Leadership

By Mala Devlin • February 4th, 2010

Sometimes, you have to break the rules to get things done!
As we go through our lives we are subjected to numerous rules – as kids, as students, as workers and as adults living our everyday lives.  As program managers and leaders, part of our responsibilities is to lay down some rules by which to guide [...]

I truly believe in continuous improvement. In today’s world standing still really translates into regression. I apply that continuous improvement to different areas of my life: I keep pursuing knowledge on scuba diving in general and its physiology in specific, I am planning to improve my technical skills of motorcycling this year, I learn new [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Dear Diary –
Well, it’s been quite a week.  After 7 days of heightened attention on my interpersonal communication skills I can’t say I feel I’ve made much progress.  Aside from some encouraging email from a few friends cheering me on in my (decades old) quest to improve myself, there’s no indication that a complete transformation [...]

Dear Diary -
In the “Dear Diary #2” blog I made a commitment to re-engineer my relationship with my dad – getting unstuck from the past conversation swirling around in my head about him.  (Perhaps you made a similar commitment to doing that with a colleague or boss after reading that blog?)  After recognizing that the [...]

With many thanks to Carrie Underwood for singing this beautiful song, it seems fitting during this holiday season to reflect upon the lyrics and apply them to our world of project management:
What you got if you ain’t got love
the kind that you just want to give away
It’s okay to open up
go ahead and let the [...]

I was in an airport last night waiting to board a flight back to SFO. I couldn’t avoid seeing or hearing the TV’s blaring out commentary on Tiger Woods. Larry King droned on…What he said, comparisons to apologies from other political leaders, the standard (or lack therefore) for sports figures. Everyone had an opinion.
What is [...]

There is a central theme running through my Project Leadership Thoughts: it is impossible to look at a project as an isolated entity. It’s about people and interactions. And interactions happen throughout the entire social network. Every interaction effects another one.
What does this mean for you, as a professional?
You have to work on [...]

Yelling “Self promotion, Baby” is a little over the top, isn’t it?
I love rhetoric. I enjoy Big Stories. Without Too Much Detail. As Too Much Detail ruins a Good Big Story.
Although I sometimes say things excited and full of passion (”you need to…”), it’s always an invitation to look at the information and consider [...]

Why should people want to work on your project?
You know about globalization, you know this makes employees competing with people from all over the world. Have you considered The Other Consequence? That you have to compete with other GLOBAL companies and Project Managers to get good people to staff your projects?
If developers, testers and [...]

If your are into software project management, you are into “marketing”. If you are planning to keep on working in (software) projects in the years to come, you better get good at it.
It seems to be a dirty word among technical people: “marketing”. But it’s not about selling your soul to the devil. It’s not [...]

We are working with people from all over the world. Globalization goes together with an increase in transparency of reputations. The Internet introduced deadly transparency.
With an increase in geographical and cultural distance the aspect of “trust” becomes all important. When people have never met, there are two mechanism we can fall back on: [...]

Let’s continue to LEAD, albeit backwards…The other day I wrote about Delegation.  Today, let’s focus on Act and Encourage.  Sometimes, a little fog is good for team climate…

The other day I had the opportunity to present the opening keynote session at the Lavacon/PMI GNO 2009 Event in New Orleans. I talked a lot about leadership.   Whether you are leading a large program, a small project, or a division staff of 200 – your leadership skills, or lack thereof, will define your success.  [...]

October 8 through 12 I attended the PMI Leadership meeting and after that the PMI Congress. I have actively volunteered for PMI on and off for the last 8 years and currently serve as the immediate past President of the San Francisco Chapter. Starting January I will be a member of the Leadership Institute Advisory [...]

Two of the keynote speakers at the PMI Risk Symposium provided insights into how different risks change in priority over a product lifecycle (Esteri Hinman) and how effective risk management encourages poor risk management (Payson Hall).
Risks change over a product lifecycle
Esteri Hinman PMP (from Intel) presented that there are different functional groups involved over [...]

The approach to Risk Management can also be used for Opportunity Management by using a different point of view.