The primary focus of the [...]]]> So I want to introduce you today to a groovy new book by Harvard Professor Teresa Amabile and her equally accomplished husband, Steven Kramer. It’s called The Progress Principle, and I think it contains a lot of important lessons for project managers.

The primary focus of the book is a concept called “inner work life”. Indeed, the book’s subtitle says, “using small wins to ignite joy, engagement, and creativity at work”. Regular readers know this is an topic I’m very passionate about, so I’m thrilled to review the book here.

What is this “inner work life”, anyway? Basically, it’s the sense of identity everyone possesses in regards to the work that they do. This goes beyond the 9 to 5 grind, or the sometimes petty rules of the office. A rich inner work life suggests an overarching belief that by getting up every morning and going about your business, you are performing something meaningful. A positive inner work life can inspire passion, creativity and enthusiasm. Inner work life is the driving force behind the level of ownership one takes in their job performance (cue my good friend Rick Valerga).

How often do you find yourself solving work problems in the shower? Or talking to your vendors late at night? When you meet colleagues for drinks, do you find your conversation ebbs and flows between relaxing conversation and taking care of real business? Our inner work lives are more than just the mechanics of going to work every day.

According to Amabile and Kramer:

• “Inner work life influences people’s performance on four dimensions: creativity, productivity, work commitment, and collegiality. We call this the inner work life effect.”
• “Inner work life matters for companies because, no matter how brilliant a company’s strategy might be, the strategy’s execution depends on great performance by people inside the organization.”
• “The primacy of progress among the key three influences on inner work life is what we call the progress principle: of all the positive events that influence inner work life, the single most powerful is progress in meaningful work.”

Are these concepts ringing a bell? They sound a lot like those behaviours we actively look for in our project teams!

The authors take us through some compelling territory. For example, they review the fate of “Karpenter Corporation”. This was a fifty year old company that found its way to a list of the “ten most innovative, successful companies in America”. In the space of four short years, a new executive management drove the company straight into the ground. Plummeting from the intoxicating heights of success, employees one day found themselves agog watching their office furniture sold at auction.

The culprit?

It’s difficult to point one finger at a situation like this. But the authors identified serious damage to the inner work lives of employees. Using that as a starting point, they walk us step-by-step through the systematic destruction of one of America’s corporate jewels.

“Waitaminnit, Geoff,” you yell. “This book sounds like it’s meant for top brass, so they don’t put their foot in it at a fiscal year-end presentation!”

Well, that may be one application for the information contained in The Progress Principle. But if you’re here, you’re interested in project management at least on some level. And I can tell you that the tenets Amabile and Kramer espouse in this book are just as applicable to managing a project as they are to managing a company.

The only difference I can see, is that corporate executives generally have much broader time horizons than we do to get things right. If anything, that makes The Progress Principle even more relevant to project managers. If you don’t have a strategy to get the most out of your people going into your project, you’ll find yourself short of resources by the time you realize you missed something. And as we all know, hitting the “project reset button” is pretty damn expensive.

You can get The Progress Principle in both paperback and Kindle versions. I highly recommend you go out and pick yourself up a copy today!

The Communicator Is Responsible for Transmission

I cannot stress this enough. If you are trying to send a message to someone, and you don’t take the time to ensure [...]]]> This post picks up from my previous one on negotiations, and adds some more of my thoughts on the actual process.

The Communicator Is Responsible for Transmission

I cannot stress this enough. If you are trying to send a message to someone, and you don’t take the time to ensure the message has been relayed they way you intended, then the fault of the misunderstanding is yours. It’s tempting to say, “well they heard wrong”, or “they’re just being sensitive”. You might want to blame the receiver. But the communicator and only the communicator can know whether or not a message has been successfully transmitted.

Remember: the message receiver may take action based on his or her understanding of your message. Those actions could be very dangerous to you if their understanding is incorrect. How do you make sure you’ve sent a message accurately?

1) Take it Slow. Many of us have a tendency to barrel through facts and race to the end. The reason we do this is so that we can get to the part that’s important to us (i.e., “gimme my money”). Walk through facts slowly, and take breaks to ask if there are any questions.

2) Pay Attention. Is the receiver receptive to you? Is he or she speaking in curt, clipped tones suggesting they’re not really listening? Is your only feedback, “yeah, uh-huh, yep, sure” or are you getting real questions? Does your receiver seem interested in what you have to say? If the conversation seems to be entirely you speaking and not listening, that’s a sign that something’s wrong. An ideal negotiation is dynamic.

3) Play the Message Back. Okay, you’ve said your piece, now make sure they understand what you said. Ask them to repeat back what they heard. So many people skip this step, feeling it’s unnecessary. But if you don’t do this, how else will you know they’ve understood you?

Power Plays an Important Role

If you have power over the person you’re negotiating with outside of your actual discussion, you may influence your listener’s position in unintentional ways. You could be the person’s boss, priest, father or mother. You could be legally controlling their interests. You could be someone much higher up in your organization than they are. If any of these are true, your message receiver may enter the discussion thinking that these are not negotiations. They may instead feel you are telling them what to do. That could kill your message very quickly.

You could choose to feel that your receiver is silly if that’s how they come to the table, but such an attitude may derail negotiations before they begin. If you genuinely want your counter-party to walk away from the table satisfied, be sensitive to any power you wield. Take steps to open dialogue with their feelings in mind.

You Have No Control, Only Influence

Remember that once your negotiations are finished, your counter-party will walk away. Once that happens, you have exactly zero control over what they do next. They are free-willed, independent people, no matter what your relationship. Their subsequent actions will likely be influenced over what you had to say during your talk. What influence did you exert? Was it positive and constructive? Or was it negative and divisive?

Plan Ahead

To ensure you’re setting up negotiations in a way that puts your influence in the best possible light, it’s practical to plan it out ahead of time. Here are some things you can do before you arrive:

1. Think about their starting position. How will your receiver come to discussion? What’s their likely starting point? Will they be hostile? Receptive? Bored? Curious? What will it take to sway them to your line of thinking?

2. Anticipate objections. What might your receiver dislike about your message? How would you counter any arguments?

3. Remember you know more than they do. What parts of your discussion is your receiver likely to be unfamiliar with? Are you prepared to explain details in lay terms they can understand? Glossing over steps is a surefire way to make your receiver’s eyes glaze over. Be prepared with whatever information your counter-party might require.

4. Anticipate consequences. How would you like your receiver to behave after you’re done negotiations? How might they behave contrary to your wishes if they misunderstand something? How can you shape your words to prevent unwanted consequences during discussion?

5. Align yourself with your receiver. People are more receptive to discussion if they believe you’re already on their side. Take time to identify yourself with your receiver. Are they nervous? Calm them. Are they upset about something? Respond compassionately.

But wait, there’s more! No, I’m not done with negotiations just yet. There’s more to come in Part 3 coming soon!

Once upon a time in the fair Kingdom of Avonblechshire-upon-Stoakley there lived a handsome prince named Humphrey. He was a very well meaning chap, and very happy-go-lucky. On his days off, he often frolicked in the Fields of Tralagagme chasing butterflies and writing rancid poetry. When he [...]]]> This is the story of Prince Humphrey.

Once upon a time in the fair Kingdom of Avonblechshire-upon-Stoakley there lived a handsome prince named Humphrey. He was a very well meaning chap, and very happy-go-lucky. On his days off, he often frolicked in the Fields of Tralagagme chasing butterflies and writing rancid poetry. When he felt good, he often stopped passers-by to read his poems to them, oblivious of their trapped-doe eyes and too-frequent glances at the town clock. When he felt bad, however, he was a curmudgeon.

Now, the Avonblechshire-upon-Stoakley community was very interested in competing in larger markets and absorbing a more intricate risk portfolio. So in addition to his Princely duties, Humphrey took a side job as a commodities trader.

Initially, his firm was very pleased with his solid work ethic. Humphrey spent hours on his Reuters Dealing terminal monitoring conversations. He brought his Apple iPad to the bathroom and researched wonderful new Economic Derivatives that could bring his workplace fabulous wealth. The effort he put in was tremendous. There was just one small problem.

Prince Humphrey’s people skills were an unmitigated disaster.

He couldn’t understand that, of course–the people who heard his poetry in the street always seemed so rapt. And because he was a Prince, many people would stop him in the Avonblechshire-upon-Stoakley Piggly Wiggly to offer him good tidings. From his perspective, everyone loved him, and he knew he worked very hard. Anyone who thought otherwise was clearly laboring under a misconception.

The problem came to a head when Humphrey’s firm asked him to distribute dividends to five of their largest global clients. The firm told Humphrey to fly the customers into the French city of Jai-Ratte-La-Tete, divide the dividends equally five ways, and present each client with a cheque. For his efforts, the firm would reimburse Humphrey all costs for the event, and pay him a percentage of the total transaction. Humphrey had his assistant draw up a detailed itemization of all the expenses associated with the event, and an explanation of the fee structure for the firm’s customers. There was no way this could go badly.

Except Humphrey, as you may have noticed by now, was not exactly in tune with other people’s wants or needs.

As the day of the event arrived, Prince Humphrey went to his meeting. He proudly walked up to the podium before the smiling faces of the already-assembled clients. Instead of congratulating them on their earnings, and focusing his presentation on their rewards, he blurted out, “I get a cut of all this money and after expenses, you guys can have whatever’s left! Hooray for ME!”

One by one the smiles fell from the bewildered faces of the clientele. Poor Humphrey knew something had gone wrong. For the life of him, though, he couldn’t understand why the meeting participants looked so upset. Emperor Takanakanakanawa in particular stared very angrily at Humphrey and pulled a Blackberry from his pocket.

Shortly thereafter, the firm sent Prince Humphrey a text telling him he was fired, and the FED was on their way to take him to prison for being a schmuck.

The moral of this story, besides the fact that Kingdoms should never expose themselves to unfamiliar risk without an adequate hedge, might be this:

Negotiations.
Are Never.
About You.

This blog post was brought to you by the “I Wanna Wring Someone’s Neck” Society.

And so my weekend from hell is over.

As I mentioned in my Friday post, I decided to go for my PMP since I’m in this weird life transition. Having credentials seems to beat not having credentials in terms of opening [...]]]> Well butter a cowpie and upchuck your beer, I just passed my PMP exam!

And so my weekend from hell is over.

As I mentioned in my Friday post, I decided to go for my PMP since I’m in this weird life transition. Having credentials seems to beat not having credentials in terms of opening doors when so many seem closed (and covered over with barbed wire and a “GO AWAY WE HATE YOU” sign). I foolishly left booking my exam until this past Friday, thinking (well, not thinking) that there’d be plenty of time to study for and sit the exam before it changed on September first. Wow, that was really dumb. There were zero openings at any of the test centres in my area for the entire month of August save one: today, Monday morning, at 9:00am. That gave me, let’s see…just over 48 hours to prepare, starting from nothing.

My brain? Is pudding.

I told a PMP-certified friend what had happened and she pretty much freaked out, sending me over every single study guide, Powerpoint or scan of handwritten notes she could get her hands on. She was very pessimistic that I’d ever pass, when I hadn’t even glanced at the source material yet. After reviewing some of the massive volumes that suddenly filled my inbox, I started to worry too.

Holy crap there’s a lot of stuff to know for the test! And I don’t even agree with some of it!

However, after spending two full days jamming ridiculous amounts of crap into my head, last night I washed my eyes out with broken glass and went to bed early. I figured by that point if I didn’t know the material, there was no point getting up at 4:00 the next morning, driving two hours to the test centre and taking the test exhausted.

The test proctor met me with frighteningly long incisors and not a hint of a smile in her eyes. She made me empty my pockets and then asked me to turn them out. She stared for a long time. I don’t think she ogled me for any fun or flattering reason…she was checking to make sure I hadn’t learned to write really, really small and put crib notes on my pocket lint.

I must say, I was very impressed with the testing centre’s ruthless efficiency. I had the sense that if I did poorly on the test they’d carve the gold fillings out of my mouth and melt them down to make pretty little PMI collector spoons. “Sorry about your marks. If you’d just step this way to the candidate purification lounge?”

And then of course came the test. 200 questions of “OMFG I didn’t see this shit in the study materials.”

Three hours later, I clicked “Grade Exam” and then waited. And waited.

And waited.

Finally, there was a flash on the screen! “Thanks so much for using the Prometric Test Centre! Would you like to complete a survey to tell us how awesome we are?”

NO I DON’T WANT TO TAKE YOUR FUCKING SURVEY! I WANT MY GODDAM RESULTS BEFORE MY CHEST EXPLODES!

*click*

“Congratulations on passing your PMP exam.” Blanket proficiency across the board, baby!

I haven’t felt so relieved in recent memory. As I left the exam room, the stunningly gorgeous exam proctor met me with beaming congratulations, and I wanted to give her babies right there next to the stack of PMI letterhead.

I PASSED! WOOOOO-HOOOOO!

I recently received an e-mail from Racquel Joseph, the Marketing Coordinator for a new project management software application called Acumen. After saying lots of nice things about my blog (which always makes me all gooey inside), she mentioned the company she [...]]]> This is the sixth entry in the PM Visionary Series.

I recently received an e-mail from Racquel Joseph, the Marketing Coordinator for a new project management software application called Acumen. After saying lots of nice things about my blog (which always makes me all gooey inside), she mentioned the company she works for. I was intrigued. At Acumen, they believe that not enough work has been done to improve project scheduling against risk. In this light, they’ve come up with some terrific solutions!

Incidentally, Acumen is hosting a one-day conference in Houston on October 18th, 2011. Registration is free until August 15th, so if you’re in the area, be sure to check it out!

It’s all about the Schedule

Who we are.

Acumen’s DNA is based on a belief that a sound basis of schedule is the absolute key ingredient to successful project management, a concept otherwise described as: “it’s all about the schedule, stupid”. This concept is not only what we as a company live and breathe every day, but is the drive behind our passion and razor-focus on developing software that helps the project management community improve the practice of CPM scheduling.

Background.

This focus on quality scheduling and project analysis comes from a long history and background in PPM. During the mid 1990’s, I spent several years examining the feasibility of using artificial (AI) systems for generating sound project schedules. This work led to a doctorate as well as an associated commercial software product that is still in use today. Most importantly, however, I gained a deep understanding of the required mechanics and integrity that is needed to accurately forecast work in the form of a CPM schedule.

A Shift in Focus

During the next twenty years of my career I saw many CPM scheduling tools get faster, more powerful, and more collaborative, while schedule quality remained mediocre at best. I was continually frustrated that so many projects failed to recognize the importance of this CPM integrity, which in turn bred unrealistic forecasting and unachievable project goals.

Another unanswered question I kept coming back to was “how can a project forecast a single deterministic completion date given so much uncertainty going forward?” This led to a shift in focus towards the area of project risk analytics. As one of the principles of what was at the time the Pertmaster risk analysis company, I quickly ascertained two points of fact that essentially become the underpinnings of Acumen today:

1) A risk-adjusted schedule is much more valuable than a deterministic schedule in terms of helping forecast project completion. This is true for many reasons including:

a. It accounts for uncertainty and complexity of the work being conducted

b. It accounts for overly optimistic planning

c. It encourages the identification of risk events and more importantly the required response to risk (mitigation) by the project team

d. It provides a range of schedule forecasts against which execution can be tracked and controlled

2) While highly insightful, a risk model is only as sound as the two moving parts within the model itself:

a. The integrity of the underlying deterministic CPM schedule

b. The validity of the risk ranges, inputs and scores provided by the project team

While a risk tool such as Primavera PRA/Pertmaster is extremely fast and powerful in it’s ability to run a schedule-based Monte Carlo simulation, the results are only ever as valid as the inputs that are fed into it. While this is a notable challenge for cost-risk models, for schedule-risk models it is, at best, a mission critical factor and, at worst, it is the ultimate downfall.

And then there was Acumen…

Within this context, Acumen was born from the recognized need to help improve schedule models (irrespective of whether they are deterministic CPM or non-deterministic risk-adjusted schedules). To help with achieving this, Acumen developed a schedule maturity framework known as “S1 > S5”™. This five-step maturity scale, with steps for taking a project from a non-validated schedule with questionable achievability to one that is sound, risk-adjusted, and has team buy-in, has since helped numerous projects not only improve the integrity of their CPM schedules, but has additionally enabled them to accurately account for the impact of risk and uncertainty, has given them a structured means of compressing or accelerating the schedule, and provided a forum for ensuring the project team is bought into the schedule.

Hand in hand with the S1>S5 methodology, Acumen developed an enterprise project analysis tool, Fuse, to assist in improving schedule maturity through the use of advanced project analytics.

Today, Fuse provides a repeatable means of actually scoring and critiquing the quality of the plan, assessing project performance during execution, and pinpointing as well as understanding the impact of, changes made to the schedule. Prior to Fuse, this simply wasn’t achievable, with the only options being to use a manual (and therefore timely) analysis or one of a few rudimentary legacy analysis tools. Because of the combination of over 250 different schedule, cost, risk, EV, performance, and logic checks in the form of advanced analytics and unique-to-Fuse metrics, our customers have often described us as “Mad about Analytics”. We are continually adding in new metrics and schedule checks based on customer requests and the ever-growing standards from organizations such as AACE, PMI, NDIA, DCMA, and GAO.

One of the most exciting aspects of Fuse in recent months has been the tremendous uptake and adoption of creating custom analytical components (custom metrics, and user defined reports) directly within Fuse in order to achieve specific project or organization objectives. Such an evolution from being a software tool to more of an all-encompassing project analytics platform is something we are very excited about at Acumen.

The next generation of analytics

Not content with standing still, we have even more exciting plans in the works. October 2011 heralds the introduction of our second analytics product, Fuse360 – a tool that through criteria-based simulation, provides alternate project scenarios based on user defined goals. ”Goal-based optimization”™ – another first for Acumen but certainly not the last! With our embedded beliefs around sound CPM scheduling; strong and proven products; great people and a passion for excellence, we look forward to continuing down our exciting path of Proven Project Analytics.

Dr. Dan Patterson PMP is the founder of Acumen and is a recognized thought leader and visionary within the project management industry. Prior to starting Acumen, Dan was Executive VP at Pertmaster leading the Americas business unit from inception through to acquisition by Primavera. Dan is also responsible for developing a now widely accepted integrated qualitative/quantitative approach to risk analysis through facilitated risk workshops. His depth of knowledge extends well beyond riskinto schedule analytics and project optimization.

More information can be found at www.projectacumen.com