Like many of his colleagues Wayne is an “accidental project manager”, starting as a mechanical designer, advancing into engineering, passing into engineering planning, growing to lead global, high-tech, complex programs, advising senior management in program/project process development.
Wayne’s decades of work have yielded a diverse experience set; his jobs included, designing of machine tools, designing for automated assembly, manufacturing engineer, managing a software application development project, managing customer relations, managing product release to market programs, leading a non-profit organization, managing telecom upgrade projects, managing customer call center projects, managing project portfolio process development; his career has journeyed through industry sectors in metal-working/assembly manufacturing, nuclear energy, computer manufacturing, automotive, telecommunications; his forms of employment have run the full gambit, from full-time employee, to contractor, to consultant; he has contributed directly to, IBM, Westinghouse, Intuit, PMI-Silicon Valley Chapter, Honda/Acura, SoftReach Services, plus others; thru customer interfacing jobs he has worked with numerous Fortune 500 corporations many at the executive level.
Educationally, Wayne has degrees in Mechanical Engineering, Business Administration, and a certificate in Program/Project Management. He is a certified PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) and is past president of the PMI-Silicon Valley chapter.
With all the above, and more, it is clear Wayne is not one to sit idle. He is constantly doing, learning or teaching. Philosophically he believes a person’s success is measured in project achievements, new perspectives gained, new people met and help given along the way.
(www.waynegoulding.com)
(The Business of Project Management - waynegoulding-blog.com) Wayne Goulding
Like many of his colleagues Wayne is an “accidental project manager”, starting as a mechanical designer, advancing into engineering, passing into engineering planning, growing to lead global, high-tech, complex programs, advising senior management in program/project process development.
Wayne’s decades of work have yielded a diverse experience set; his jobs included, designing of machine tools, designing for automated assembly, manufacturing engineer, managing a software application development project, managing customer relations, managing product release to market programs, leading a non-profit organization, managing telecom upgrade projects, managing customer call center projects, managing project portfolio process development; his career has journeyed through industry sectors in metal-working/assembly manufacturing, nuclear energy, computer manufacturing, automotive, telecommunications; his forms of employment have run the full gambit, from full-time employee, to contractor, to consultant; he has contributed directly to, IBM, Westinghouse, Intuit, PMI-Silicon Valley Chapter, Honda/Acura, SoftReach Services, plus others; thru customer interfacing jobs he has worked with numerous Fortune 500 corporations many at the executive level.
Educationally, Wayne has degrees in Mechanical Engineering, Business Administration, and a certificate in Program/Project Management. He is a certified PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) and is past president of the PMI-Silicon Valley chapter.
With all the above, and more, it is clear Wayne is not one to sit idle. He is constantly doing, learning or teaching. Philosophically he believes a person’s success is measured in project achievements, new perspectives gained, new people met and help given along the way.
(www.waynegoulding.com)
(The Business of Project Management - waynegoulding-blog.com) The Bump in the Night (5 of 5)
Where to Go From Here?
I realize that most of us will never face the challenges confronted by Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director, on Apollo 13, but the mental exercise is worth doing. If you haven’t seen the movie, or have seen it and view it as entrainment at the time, I suggest renting it and [...]
The Bump in the Night (4 of 5)
Rallying the Team from a Bump in the Night
For the rare situation where the project plan comes to an abrupt, premature end or dead stop, it is your time to show everyone what real leadership is. At this point the whole team, and more, are looking for someone to rally them and provide direction on [...]
The Bump in the Night (3 of 5)
Process for Handling the Dips in the Road
The majority of unexpected situations that hit a project during its execution are dips in the road to closure; a leader can certainly prepare both themselves and a process for the team, to deal with these.
As the project leader you own the solution/decision process, like any of [...]
The Bump in the Night (2 of 5)
Who is Solving the Problems and Making the Decisions?
The question on the table is, will we have the right person(s) solving the problem and/or making the decision, when needed?
The volume of problems/decisions seen by a project is probably somewhat pyramid in shape, with the bulk lying with individual SMEs and, hopefully, precious few with the [...]
The Bump in the Night (1 of 5)
Are you prepared to cope when things go bump in the night?
As project managers we have become proficient in transforming the project charter (in whatever form we get it) into a project plan (hopefully, including some risk management) and then charging through plan execution to closure. But, what happens when thing go bump in the [...]
Is the Enemy Us or Fate? (5 of 5)
Dealing with Ambiguous Situations
Ambiguous situations are usually characterized by conflicting signals, signals intertwined with background noise, disconnection between actions and events, and suspension of expected cause-effect relationship. We are in the reaches of complexity, non-linearity, and/or discontinuities; our cognitive biases don’t fit, the situation doesn’t align with any of our mental frames, we can’t recall [...]
Is the Enemy Us or Fate? (4 of 5)
Reasoning by Analogy
To reason by analogy; recognize a past experience is similar to the current situation, evaluate what did and didn’t work in the past situation, make a choice about what to do and definitely not do. Certainly analogical reasoning differentiates the novice from the grizzled veteran PM, based on the sheer number of [...]
Is the Enemy Us or Fate? (3 of 5)
Mental Frames
A mental framework is the model we use to simplify the complex and ambiguous world around us; it contains our assumptions on how the world works, our values and our beliefs. In actuality we have multiple mental frames, one or more dealing with each aspect of life, some competing.
Consider your PM frame, if I [...]
Is the Enemy Us or Fate? (2 of 5)
Cognitive Biases
A totally rational person (enter Mr. Spock) would collect a lot of information, analyze many alternatives and only then arrive at the best decision. However, what we typically do is ration our time by using shortcuts, like rules of thumb, past experiences, recent events, etc.; we satisfice. Because we are not totally rational human [...]
Is the Enemy Us or Fate? (1 of 5)
One recent morning I was enjoying the company of my peers at the monthly PMI-Silicon Valley Chapter’s PMO Breakfast meeting. As usual the conversation had degraded (a hardware perspective) to a discussion of software methodologies, that day specifically: When using Agile, how do you handle …? Then out of the blue one of the participants [...]
