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gantthead blogs
by - Mark Price Perry
Bringing you PMO Setup Tips, Tools, and Techniques for PMOs of all shapes and sizes.
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George Costanza's Top 10 Tips for appearing to be a good Project Manager..!
categories:
PMO Leadership
| Opposite (noun) / a person, place, or thing that is totally different from or the reverse of something else. |
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| George Costanza's Top 10 Tips for appearing to be a good Project Manager..!
Have you ever watched an episode of the TV show Seinfeld? If you have, then you know all about the character George Costanza, played by the comedic genius, Jason Alexander. In the show, George is the consummate loser, a lazy but not unintelligent man. In fact, if George would just spend as much time mastering how to do work well as he does mastering how to avoid work altogether, he would no doubt be a valued asset to any organization. But alas, and as it is, George could never be a good project manager, only fool others into believing it. Here are what would no doubt be George Costanza’s Top 10 Tips for appearing to be a Good Project Manager.
- Always walk down the hall with project documents in your hands. Project managers with documents in their hands look like hardworking employees heading for important meetings to talk about complex, hard to manage projects. Project managers with nothing in their hands look like they're heading for the cafeteria or maybe slipping out to play a round of golf. Above all, make sure you carry loads of stuff home with you at night, thus generating the false impression that you work longer hours than you do.
- Use project management scheduling applications to look busy. Any time you use a complex scheduling tool, it looks like better project management to the untrained observer. When you produce all kinds of fancy color coded tracking ganttcharts, you look like a real pro. Never mind that the data is just a bunch of guesses or copy and pasted information from previous project documents.
- Maintain a very messy desk. Executives can get away with a clean desk, but for the rest of us a clean desk looks like you don’t have enough to do. Set out stacks of project documents and project management schedules around and on top of your desk; go for volume, the higher the stack the better.
- Bury important project documents. When you know your PMO manager or project sponsor is coming to your cubicle to talk to you about your project, bury the latest status report deeply down in your tallest stack of papers and then rummage for it when he or she arrives. This makes you look like you have a lot of project details and the project plan under control.
- Never answer your phone, let it go to voice mail. People don’t call you to do your work, they call you to give you work, so screen all your calls through voice mail. If somebody leaves a voice mail message for you that requires you to do extra work, be sure to respond to them during the lunch hour or when you know they are in a meeting. Send yourself enough voicemails to reach your inbox limit so that people can’t even leave you a message. A full mailbox is a sure sign that you are a hardworking project manager busily keeping your project team on their toes.
- You don’t have to be the first to arrive at work, but when the boss is around you must always leave the office late. You don’t have to actually work, of course. You can play games on your PC or make telephone calls to friends. Always walk past the boss' office on your way out and make sure he or she notices you.
- When you have important emails about your project to send your boss or project sponsors, always send them at ungodly hours such as 6am in the morning or 11pm the night before. In fact, send an important email out at midnight with a follow up email at 6am. This gives the impression that you manage your project 24x7.
- Learn how to sigh. When you are in project team meetings or even meetings with your boss, a loud sigh gives the impression that whatever discussions you are having in the meeting is of little importance to you and all of the more important work that you need to get back to.
- Use a dictionary to learn words that nobody else knows and use the latest industry jargon to impress people. Rather than saying software-as-a-service say cloud. Instead of saying project portfolio, say initiatives stratiform. Instead of saying post project audit, say benefits management intervention. The more that people have no idea what you are talking about, the more that they will be impressed with you.
- Always display a facial expression of impatience and annoyance. Your PMO manager and project sponsors will assume that you are impatient and annoyed because you have so much to do. Hence, they will not give you extra work or ask for extra reports and information. You can practice this with your wife. (Author’s note: I am not being sexist, but these tips are really only for men. There just isn’t a female equivalent to George Costanza.)
Naturally, these tips are not recommended for anyone seeking to be a good project manager. But in the spirit of learning what to do by taking a moment to reflect upon what not to do, these tips provide a few pointers. Do the exact opposite of these tips and you just might find tremendous success as a project manager. In fact, that very idea “Opposite George” was one of the TV episodes of the Seinfeld show in which by doing the opposite of his every instinct, George landed a hot girl at the coffee shop and a job at the New York Yankees.
Recognizing bad techniques and doing the opposite. Give it a try. And as always, if you have a favorite tip or technique for "What Not To Do", I hope you will take a moment and share them with us. |
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Why was the project sponsor angry?
categories:
PMO Leadership
| Communicating (verb) / to impart or pass on information, news, or ideas. |
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| Why was the project sponsor angry?
In the cartoon above, the project sponsor is just a little bit unhappy with the project manager and project team. Why? Well, what the project team is delivering is not exactly what the sponsor wants on account of a misunderstanding of requirements. Naturally, a project manager is likely to have such things as requirements clearly documented and agreed upon with the sponsor and even signing to that effect somewheer on the docuemnent. But nonetheless, no project is without endless opportunities for difficulties and mishaps of all kinds. Just because a sponsor signs a document, that doesn't always mean or guaranty a meeting of the minds.
One communication technique that many folks advocate is the "Confirmation Conversation" technique. In this technique, the person listening to another repeats back what the other person just said and as close to word for word as possible. Confirmation greatly helps to ensure that both parties, the person talking and the person listening, are on the same page. For example, the listener might say, "If I understand you accurately and completely, you said...." and then restate the information that the person speaking just communicated.
This technique helps to clear up two kinds of communication problems. First, the speaker might not be saying what he or she really means. It is not all that uncommon that what one says and what one really means can be two different things. And of course the other kind of communication problem is when the listener doesn't hear what the speaker really said.
I am reminded of both of these kinds of problems by my dear neighbor who grounded his daughter from messaging to her friends on account of her text messaging from her phone at dinner. A few hours later, he was unhappy to find her text messaging from her PC which she thought was perfectly okay and not subject to the no-more-messaging punishment. Both father and daughter were not quite on the same page. |
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The Confirmation Conversation technique. Give it a try. And as always, if you have a favorite tip or technique for effective communications, I hope you will take a moment and share them with us. |
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Why was the PMO manager reprimanded?
categories:
PMO Leadership
| Reprimand (noun) / a verbal admonishing from a superior. |
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| Why was the PMO manager reprimanded?
In the cartoon above, the chief executive officer asks the PMO manager about what plans if any the PMO has for helping the company to improve outcomes for all of the informal projects that they have. This was a legitimate question. The answer given by the PMO manager was far less than legitimate. For most companies, to deny that there are a tremendous number of informal projects that take place within every nook and cranny of divisions, business units, and departments would be much like the ostrich with its head in the sand. And, some might argue, to suggest that a way for the PMO to deal with these informal projects is to call them something else, say task work, would be just a bit myopic and worthy of a reprimand.
Sure, functional management has a responsibility to ensure that whatever skills are needed by their direct report employees in the workplace are acquired, developed, and improved upon. But consider the following:
- For most companies, it is a functional manager responsibility to ensure that their direct reports abide by the security policy. Nonetheless, Corporate Security does actually care and in many cases has a performance measurement to ensure success.
- For most companies, it is a functional manager responsibility to ensure that their direct report managers abide by the human resource (HR) policies such as performance planning, counseling and evaluation. Nonetheless, HR does actually care about how it is going and in many cases has a performance measurement to ensure success.
- For most companies, it is a functional manager responsibility to ensure that their direct reports abide by the company's code of ethics and business conduct guidelines. Nonetheless, Legal does actually care and in many cases has a performance measurement to ensure success.
- For most companies, it is a functional manager responsibility to ensure that their direct reports abide by corporate credit card policies. Nonetheless, Finance does actually care and in many cases has a performance measurement to ensure success.
- And on and on.
So why are many, not all, PMOs so "myopic" and seemingly oblivious to Organizational Project Management. And by Organizational Project Management, this is not to mean OPM3 at all which is really just a construct of maturity intended for and limited to the formal plan-driven projects, programs, and portfolios of an organization, rather it (Organizational Project Management) is intended to mean project management that exists throughout the organization - formal and informal, plan-driven and non plan-driven. |
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| QUESTION: Should not PMOs step up their game and be more relevant to the organization - the whole organization - in a manner like others (Security, HR, Legal, Finance, etc) do and have done for years..? |
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If you have taken the time to read this post, I hope you will take just a little more time to offer up an answer and rationale why PMOs should or should not play a role in improving outcomes in organizational project management. After a few days, I will give an answer to this question and rationale which I am sure will surprise many of you..! |
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Why was the PMO manager promoted..?
categories:
PMO Leadership
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Promotion (noun) / the advancement of rank or position in an organizational hierarchy. |
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Why was the PMO manager promoted..?
In the cartoon above, the chief executive officer informs the PMO manager of his decision to promote the PMO manager to the Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development. In the context of this company, this is a tremendous promotion and a reflection of the PMO manager's value to the company. Of the many reasons why the PMO manager was an outstanding candidate for this open executive position, the PPM meeting held earlier in the day was yet another one of those reasons. And, the PPM meeting served to convince the chief executive officer that the PMO manager should be immediately promoted and also given a big pay raise, the corner office with a view of the perennially snow-capped mountains, a company car, membership to the golf and country club that the company belonged to, and most importantly, a personal assistant.
So what exactly happened at the PPM meeting..? Well, the leadership team was having their regular meeting to discuss and select new projects. All was going well. And toward the end of the meeting, two final projects were being considered for selection. Much of the evaluation criteria for the projects were exactly the same as shown below.
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Project |
Time |
Cost |
Benefit |
Time to Benefit |
Risk |
Strategic Alignment |
Customer Sat Impact |
Employee Sat Impact |
PPM Tool Scorecard |
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Project A |
6 months |
$500,000 |
$4,000,000 |
6 months |
Low |
High |
High |
Medium |
9.5 out of 10 |
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Project B |
6 months |
$500,000 |
$2,000,000 |
6 months |
Low |
High |
High |
Medium |
9.0 out of 10 |
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Both of these projects are outstanding projects to consider and they both ranked high on the PPM Tool Scorecard. Unfortunately, the company can only choose one of the two. Nine of the ten members of the PPM steering committee placed their votes for Project A, but one of the ten, the PMO manager, voted for Project B. After explaining his rationale, all other nine members changed their votes to Project B as well. Assuming all of the above PPM data is accurate, what possibly could the PMO manager have said to get all nine other members of the PPM steering committee to change their vote from Project A to Project B..?
If you have taken the time to read this post, I hope you will take just a little more time to offer up an answer and rationale why Project B might possibly be the better project of the two..!
(THE ANSWER TO THIS QUIZ IS ON PAGE 1 OF THIS BLOG - Posted by Mark Price Perry on Monday, December 19, 2011)
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Why was the project manager fired..?
categories:
PMO Leadership
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Fired (verb) / the act of terminating an employee. |
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Why was the project manager fired..?
In the cartoon above, an executive asks which of the two projects shown below was better managed. When an eager and overconfident project manager answered back, the executive fired him. Questions:
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Which project, project #1 or project #2, was really better managed..?
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Was the executive justifed in firing the eager and overconfident project manager..?
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What does this say about the use and value of the Project Management Triangle..?
Answers to be posted in a few weeks. In the meantime, your perspectives and opinions are welcomed..!
(CLICK TO SEE THE ANSWER TO THIS QUIZ ON PAGE 2 OF THIS BLOG - Posted by Mark Price Perry on Thursday, December 8, 2011)
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