Wednesday, February 18, 2004

Who Needs Renters Insurance?. Insure the stuff inside and outside your apartment, including yourself. [The Motley Fool] Reminder to self (and other renters) to stop being a lazy bum. Comments9:38:06 PM

Sometimes I crack myself up.  Over the past few years I've done line dating off and on. It can be fun or bad, but normally makes for a good story. Anyway, one of my friends is trying it now and I decided she might make a good match for some of the folks I didn't click just right with.....because she has in common things with me that I liked in them...but is different from me in the ways that I clashed with them.  That's fun, eh?  I just sent the messages, so I don't know what the responses will be... Comments9:35:09 PM

End-State Metrics. End-State Metrics -- We interrupt the Promises and Prescriptions series for this pointer from Jim Berkowitz to a short Baseline interview with Ken Harris, CIO of The Gap. Projects aren't just about deliverables. They are about objectives. Projects aren't just about implementations. They are about benefits. Projects aren't just about the "whats." They are -- first and foremost -- about the "whys." [Frank Patrick's Focused Performance Blog] Comments6:38:48 PM

Tech Job Outlook: Business Processes (NewsFactor). NewsFactor - Business process management: The term is appearing in nearly every enterprise software vendor's marketing materials these days. After its demise in the 1990s -- that time under the term "business process re-engineering" -- BPM is back, now touted as the next wave in enterprise applications. [Yahoo! News - Technology] This is an area / career path I'm interested in.  Nice to see a good outlook.  I'm finding myself in a hard career-spot of not being entry-level, but not being senior.  It's not easy to move along a growth-path, but I'll keep working at it 'cause I'm not willing to settle near the bottom!  Or even close!! Comments12:17:36 AM

Promises and Prescriptions. Frank Patrick is at it again. His series Promises and Prescriptions that started Feb 15th is worth reading a few times over. Frank starts with the statement, Projects -- including software projects -- are about promises. For some reason this needs to be said over and over again. We routinely involve people in our project without telling them what has been promised to a customer. Then we wonder why they do things that are inconsistent with the promise! Projects are about turning uncertain work efforts into reasonably certain outcomes. The collected outcomes represent the set of conditions for satisfying the customer. We want to be very clear about those conditions with the customer. And we need to stay in conversation with the customer about that set of outcomes to adjust as the team innovates, learns, along with the customer. Project sponsors, customers, and stakeholders rely on project promises to carry out and coordinate larger strategies in support of organizational needs. While we know that others rely on our promises, we often don't find out why the promise matters. The "why" serves as the context for the project. Knowing the "why" allows the team to innovate rather than just do what had been decided by others sometime in the past. The "why" offers team members freedom to be their creative selves. Yet, making and keeping those promises are hindered by common problems: people on projects are reluctant to promise the unknown, plans are disrupted by rework, and schedules are thwarted by contention for resources that are involved with more than one effort. Eventually we get to the point where each project performer has to make commitments. It's the only way projects are completed. As Frank says, people are reluctant to do so in the face of uncertainty. It looks like Frank has organized the balance of the series around three common complaints: rework, resource contentions, and fear of promising the unknown. Frank made three postings so far including a sidebar Why Projects Are Hard. I'll offer my comments on that tomorrow. In the meantime get over to Frank's Focussed Performance Business Blog. While you're their subscribe by email or add his RSS feed to your feedreader. If you care about projects, then you want to be reading Focussed Performance. [Reforming Project Management] --------------------------------------------------- Good summary of a communication-leak problem I think many of us experience on a frequent basis.  Sales person to client to account manager to developer back to account manager back to client...there's a lot of places for conversations/discussions/promises to be lost.  Commitments are important.  Comments12:14:30 AM

Planning for Committed Action. Involve your team in creating your project plan, and make sure the plan is visible to everyone so they can help meet goals. [Computerworld News] Great article on WHY one needs to include others in their "master-plan"... "The most effective planning and scheduling tools don't run on a computer. The best tools I know of are walls, sticky notes, cards, flip charts, markers, and the knowledge and experience of people who know the work." Software and computers are good, but people and real-life is great.  ;) Comments12:07:43 AM

Harriet Beecher Stowe. "The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end." I think sometimes in our world of insta-communication, truth gets lost. I ask someone's opinion and before they answer me, they can consult 10 different people in 2 minutes on what to say.  What happened to just a regular conversation?  Face-to-face?  Truth is not always easy to hear from ourselves or someone else, but gosh-darn-it, it's important.  Few things hurt more than finding out you had your eggs in a basket that's not even a basket... Comments12:01:43 AM

© Copyright 2005 Rebecca Schwoch. Last update: 2/8/2005; 2:15:40 PM.