Dec/090
Project Manager’s Survival Guide
I have been struggling with this problem of having loads and loads of things to do, and I’m sure I’m not the only manager who has the same problem. To give you an idea of what I need to do let’s take a closer look:
- Manage multiple projects (5+)
- Support five business guys (one at US, two at Asia and two at Europe)
- Run team of around ten developers (one engineer at China)
- Support our customers
Now, how do you survive when you have multiple projects, business guys and a middle-sized team to run?
Supportive Project Managers
You do not have enough time to concentrate nor do everything. This brings us to the first thing, get some help. You are still a human and you have limited resources on your own. Figure out the key people from your team and discuss with them whetever they would like to participate on helping you with the management burden. The most important tasks for these supportive project managers are in short, keep the ball rolling and report the status and issues to you.
Now you have more resources to handle the management burden, but a) you need to coordinate, b) you need to train the new project managers, c) you cannot overload them with the management work, d) you still are responsible for the outcome. Let’s take these one by one:
a) Arrange weekly management meeting to coordinate the projects (on a small team you most likely share the resources so this is very important), to discuss the most important issues, and to get reports from the supportive project managers.
b) Write down the common guidelines how the supportive project managers should work, i.e. Project Handbook. This document should cover the whole process: how the weekly meeting works, how to manage the projects, and so on.
c) Give your supportive project managers only one project to manage. That project should be familiar to them – they already know the project so it is easier to start managing it.
d) As you are responsible for the outcome it is not enough just to track the projects on the weekly meeting, you need to give guidance to the new project manager and still be in touch with the customer.
Prioritize
Another thing that you need to do as soon as possible is to prioritize your work. Now this is pretty simple: customers first, you cannot afford to loose them, if you do, soon you won’t have anything to manage. Next thing to do is to figure out and prioritize the most important issues on the team, if there are none, then move to supporting business guys.
Conclusion
Well, now you know at least a couple tricks how to handle a bad situation. Remember, do not burn yourself down, if you do that, there is not one to manage anything anymore: you are more important than anything above! Thinking about hundreds of different things each day will burn you down if you don’t find time for yourself to relax. Trust me, I’v been in the both ends.
Sep/092
Leader of the Future?
For a while now, I have been reading this book: The Leader of the Future by the Drucker Foundation. The foreword, by Peter F. Drucker, was written in 1995, which is a long time ago. Back then a few people, like Peter F. Drucker and Peter M. Senge, understood that the way we practise leadership must change tremendously.
They are right on the requirements of a great leader. But, I disagree with them in one point, they didn’t describe a leader of the future, they just described a great leader. Though, they probably ment that it takes a while to get all leaders to act like this.. anyway, to talk about about the past:
Like I have always said, the world is changing all the time and the biggest problem are people who resist it. Back in ‘the old days’ leaders were trying to stick with the old habits when the world was changing away from that. And, they had loads of problems when something like that happened, they just didn’t understand it back then, or didn’t even want to. Now after years and years of research we are starting to understand it and share the knowledge. Sharing this idea is hard because people are.. umm.. just people: we all have egos, we all have our habits and so on. We don’t just want to let go something that is safe and familiar. In short, it is hard to get leaders to get out of their comfort zone to try out new ideas.
Now, go and do yourself a favor and buy at least these two books: The Leader Of The Future and The Fifth Discipline. While thinking about how to change your leadership style you can listen to AC/DC – Back In Black.
Sep/090
Steve Jobs
Very good and inspiring speeches from Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates Together: Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Z7eal4uXI&feature=related
Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
Aug/090
Personal Goals
This is again one article from my eBook, Challenging The Way To Manage. I thought I should post this as this will help managers to understand how to share the responsibility among the team. Responsibilities should be shared by what motivates team members, some like to think about processes, some to lead projects, and so on. There is no sense to give responsibility to someone if he doesn’t want it, in the end, this is always the best solution.
Overview
The idea behind setting personal goals is to praise learning. At the same time it provides a good tool for management to track how people are performing, what they want to do and what problems are in their way.
How To
The way I run this is that I interview each team member personally; together we define the goals for the next 3 to 6 months and answer to four questions for each goal: how could management help me to achieve this goal, current and target status of the goal estimated by the team member and what problems are in the way. We use scale from one to five for evaluating the current and target status. Remember to give the team members enough time to prepare before having the interview. After the interview I will give my own estimation of the current and target status below the ones done by team member. Goals should be aligned to what is the person’s vision of his career, say in the next two to five years.
Management Support
Idea is that management will help the team members to reach their goals, by providing tools (working groups), more responsibility (e.g. let some one study processes and make improvement proposals), and anything else that might be needed. By giving this kind of commitment to team members from management will make them feel like
somebody really gives a damn about what they want. This in my experience boosts team members motivation, which again reflects to everything they do.
Study Time
You’ll also need to reserve some time for the learning. Don’t assume that all the team members are like you and work 24 hours a day and use their own spare time for learning. I solved this by giving four hours for each team member a week.
Results
Here are the things that happened during a few weeks:
- Team members were more motivated and learning
- Presentations about the things they learned for other team members – sharing the information (very important)
- Continuous improvements – challenging the Status Quo, finding better ways to do things
- Now after three months, when second round of interviews are coming, around 80% of the people have really spent some time to really reach for their goals, which is a very good, but not perfect.
This is a real working tool to strengthen learning environment and build a better team.
Aug/090
Sharing Responsibility
This is one article from my eBook: Challenging The Way To Manage. Enjoy!
Overview
One of the biggest questions that leaders nowadays ask is: how to grow the organization without destroying the dynamics and fast reaction times? Well, as far as I’m concerned the answer is pretty simple: sharing the responsibility – organizing the team to be able to answer to these two things by themselves.
What Is The Problem Then?
In the end, the real problem is anybody with a lot of power, they are afraid to give it away because it makes them vulnerable. Well, guess what? That is the whole freaking point of it!
After you start sharing the responsibility your actions will be questioned, which makes you a human again, which is the way it should be. What I mean is that whenever somebody has too much power in their hands they become some kind of ‘gods’ whose orders will not be questioned. If you know somebody like that, in the long term, that kind of setup is going to fail. Challenging each other or more commonly said ‘sparring’ is one of the most important tools you’ll ever meet for learning and making better decisions.
Let’s take a quick example: you give the responsibility of coding guidelines to somebody else as you haven’t had time to think about them in a year. Very soon, this person will most likely come to you and ask what do you think if we would change this, or even better don’t come to you, instead he brings these things up inside the team and ask about what they think about the ideas. If everyone agrees, there should not be any reason why these could not be implemented (the change comes from inside the team). Remember that when you are sharing the responsibility to a person, he must understand to iterate the changes through the team – make sure he doesn’t become the ‘god’ person.
There is nothing more dangerous than a person who holds too much information and power, because in the end we are all humans – he cannot do more than me or you! This means that he will not be able to do all the tasks he is assigned in to. That is where the trouble begins and people start talking about like: “He is not doing anything about that issue! He doesn’t care!”
Do you see the problem? It reflects both to the management and to the team. Management doesn’t have time and the team thinks they do not do anything because they don’t care. Ouch…
Where to Start?
Talk to the team members and find out what they are interested in. This way you’ll be able to share the responsibility to right people, motivate them and you’ll most likely get them closer to their personal goals. Also do not forget to support them and make sure they understand what their responsibility is!
Results
Simply put, succeeding in this will create a self-managing team. There will be a point where you notice the team starting to make decisions of its own without your help. This is also a very good way to grow new leaders.
Aug/090
What Is Leadership?
Have you ever wondered what this means? Has anyone in your organization ever defined it?
It is very important to understand what is real leadership and what is not. Here is a check list:
- Leadership is about producing results. Exactly, being cool and charismatic is not enough. Is your team doing the right things?
- Leadership is about responsibility. It is not about money, title, age (see http://www.dawnbringer3d.com/?p=174).. Do you take responsibility or are you shifting the burden to others?
- Leadership is about honesty, we are humans after all. A great leader understands he cannot do everything by himself instead he shares the responsibility. Can you be honest?
- Leadership is about visibility, set examples. By the way, this is one of the most important things to remember during changes. Do you practise what you preach?
- Leadership is about trust, people trust him and you trust your team. Sharing the responsibility again for one and, for example, not shooting the messenger who brings the bad news. Are you able to trust to your team members? What about your boss?
Aug/090
Classical Tip: Write to Learn
During my journey as a blogger and as an ebook writer I have learned a lot about writing, well, that should not be a surprise. But, I have also learned a lot more about the topics I have written. I cannot even describe how much it has helped me to clear my thoughts and find solutions for different problems. When you have written something down you can look at it from many perspectives, which allows you to compare the solutions or at least to get a more extensive look at it.
I really encourage everyone to try writing your thoughts down, it helps to get a better picture of your own thoughts. This is a very classic tip, but people tend not to do it because they think it doesn’t help or because it takes too much time. I was one of those persons before I started blogging and writing ebook. Five to ten minutes a day is enough at start, that is not too much to ask, just take a topic that has been going through your mind and start writing about it: what do you think is the problem and what could be the solution?
Aug/090
Orcish Armageddon!
My small game project, previously known as Knights vs. Orcs, has now a real name: Orcish Armageddon.
At the same time we have opened a blog for Orcish Armageddon, where we will be posting the latest news about development and sales & marketing. Check out the site to see beta video material!
Beta will be released very soon.
Aug/090
Knights vs. Orcs Second Alpha Release
My small real-time strategy game is getting closer and closer to its release. I’m very exited about the release as we have planned this for a long time, so stay tuned for news!
You can download the new version and check out three new screenshots (including one new level) from the Games – page.
All feedback is more than welcome! Have fun!
New Level In Alpha: Blood In Forest
Jul/091
Age Racism in Choosing the Right Person
Overview
From time to time I see and hear about age racism when leaders need to select between people. I could almost say I hate people who do this because this way they destroy so many good things for the organization and for the people who work for them… well people=organization, right? Why don’t some leaders get this fact?
The Classic Example
You don’t get the position because you are too young. Because your age makes the people think you are not experienced. In reality you could be teaching the one older than you.. and in the end you probably will and he gets all the credit. People are different, no one can define that kind of a age limit, and if someone does, that is bullshit!
How To Do It
What you need to understand is that the way to really choose between people is to look at their references, and no, not just the name at which company they did work at. You need to look more deeper, in to what they really did. Another good addition would be to add a test. When I choose people for different positions I compare their references and try to find out how they have improved themselves during the last year. If there is two people to choose from: one with not so much work experience, but a lot of talent and improving. And, one with loads of work experience, but nothing to show he has improved. I would choose the first one, because he is still improving and I can help him to keep it up.
People who think they have learned everything are not good for any company, they do not drive the company forwards, the world is changing all the time and you need to keep up with it or your organization cannot take it when does change. These people, are usually those who use age racism, why? Because they want to get people similar like them to work for them, people who don’t challenge the status quo, e.g. “I do not need any young guys running around here and asking questions. I need people who do things.”. Those young guys running around will probably get you through the change, why? Because they challenge you to change.
In reality you of course think about if the selected one would fit in to the team and other things. But, you should not solely base your selection on one thing like age, culture or anything like that. Be smart and think about what is good for your organization, not only what is good for you – there is a big difference. Get ouf of your comfort zone.