Archive for July, 2010

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The painful reality of many meetings

By
Derek Huether
– July 23, 2010Posted in: Project Management

I’m rereading (listening) to Rework for the 3rd time.  It’s been about a month since I last absorbed this artfully crafted piece of wisdom from Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals.  People who read my blog know that I hate meetings.  I’m ok with the 5 minute stand-ups.  I’m ok with the 22 minute meeting, when necessary.

The painful reality is one poorly organized meeting can suck more time and energy than a week of good meetings. How many meetings do you go to in a week? Do you really need to be there? Is there a published goal-based agenda?  Not going to meetings is like not watching CNN for a week.  If it’s really important, someone will tell you the news.  Otherwise, you find yourself commonly hearing the same old thing over and over again.  Your time is more valuable than that.  Go do something else.

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Know how to say no in negotiations

By
Derek Huether
– July 21, 2010Posted in: Project Management

We’ve all had it happen to us. We were able to get a signed agreement in hand, identifying agreed upon scope of work. Everything for a fleeting moment is right in the world. Then it happens. That one stakeholder (you know who they are) comes to your desk and asks. “Can we add this one little tiny feature?” or “Can we make this one tiny little change?”

Are you kidding me? This reminds me of when my son asks if he can have dessert when he hasn’t eaten his dinner. Though you can’t be as abrupt with a stakeholder like you can with a 4-year-old, the answer should still be the same. No.

Though you should not be an obstructionist, we could all learn a little from Dr. Cox in this case.  His (command) mitigated speech is all he needed.  In the real world, stride to be a win-win negotiator and be aware of the mitigated speech being used to conduct your negotiations.

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We didn’t learn our lesson

By
Derek Huether
– July 20, 2010Posted in: Project Management

As the project I support enters a new period of performance, I reviewed the lessons learned documented a year ago and compared them to the documented lessons learned from a few weeks ago.

To be identified at any point of a project lifecycle (PMBOK page 437), all project managers should collect and document lessons learned.  In reality, everyone on the project should be collecting and documenting lessons learned.  But, as many will attest, you need to be able to implement approved process improvement activities (PMBOK page 83) or you will just continue to revisit history at the end of each cycle or project.  If that is the case, you really didn’t learn your lessons.

Do you learn from your mistakes?  You should be able to at least be aware of them.  Document your mistakes and revisit them at the beginning of the next project or cycle.  Group them into three categories: Correct Actions, Preventive Actions, and Defect Repair.

Corrective Action: Document your direction for executing future project work. Bring expected performance of the project work in line with the project management plan.

Preventive Action: Document your direction to reduce the probability of negative outcomes associated with project risks.

Defect Repair: Document a defect in a project component with the recommendation to either repair it or completely replace the component.

Though the process of documenting, reviewing, and implementing lessons learned may differ between Waterfall and Agile projects, the process still needs to happen.

Again, don’t just document lessons learned.  Act on them!

Graphic: Flickr: sopheava

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Awesome Scrum Intro Video

By
Derek Huether
– July 19, 2010Posted in: Project Management, Video

As I was reading tweets over the weekend, I discovered an awesome video by Hamid Shojaee, Founder and CEO of Axosoft. It’s an 8 minute introduction video on Scrum.  With background music sounding a bit like Block Rockin’ Beats by The Chemical Brothers, this video is to the point and completely awesome.

I think this type of video is necessary to show to stakeholders, who have not had an introduction to Agile or Scrum.  In this ADD world we live in, I think we need to deliver some information in the same way we would deliver features in a Sprint.  Go for the items of highest value and deliver them in a short period of time.  Additionally, deliver the information is a way that it can stand on its own.

I remember getting 50 government people in a room with an experienced Scrum Trainer, to introduce them to Scrum.  After several hours, some still didn’t grasp the basics.  If they were forced to watch this video in the first 8 minutes of the training, I bet the day would have gone a lot differently.

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Looking for Partnerships in Project Management

By
Derek Huether
– July 16, 2010Posted in: Project Management

We are happy to announce, upon partnering with a London-based project management firm, that we launched the future site for Prince2 Flashcards.  Currently, there is just a sign up form, for those who wish to be informed when our product is about to launch.  Additionally, we launched the future site for our PMP Exam Simulator. Again, sign up if you want to be informed when our product is about to launch.  Both the Prince2 and the PMP Exam Simulator sites are project management exam preparation websites that should help us expand our reach in the market.

So, what makes this blog post different from others?  Back in March, we launched our PMP Flashcards site.  This was the first site to use our HueCubed flashcard engine.  We’ve gone through several iterations of the engine and it just gets better and better.

What we’re looking for now are some affiliate partners for the PMP Flashcard website.  Do you like what we have created? Want to make some extra money, along with us?

Sign up as a HueCubed affiliate!  As we launch each of the sites, we’ll make affiliate links and buttons available.  All affiliate accounts will paid by HueCubed.

Disclaimer:  The Critical Path, HueCubed, and all of the mentioned product sites were designed and developed by me and my development team.

Thank you to everyone for your support,

Derek

Graphic from Flickr: Spring Stone

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