The Critical Path by Derek Huether Free Project Management Information, Advice, and Templates

Red PM Pill vs. Blue PM Pill

– April 29, 2010Posted in: Project Management

Due to a wicked sinus infection, I wasn’t at the client site for several days. I found myself taking pill after pill, trying to get myself back to a condition where I could return to the program and really be effective. I think I took every colored pill under the rainbow. I chuckled to myself as I took a blue pill, as I thought about the movie The Matrix.

In a memorable scene, the character Neo is faced with a decision. By taking a blue pill, he could continue believing what he wanted to believe. By doing so, he was ignoring reality. The one who was giving him an opportunity of enlightenment was Morpheus.

Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

Welcome to the world of project management, Morpheus. I’ve learned over time, which of my stakeholders to give the red pill to and which to give the blue pill to. To be truthful, many don’t even want you to offer them a pill. It’s my job to support and advise stakeholders related to the program. It’s not my job to tell a stakeholder which pill to take.

When managing stakeholders, you really need to understand their motivations and expectations. Not all stakeholders want the program or project to succeed. Of the ones who do want the program to succeed, I’ve witnessed complete polar opposites of figurative pill popping. On one side of the spectrum, I’ve dealt with a stakeholder who wanted to know every little detail of what was going on with a project. This micro-manager almost choked on his red pills. On the complete other side of the spectrum, I’ve had a stakeholder who showed up for a project charter meeting, swallow the blue pill, and just let everything take its course.

For those in the middle, there is a bit of a punchline. Mix both a red pill and blue pill and you get a purple pill. “Purple Pill” is a trademark for a heartburn medication, which is exactly what you’ll need at some point of a project.

So, I’m back in the office today. I sat in a meeting with 50 other people and listened to a monthly status briefing by a vendor. As I looked around the room and thought about writing this, I muttered to myself.

red-red-blue red-blue-blue….

I’m always looking for ways to help others in their quests to be better project managers. It doesn’t matter if it’s about getting the PMP® certification, getting PDUs, or even finding good tools to make a given task easier. I field questions from both emails and Twitter. Today I read an email that was not unlike others I’ve answered directly. But, I thought others would benefit if I answered publicly. Here is the content of the email:

I read your article about how the PMP certification is commercialized and an example of a PMP holder hiding behind the credential. I want to become a good IT Project Manager. I read the requirements to become a PMP. According to requirements, a person needs 3 years exp before attempting this test. My question is, how can I get exp without a certificate or who would give me a job to get the exp as a project manager and thereby attempt my PMP certification. Can you please help me set my goals in an orderly fashion so I can ultimately become a good Manager?

Does this sound familiar? It’s kind of like the chicken and the egg. First, I would like to say the person asking the question made a statement that resonated with me. I want to become a good IT Project Manager. I really want to help because if they wrote that, they are half way there. Let’s be clear. You don’t need to have a PMP to be a good PM. I know very gifted people who do not possess the credential. I would be a liar if I did not believe the deck is stacked against them. Companies have bought into the idea that good PMs have PMPs. But I digress. Back to the question at hand.

It can be a challenge to become a project manager, if you have no experience. If you have ever lead a team or managed a task, you have more experience than you give yourself credit for. PMI will recognize that. Remember, the PMP is not a test about something you are learning. The PMP is an exam about what you should already know and do, but categorized within the framework of the PMBOK. Let’s say you’re a QA Engineer. I bet you have a lot of experience in the Monitoring & Controlling Process Group and specifically in the Project Quality Management knowledge area. Document your experience around what you know and do.

In order to qualify to take the PMP exam, you do need to have experience in all 5 Process Groups (Initiating, Planning, Executing, Monitoring & Controlling, and Closing). Honestly, you could have 99.9% of your experience in one process group and 1 hour in each of the remaining 4. PMI doesn’t care. You just need to document that you have experience in all. If you want to be a good PM, I would recommend you get exposure to each of the progress groups. Fewer things are as bad as a PM who does not empathize with all of the functional areas or have experience in the different phases of the project lifecycle.

On a practical note, I recommend you engage others in other functional areas of your current project(s). Offer to help them in some way. Don’t go in with an ulterior motive. Honestly, help someone and you’ll get the experience you need as a byproduct. The PMP should be for someone with overall experience. However, I do know managers in specific functional areas who also hold the credential. I would recommend, if you want to be a good manager, to become educated through practical experiences and not solely through academia. You can learn just so much from a book.

Did I answer the question? Is it a good start?

Please post some comments and let me know.

Graphic via motochan.com

Popularity: 2%

Sometimes a Stakeholder Just Says Bla Bla Bla [video]

Derek Huether

– April 21, 2010Posted in: Project Management

Do you have that one stakeholder who comes to your meeting and finds a way to talk about something completely unrelated? You tell them you need to take the conversation offline but it’s still really annoying. Bla bla bla! It’s important when you schedule a meeting to have an agenda. It’s also really important to stick to it. When in doubt, don’t have the meeting. Check out the video and try to convince me that you have not had this “robot” in one of your meetings.

Popularity: 1%

Tags: Communications, Meetings, Stakeholders

Creating Unnecessary Bureaucracy

Derek Huether

– April 16, 2010Posted in: Project Management

I’ve rewritten this post several times now. The catalyst for this toned-down rant was the company-wide distribution of a new dress code policy. As background to this story, I was hired by a small business to support a Federal Government contract. If you want bureaucracy, the Federal Government is certainly where you’ll find it. Where I don’t expect to find it is with a small business. I’ve worked for both large and small businesses. The bigger they get, the more layers of bureaucracy there is. It doesn’t have to be that way. I think some small businesses think you have to add a lot of crap to processes, in the hope someone will think there is value. Draconian policies do not translate to value! As I read the new policy, I became more and more incensed. I come from a military background, so if someone has anything to say about my appearance, they should say it to my face.

This dress code policy was not necessarily directed to me. That is where the problem rests. When you feel the need to communicate TO and not communicate WITH your people, you have a problem. This situation could have been easily avoided by a superior and a subordinate having a conversation. Instead, we get a vague policy that runs the gambit of “no shaggy hair” to “hair color should be kept within the family of traditional hair colors”.

Give me a break. This is a failure of both communication and of leadership. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking corporate, project management, or communication processes. Take a big step back and ask yourself if writing that process makes sense. Action and communication is what will become culture. Processes just become a pain in the ass that slow things down.

Image from kailash.balnac.com

Free Process Group and Knowledge Area Study Material

Derek Huether

– April 13, 2010Posted in: Project Management

5-9-42

This is the number combination I want you to remember.

5 Process Groups

9 Knowledge Areas

42 Processes

A colleague of mine just passed his PMP® exam. What was one of his regrets? He should have memorized page 43 of the PMBoK. Why? Page 43 is an excellent road-map. Go to any process on page 43 and you’ll have a corresponding process group and knowledge area.

Want to Report Performance? You’ll find it at the crossroad of Communications Management and Monitoring & Controlling. By memorizing the items on this page, you will be able visualize where you are within a project lifecycle and answer a bunch of questions on the exam.

To make it easy on you, I created a simple piece of study material, based on page 43 of the PMBOK

Page 1 has all of the process groups, knowledge areas, and processes
Page 2 is missing Initiating processes
Page 3 is missing Planning processes
Page 4 is missing Executing processes
Page 5 is missing Monitoring & Controlling processes
Page 6 is missing Closing processes
Page 7 is missing ALL of the processes

Click here to get a free PDF copy of this 7 page study worksheet.

With so many other things, memorizing isn’t going to do you any good if you can’t practically apply what you committed to memory. I can’t say I have a use case from the real world, where memorizing page 43 would apply. But, if you want a leg up on passing the PMP® exam, I think it’s a great start.