After having the same look on my website for over 2 years, I think it’s time for a facelift.  So, if you come to the site within the next week and notice things looking a little different, don’t fret!  In addition to the frontend changes, I plan to move the site over to PowerVPS (Virtacore Systems), who hosts my other sites.  So, grab yourself a fresh cup of coffee (or tea) and continue enjoying my rants and insights.

If you think the graphic above looks a little like me drawing a Critical Path, you should go to Pictofigo and check out their other offerings.  Thank you again to Pictofigo for doing such an awesome job!

Regards,

Derek

We went to an airshow this last weekend. Being I was in the Marines some 20+ years ago and spent the best of my time in the air in a helicopter, it was like a trip down memory lane. I loved the smells and sounds of the flightline. I even got to walk onto a CH-53.  It was the first time since May 09, 1990.  But I digress.

Upon arriving at the airshow, I noticed a warning was painted on the flightline that made me clap my hands like a cymbal-banging monkey. My wife took a picture so I could somehow relate it to project management in a future blog post.

Here is my Project Management translation:

WARNING

Efficiently Managed Project

It is unacceptable to do work on this project without motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.

Principle 5 Agile Manifesto of 2001 – February 11-13

While on this project all team members and the work under their control are subject to refinement.

USE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT FORCE AUTHORIZED

I was listening to This Week in Tech #264  and one of the guests was Jerry Pournelle. Though it’s not necessary to go into the details of the NetCast, Jerry said something that had me scrambling for the rewind button.  He referred to his Iron Law of Bureaucracy.

(Jerry) Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. One example in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, versus union representatives who work to protect any teacher (including the most incompetent). The Iron Law states that in ALL cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

I then watched a Ted Talk titled The Child-Driven Education.  There were three statements by Sugata Mitra that I want to reference.

1. Self-organizing system: Is where the system structure appears without explicit intervention from outside the system.
2. Emergence: The appearance of a property not previously observed as a functional characteristic of the system.
3. Speculation: Education is a self-organizing system, where learning is an emergent phenomenon.

So, what does this have to do with Project Management?  The organizational machine that is the Project Management certification ecosystem has become that second group Jerry Pournelle identifies.  There is now an entire industry dedicated to certifying people and keeping them certified, including the most incompetent. There is no focus on educating people in best practices, delivering value to customers, or increasing project success rates.

On the other end of the spectrum are the visionaries, the mentors, and coaches.  This is where I make my speculation.

Keep your eyes on the International Consortium of Agile (ICAgile).  At ICAgile, the certification path is divided into three main phases; a Fundamentals Phase, a Focus Track Phase, and a Certification Phase.  It’s not all about getting certifications.  It’s about educating and learning.  In the Fundamentals Phase, the goal is to educate the attendee with the values, principles and basic practices of Agile.  Having garnered the fundamentals of agile in the first phase, The Focus Track Development phase will have different tracks to choose from.  This will allow people to focus being educated in different functional areas like Project Management, Business Analysis, and Testing. Only after completing the courses in a focus track, will the applicant is eligible for the ICAgile “Professional” certificate.

I’m very bullish on ICAgile educating and people learning.

Being Agile is self-organizing by nature, does ICAgile have the unique opportunity to prove the Iron Law of Bureaucracy wrong?

Graphic: Pictofigo

I commonly get asked what I personally use to manage my work. The answer is almost too simple. I use a Personal Kanban. Now, I’m no efficiency guru. I’m no expert on Kanban. I just need a simple system that satisfies a few requirements and makes sense to me.

1. I need something visual to combat my ADD.
2. I need something that visually captures all of my Backlog of work.
3. I need something that helps me visualize what Work is In Progress.
4. I need something that allows me (and others) to see what got Done this week.

Now, I’ve been using task boards for probably half a decade now. When you have that one stakeholder who cruises by your office or cube (constantly) and asks what you’re working on, you can point at the wall and not even look up from you monitor. The board proves its worth just by cutting down on those people interrupting your day.  After a while, people get used to knowing what’s going on and appreciate the transparency.  It’s strange that I need to point that out.  Who benefits by not embracing transparency?  That may be a question left to the comments.

The key difference between a Kanban board and a regular task board is a column limiting your work in progress.  My first exposure to this was from a Scrum Master training session being led by Sanjiv Augustine. Sanjiv displayed a PowerPoint slide of what appeared to be a Los Angeles freeway.  During rush-hour, the amount of vehicles coming onto the freeway are limited (by on-ramp lights).  This attempt to control the volume of traffic flow onto the freeway allows vehicles already on the freeway to move at a faster pace and in turn exit the freeway.  This visual freeway analogy was like a light bulb moment for me.  When I got back to the office and began limiting my Work In Progress (WIP), I did indeed increase my delivery rate.  The days of multitasking are now in my past!

Soon after I started using a Kanban, I met Jim Benson of Modus Cooperandi.  I would describe Jim as a Kanban Sensei.  If you ever want to know more about Kanbans, Jim’s your man.  Go check out the  Personal Kanban website.  Though Kanban is kind of a background business process to me, I still check out the site from time to time to see how others are using Kanban.

To wrap this up, there’s only one “tech” tool I use to bridge the gap between my home and office.  It’s call AgileZen.  AgileZen is a Kanban web application.  Though I have all of my work work on my Kanban board at the office, my wife would frown on seeing a wall of post-it notes next to my desk at home.  So, I use AgileZen to manage both my personal and work tasks while away from the office.  Some people may choose to just use the electronic version.  I just can’t let go of the satisfaction of moving a post-it note from WIP to Done.

Graphic: Pictofigo

I was minding my own business when I noticed a tweet by Alistair Cockburn.  He clearly thought something was funny so I figured I’d check it out.  What awaited me was this video.  If you understand Agile or just interested about it, you should spend the next 3 minutes and 14 seconds enjoying a creative perspective on why Agile might not work for you.  It’s very tongue-and-cheek.  You should also check this out: http://www.pmi.org/resources/pages/agile.aspx Again, don’t take it too serious.