Dealing with the Doomed Project

Yesterday I was asked this question by a member of the Project Leadership Network – it’s such a good question I wanted to share it with everyone:

“When you work for a software consultancy SOMETIMES there isn't much choice over which project you take-up. Sometime we get so-called 'doomed' projects wherein the customer has tried his level best and when the deadline was right in his face, decided to cry for help to a software vendor. In such situations, what are the things we need to do to safeguard against failure of the Project?”

Here are my thoughts – I’m sure that there are many other prespectives too, so please feel free to comment:

When projects are managed too tightly

Errol Flynn, the swash-buckling actor, was once asked about the correct way to hold a sword. Flynn replied:

“one should imagine holding a small bird rather than a sword. If you hold too tightly the bird dies and the life is lost. If you hold too loosely, the bird escapes and flies away, and you’re left with nothing”

Whether it’s a sword or a project, when you want to keep control, holding too tightly is tempting… and you know, the world is littered with failing projects that have had all of the life squeezed out of them.

– Jason Bates

Tags:  project+management, project+leadership, Errol+Flynn

A Repetitive Voice can Sound like a Chorus

Project Leaders need to commuicate influentially… Here’s a recent study from the American Psychological Association that shows how the opinion of a single person, communicated repetitively, becomes accepted as a common belief.

Synopsis:  http://www.apa.org/releases/popularopinion.html

Full Paper: http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/psp925821.pdf

—Philip Greenwood

Tags: research, article

Contaminate or Inspire?

Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore holds two Combat Infantry Badges, The Purple Heart, the Distinguished Service Cross, and received ‘accelerated promotion’ six times. He and his under-strength battalion of 450 troopers fought and won the first major battle of the American War in Vietnam against over 2,000 North Vietnamese Regulars.

Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore knows something about project leadership… let him give you some pointers.

— Jason Bates

Tags: leadership, Video

Professional Networking & Project Leadership

Every project leader will be faced, at some point, with the issue of a missing team resource.  Sometimes using a networking tool can help you identify the right person – but which tool?  With the recent spate of high visibility social networking sites, Beaufortes decided to find out if anything had changed for professional networking.  We surveyed some of our established professional networks, comprising about 800 people, mostly UK based, with some European and US members. Mostly with Blue Chip credentials, very often with consulting experience.  The age profile is 35 – 55, probably peaking in the early-mid 40s.

After 36 hours, we had 56 responses.  Here are the results:

Platform/Tool	% Time cited as used by respondents
Linkedin	78.6
Plaxo	32.1
Ecademy	23.2
Xing (Formerly OpenBC)	16.1
Facebook	12.5
NONE	8.9
Small World (private)	7.1
Orkut	7.1
Friendster	5.4
MySpace	5.4
Business-scene	3.6
Friends Reunited	3.6
FastPitchNetworking	1.8
BNI	1.8
Business Referral Exchange	1.8
Bebo	1.8
Tilllate	1.8
4Networking	1.8
Ning	1.8
Google Groups	1.8
BlueChipExpert (private)	1.8
Neurona	1.8
Qube (private)	1.8
YouTube	1.8
Blogger (blog site)	1.8
Geni (family based)	1.8
Ryze	1.8
MSN Groups	1.8
Decayenne (private) – Not used	0.0
Blackbook – Not used	0.0

Suggested in survey, but not cited in responses:  Bizwiz, BizMeed, Tribe.net, Spoke.com

Comments:

• All the tools mentioned in responses have been included, even if the respondent didn’t indicate they used them.
• NONE is the count of responses saying that they do not use on-line networking platforms.  This number is probably understated since the active networkers surveyed are more inclined to respond.
• It’s interesting that LinkedIn is considered primarily a US tool by the survey group, yet 80% of our UK/European oriented group cited their use of it in their response.
• Plaxo and Linked-in have recently integrated their address book capabilities (they are owned by the same VC firm). According to respondents, Plaxo is not considered a networking tool – a view shared by us – but it was included in the survery due to its curious positioning.
• All the outbound communications for this survey went through a Google Groups platform – due to the low rate of citations, clearly our respondents don’t see it as a networking tool.
• It is possible that there is a network effect amongst the surveyed groups that distort the results, though it is unlikely to change the fact of Linked-in’s predominance.
• I (Philip Greenwood) need to declare a bias: I know Bill Liao, the CNO of Xing on a personal basis.  This research is not for Xing or Bill – it was conducted independently of any networking platform.

Our conclusion is that, among this demographic, the high profile social networking sites have yet to make a dent. The qualitative feedback was that they were basically useless for professional networking. 

However, while used much more broadly, the old style networking sites fared little better in the qualitative comments – people just didn’t understand how to use them effectively.  Clearly these are tremendous untapped resources – perhaps someone will point us to references about how to use them effectively in the comments below?  One such resource We’ve found is this link to Guy Kawasaki’s Blog.  Fast Company are also talking about networking tools.

Philip Greenwood is a member of Linkedin, Plaxo and Xing (Phil Greenwood)

Jason Bates is also a member of Linkedin and Plaxo.

Look us up, and link to us! 

Our own citations are not included in the research.  Many thanks to those who responded.

— Philip Greenwood & Jason Bates

Tags: Networking, Networks, Professional, Recruit, Team+resources

Prickles and Goo

Tags:  Alan+Watts, Southpark, Management, Leadership

Visual Communications

Indexed is one of my favourite sites for a quick hit of humour. The posts are based on the type of diagrams you find in a traditional business presentation applied to very “non-business” insights.

 

Explosive Changes in Open Source

Sourceforge.net has just launched a global marketplace  for buying and selling services for open source software.  Sourceforge.net is the biggest platform for managing open source projects, with over 100,000 projects, and 1,000,000 subscribers.  This is a big deal.

Say, for instance, you find a piece of software, but identify a piece of functionality it's lacking.  You can write up your requirements and get it added - that's nothing new.  But until now, you either had to code it yourself, or put it out to tender - usuallyon another web site, hoping and praying that someone out there has experience with the code base and the other necessary technologies to be able to fill your needs affordably.

What has changed?   Alignment.  You can now search for projects with services, and for services for projects.  As I write, the Marketplace is in beta testing.  Only one project has services, and no services are offered, but I can see this facility being absolutely exlposive.

Why explosive?  Because most of the licenses of open source software allow you to take the source code and adapt it, so long as you retain the freedoms and restrictions of the original license; you can branch the project into another project and you don't need the original author's permission (though it is nice to ask).  This means that ANYBODY can become a project leader - all you need is a vision of what needs doing, and an ability to communicate.  I believe that this will allow a much higher degree of "value based coding" - that is the pursuit of features according to their value, where previously much of the coding was technologist led.

How explosive?  It will change the nature of the Open Source movement; it will put a new lease of life into old, dusty, half forgotten projects that were created during some coder's slack period.  It will develop a whole new generation of software project leaders, who will utilise global networking tools to manage their ad-hoc teams.  And coders will finally start getting remunerated properly for their open source efforts.  Furthermore, if you change the nature of the Open Source software movement, through competitive forces, you also change the nature of the Closed Source software industry.

Well done Sourceforge.net; what a master stroke.

-- Philip Greenwood

Rat-holing...

From wikipedia:

“Rat-holing is a term used to describe a conversation or process that has deviated from its original productive purpose into a generally unproductive but long and winding detour that eventually comes to a dead end.” 

“The original discussion purpose may be to agree on a course of action. However, if one or more people rat-hole into a specific point of the discussion then the discussion stalls with no actionable outcome.”

Back from a trip to Belgrade, I was catching up with my reading last night, and saw a reference to rat-holing on 43folders. I’m sure that like me, you recognize this behaviour as a regular occurrence in meetings that lack a coherent and engaging goal.

When people aren’t engaged around a shared purpose – in a meeting, a project, or a programme – they lose their way and find their own purposes, they rat-hole to issues they care about.

Rat-holing is a warning signal, look out for it!

— Jason Bates

Tags:  ratholing, 43folders, meetings, purpose

£25.05 At The Petrol Pump...

I stood at the petrol pump, gently squeezing the handle, watching the amount readout slowly increase £24.91… £24.93…. £24.97… £25.05… dang!

Since I learnt to drive, (many years ago) I’ve always had the same ritual at the petrol pump – I buy petrol in round amounts. £15, £20, £25. – No nasty change to find, no walking away with 97 pence in 2’s and 1’s.

But you know this day was different. As I watched the petrol pump hit £25.05 I realized that getting to round figures didn’t really matter to me anymore. I now normally pay for my petrol with my visa card!… there is no change to worry about!

Whether in a high pressure project environment, or at the petrol pump. People rarely question the rituals they’ve spent years practising. Conditions change, and yet we continue to use the same traditions and rituals.

Now I was only losing seconds a week at the petrol pump, but there are companies and projects (Yours?) losing hundreds of thousands of pounds daily because of their adherence to traditional ways of doing things.

So, could some of the bedrock processes that your company undertakes be overdue for a review… you betcha!

You might be surprised, you may find some simple solutions that lead to major results that really get you noticed!

**Did you ever hear that story of someone saving their company millions by moving to envelopes with little plastic windows instead of printing the address on the envelope?

£25.05 …. works for me!

—Jason Bates

Tags: behaviours, ritual, business, project, mindfulness