people « A PM's workshop

The power of sharing the rules

By Eugenio, on November 7th, 2009

Moreover, for who is working in a consultant position (i.e. Time & Material) the policy of dragging the problems through the continuous ignorance of the elephant under the carpet does not change the result. Some monies gained in this way are lost in terms of self respect and a sound professional [...]

Soft: gloves and fists

By Eugenio, on November 2nd, 2009

In my experience, finding the reasons of the problems (delays, poor output quality etc.) is not very difficult. Usually, the easiest symptom to spot is the gap between people and the rules they [...]

Risks and leadership

By Eugenio, on October 28th, 2009

Setting a new PMO is a different “sort of project”. It is a standard, perhaps a little worn statement that cannot be ignored. The diversity is made by many factors; the most striking one is the nature of the stakeholders. Often their weighting their biases toward the project are not easy because of the intimate nature of their expectations and doubts. At the end of the day, they are the most important part of the [...]

Risk – lack of “personal” awareness

By Eugenio, on October 26th, 2009

“People living in glass houses cannot throw bricks”

Therefore, there is “my” interpretation of the Emotional Intelligence tenets:

Self-awareness
“Am I conscious of my usage of the rules? This consciousness implies the ability of gauging the receivers’ acceptance of our “message”.
It could range from hiding behind the role, from bending the rules in order to gain some points.
Self-management
“Have I evaluated the required effort/skills for maintaining the promise?” The negotiation is useful for its opportunity to gauge the counterpart’s interest on the topic. With no metric to measure the goal, it is almost impossible to have a shared evaluation of results.
Relationship-management
Once my part of the deal has been assessed, “am I able to involve the other people? This needs that everyone accepts – at least – the previous rule.
Social-awareness
“Do I know the written and unwritten rules before to start any other activity?” The power of the “fait-accompli” (already done things) exists only if the others can reckon our done. This means to share the same set of metrics. [...]

Risks and People

By Eugenio, on September 23rd, 2009

Peopleare the most valuable asset for the project; nevertheless, they are the most dangerous source of risks. Human beings are condemned to be sometimes fallacious; some of us tend to live it as a life sentence.

Picking up the brightest is a Mantra. However, the process of staffing the team(s) is influenced by many factors, starting [...]

Managing information

By Eugenio, on August 3rd, 2009

Organizations need concepts for building their system dedicated to convey “energized” information from the bridge to the engine room. In this voyage, information shall be transformed without losing the energy that gives significance the [...]

Emotions are at the base of power

By Eugenio, on July 3rd, 2009

traffic jam

Thanks to an excellent post of Rob Llewellyn, I take a detour from Gantt analysis for sharing some more thoughts about communication.

Formal documents (e.g. Gantt’s diagrams, Highlight Reports etc.) can supply the infrastructure for the project. In this metaphor, standard documents are vehicles running in the company’s network for delivering information. As we [...]

People: project powerhouse

By Eugenio, on June 24th, 2009

The production of documents that are not frequently updated and verified through the continuous confrontation with the reality produced by all stakeholders, it is a self-gratification practice. It is the source of pleasure that costs the project’s success and damages [...]

Can the documentation be a burden for the project?

By Eugenio, on June 16th, 2009

Yes. These are some cases:

If it is not seamlessly integrated with the processes to be monitored, it will hamper them.
The adoption of ineffective metrics or the disorganized collection of their results will supply wrong information. This will influence the decision-making process
It could reduce the effectiveness of the communication through a lack of human relationships. Furthermore, [...]

What are controls?

By Eugenio, on June 11th, 2009

Controls are structured data. They shall be devised to report a specific situation that could influence the output. Therefore reducing the project’s opportunities

For their intrinsic nature, they shall be based on an unbiased communication system that collects the information necessary for evaluating the results of the spent efforts on a specific task.
In the [...]