Archive for February 2008

Over the last few days this week, I described three scenarios and the difficult decisions Project Managers made in each of the three.  In the first, the desire for more responsibility might bery well have led to less effectiveness.

Technorati Tags: Accountability, Career development, Commitment, decisions, Ethics

Patal Fray was Project Manager of a very big and important project for his firm.  He was very proud to have been given this assignment and assured his VP that he would bring it in successfully, on time, if not ahead of time.

Technorati Tags: Accountability, career-planning, critical-success-factors, decisions, Ethics, goals, goodwill, Leadership, management, over-extending, professionalism, [...]

When we think about prejudice, we think about age, sex, race, religion, etc.  But what about yoru reaction and pre-judgments of people whose style is different from your own?  (This is from my February newsletter – ArLyne)

Technorati Tags: cruss-cultural, cultural-differences, Emotions, pre-judging, prejudice

Hi, this is ArLyne Diamond, Ph.D. again.  Here’s the second in my series of scenarios:
While conducting management training for a group of managers at XYZ Corp. they had a change in upper management and the new management was trying to trim costs.  One of the managers consulting with me, let’s call her Sandra, was scared.  [...]

Hi, This is ArLyne Diamond again (www.DiamondAssociates.net)  I am ths week’s guest blogger, and I think this is my third or fourth time to do so.  BUT, I don’t see my name on the list of guest bloggers – oh well…. Here;’s my blog for today:
Scenario I:
Jose Bive was Project Manater of three very improtant [...]

Much as he did earlier in his career, Proman was now at another crossroad. The large program had just concluded. What’s next? He noticed how engaged he’d felt during the process. Each day he threw himself into the proceedings with renewed vigor and seemed to know instinctively what to do. [...]

The applause was thundering as the magician completed his performance. Proman A. Jecgert had hired the magician to help celebrate the completion of what would come to be called Phase One. The party included all participants across the organization. The grove in the trees was a perfect setting, and the sun shone [...]

The escalation process worked! As work on the program drifted past the scheduled completion date, Proman sensed the pressure coming from across the organization. Managers wanted their engineers back to work on product development, not on solving broad reaching technical issues. But the impasse was real. Development could not continue (or [...]

Seated at the table across from him, Toni made a grimacing face. The news was not good. Proman had started the weekly meeting by reminding key engineers from each of the study groups that resolving these issues was the top priority for the group. The group general manager had come by his [...]

Proman looked over the agenda for the first meeting of the management team. It was phenomenal how the champion for resolving these issues got this cross organization group to convene. Toni personally went to each of the key stakeholders and discussed the problems, pointed out the consequences, identified the benefits to each person’s [...]

Proman A. Jecgert put the phone back in its cradle.  It was a distressing call.  The caller was very frustrated and negative about what was going on.  “The place is in a mess,” she said.  “People are doing their own thing, and managers aren’t stepping in to guide the development process or make crucial decisions.  [...]

Three people took a break from the project startup meeting and went for a walk.  Stubbing a toe upon something along the trail, one person picked up and discovered a tarnished lamp.  As he rubbed the lamp, a puff of smoke emerged and formed into a huge genie.  “Well, hello there,” said the genie.  “I [...]

 
OK here is the scenario – Do you pass the “ink blot test”??.
It is Friday afternoon on the day before a holiday weekend. You are on the telephone to a venture capital company in New York wanting to know about RoHS impact. The project you are working on since October and which has had three [...]

If you think you might be changing jobs any time soon, (hello Yahoo!, Applied Materials and
Nektar Therapeutics),

Technorati Tags: Career development, career-planning, differentiators, education, process, project-management, Recognition, self-improvement, Success, training, UCSC-Extension

NO, not bonding like guys going camping together, or a serendipitous encounter of old friends. I’m talking about some serious, planned, coming together of the team.

Technorati Tags: Cross-cultural-teams, offshoring, project-tactics, Teambuilding, virtual-teams

There’s a remodel going on in my house, and the general contractor spends so much time actually doing the finish carpentry, that overall management of the remodel project suffers. I can’t get change order costs from him so I know how much money I need to finish the job! He’s making compound cuts on crown [...]

I’m old enough to remember life before “Smart” Phones, Cell Phones, PDAs, and Email.  Heck, I still remember the smell of the mimeograph machine when I was in elementary school.  Today I have a “Smart” phone; you know part mobile phone, part PDA, part computer, and it contains everything about your day-to-day life; including pictures [...]

Recently I looked at my calendar and caught myself saying “Sweeeet only 4 hours of meetings today”.  That’s when I realized “I’m in meeting hell”. I had always suspected this, so

Technorati Tags: meetings, Program-Management, project-management, Time management

A mentor of mine once attributed this quote to General George Patton. I don’t know for sure if Patton said this first, but I do know that these are words for every Program/Project Manager to live by. I’m not saying that running a program is equivalent to waging war, although it may seem that way [...]

Yesterday I said that “as the Program Manager it is your responsibility to make sure your team has what they need to succeed” (see Resource Poaching 101).  The reality is that this is the responsibility of

Have you ever been the program manager on a job where you planned everything down to the smallest detail; you collected the requirements, got your experts together, reviewed what it would take to perform the development, and finally presented your plan to upper management.  They were so impressed with your presentation that

Technorati Tags: portfolio-management, [...]