Volunteer Armies

I just found out that Adam Curtis’s 4 part documentary “The Century of the Self” is available to watch online (1, 2, 3, 4). Cool! It’s a little preachy, but it does tell quite an amazing story of how Freud’s psychological principles were first put to effective corporate use by his nephew Edward Bernays.

We take it for granted that emotional selling has been around for ever, attaching sexy women to big cars, and hunky builders to diet coke, but before Bernays there was none of this. Advertising was… well… just informational. If I wanted to sell you a pair of shoes I would tell you about their specification, and leave it at that.

When I look at how most large corporations communicate internally with their project teams, it’s like we are in a time warp, I see today what was common place in advertising 100 years ago, purely informational communication. We fully acknowledge that when dealing with consumers we have to ‘market’ to them, create brands, and excite them with images they can identify with, and aspire to.

… but talk about employees and just because we are paying them a wage we get lazy, and think that there is no need to engage or sell to them. They work for us, we just need to tell them what to do… don’t we?

Flo Radio

Do you work from home?  Sometimes it can be wonderful, and I get heaps of work done. Other times, even when home alone, I find it quite easy to get distracted (I suspect I still get more done than when I’m in the office).

In one of those distracted moments I started wondering what I could do to have more of the “flow” moments – the good ones.  I’ve had a study at home for many years, so it’s pretty established and comfortable, to my mind – although my fiancee calls it “the man room”.  

I realised that the ambiance could be improved, so I did some research: What kind of sounds could be used to help concentration?

Then, using the wonderful Pandora Radio Internet site, I created a radio station for “flow” music – you can share it too, with this link: Flo Radio. It may not be your music preference, but if you keep it quiet, it chugs along nicely in the background, and it seems to have the desired effect.  If there are tracks that you find intrusive to your work, just tell Pandora you don’t like them, and it’ll optimize for you!

— Philip Greenwood

 

 

Tags: Flow, Radio, Work+from+home, Achieve+more

Guarantee Project Success 2

I suggested in my previous blog piece the idea that a powerful definition of a project would be:

“A project is the way that an organization takes a risk”.

I think this is powerful for several reasons:

1. It’s universal – it doesn’t matter what type of project you’re running, you invest resources with the intention to capture value.
2. It formally acknowledges uncertainty – every project has it, but most teams are in denial about the extent of it. For instance, enterprise transformation projects are very often a process of discovery, rather than the execution of a set of pre-defined steps – yet I seem them planned-out like concrete projects all the time!
3. When you take risks you continually assess alternative outcomes for merit. These are “real options” and they have positive inherent value.
4. It creates a tacit permission to consider course changes during the project if new outcomes are perceived.  The selection of these outcomes would still be considered success!
5. A thorough consideration of project domain complexity will reveal that we tend to vastly over-simplify our approach to them.  The definition suggests the proper appraisal of the project’s complexity is necessary.
6. It embeds the project within the organization, and the portfolio of changes that are occurring inside it and in its external context.

It’s unusual to discuss risk-taking, rather than risk-management.  Most project management tools are risk management tools, focusing on minimizing risk for a single course of action, a single outcome.  Risk taking is another art entirely.

I’m sure I’ve got more to say about this subject – until next time!

— Philip Greenwood

Tags:  Project+success, Project+failure, Risk+management

Guarantee Project Success

One of our successful adwords campaigns has this headline, but I confess it troubles me a bit.  Is it possible to guarantee project success?  I think it is, but it depends on your frame of reference.  If you define a project as something like:

“A project is any outcome you’re committed to achieving that will take more than one action step to complete.”

Then you’ve set yourself up for a very binary pass/fail criteria, and your next action is going to be running to the Gantt chart.  I’ve been contemplating the experience of leading and running projects, and I’d like to propose what I believe to be a much more powerful definition:

“A project is the way an organisation takes a risk.”

I want to leave this idea with you – to gestate – and I’ll be exploring it over my next few blog pieces to see where it leads me.

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Project+success, project+failure, risk+management

A Recipe For Success In The 21st Century?

"Your success is driven in large part by your ability to leverage the community you build around you."

-Scott Allen and David Teten , authors, ‘The Virtual Handshake’

This applies as much to making projects succeed as it does growing a small professional services firm, winning an election, launching a book, a rock band, or a new breakfast cereal.

Even if it isn’t THE recipe for success in the 21st century, it’s a large part of the course correction that most modern big businesses have to understand and make happen!

– Jason Bates

Killer Project

It strikes me that a ‘Killer App’  (short for ‘Killer application’)  is a lot like a keystone in a traditional stone arch.

The term is generally used in Information Technology circles to refer to :-

“…any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it provides the core value of some larger technology”

It’s only a small part of what’s going on (like the keystone), but it makes the larger system work, it generates disproportionate value, and it becomes indispensable.

So here’s the hook, there are ‘Killer Projects’ out there too - small perfectly formed projects that are capable of delivering hugely disproportionate value to your organization.
(Actually when I’m talking to new clients, this is actually what I’m probing for)

So what is the key to finding and making these killer projects work?

The Big Idea 2007

You can be happy at work.

(Just in case you haven’t heard.)

Unfortunately it’s not my idea, but it is being popularized by Alexander Kjerulf, who calls himself the Chief Happiness Officer.

Mr Kjerulf has written a book on the subject, called “Happy Hour is 9 to 5: How To Love Your Job, Love Your Life and Kick Butt at Work”, and also “The Happy at Work Manifesto” (free down load).

Apart from the fact that I agree with him, I’d like to point out ‘policy’ 11:  “I do my best work when I’m happy – When I’m happy I’m engaged, motivated, committed, more creative, less risk-averse, more service-minded and more productive”.  Does this sound like something you want for your team?

Great!  But not so fast, slick.  Here’s another recent book:  “Stumbling Upon Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert – an extraordinarily well informed study of how we deceive ourselves about happiness.  My three line synopsis:

1) We’re not very good at remembering what made us happy, so

2) We’re not very good at predicting what will make us happy, and

3) We often pretend we were happy when we weren’t because of societal norms.

So you’re not going to get much insight about nurturing happiness from your team’s answers to your questions about happiness.  But, according to the Hawthrone Effect, the act of asking may just inspire them to be more engaged, motivated, committed, more creative, less risk-averse and more service minded.

Sound familiar?  It turns out that the Big Idea 2007 has its roots in the Big Idea 1932.

— Philip Greenwood

wikitags : [[wiki:beaufortes:happiness]]

Tags: Hawthorne+Effect, Happiness

Gantthead.com catches the 'Project Leadership' vibe

I’m not sure if the editors of Gantthead.com read this blog, but they seem to have gone all out today with four short articles on leadership in the project management space. (registration is necessary to read the articles)

Leadership-Powered Project Management – 5 good tips for leading projects, provides a subjective, and somewhat random view of tips about project leadership.

Now, a word from your sponsor - This article suggests that project leadership is specifically the role of the project sponsor with project management handled by the ….errh… well… project manager. It’s an interesting perspective, akin to the President / Chief of Staff model. But definitely underplays the value of “project leadership” skills in significantly enhancing the effectiveness of standard project management processes.

The importance of followship – A philosophical piece discussing ‘followship’, and the importance of the ‘vision’ over the ‘leader as a charismatic individual’. I’d definitely agree!

The Yin and Yang of Adaptive Leadership – Probably the best article of the bunch. Although I think that the term “adaptive” is superfluous, and somewhat proprietary. Michael Wood does a good job listing the symptoms of a project lacking leadership, and the behaviours associated with good project leadership.

It’s nice to see a group of articles addressing ‘project leadership’, even if there is a general fragmentation and confusion over what ‘leadership’ is or represents. Maybe the project management world is coming around to the idea that successful ‘project leadership’ really does represent the next evolution of how projects should be considered!

-Jason Bates

Tags: gantthead.com, Project+Leadership, PMP

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”

This quote is from Charles Dickens, and it relates to my favourite ‘find’ of the week, a study in which psychology catches up with Mr Dickens’ intuition.

I’m talking about the Dunning-Kruger effect, the phenomenon wherein people who have little knowledge think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.

…and you know, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how interesting a problem it is for organizations. Unless a problem domain is explored within a team, there will always be a sub-optimized crossover point at which the more knowledgeable / skilled people in a group are  overwhelmed by the more ignorant / confident contingent.

I’ve also got a suspicion that there is some kind of link to the confidence / competence profiles of American presidents in there as well…  :o)

Have a great weekend!

—Jason Bates

Tags:  Dunning-Kruger, Ignorance, Project+Leadership
wikitags : [[wiki:beaufortes:cognitive_error]]

Linklaters launch a wiki initiative

I noticed yesterday, on Scott Vine’s Information Overlord, that Linklaters (esteemed law firm, and member of the magic circle) is launching a wiki initiative that they’ve called “linkpedia”.

In The Lawyer, Linklaters chief knowledge officer comments:-

“the purpose of Linkpedia is to organise and share the knowledge held across the firm on a platform that staff are familiar with. The overall strategy is to see how the firm can use the technologies available in the public domain within the corporate law firm environment"

Now I’m hoping that it’s a success, but a couple of things worry me. Firstly there is “empty wiki syndrome”, and the problems associated with using a “dirty wiki” in a high pressure corporate environment that relies on getting things right first time, and maximizing the sale of billable hours.

But the quote from the CKO worried me a little too…

“The overall strategy is to see how the firm can use the technologies available in the public domain within the corporate law firm environment”

To me, it smacks of a world view in which wiki’s are like SAP, something you plug in, and get a legal wikipedia out the other end. It’s a cold lifeless definition of the strategy, and although wiki’s can be used like that, it doesn’t allude to the secrets that make some wiki’s great, while others languish empty.

the secret to creating a great wiki is unsurprisingly about community and quest, it’s about  having something that draws people together to collaborate on an endeavour that is larger than themselves. A wiki shouldn’t be classified as a technological tool … (hey isn’t almost every key business tool a technological tool?) A wiki is a community facilitation tool.

What if the CKO had said this…

“The overall strategy is to grow THE legal reference work for British law. This internal resource which will grow case by case, and have input from the best legal minds in our firm, will become our key knowledge resource over the next 50 years”

Now I understand that Linklaters have the ability to reward people financially for their contribution to the internal knowledge resource, but is this ‘encouraged’ contribution really going to get the kind of whole company response that creating “THE legal reference work for Linklaters and British law” might?

The lessons from Wikipedia aren’t all about the technology used.

– Jason Bates

edit : 02-07-07
I understand from someone who knows more about the initiative than I do, that Linkpedia is more of an interactive extension of their intranet, than having a go at creating THE legal wikipedia. That's interesting... they have the community internally, and I've always thought it very cool when company's create 'Rough Guides' - things you really need to know about day to day living in an organization. Hopefully they will pitch the wiki in a way that really captures the organizations imagination. JB>

Tags:  Linklaters, Wiki, quest