Mothers Make Natural Project Managers: Part 1

I’m a momma’s boy. I call my Mom every week just to hear her voice, get her views on important decisions, and ask her for $20 for gas. We don’t talk long. We have mutual hang-up pact after five minutes. Click we’re done. Those five minutes are important to me.

My Dad was the undisputed head of the household, but Mom quietly ran the whole show behind the scenes. She taught me to tie my shoes, balance a checkbook, play baseball, fold shirts. Who forced me to sit at the table every night and do my homework? Mom. Who once pinned all six of my brothers, sister and me at one time in a wrestling death match? Mom.

Leader’s don’t complain
Mom has all the answers to the thorny problems in life. For example, I once called her for advice on raising my daughter. In truth, I wasn’t looking for advice. I just wanted to complain about how hard it is to raise a kid nowadays. She quickly set me straight, “Tell it to someone who doesn’t know better. Do you really think that you and your brothers were angels? Your Dad used to say that raising you kids was ‘like raising a litter of six Dobermans … all rabid.’”

Why do we feel that complaining somehow makes a situation feel better? It feels like everybody is walking around with the “need to vent.” Take your situation at this moment, for example. Right now, you’ve got pressure from the job and from the home front. Something is causing you pain or anxiety. You complain about that issue to anyone who will listen. We’re all behaving like nobody’s seen the troubles we’ve seen.

Call my Mom and she’ll set you straight. The conversation will likely end with “Stop complaining and do something about it” or “toughen up you big baby.” She’s earned the right to dispense this tough love counsel because I never heard her say that her problems were unique. I never heard her grumble about how hard it was to raise six rowdy kids. When I was expelled from High School, she responded: “You’re going to work with your dad [a mechanic] on boat engines in the Florida heat from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm while you enjoy your time off school.” Dad got free labor. I learned the value of staying in school.

Leaders don’t complain. They just roll with the punches.

Scope Creep

When I talk about "scope creep" does my team think I'm talking about a person?

Now a Word From Our Sponsor

TO: Team Members

FROM: Sponsor

You have been selected to participate on the new [project name] team led by John. The team will meet once per week. The activities performed by this team will include:

• Defining the project requirements for each decision gate.
• Committing a closed plan to deliver project scope on [x date].
• Sponsoring change requests to modify product plans based on significant changes to the committed baseline.
• Communicating project status for your deliverables with the project manager to confirm that we have alignment of the piece parts.
• Highlighting project risks in a timely fashion.

You have been selected to participate on this team because you have the knowledge and experience to make important contributions to this initiative. If for any reason you feel that you will not be a productive representative on this team, just let Eddie know.

Regards,
Cornelius Vanderbilt

__________________________________________

Here are the important elements of this letter:

1. Communicates meeting frequency
2. Defines activities
3. Sets expectations
4. Establishes referential authority


Moments after this letter was sent, it became readily apparent that some members of the team never agreed to support your project. How often do you hear, “I don’t have the time for this, go away?” Yes, this letter will trigger an avalanche of resistance from employees who never signed up for the assignment. That’s the beauty of using this letter, since it flushes out resistance early in the process so that you can deal with it.

If a team member’s workload is constrained, then become an advocate for that team member and ask his/her manager to reprioritize that person’s work. Functional managers and sponsors who tell the employee to “just do it” are your worst enemy. You should never be the source of a major work/life balance issue in your team and you shouldn’t have to beg and cajole resources to help. Use your sponsor to help resolve these resource issues.

Big ears .... little brain

They say that owners start to look like their dogs.

My dog Andy has very large ears.

He doesn't use them.

"Shutup!" is bad word in our house

I fell in a rabbit hole during a meeting this week ... someone started to "data gather" and before we knew it our time was up before we could cover the full agenda. How I wanted to stand up with arms outstretched and yell, "Shutup!" several times during the call, but it was a telecon so the dramatic acting would have been lost on the audience. Besides, my Mom would have probably heard me and driven 8 hours straight up from Florida just to slap me on top of the head.

Nonetheless, the word "Shutup" was flashing like a neon sign in my mind even if I lacked the gumption to yell it. Does the fact that I'm thinking the bad word matter? The answer is 'Yes' because thoughts lead to action; it's the thought that moves us precipitiously close the bad manners cliff. So what can I do to control my thoughts? Hmmm ...

John's Self Indulgent Rules for Meeting Behaviors

If I could rewrite the rules for meeting behavior, here's what my list would look like:

1. Please help me control my bad thoughts - keep the meeting focused and on track.
2. Join the meeting on time so that we don't have to retrace our steps to bring you up-to-speed.
3. Schedule side meetings with core team members to properly vet complex topics.
   
4. Schedule the side meetings yourself (I'm not your admin assistant).
   
5. Better yet, don't schedule a side meeting. Pick up a phone or walk on over to the person and talk.
6. Talk into the wee hours of the night. Explore the subject for as long as you like with every interested person, but do it outside of my meeting.
   
7. Come to my meeting with a crisp summary or proposal of the topic at hand.

As I review this list, it sure does feel a bit harsh. Shame on me.

Mind Your Own Business

It may be difficult for the technical Project Manager to mind his or her own business. Let me explain. Functional employees (say programmers) are like the engineer on a locomotive. It's a great job. You get to pull levers and stick your head out the window. You are on the front line. You are the first to see an obstacle on the tracks ahead. Very exciting. Many PMs just love to ride in the front locomotive and diddle with the levers. These PMs tend to slow project delivery. Other figurehead PMs like to ride in the front cab just to pull the steam whistle. In either case, these PMs riding in locomotive bother the real engineer.

The mature project manager recognizes his critical role on the project train and stays out of the locomotive cab. Like a train conductor, the project manager is the focal point for project communication. He or she coordinates activities, communicates status, and marshals the resources to respond to emergencies. He supervises rail service to ensure that the train runs efficiently and on schedule. Unfortunately, some of these key responsibilities are neglected when the PM is riding in the front blowing the whistle.

I'd argue that successful PMs let the crew do their job while he or she focuses on developing a high performance team. You are probably on a team right now. How much time does your PM spend developing the team? I'm guessing that the number is exceedingly low <5%. Is that the proper balance? How do you develop a team? It's not as simple as facilitating introductions between all of the team members, folks.

On the Cannball Express project, we're going to deliberately tip our hat to soft skills. We're going to explore the nature of team development throughout the journey. Let's see how it plays out.

Climb Aboard the Canonball Express

Welcome. Climb Aboard

Beginning with this blog entry, I'm going to take you on a real live project journey from the boarding station to final destination. For the purpose of this blog and to protect the innocent, let's call this project Cannonball.

Who knows how this journey will end? Will the team get along? Will stakeholders help or hinder progress? Will this project make money for the company? I'll just report the facts as I see them and together you and I can share lessons learned along the way. If you are looking out our project window and you see a potential obstacle ahead, I expect you to warn me.

Project Summary

• Cross Brand Solution that integrates software, hardware and services
  
• Final decision arbitar: Don't know yet. With three brands involved, every decision could be a dog fight
• Scope:
• Perform integration tests and performance validation
  
• Create auotmation scripts to install and configure the solution
• Time: target launch in November
• Team:
• Geographically dispersed virtual team
• Morale: Very high. I hear a brass band playing on the kick-off station platform and free donuts are luring unsuspecting team members on to the project train.
  

Challenges:

• Securing hardware for test. It aint cheap.
• Cross function coordination. Can't we just get along?
• Fulfillment process may require invention.
• Pricing process may require invention.
  
• A strong date constraint: launch a pilot in just a few month.
  

Take your seat and enjoy the ride.

The best years of my life

My wife and I celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary this weekend. She's still gorgeous. Me ... not so much.

She bought me two presents which is cunning because no matter what I bought her, she had me one upped. Her presents to me: a blown up framed picture of the book I wrote and a canoe for our lake. It was the second gift that left me a bit puzzled. She's been begging me to get her a canoe for years and now she buys me one? It reminded me of the time I bought my mom a football when I was twelve. Every day during that summer, I'd yell, "Hey Mom, can we borrow your football?"

No resources ... No problem

I don't have formal sponsorship for the projects that I work on. I usually tin cup for resources. Strange enough, people always seem willing to help! And that's starting to bother me. I am sensitive to the fact that nobody in IBM is just sitting on their hands. So their commitment to support me usually means that they will be working more overtime than they are already. It's sad to see how helping me hurts them.

Common sense tells you not to start a project without a committed sponsor and a formal kick-off after funding and resources are secured. That's why I'm actively trolling for a sponsor who has the political clout, financial resources and interest to properly support my next project. I've tapped my network of friends for long enough. It's time to bring my skunk work projects above board!

Tip to start meetings on time

Meetings in my company chronically start ten minutes late. Why? Because nobody ever says, “Please make an effort to be here on time.” Instead, people say “it’s Okay” or shrug it off until tardiness becomes an institutionalized behavior. What is going wrong here? Why doesn’t a published list of guidelines stop the bad behaviors? The answer is that guidelines are worthless unless someone enforces them. Lists don’t stop bad behaviors. Leaders do.

In practice, people look to the project manager to be the gatekeeper or meeting cop. Most people don’t feel comfortable counseling other human beings about bad behaviors. It's not a skill taught in business school. As the PM, if you tolerate bad behaviors, you will lose the respect of your team. So tell your team that you are going to make a serious effort to start your meetings on time and finish 5 mins early (as a courtesy to give them time to stretch before their next meeting).

Here's a practical tip to get your start your recurring team meeting on time:

1. Create an instant message Group with everyone who participates in your recurring meeting
2. Send an announcement to everyone in the group to remind them, "Our meeting will begin promptly in 5 mins."

Note: Instant message tools (AIM, Sametime, Messenger) will differ in how they broadcast a single chat message to multiple recipients. Refer to the user guide for instructions.