The Most Important Rules of Delegation
I found recently an article by Richard Lannon entitled 12 Rules of Delegation. While the article is fine and it really gives some insights on how to delegate I think it fails to emphasize the most critical issues of delegating responsibility to the others.
I started thinking and looking for some more blog posts on delegation and I came to some conclusions which I would like to share here with you.
Delegation is a two-way street, says Richard Lannon. Yes, this is an important thing that we shouldn’t forget. And when we assign a task to someone and we hold them responsible for it we have to have in mind our reasons to delegate and their reasons to accept it.
What are the issues from our perspective? There are two major questions we must ask ourselves: Why to delegate? and What to delegate?
Filed Under Leadership, Links, Teamwork | 8 Comments
Rich Maltzman, Crowdsourcing, and Project Management
Rich Maltzman is a certified PMP and a project manager with huge professional experience. I didn’t know him until recently I found the Fiddler on the Project Wiki where he tries (together with Ranjit Biswas, PMP) to write a book based on the principles of crowdsourcing. While I didn’t know anything about crowdsourcing either, I started looking around and I found that generally crowdsourcing is a way to create something with the significant help from the crowd. Fiddler on the Project is an experiment in using crowdsourcing to create a book on project management with the help of a hundred participants. Intriguing, isn’t it?
Filed Under Links, Project Management, Teamwork | 3 Comments
Recommended Readings: Free e-book downloads
Jeff Atwood of Codding Horror wrote an article the other day called Why Does Software Spoil? where he gave his brilliant thoughts about the feature creep that spoils all software products. I was very impressed because I also have suffered of “feature overdose” and I think I am going to add my comments soon on this topic. Continuing the theme, yesterday Jeff wrote another article, where he recommended the Mark Minasi’s e-book The Software Conspiracy. Here the author examines in great detail the “feature paradox” - new features are used to sell software, but they are also the primary reason that software spoils over time.
You can download the book from its website - The Software Conspiracy.
Filed Under Books, Business Analysis, Death March, Links, Project Management, Software Development | 2 Comments
Software Product Success Stories
Craig Brown of BetterProjects started a meme with the same title and tagged me to participate in it. He was inspired by a Scott Sehlhorst’s post at Tyner Blain.
I thought a long time before deciding to write something about it.
Why is it so difficult for me to write about successful products? Well, mostly because I spent most of my professional life working at project-oriented companies. Most of the projects I participated in were one-time shots and I don’t know what happened to those products - if they were ever used or if they were successful. And I can say that most of the companies operating in Bulgaria are outsourcing companies working this way. It is not their responsibility to care about the product. They only care about the current project - to be delivered on time, within the budget and within the defined scope.
Filed Under Links, Project Management, Software Development | 6 Comments
A "Classic" Story of Classic Mistakes by Steve McConnell
Steve McConnell wrote a great article called Building a Fort: Lessons in Software Estimation where he tells us the story how he built a fort for his children and what classic mistakes he did during this adventure. It is a brilliant lesson of how many mistakes we can make when we are put in a situation where we are not too familiar with the nature of the problem even if we are very experienced in the area of project management. Steve provides a thorough analysis of what went wrong and what were his mistakes in planning and estimating. Of course, it would be more useful for him if he had done it before he started his endeavor.
Although it’s not a software project, it’s a great example for all of us how many things we should think about and should take in consideration when making our plans and estimates. And it is always better to do this analysis in the beginning of our project instead of doing it at the end.
Filed Under Classic Mistakes, Links | 1 Comment
Recommended Readings: Project Risk Management
Being a project manager means you have to deal with uncertainty. It always brings negative reactions among the project managers and their upper management. As Bas de Baar says:
The problem with risk management is the negative image of the word “risk”. […] The tendency of most stakeholders is to jump very stressfully at the statement “this is a risk”. Therefore most of the time it’s not very easy to discuss about risks, because that’s always a conversation about problems. It’s very important the risk is not perceived as a bad thing, but as a positive attitude to make sure everyone will become a winner in the end.
Remember, risk management helps you being aware of the goals you have to achieve, and what can happen if you don’t satisfy the goals. It supports you in making the right choices!
So, have no fear of risks! In order to help you and to give you courage and self-confidence today’s recommended reading are devoted to the project risk management.
- Craig Brown of Better Projects wrote a huge series of 15 posts on project risk management. It covers almost every aspect of the risk management and it’s a great place to start learning and practicing good techniques to manage your project’s risks.
- PM Hut is another great source of high-quality knowledge about project management and there you can also find a lot of very helpful articles on risk management. I highly recommend you Creating Risk Profile Graphs by Mike Griffiths of LeadingAnswers, Project Risk Management - It’s Either Contingency Planning Now or Emergency Relief Later by Christoper J. Wright, and No Risk of Defects! Making Quality-Related Risks Actionable by Alan Koch.
- And at the end - another useful post from Bas de Baar of Project Shrink - Project Risk Checklist. The checklist is an extremely helpful tool which you can use in every project you undertake and the one Bas suggests is a very good starting point of your risk management proficiency.
Happy reading!
Recommended Readings: Computer Ergonomics
I read recently Jeff Atwood’s post on Computer Workstation Ergonomics and I realized that I really didn’t know a lot of things that were important for my health. For the last couple of months I started working at home and I work the worst possible way - I sit in my bed holding with my laptop in my lap (this is why they called it “laptop” isn’t it?).
Unfortunately, it isn’t funny at all. My back is aching terribly and now I know the main reason for that - my bent working pose. So I did a little research and I am giving you some links to sites with very useful information about computer ergonomics and a lot of graphics and pictures.
Here they are:
- The Boston University self-help guide to computer workstation ergonomics
- Guide to Setting Up an Ergonomic Computer Station
- One more article on Computer Ergonomics
- And a whole blog devoted to ergonomics - Ergoblog
I believe this information will be of great help to you. Don’t be careless to your heath - think about it!
The Recommended Weekly Readings (2007-08-18). Project Management
I will try to establish a new series on my blog - The Recommended Weekly Readings. It will be a list of links around some topic that I find interesting for you. This week they’ll be on the topic of Project Management.
One of the richest and most valuable resources in the subject of Project Management is GanttHead. I highly recommend you to become members of this site and to subscribe to their newsletter. In relation to my recent posts about leadership (How a PM Can Become a Real Leader and The 20 Qualities of the Inspirational Leader) I found Andy Jordan’s article Project Manager vs. Project Leader where he argues that no matter how qualified in the area of task management a PM is they must have leadership skills. “PMs have a responsibility to manage their teams - even in a matrix organization - and that means being a leader”. Later on he describes the different sides of the leadership, the easy and the hard parts of being a project leader.
Another great article you can find on GanttHead is Tom L. Barnett’s Leadership-Powered Project Management. He says that all the leaders we know from history, no matter whether they were political, military, or business leaders, no matter their different styles, they all shared some similar leadership qualities. Mentioning Washington and Lincoln, Gates and Welch, Churchill and Eisenhower, Tom Barnett gives us the similar traits that are common among the great leaders. The traits that will set us apart as leaders and distinguish us from everyone else.
Although leadership skills are necessary quality for every project manager, there are techniques of the craft which are a mandatory part of the PM’s skillset. The PM Hut blog published recently Thomas Cutting’s post How to Really Fix a Failing Project where he focuses on the most important things a project manager should do when his or her project is in trouble. If you can stay calm and follow his advices there is a great chance you will get your project back on track.
PM Hut is a great source of useful information for the project managers. It is some kind of aggregator where they publish articles from many experienced and interestingly writing bloggers in the field of project management (including me, too :-)).
Writing the project documents is probably the most hated obligation of the project manager. I know a lot of PMs who don’t understand very well the purpose of each document and this is the main reason for their frustration when it comes to writing it. PM Hut has published an article by Sam Elbeik to help in this matter. While his article is pompously entitled The Secret of Successful Project Management it is a simple and understandable explanation of the purpose and the value of the key project documents like the Project Charter, the Plan, and the Progress Report.
At the end I am giving you a very serious article by the PM guru Tom Mochal in the TechRepublic’s PM blog devoted to one of the first things that happen in a project - the kickoff meeting. Why it is important and how you should conduct it - read it here (note: it may require a free registration!)
P.S. This series is inspired by Liz Strauss’ post on thematic link posts, which is a follow-up to Joanna Young’s post on the same subject. Many thanks to both of them for the idea!
Filed Under Leadership, Links, Project Management | 4 Comments
-
-
Subscribe to this blog!
-
License
The content of this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial- No Derivative Works 2.5 Bulgaria License -
Admin
