily team leaders, motivators, and communicators. Project Managers will not be successful managing IT projects if they do not have an understanding of basic human behavior.

It has also been determined there are three Project Management skills that are required for success in IT:

General Management Skills

Project Management Skills

IT Management Skills

Under General Management, the key areas of expertise are (not in order):

Thinking Skills

Organizational Awareness

Leadership

Interpersonal Relations

Communication Skills

Many companies are now interviewing Project Managers placing a heavy emphasis on character traits versus professional competencies. These companies realize if a Project Manager cannot get along well with others and have poor communication skills they will not be successful.

The key to project success is having a competent project manager and the number one competency of a project manager is honesty. Research has shown that projects are more likely to fail because the human elements are not managed. In order to mitigate this type of risk project managers need to develop skills that support sound decision-making, good communications, motivational techniques, and conflict management.

Simple Problem Management Tips

Stand up for your team members. If other team members, individuals, or groups outside your team are leveling unfair criticism on your team, get out in front of the issue and defend your team.

Admit your mistakes. Do not allow pride or ego to prevent you from admitting your mistakes.

Take charge when needed. Some situations will solve themselves; others may require you to step in. Know when to get involved and when to stay on the sideline.

Fix problems quickly. Do not worry about assigning blame. Fix the problem first before trying to find the root cause.

Separate yourself from the problem – Learn to see problems from different perspectives. Learn to look for causes.

Take time to know the facts. Do not prescribe before you diagnose. Take the time to gather all the facts before you rush to judgment.

Retain control of your emotions. Do not let anger cloud your judgment.

Top Ten Project Management Trends for 2012 by ESI

ESI Announces Top 10 Project Management Trends for 2012

Collaboration Gains Importance as Project Complexity Grows

ARLINGTON, VA, USA – Jan. 5, 2012 – As the project environment grows in complexity, project management will require team, stakeholder and executive collaboration in 2012 like never before. On-the-job application of training, custom-made project approaches, innovative project tools and smarter resource management will be essential for driving the greatest business impact. Not only project management, but also the definition of “project success” has changed to encompass more than the triple constraint. Collaboration is a common theme throughout many of the 2012 Top 10 Trends for project management, which were determined by a global panel of ESI International senior executives and subject matter experts.

1.     Program management will gain momentum, but resources remain in short supply

Increasingly, large initiatives undertaken by corporations and government agencies are being recognized for what they are and aren’t: namely programs, not projects, which require a highly advanced set of skills supported by appropriate tools and methods to successfully execute. Yet many organizations struggle to find the right people and lack the management practices necessary to ensure success. In 2012 we will see more investments made in competency models, training, methodology development, tool use, and career pathing to ensure that professionals who carry the title Program Manager are fit for the role.

2.     Collaboration software solutions will become  an essential business tool for project teams

The proliferation of collaborative software in the project environment such as SharePoint® is going to intensify in 2012. Fueled by increasingly complex and virtual projects as well as tightened budgets, today’s environment demands a more efficient way to manage communication and workflow. Collaboration is central to project management and having a site which allows project artifacts to be created, shared, and distributed within a repository that provides Web-based access and critical functions such as automatic distribution and notification, version control, and user authentication, greatly enhances productivity.

3.     Learning transfer will become the new mantra, but with little structured application

Learning transfer–the ability to apply training back on the job--will continue to be on the minds of PMO heads and learning and development (L&D) professionals who want their project managers to return from training ready to apply what they learned immediately and accurately to their projects. While L&D and business heads agree that sustained learning is a sound idea, very few organizations will invest in a formal process to make it happen. In 2012 we will see many organizations discussing the importance of learning transfer without really putting in place a structured approach to ensure it happens.

4.     Agile blends with waterfall for a new “hybrid” approach

Having moved from “manifesto to mainstream,” Agile has confronted project teams with the difficulty of implementing the experimental and hyper-collaborative approach. To transition an organization into fully adopting certain aspects of Agile, project teams are combining traditional and Agile elements to create their own hybrid approach. In areas such as planning, requirements, and team communication, organizations are designing custom-made methodologies to do what works for them.

5.     Smarter project investments will require a stronger marriage between project management and business process management (BPM)     

In the financial services industry, and specifically in the insurance sector, there will be a continued laser-like focus on performing business processes as efficiently as possible to drive down operating costs. The philosophy of BPM is fast becoming a key factor in project selection. When new projects are proposed, their value will be judged to a large extent on the impact they will have on the organization’s business processes. The more impact the project has on reducing internal costs, the higher it will be ranked. The “smart” money will be spent on driving costs out of the business. Given the high premium being placed on efficient processes delivered through projects, BPM is a key concept with which project managers will need to be intimately familiar.

6.     Internal certifications in corporations and federal agencies will eclipse the PMP®

With roughly 470,000 Project Management Professional (PMP®) credentials having  been awarded worldwide thus far, the PMP® remains the most popular and ubiquitous credential on the planet. However, it is not the prominent credential everywhere. In the U.S. government as well as Fortune 500 corporations, a hierarchy of “internal” credentials has overshadowed the PMP® in terms of prominence. To be sure, the PMP® remains important, but it is now just one rung on the career ladder to get to the top.

7.     More PMO heads will measure effectiveness on business results

While introducing tools, using methodologies, mapping project management practices, sending project managers to training, and increasing the number of PMP®s in the organization are important metrics for a PMO head to collect and report on, they do not speak to the effectiveness of the PMO from a business perspective. To judge business effectiveness, PMO heads need to determine if their work has had a positive, quantifiable effect on the business in terms of troubled project reduction, lower project manager attrition, and faster time to market. In 2012 the practice of measuring the outputs, not the inputs, of project management will gain traction.

8.     Good project managers will buck unemployment trends

Even though unemployment is at record levels in many countries, good project managers are hard to find. Recruiting continues even in tough economies and organizations need individuals who can perform the basics flawlessly. The hunger for project management basics, in particular risk management, will continue to surge in 2012, especially in such countries as India and China where project manager attrition rates are disturbingly high and continuous training of new staff is critical.

9.     Client-centric project management will outpace the “triple constraint”

For years, time, cost and scope were the metrics upon which the success of all projects and their managers were judged. While the triple constraints remain important, they are no longer the be-all-and-end-all for project success. While risk and quality have also been cited as additional “constraints,” the clear trend in 2012 is the value the project delivers to the organization. The new definition of project success is that a project can exceed its time and cost estimates so long as the client determines that it is successful by whatever criteria they use. In today’s environment, project value is determined by the “recipient”—or client—not the “provider.”

10.  HR professionals will seek assessments to identify high-potential project managers

Because project management is such an important function, human resources professionals will be tasked more intensely with identifying high-potential project managers in 2012. The challenge HR professionals will face is that there is no ‘silver bullet’ assessment for identifying great project managers. Existing knowledge and skills assessments are of little use since they are not designed for entry-level project manager positions. Nonetheless, candidates must be measured not only on their technical abilities, but also on the all-important business and interpersonal skills. To the best of our knowledge, no one has yet developed such an assessment, but HR professionals will continue, and intensify, their assessment search this year.

“From the ascendancy of social media to the structured implementation of collaboration tools by the PMO and the steady rise of communities of practice, we are fast approaching a tipping point,” said J. LeRoy Ward, PMP, PgMP, Executive Vice President, Product Strategy & Management, ESI International “Those project organizations that don’t exploit such collaborative channels and technology will risk missing the most promising combination of force multipliers of the decade.”

# # #

About ESI International
ESI, a subsidiary of Informa plc (LSE:INF), helps people around the world improve the way they manage projects, contracts, requirements and vendors through innovative project management training, business analysis training and contract management training. In addition to ESI’s more than 100 courses delivered in more than a dozen languages at hundreds of locations worldwide, ESI offers several certificate programs through our educational partner, The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1981, ESI’s worldwide headquarters are in Arlington, Va., USA. To date, ESI’s programs have benefited more than 1.35 million professionals worldwide. For more information visit www.esi-intl.com.

Ten Keys to Civility

A local foundation here in Florida, USA has developed a set of "Ten Keys to Civility".  These are a perfect set of guiding principles for the project manager. Click here to view their website and find out more.

Respect Others - Honor other people and their opinions, especially in the midst of a disagreement. 

Think Positively - Keep an open mind and assume others have good intentions.

Pay Attention - Be aware and attend to the world and the people around you.

Make a Difference - Get involved.

Speak Kindly - Choose not to spread or listen to gossip.

Say Thank You - Let others know they are appreciated.

Accepts Others - Our differences are what make us interesting.

Rediscover Silence - Keep noise to a minimum.

Listen - Focus on others in order to better understand their points of view.

Keep Your Cool - Accept life's challenges with grace.

Quick Tips for the New Week

Get up earlier

Go to bed later

Work harder

Finish what you start

Learn one new thing

Renew one contact

Ask, "How can I help you?" at least once

Make yourself visible

Be of good cheer

Say "Thank You" at least once a day

Repeat tomorrow

Reminders for the Project Manager

Show appreciation - thanking people for their assistance is not only the right thing to do it is expected.

Listen effectively - think before speaking. Listen attentively. Make the person feel like they are the only thing you are focusing on.

Give credit to others - always give credit where credit is due.

Don't be negative - negative people can kill team creativity. Eliminate them from your team if possible.

Have a work/life balance - don't forget that all work and no play makes for a dull life.

Don't have hidden agendas - they are only hidden for a while, and most people realize what you are doing.

Be willing to publicly admit your failures - there is nothing more pathetic than the person that never admits a mistake.

Talk about the problem not the person - don't personalize problems and make them about a person or group. Be willing to focus on only on the problem.

If you lie down with dogs you will get fleas - be careful of your relationships in the workplace. Trust, but verify.

Don't gossip - gossip can hurt careers and projects. Don't participate in gossip and don't allow it on your team.

Use Empathy not Sympathy when dealing with delicate issues - Empathic listening is listening with intent to understand. Sympathetic listening is a form of agreement and judgement.

Diagnose before your prescribe - if people don't have confidence in your diagnosis, they won't have confidence in your prescription

Keep your commitments and promises - enough said.

Remember while you are free to choose your actions, you aren't free to choose the consequence of those actions.

Thought for the Day

Obey the principles without being bound by them.

Bruce Lee

Politics and Projects

Here is a list of things to keep in mind when managing projects in a highly politicized environment:

• Learn to negotiate from a position of strength
• Do everything you can to educate those around you about Project Management. Stress the benefits and overcome the objections by pointing to your successes.
• Master the art of influence.
• Understand that masterful politicians are sometimes helpful to you and your project, but can also be detriment to your project's success.
• An effective executive sponsor can help minimize political time wasting events that slow project progress and increase project budgets.
• Recognize that conflict on your project is inevitable and necessary.How you respond to conflict will determine how successful you are.
• Mastering the art of negotiation is a critical skill for project managers.
• Negotiate up front how much power you will have as project manager, how and where it can be used, and when it applies to securing needed resources for your project.
• Realize that for the most part internal politics wastes time and is usually not something that people enjoy.
• Team commitment and loyalty will help to minimize project politics.
• Don't fight a political system you don't understand and can't influence. Leave that to the experts. (Hint: get these experts to support your project if possible).
• A good communications plan will help to lessen the politics on your project.
• Every project usually has at least one "politician" in the organization that is out to either sabotage it, or will try to ensure that it isn't fully implemented.
• Recognize that change (which is what projects are all about) scares some people and your project's deliverables can lead to a loss of power or influence for certain individuals or departments. Anticipate this and have a plan to deal with the behaviors that will surface.

The Culture of Project Management

Is the culture in your organization in chaos?  A great first step an organization can take is to ensure that their project leaders are trained and fluent in the discipline of Project Management. Also, and most importantly, senior management must understand and embrace the value of project management, and commit to support the process of implementing project management throughout all levels of the organization. 

To help change the organizational culture to one that embraces and values project management, it should fund and support the development of a project office, which can help facilitate rolling out this “project management culture”.

Some first steps that should be taken:

• Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of existing project managers and project support personnel
• Develop a basic project management training plan for the entire organization to familiarize all with the project management verbiage and practices
• Identify and provide specialized advanced training for all project leaders and functional managers
• Develop a project management office (PMO) to provide enterprise coaching, and to develop and manage your organization’s project management methodology
• In addition to the methodology, the PMO should develop and maintain standard project management templates for the organization to use
• Ensure that existing projects are audited and meet your organization’s minimum project management standards
• Setup a program where your PMO provides coaching to less experienced project managers and oversight of all enterprise projects
• Ensure all projects have Lessons Learned captured
• Use software tools and systems to show the value of project management.

There are many more things that could be added to the list above, but the intent of this post is to get people thinking about ways to change the Project Management Culture where they work.  As always I welcome your comments.

PMO Checklist

If your organization is planning to start up a PMO, you might want to look at the points below.

Identify the participants and their roles
Identify potential project team members as well as the major players in the user community that will test and except the final product or service. Ensure the Sponsor is engaged and has signed the Project Charter

Assign the project manager early
The Project Manager will make or break a project. Be sure the individual has the expertise to manage the project and they work well with others. Do not hesitate to look at outside sources if there is no one on staff that qualifies.

Assess the qualifications and experience of the planned project team members
Along with the project manager, assess carefully the qualifications and experience of each team member as they pertain to the specifics of this project. Keep in mind the importance of team players, and the ability to get along with others.

Conduct a project kickoff meeting
Officially start the project with a meeting of all parties involved. The project team should be introduced, the milestones reviewed with estimated completion dates, and expectations as to the level of participation, should be outlined.

Complete a detailed work plan
A preliminary work plan with major milestones should have been completed while developing the Requirements Document or Statement of Work. Now is the time to work with the project manager in identifying the tasks involved for each milestone. The work plan should list the tasks for each milestone with the estimated hours, start and stop dates, costs and responsible parties. Sample work plans and templates are available through the PMO upon request.

Establish an issues control tracking systemEstablish a method by which, all issues pertaining to the project are recorded and can be reviewed regularly and tracked by the project team. All issues should eventually have a documented resolution.

Establish a regular project team review meeting scheduleRegularly scheduled project review meetings should be incorporated into the work plan. These meetings are to review the current progress of the project including the percentage of completeness of work plan tasks.

Establish a participant update meeting schedule
Periodic participant update meetings should be incorporated into the work plan. These meetings are to present the current progress of the project to upper management and major participants in the user community.

Follow your Work Plan, create and maintain an issues list, and
Track, Manage, and Obtain Approval for
ALL Scope Changes

Author Unknown

Steve Job's Stanford Commencement Address - 2005

Text of the Stan Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

Video of Steve Job's Commencement Address

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
The first story is about connecting the dots.


I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?


It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college  graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all  set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I  popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of  course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.


And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the  money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.


It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:


Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.


None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came  back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have  never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.


Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them  looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.


My second story is about love and loss.


I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.


I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.


I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my  life.


During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. 


Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did.  You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only  way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep  looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.


My third story is about death.


When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day  as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the  mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life,  would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.


Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.


About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.


I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.


This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you  with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual  concept:


No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die  to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single  best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.


Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.


When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.


Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.


Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.