• For more on Glen's post: We Don't To Use Agile to Manage Projects Properly
  
• Straight to the Slideshow: You don’t need agile to avoid the seven deadly sins of pm


• My recent post: Video: Agile and the Seven Deadly Sins of Project Management

track back: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341ca4d953ef0148c69bea99970c

Intense or unrestrained craving for new features.

Trying to put too many features into a product during the time allowed

Treating all features as "critical"

Now business politics are affecting the PM arena so greatly that allPM.com has three articles out this month dicussing the issue, and each is worth taking a look at for it's own reasons. Take a look at the intro's:

Beat ‘em with a STICK: Winning the Political Game By Steven P. Blais, PMP

Politics has a bad rap. Do you play politics? Your answer is most likely “no”, or perhaps, “not often, and not well”. Typically we like to think that it is the other guy who plays politics. You know, the one who got that promotion ahead of everyone else, or who gets the plum assignments, or who takes longer lunch hours to “schmooze”. We believe that if you work hard and long and honestly you won’t need politics.

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"Unitics” Over Politics: Mastering the Art of Cutting through Politics to Achieve Optimal Performance By George Pitagorsky, PMP

Does politics get in the way of optimal performance?
Politics is a reality. Chances are it won't disappear anytime soon. At best, it stimulates dialogue and promotes a synthesis of ideas into practical action. At worst, it leads to dysfunction. It promotes divisiveness. It results in poor performance because ideas are judged based on belief and rhetoric rather than fact and logic, because people fail to seek creative solutions and because compromises are reached that blend the worst of both sides and leave out the best. Politics are about polarities – each party is dancing around his pole and viewing the other pole as being less than or bad.

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8 Traits to Develop Project Management Political Savvy By Charanya Girish, PMP

By definition, a project is a temporary endeavor with start and end date and a desired result implying that a project is different from business as usual. In addition projects are staffed by several individuals trying to exert their influence on how to execute the project. This invariably results in some kind of office politics; i.e. project politics. How? Politics is nothing but people interacting with each other and influencing one another to get tasks accomplished.

I just got around to reading PM World Today's May e-Journal and there was once again a ton of great articles and papers for project managers. I like this online business mag and e-zine because their content is always well written by a wide array of global biz professionals and they offer a diverse range of topics and opinions about PM topics I care about.

A few I'll share here are:

• Helpful hints on how "to manage" your manager - By Germán Bernate


• The 5 Goals of a Project Manager - By Jason Westland


• A Transparency Crash Course: Seven Steps to Creating a More Transparent Organization - By Quint Studer


• Positive Leadership in Project Management - Value, Success and Twelve Factors for Effective Project Leadership - By By Frank P. Saladis, PMP
  

1. Most, if not all, managers hate writing them and hate delivering them. They hate them because it’s so hard to come up with new things to write about “communication” every year, they are time consuming and tedious, and delivering feedback about a performance issue is about as fun as getting a root canal.

2. Despite of that, a lot of managers, maybe even most, put a lot of work into the process, try to do a good job with them, and play by the rules that are handed to them. Despite the watter-cooler & blog horror stories, the majority of managers are not complete morons.

3. Employees love getting positive reviews. They actually do take them home and show their family and hang them on the refrigerator. However, very few people enjoy or respond well to “constructive feedback”. Basic human fight or flight mechanisms take over. It doesn’t matter if it’s delivered once a year or once a day, it still feels the same. So if it’s not outstanding, employees hate them too.

4. No one should be immune from being evaluated, judged, graded, or scored. I don’t buy those philosophic arguments about power, status, human rights, etc… That’s part of life and being accountable. I always find it interesting when tenured academics write about the evils of performance reviews. In general, teachers and professors don’t like being evaluated or held accountable to begin with, so of course they can come up with all kinds of passionate arguments why no one else should.

I receive the Method123 Free Project Newsletter and am always surprised at the great free tips they consistently provide. These aren't the regular cheesey, one-liner's that tease you to the site for more info - the full set of tips are in the email and are great for new project managers or PMs looking for better ways of doing things. You don't need to use Method123's tools to make their tips work, but you might want to take a look at their site to see what they have to offer and be sure to check out their templates, lifecycle, and the Free Project Management Tools section - great ebook, templates & articles.

A recent newsletter was on How to reduce project risk, and the included tips were excellent, as always:

1. Start out on the right foot

Too many projects get started without a solid definition of what must delivered. So always start out by writing a detailed Project Charter. This document states the project vision, objectives, scope and deliverables. Only then, do you know what has to be achieved and by when.

2. Make your team accountable

Why should you shoulder all of the responsibility for the project? Instead, pass on responsibility to each member of your team. Tell them which elements of the Project Charter they are responsible for delivering and make them accountable by holding review meetings each week to measure progress.

3. Identify risks upfront

Then hold a workshop to identify likely risks to your project. A risk is an unforeseen event that might negatively impact on the project in the future. Examples of risks are: "that our suppliers might deliver late", "that we might run out of materials" or "that we can't find extra resources when we need them". You need to document every risk and determine its likelihood and impact on the project.

4. Plan risks wisely

With all of the risks known upfront, you're ready to create a Risk Plan. This document will identify actions that you can take now to reduce the likelihood of the risk occurring. So for instance, if your risk was "that we might run out of materials" then strike a deal with a supplier that requires them to make additional materials available when you need them. Or find another supplier as a backup.

5. Monitor risks carefully

As the project progresses, run bi-weekly or monthly risk meetings to review the risks you've identified. Ask these questions: Are the risks likely to occur? Are there any new risks that you face? Have the actions in your Risk Plan been completed? Is your level of risk reducing? Only by monitoring your risks carefully, can you control the overall level of risk on the project.

•Fail to communicate, and may not even have, expectations, timelines or goals. Bad bosses change their minds frequently leaving employees off-balance. Bad bosses change expectations and deadlines frequently.
•Will not accept constructive feedback and suggestions for improvement. The bad boss can't deal with disagreement from employees who have their own opinions about work related issues.
•Lacks integrity, breaks promises, and is dishonest.
•Does not have the courage to deal with a difficult situation despite knowing that it is the right thing to do.
•Causes dissention among staff members by his or her actions and comments.

In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once, but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.” To Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way to structure one’s time; it was a mark of intelligence. “This steady and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”

I'm still working on finding my patience

As always - Enjoy!

1. Get your head out of the software
Most project managers spend too much time in their project-planning applications and not enough time doing the briefing and communicating for which they are solely responsible. You should be spending the bulk of your time talking to and corresponding with project constituents – your team, the stakeholders, vendors, consultants and key end-users. The "soft" skill of communication is integral to project success.

2. Plan and define as much as possible—but don't go overboard
A key component of project management is the thorough and meticulous planning of every aspect of a project, but a perfectionist could spend all his or her time in the planning stage. There's no way to anticipate every variable so at some point, you have to pull the trigger...

3. Manage scope creep—for real
Like a turkey on Thanksgiving, you can rely on the fact that the project you think you're heading for may bare only a passing resemblance to the one you end up with. With the increasing complexity of data centers and the Pandora's box of surprises once you get under the hood, it's advisable to game out and document the potential sources of scope creep...

4. Don't be lazy with risk management
If you need 200 servers delivered at the same time for a worldwide mail server upgrade, it's not enough to know what the risk is if the vendor doesn't deliver. It's time to manage the risk by deciding ahead of time that, as reliable as your vendor has been in the past, there's little margin for error...

5. Get a grip on expectations
Ask vendors and consultants for the best, most likely and worst-case scenarios and then use your own resources to calculate the aggregated risk so you can determine the probable outcome.

6. Govern with strength
Even with all the good work you did up front, problems and roadblocks will surely arise. Don't blow it when it comes to actually addressing the problems. To the degree you can, refer to the approaches you documented and discussed with your team. If planned properly, your team should be able to tackle the problems early on before they become major hindrances.

7. Prepare for intervention
If your approaches are better in theory than in practice, it might be time to intervene with the project plan. Create an intervention plan before the project starts and communicate the plan to everyone directly and indirectly involved. The plan may include steps to take when adding resources, for assessing project-management and even changing the project leader.

8. Drive behavior to use the technology
Whatever you do, don't rest on your laurels when the technical aspects of the project are completed. Creating a plan to ensure that people actually use the technology you just spent 18 months implementing will serve you well. If you and your organization want to see your expected return on investment, make sure you have a hand in educating and training users.