Project Management – Page 9 – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

How “This Will Only Take a Minute” Destroys Your Projects

June 29, 2009/1 Comment/in Business Toolkit, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

I’m sure you’ve said it as often as I have: “This will only take a minute…” Five hours later, you’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Humans are notoriously bad at estimating how long something will take. On top of that, we try to make our problem solving too complex when things go wrong. When these two dynamics combine, our projects go flying off the rails like the first ever run of the Jamaican bobsled team. The result is projects that are late, overbudget, and full of errors. The good news is there are a couple of simple rules to keep in mind that can prevent these issues.

By way of an example, I needed a new keg of beer for my kegerator. It had been a while since I replaced the empty. “This won’t take long – I’ll just go buy a new keg and lickety split I’ll be sipping a cold one.” You see where this is going, right?

My initial estimate was said “project” would cost me about $130 for a new keg plus gas. I figured it would take me about an hour all-in (drive time plus installation). In case you’re wondering why today’s blog post is about 12 hours late, you can blame my beer. Things didn’t go exactly as planned…

Time for a Little Spring Cleaning for Your Work Life

May 26, 2009/3 Comments/in Balanced Lifestyle, Business Toolkit, Career, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s a great time of year. Beautiful weather, flowers blooming, and 110 bags of mulch to be spread tell you it’s spring. Now is when we traditionally clean our homes and yards. It’s also a great time to clean up your work and professional life.

Face it – we’re creatures of habit and averse to change. Over time though those habits and that aversion can lead to cluttered and less-than-fully productive work lives. I encourage you to take this week to do some spring cleaning on your career and your professional life.

To save you the effort of thinking about how to do so, I’ll offer a few thoughts on things I’ve found helpful in doing my own cleaning. Grab your mop, your cleaning supplies, and your yard tools. It’s time to get to work. Hey! Where are you going? Get back here… you’ll be happier and more efficient after this cleaning. I promise.

6 Critical Steps to Preventing Failure During Organizational Transformation

May 13, 2009/2 Comments/in Guest Blogger, Leadership, Project Management, Strategy /by Mike Figliuolo

I’m excited to bring you some thoughts from Maureen Metcalf today. I’m shutting up now. Here’s Maureen:

For anyone who has led an organizational change, we know it can be complicated at best and at worst; it can limit your career and have a significant adverse impact on your business. In 2008, a McKinsey survey of 3,199 executives around the world found, as Kotter did in 1998, that only one transformation in three succeeds. Other studies over the past ten years reveal remarkably similar results.

So, in times of profound change, where business success hinges on the leader and the organization being able to change quickly and effectively, what should we be doing to increase our likelihood of success?

I focus on the impact of leadership as well as the systems and processes being used to implement the change. From Collins Good to Great and others we have learned that Level 5 Leaders are more likely to successfully create long term sustainable change that moves the company to “greatness.”

So, while there is certainly no one size fits all answer, there are six basic principles a leader embarking on change can consider.

Project Manager Doesn’t Mean Status Monkey

March 18, 2009/5 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Leadership, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

Being a Project Manager is a little more involved than creating a project plan and asking for status. You have to understand your project and all its working pieces. I see a lot of project managers whose eyes glaze over when one of their team members explains their issues.

Stop daydreaming about getting back in your MS Project plan and updating your tasks and LISTEN!

In a conversation, when you are not talking, you should be listening. You shouldn’t be thinking about the next thing to say or going to your happy place. You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.

If the only time you talk to your team is when you’re asking for status, they will treat you like you treated your younger brother in high school. They will talk to you enough to shut you up and that is all. They won’t talk about how things are going, what’s keeping them up at night, or risks that may rear their head in six months.

Project Management Without the Paperwork

September 24, 2008/6 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

Often project management is criticized for adding overhead to a project (and when executed poorly, it does). Words like documentation and methodology make leadership think of productivity loss and non-value added activity. Project management is rooted in some very good principles, but much like anything else, in its extreme forms it is dangerous.

The positive principles I am speaking of are planning out your activities, providing accurate budgets, reaching your goal when you said you would, steering around roadblocks before you hit them, etc. Because of this, project management is growing in popularity every day. So why are some people opposed to it? I am going to explain why leadership doesn’t like project management and show you how to NOT live up to the stereotype.

Leadership doesn’t like project management because time spent planning or working on documentation is time not spent working on deliverables. They have trouble connecting the idea that hours of planning and pages of documentation help you achieve the goal faster and cheaper. They simply want the project done faster, cheaper, and leaner. The irony is that project management can do all of this if executed properly.

Project LEADERS vs. Project Managers

August 4, 2008/1 Comment/in Leadership, Project Management /by Mike Figliuolo

It’s my pleasure to bring you Jack Maher, one of our thoughtLEADERS instructors, for today’s post on Project Leadership. Here’s Jack:

Imagine walking into work and being accosted by an excited colleague or manager first thing in the morning. They eagerly say “I need you to do something for me. You gotta get this new consumer oriented e-commerce website up and running, integrated into our back-office systems, and it has to be as reliable as Amazon by Christmas! Did I mention that the vendor says it might not work? Or that the project failed the last time (or two)?”

After your shock subsides, you ask yourself the question “Do you need a project manager or a project leader?”

What’s the difference and how do you know what you need? Hiring a project manager is tough enough, but if you need a project leader, that’s an even more difficult creature to find. Let’s go on a safari and see if we can find this beast.

Project managers are adept at planning, monitoring, and reporting work to be done and completed. Project managers manage the basic three constraints of scope, time and cost. They are masters of metrics and proving value. Some are spectacular at cajoling and prodding project teams to complete assigned tasks on time and at or under budget. The real key to a good project manager is the ability to manage opposing constraints and deliver a planned solution. Unfortunately, a project manager isn’t enough in certain situations. Sometimes you need the mega-PM. You need a project leader.