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80-Year-Old Enrolls in Engineering Class [Digg]
2007-02-09 16:13:03
"I'm a little late in the game", he says.
More About: Engineering , Digg , Roll , Ring , Engine

APM?s Maturity Model?s initiative
2007-02-08 04:11:01
I was just reading the Program Management Newsletter and thought I’d reiterate its news about M2iMP. M2iMP is the acronym for the UK’s Association for Project Management?s initiative ?Model s to Improve the Management of Projects?. In 2006, the APM?s Project magazine reported on the maturity of the project management environment in business and organisations and the perceived effect on project outcomes. This continues, for 2007, with advice on how to navigate the route around the many maturity models designed to improve the management of projects.   Each maturity model will be described in a consistent way designed to help an organisation find the right model for its purposes. The first model featured (around May 2007) will be the Programme Management Maturity Model (PMMM). The PMMM provides a mechanism through which an organisation or a group within an organisation can: - Evaluate itself in programme management terms  - Compare its own maturity with other organisation on...
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Manage in plain English
2007-02-07 04:10:03
Are you someone who uses phrases such as ‘globalise’, ‘push the envelope’, ‘intellectual capital’, ‘core competency’ and ‘outside the box’; to name a few? Many people are constantly building their jargon vocabulary in a bid to come across as ‘more intelligent’. The truth is, all this does is reduce the clarity of your communication. Considering the art of communication is so important to Project and Programme Mana gers, this isn’t realy a smart thing to do. None of these buzzwords and phrases will make you a better manager. Instead of padding your language with unnecessary and often meaningless words, think about ways that will help you speak and write with more clarity and less jargon. By communicating more clearly you give your colleagues and customers a reason to listen. And getting someone?s attention is key these days. Here are 7 good ways to help you break the buzzword habit: 1. Stop pretending Some ...
More About: English , Plain , Manage

Your career change
2007-02-04 04:09:02
When it comes to careers, business and style of life, we are all different. That said, we should all be taking a look at where we are, where we’re going, and whether we are getting what we’re worth. I know some damn good PMs out there who financially, seem to be taken for a ride. But they have a choice - to stay and be underpaid or to get what they’re worth. The PM job market is in fact incredibly healthy right now and it’s just getting better. For your information, the average Project Manager in the UK is currently making £49200/annum as a permanent employee and £45/hour as an independent consultant. Of course there are those who are well below average and others who are well above it, but these figures offer a good benchmark.     It’s not always easy trying to look for work, especially when you’re not accustomed to it (job searching that is!), when you’re tring to juggle your projects. Aside from applying directly for jobs that you see ad...
More About: Change , Your , Care , Career , Chang

Top 25 management tools for 2007
2007-01-31 16:07:17
It’s common for most of us to try and stay on top of how we can improve ourselves in areas that will enable us to perform better. Whilst core project management principles are enhanced now and then, and the need to communicate well remains a given, there are other ‘tools’ that do change and it’s always good to know what selection we should have in our toolbox and how we use them. Of course our role and the environment in which we operate have a lot to do with our individual needs here.   Darrell Rigby from Bain Company has just published ?Mana gement Tool s 2007: An Executive?s Guide?. It?s an excellent PDF which looks at the key management tools used by executives, including five new tools that have entered the game. With the explosion of available tools, it?s not always easy to ensure that you use all that are appropriate. This blog is in fact one of the tools that I’ve learned to use in the last few months and it certainly has proven to be useful. I&#...
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ITIL basics
2007-01-29 22:04:12
Any PM who works in an environment where they don’t know what their next project might entail, could be wise to familiarise themselves with ITIL. To start with the basics, ITIL is the acronym for “IT Infrastructure Library” and it consists of a set of books developed by the UK’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC).   Just to set the scene, because we all have our own interpretations of things, IT Services are normally provided to an organisation by an internal resource, often the Information Technology department, and the supporting infrastructure. The term ‘IT Infrastructure’ is used to describe the Hardware, Software, computer related communications, procedures, documents and skills used to support the IT services. All this has to be managed, hence the term ‘IT Infrastructure Management’ and the management of the IT Infrastructure is known within ITIL as IT Service Management. There’s a strong link between ITIL and quality sys...
More About: Basic , Basics

Corporate blogging sense
2007-01-29 10:03:02
It’s been a few months that I’ve been blogging from a professional perspective and I find it an ideal way to communicate with the many people that I’ve worked with in the past and to share knowledge. I was interested in Bain & Company’s recent article on how corporate blogging is have a serious impact on business, from many perspectives. Darrell Rigby of Bain explained that blogs are now reducing the reliance on internal e-mail and the traditional public relations-oriented corporate website. Darrell adds that a successful corporate blog should: ? Establish the blog?s focus and mission; ? Develop a simple-to-use site and update it frequently; ? Create links with key audiences; ? Ensure consistency with corporate image and product branding; ? Employ RSS; ? Consider the option of wikis; ? Establish clear blogging guidelines for the corporation and educate employees about potential legal repercussions. This blog that I write is an excellent way for me to ma...
More About: Sense , Blogging , Corporate , Blog , Ense

Share what you know
2007-01-27 16:00:18
We should always try to mentor people around us who know less than us. They don?t have to know that much less and you don?t need to know that much more. But if you share what you know with others, that can only be a good thing. You will come across the occasional manager who sees this kind of contribution in the office as a threat, but they are the foolish ones. Other managers feel awkward about sharing, often because they think they don?t know enough, but you should never be afraid to give someone behind you a helping hand when you are able to. Sharing with colleagues is important, and the more you give, the more you get back. If you give one piece of helpful information to 30 managers and only 50% of them are generous and decent enough to return the favour at some point in the future, it means that you benefit from 15 pieces of new information. Each one of those managers gained by one, but you gained by 15. Quite clever really, isn?t it. There?s a lot to be said about being goodh...
More About: What , Hat , Share , Know

Flogging dead horses
2007-01-27 16:00:18
We all see the statistics associated with project failure. For instance, according to a study by Gartner, almost 40% percent of IT projects fail or are abandoned before completion. Most project managers are afraid of being labeled as quitters or failures. Perhaps it takes more courage to admit that your project is a failure than to accept it (with no choice) when you finally walk over the cliff’s edge. Let’s be frank, continuing with a hopeless project is like flogging a dead horse …and wasting huge amounts of money in the process. It doesn’t make very smart business sense does it. Approximately only 20 percent of PMs have a process for identifying and cancelling failed projects, according to a four-year survey of 672 senior IT and business managers conducted by the Center for Project Management in the USA. Do you have one? If not, you might like to take a look at this one: It’s natural for project managers and project teams to have a task-oriented foc...
More About: Horses , Dead , Horse

62 tips for consulting success
2007-01-27 16:00:18
If you’re an independent consultant, you constantly need to have your ear to the ground and know how to market yourself. Having a skill to sell is simply not enough. I’ve always enjoyed the marketing challenge, and learning new ways to sell myself and in fact I had a sales and marketing career before entering the IT world. If you’re in the business of being an indepenent consultant, you might be interested in Michael McLaughlin who publishes a blog called ?Guerrilla Cons ulting ?. He has also published a 75 page ebook with 62 tips for consulting success. It?s organised into seven parts. 1. Managing Your Practice 2. The Consulting Process 3. Marketing 4. Pricing Your Services 5. Proposal Writing 6. The Language of Consulting 7. Selling Your Services The Foreward to Michael?s ebook goes; In 1891, Carl Eisner invented the now-famous Swiss Army Knife, which is shipped by the thousands every day. Although this e-book cannot hope to rival the utility of Eisner?s invention...
More About: Tips , Success , Irritating

Work-life balance
2007-01-27 16:00:18
If you’re one of the many whose narrowed view of life consists primarily of work and sleep, perhaps it’s time to step back, take a good look at yourself and ‘get a life’. I find it very sad when I see people devoting virtually all their time to the company they work at. Come on, what sort of life is that? Is that really a life? I’ve spent years living and working in Australia, quite a few European countries and around the Middle East. It’s people in the latter that seemed to have a problem with ‘getting a life’ more than the others. Wives wanting to enjoy time with their husbands end up seeing them come home from work at 10pm most days, kids have their fathers only at weekends and suddenly the main purpose of this guy’s life is working 15 hrs a day for his money and managing the creation of a bunch of IT systems that might not even see the light of day. Work -life balance is achieved when an individual?s right to a fulfilled lif...
More About: Life , Balance , Alan , Lance

Risk management culture
2007-01-27 16:00:18
Most well run organisations will have risk managed at four distinct levels which are; Corporate/Strategic, Programme, Project and Operational. To do this effectively, a framework for managing risk needs to be designed and implemented to address the following: 1. how risks are identified; 2. how information about their probability and potential impact is addressed; 3. how risks are quantified; 4. how options to deal with them are identified; 5. how decisions on risk management are made; 6. how all these decisions are implemented; 7. how actions are evaluated for their effectiveness; 8. how appropriate communication mechanisms are set up and supported; 9. how stakeholders are engaged on an ongoing basis. But this is just the beginning because it’s all very well having a thorough framework documented and sitting pretty on the shelf with a tick in the box, but risk management needs to instilled within the people of the organisation. A healthy culture of risk management needs to ...
More About: Culture , Management , Risk Management , Cult , Men

Managing yourself and others
2007-01-27 16:00:18
All managers have a team to manage but all managers have themelves to manage too. It?s tough being a manager. You need to get through the day getting your own work done and looking out for your team. As managers move further up the ladder, they receive less mentoring and training. There are of course those instinctive managers who do better than others and they happen to have led a life which has helped them develop key management skills, not just in work, but in general life too. But most people aren?t that lucky and tend to rely on a PMI or PRINCE2 course and read a few books. But even that?s not enough. This blog was never intended to regurgitate what you can pick up from a PMI or PRINCE2 course. It?s intended to cover things that most managers are never taught. Which brings me on to a great new CD which Harvard Business has just released to cover some of the challenges that a manager faces in their day to day life. I?ve mentioned the topics below for two reasons. First to let y...
More About: Other , Yourself , Others , Self , Your

How?s your CV looking?
2007-01-27 16:00:18
I’ve been recruiting quite a few PMs for a couple of clients recently and so I’ve had literally hundreds of PM CVs pour in. Now some of these CVs are very good indeed, but note I say ’some’. If anyone is looking for a change in career, a shift up gear, in a current or new organisation, they need to spend time (real time) on creating a CV that will make them stand out amongst the others, because in the job market the CV is the sales brochure. If your sales brochure isn’t up to scratch, it has little chance of portaying you in a very good light and ’selling you’ into an interview. I’m not going to write about what you should or shouldn’t do in a CV here as there’s a pile of material out there on the net that far better qualified people than I have written. I just want to emphasise that no matter how great you are at managing projects or programmes, if your CV doesn’t sell you well, there’s very little chance of y...
More About: Your , King , Look

100 Rules for NASA PMs
2007-01-27 16:00:18
These have been floating around the net for quite a few years and I happened to stumble across them again and thought I should share them with you. All credit goes to Jerry Madden at NASA for this compilation. None of it is rocket science but they’re all good reminders for anyone in management. I know it’s a long list and I thought of separating them into easily digested bite sized chunks. But then I thought not, so here they are for your travel reading or for pasting on the walls of the office. Project Managers Rule number 1 A project manager should visit everyone who is building anything for his project at least once, should know all the managers on his project (both government and contractor), and know the integration team members. People like to know that the project manager is interested in their work and the best proof is for the manager to visit them and see first hand what they are doing. Rule number 2 A project manager must know what motivates the project contr...
More About: Rules , Nasa

100 Rules for NASA PMs
2007-01-27 16:00:18
These have been floating around the net for quite a few years and I happened to stumble across them again and thought I should share them with you. All credit goes to Jerry Madden at NASA for this compilation. None of it is rocket science but they?re all good reminders for anyone in management. I know it?s a long list and I thought of separating them into easily digested bite sized chunks. But then I thought not, so here they are for your travel reading or for pasting on the walls of the office. Project Managers Rule number 1 A project manager should visit everyone who is building anything for his project at least once, should know all the managers on his project (both government and contractor), and know the integration team members. People like to know that the project manager is interested in their work and the best proof is for the manager to visit them and see first hand what they are doing. Rule number 2 A project manager must know what motivates the project contractors (i.e.,...
More About: Rules , Nasa

Managing yourself and others
2007-01-27 16:00:18
All managers have a team to manage but all managers have themelves to manage too. It’s tough being a manager. You need to get through the day getting your own work done and looking out for your team. As managers move further up the ladder, they receive less mentoring and training. There are of course those instinctive managers who do better than others and they happen to have led a life which has helped them develop key management skills, not just in work, but in general life too. But most people aren’t that lucky and tend to rely on a PMI or PRINCE2 course and read a few books. But even that’s not enough. This blog was never intended to regurgitate what you can pick up from a PMI or PRINCE2 course. It’s intended to cover things that most managers are never taught. Which brings me on to a great new CD which Harvard Business has just released to cover some of the challenges that a manager faces in their day to day life. I’ve mentioned the topics below ...
More About: Other , Yourself , Others , Self , Your

Flogging dead horses
2007-01-26 21:58:08
We all see the statistics associated with project failure. For instance, according to a study by Gartner, almost 40% percent of IT projects fail or are abandoned before completion. Most project managers are afraid of being labeled as quitters or failures. Perhaps it takes more courage to admit that your project is a failure than to accept it (with no choice) when you finally walk over the cliff’s edge. Let’s be frank, continuing with a hopeless project is like flogging a dead horse …and wasting huge amounts of money in the process. It doesn’t make very smart business sense does it. (more…)
More About: Horses , Dead , Horse

Work-life balance
2007-01-26 09:58:02
If you’re one of the many whose narrowed view of life consists primarily of work and sleep, perhaps it’s time to step back, take a good look at yourself and ‘get a life’. I find it very sad when I see people devoting virtually all their time to the company they work at. Come on, what sort of life is that? Is that really a life? (more…)
More About: Life , Work , Balance , Alan , Lance

Risk management culture
2007-01-26 09:58:02
Most well run organisations will have risk managed at four distinct levels which are; Corporate/Strategic, Programme, Project and Operational. To do this effectively, a framework for managing risk needs to be designed and implemented to address the following: (more…)
More About: Culture , Management , Risk Management , Cult , Men

Managing yourself and others
2007-01-26 09:58:02
All managers have a team to manage but all managers have themelves to manage too. It?s tough being a manager. You need to get through the day getting your own work done and looking out for your team. As managers move further up the ladder, they receive less mentoring and training. (more…)
More About: Other , Yourself , Others , Self , Your

How?s your CV looking?
2007-01-26 09:58:02
I’ve been recruiting quite a few PMs for a couple of clients recently and so I’ve had literally hundreds of PM CVs pour in. Now some of these CVs are very good indeed, but note I say ’some’. If anyone is looking for a change in career, a shift up gear, in a current or new organisation, they need to spend time (real time) on creating a CV that will make them stand out amongst the others, because in the job market the CV is the sales brochure. (more…)
More About: Your , King , Look

Share what you know
2007-01-26 09:58:02
We should always try to mentor people around us who know less than us. They don’t have to know that much less and you don’t need to know that much more. But if you share what you know with others, that can only be a good thing. (more…)
More About: What , Hat , Share , Know

Being an independent consultant
2007-01-26 09:58:02
A consultant is an independent contractor who sells professional expertise in a particular area of specialisation. The consultant performs work for a fee within an agreed time frame with his customer. Note that I?m not talking about consultants who are employed by a consulting firm. I?m talking about people who stand on their own two feet and are independent consultants in their own right, who run their own business. (more…)
More About: Consultant , Sultan , Independent , Bein , Being

Cost of living overseas
2007-01-26 09:58:02
Just over a month ago I wrote about the cost of living and included a survey from 50 cities. Today’s post is similar except that it looks at 144 cities and includes more information. I was intreviewed yesterday by a writer for the PMI magazine in the US about things to consider when looking at overseas opportunities. Cost of living is certainly one of them and this data is especially useful for those considering their first or next role in a new country. (more…)
More About: Living , Cost of living , Over , Verse

Why govern a programme?
2007-01-26 09:58:02
One of the authors of the Gower Handbook of Prog ramme Management is Paul Rayner and just over two years ago, he conducted a survey which showed that whilst the world was moving closer to a common theory about what Program me Governance is all about in theory, the reality was very different. (more…)
More About: Over , Gramme , Programme

62 tips for consulting success
2007-01-26 09:58:02
If you’re an independent consultant, you constantly need to have your ear to the ground and know how to market yourself. Having a skill to sell is simply not enough. I’ve always enjoyed the marketing challenge, and learning new ways to sell myself and in fact I had a sales and marketing career before entering the IT world. (more…)
More About: Consulting , Tips , Success , Cons , Irritating

100 Rules for NASA PMs
2007-01-26 09:58:02
These have been floating around the net for quite a few years and I happened to stumble across them again and thought I should share them with you. All credit goes to Jerry Madden at NASA for this compilation. None of it is rocket science but they?re all good reminders for anyone in management. I know it?s a long list and I thought of separating them into easily digested bite sized chunks. But then I thought not, so here they are for your travel reading or for pasting on the walls of the office. (more…)
More About: Rules , Nasa , Rule

80-Year-Old Enrolls in Engineering Class [Digg]
2007-01-14 14:48:00
"I'm a little late in the game", he says.
More About: Engineering , Digg , Class , Year , Erin