germanflores’s posterous

One of the qualities of a project manager is confidence. Successful project managers let their team know that they are confident in the course taken. Confidence is not about lying to your team. If a project is going to fail, the best course is to acknowledge the difficulties, rally around the team, come-up with a good strategy, and stand behind it. These actions show confidence.

A project manager shows-up to meetings first, when appropriate takes the lead, supports the team's ideas, and fosters discussion. The benefits of a confident project manager mean that team members will focus on the job at hand instead of second-guessing the project manager's approach.

At a previous job there was a management change that shook the status quo. Some team members got nervous and suddenly lost focus of their work. The project manager in charge gathered everybody for a quick meeting.

The team held two views in this meeting; the management change was no cause for concern and that their jobs were on the line. The project manager acknowledged the situation, expressed the same concerns that some had and was confident in re-assuring the team that this would not have an impact on their jobs. A positive net result was gained from those 15 minutes. People that were anxious and lost their focus were re-assured that everything would be okay. The teams focus switched back to the project at hand and countless productive hours were saved.

As project managers we walk confident and not much shakes us but we have to have empathy to be able to react to situations where the team needs re-assurance. Being a confident project manager and projecting confidence will make you a strong leader.

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life" Steve Jobs

http://twitter.com/kallo/status/5123681918

As a project manager your job entails talking to people, they might be clients, developers, executives, all with different communication approaches. There's one behavior that's hard to deal with; when people don't let you talk. Well, maybe that should be re-phrased as: when people love to hear themselves talk.

Let's identify the behavior and talk about approaches to dealing with them:

After the individual has expressed their ideas you try to interrupt them but it sounds like they didn't hear you interrupting and keep talking. This behavior when encountered the first time might be interpreted as the other person not hearing your interruption, after the third time it's time to in a firm and polite tone interrupt them, until they stop and let you talk.

Another behavior that I encountered is that they have decided not to let you talk, in this case interrupt them in a firm and polite tone and start with: I have listened to your thoughts and I would appreciate time to express my ideas. would you allow me that courtesy?

Your mileage might vary with the approaches above and context of course is important. If you have identified other types of behaviors from people that don't let you talk share your expertise with others via the comments on this post.

Scenario:
Your customer calls and notes that he has been trying to log on to your website and they can't log-in, the password changer doesn't work, and why is he being asked to change his password in the first place. All this in a confrontational, angry tone.

The Call:
Have the facts on-hand, don't make any assumptions, be ready to:
- Introduce your self (full name)
- Apologize for the inconvenience that has been caused
- Thank him or her for calling and sharing their experience
- Listen. You'll be tempted to talk after a few words from the customer, don't. Continue to listen
- Correct the issue or promise to correct it and follow-up

Your results may vary but this usually yields good results.

How to Win Friends and Influence People is a self-help book written by Dale Carnegie first published in 1936 and republished in 1981. I will be reviewing the 1981 edition which is very, very, dated but contains core principals not so much about influence but I would say on how to be a good person. Since I'm not much of a paper book reader this review is for the audio book version.

The book in it's major sections covers how to handle people, things you can do to make people like you, techniques to influence others, and leadership. At first I disliked the dated anecdotes used to drive the main points but after a while they're more of a novelty due to their historical reference than an annoyance. The book structure is: anecdote followed by principle. This format is effective in helping remember the content.

Self-help books proliferate bookstore shelf's and their shier volume can be intimidating and insulting (I'm looking at you Dummy Books). I love self-help books that provide understanding on why people act the way they do. Many of the principles described in How to Win Friends and Influence People are common sense and aren't ground breaking but ground-breaking research is not usually what is lacking when trying to influence people, the problem or deficiency is applying the techniques properly to get the results you desire.

This self-help book contains very good principles about influencing people but as you know all can read but few can apply what they learn hence not everybody can influence. The read will be easy, applying the principles (executing) will the challenge.

Resources:
How to Win Friends and Influence People Principle
Dale Carnegie

I'm writing this the review of the Agile Project Management training from ASPE because when I was searching for reviews for this training I didn't find any, so in hopes that this might help somebody here is my review.

Instructor
Bill Gaiennie wasthe instructor provided by ASPE, he is knowledgeable, knows Agile/SCRUM practices and has working experience implementing Agile/SCRUM. The risk with training sessions is that they're taught using perfect world scenarios but Bill managed to relate the practices to real world challenges you might encounter with Agile/SCRUM in your organization.

Learned a new word among many things from Bill: Propinquity: proximity: the property of being close together.

Training Content
The contentcovered comes from the ASPE Agile Project Management book and covers topics from high level to a low level i.e. Agile Project Management to Estimating. With a two day class the depth of the material can only go so far but it provided more than a general overview.

Impact Professionally
After attending Agile Project Management training am I a better project manager? Yes. Sometimes you gain knowledge by reading, sometimes by attending training, and sometimes by doing. I learned key Agile/SCRUM concepts, but being able to implement the concepts learned is what really matters moving forward (executing).

Impact On Job performance
This training will impact my job performance in a positive way. I plan to start using iterations, daily SCRUM calls, deliver working software and deliver often. Note that implementing SCRUM in an environment that does not support Agile/SCRUM practices will be tough and management support is key.

My Outline
In addition to the training book from ASPE I have a list of bullet points that I want to remember:

"The world is run by those who show-up". If meetings are going over the scheduled time you need to be more efficient in the way you conduct them. Always start on time and end on time.

Build set of expectations to change behavior. Be up-front about the project to build the proper expectations.

Requirements: Who, What, and Why. Good requirements give you a why and reduce misunderstandings.

Too much detail upfront gives the impression that more discussion is not necessary. When doing stories with your clients remember that detail comes later in the tasks.

Goldplating: Substituting goals of the customer with other.

"Trust but verify". Love this quote.

Ask developer what is done? Don't ask for work in progress. Work in progress doesn't exist.

Lessons learned should be conducted at the end of each sprint/iteration/timebox not at the end of the project.