Project Interrupted

One more complaint from my students (see Monday/Tuesday posts) is: “I’m given other jobs, in addition to my coding, and asked to do them without impacting the main project I’m working on.  Not just occasionally, in a crisis, but all the time.”

Some might say that this trait of trying to squeeze more out of Engineering is just human nature or even a good Management technique, and that you can’t blame Management for trying.  But I say you can blame them for trying.  They should know better. (more…)

Mourning a Venerable Oak Tree

My blogging was interrupted Sunday night by a power outage at home.  A neighbor’s huge oak tree had fallen, totally blocking the street and taking out some important power lines (as well as part of a house, slightly injuring the owner, and scaring the bejeezus out of her young daughter who had been sleeping in her bedroom very close to the fallen tree.)

Closer inspection of the tree in the daylight of Monday morning showed that it was rotting inside the trunk.  It looked totally healthy on the outside and was a truly gorgeous specimen, said to be the oldest in San Mateo County.  It was an icon of our small street, beloved by all. (more…)

The Only Thing that is Constant is Change

A second complaint from my students (see yesterday’s post) is: “Management adds requirements to my project without asking me if I can still make the schedule and without taking anything away.  All the time.”

Of course, what’s “bad” about this behavior is not that requirements change – that’s expected – although there must be a limit.  What’s “bad” is making the changes without a change management process. (more…)

New Class, Same Story

I’m in the middle of teaching my Software Requirements Engineering course at UCSC Extension.  On the first day of class, I always ask my students what problems they’re hoping to solve by coming to this class.  Once again I was struck by the commonality of answers from students in all kinds and sizes of companies in the Valley:

“My management won’t support the introduction of process/project management into the company because they think:

a.   it won’t be worth the time and money

b.   we don’t have the time

c.   we can’t spare the resources because we need them to work on Urgent Project X that is behind schedule

d.    it’s just a boondoggle for highly-paid consultants and managers

e.    yada yada yada”.

It’s the same story over and over again.  The students have a gut feeling that there must be something out there that can make their projects more successful (or at least less chaotic), but they are not supported by their management in their quest for answers in the project management world. (more…)

Haikus from Cisco

UCSC Extension did an onsite class in Creative Thinking at Cisco last month.  I thought you might resonate with the results.  And yes, I do know that some of them don’t strictly follow haiku rules!

Cisco project team

Talented, Creative people

As always, Snafu

Project done, boss says

That is exactly what I asked for

But not what I want

Cisco Project yeah!

We work together all day

And every night too (more…)

Face to Face Communications - A must-have or nice-to-have?

While I’ve never encountered any significant resistance to the idea that a PM has to do a lot of communication in order to be effective, I’ve been hearing some discussion about the value of face to face communication in our “brave new world” of virtual teams and global projects.

There is, of course, the classic communication model of Prof. Albert Mehrabian of UCLA for the effectiveness of spoken communications:

* 7% of meaning is in the words that are spoken.
* 38% of meaning is paralinguistic (the way that the words are said).
* 55% of meaning is in facial expression.

I’m a definite believer that a lot of information over and above the words are conveyed in a face to face (f2f) conversation (at least when I’m really paying attention). From a techie perspective, there’s just a lot more info capacity in the optical bands.

We are now faced with PM situations where f2f is not happening. I’ve even had several cases where people were glad they no longer had to have f2f meetings. To paraphrase, “It’s so much more efficient to use email.”(my emphasis) While I’m a fan of efficiency, I’m a bigger fan of effectiveness, and I’m worried that, in the name of efficiency, some PM effectiveness is being sacrificed. (more…)

Are We Crazy?

Why would anyone want to be a project manager (PM)?

It’s a lot of work. It’s been said, only partly jokingly, that a PM may spend about 80% of his or her time on communication tasks, and the remaining 80% on the other required tasks.

We get a lot of responsibility and hardly any true control. The “powers” take away budgets and people. Team members often must answer to their “real” managers instead of keeping their previous “commitments.” (more…)