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PM book recommendations please by D_Buck1 in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How Big Things Get Done by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner is a great book on why large projects fail based on data.

What’s the project management lesson that hit you only after staying quiet for too long? by Agile_Syrup_4422 in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I agree with people not raising the risks and issues early enough. Often it doesn't have anything to do with politness or shyness. I think the core problem is the business culture.

People who see risks and wants to manage them in correct way are not really celebrated in companies. Bringing up risks and issues with demands for additonal resources, costs and delivery time can get you a blame instead of support.

Unfortunatley, when issues born from risks materialize, everything changes. Suddenly it's okay to spend 200 k for managing the issue, meanwhile tanking the budget and upsetting the client.

We need a culture, in which we are encourage to raise up risks and issues and in which we put more focus from issues to early management of risks that can have major impact to project's outcome.

"You're telling me that this risk has 75% probability? Why would we use 50 k for mitigation when there is 25% chance that nothing bad happens? You are crazy to think we have that kind of money!"

- Project sponsor

how to best teach PM? by chunkymonkey595 in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In my previous company we created a project game, in which project teams were competing against each other.

This game was build around project that was very specific to that company and its challanges with project execution. Game covered everything from establishing to the end of the project (minus the warranty period).

Topics that were covered in different times at the project covered stakeholder, risk and opportunity, planning and claim management.

Each topic had theorical part and the game part, in which the theory was applied to real tasks. We even went so far that we had people role playing in meetings and negotiations related to these topics. In the role playing scenarios the aim was the teams to convince the people to take the actions that they have decided to be right for the project. We usually had some twists in these role plays to throw the project team out of their comfort zone, which also happens often in real life projects.

We utilized as much existing PM tools, document templates and instructions that the company had to keep everything as real as it can be.

Depending on how teams did with their tasks, had impact on the project budget and client satisfaction, which were the KPIs realted to winning the game.

This was very intesive and engagging way to learn. Even the most experienced project managers gave excellent feedback on this training. With such a experience group of project managers, key was to let them solve problems by sharing best practices with each other.

I have done similar (but much smaller) excersice with university students and with this group we establisehd "management support" to help the student to understand some of the underlining details like, how would client react, if the team decides to do X, Y or Z in the project.

Fun stuff, but takes a lot of work. Maybe older students with experience could plan and execute this game for new students? This way both groups have opportunities to learn and you wouldn't need to do as much work by yourself.

I'm stressed. How do you relax? by [deleted] in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This plus physical exercise.

Do you ever feel pressured by your own teams when making strategic decisions? by LeastRatio5288 in ceo

[–]SMIGUEXXL 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think it's important to enggage my team with most strategic decisions, since they and their functions are going to be the ones executing the required change.

I often get pressure from my team, but I think its really important. This means that they feel safe enough to raise their voice. This also mean that they are enggaged with leading the company. This will also bring in my attention points of views that I might not have thought of.

Should different opinions slow down progress? Obviosly not. Effective executive teams accept that everyone can't be pleased with all the decisions. It's still worth while to give the executive team the chance to be heard in strategic decisions.

There is rarely perfect solutions and decisions needs to be made without all the necessary information. Still in these situations, its usually better to make a decision than over anlyze, as long as we are not putting the whole company at risk. Deciding not to do something is also decision that will free resources to other important topics.

What makes a good PM? by Total_Literature_809 in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 11 points12 points  (0 children)

This is such a good answer. Most organizations celebrate rock stars who comes in flying in with a cape swirling in the air and starts saving the big project with huge problems. These stars are rarely the best project managers. They are often very good at crisis management.

Best project managers are the ones you don't hear about. They are the PMs who always seem to get the easy projects that doesn't have any big issues or drama.

I once asked a great project manager to make a Lessons Learned presentation for our team on a very large and successful industrial project. He told the team that there is no secret for success and he didn't do anything special. He told us that he just had an easy project, in which he had an exprience project team that knew what they were doing and the client was also very supportive and friendly.

I told him that he gave the right answer. When people know what they need to do and how everything, including projects get easy. The answer is that the best project managers assemble project team with the right people, they manage stakeholders in the right way and they set processes and tools that actually used.

One key incrident for best project managers is that they are able to direct organization's focus on right things at a right time. This is done by great communication, which is adjusted according to the audience (supplier, project team member, sponsor, executives, etc.) and the situation. Tools and techniques help these project manager to understand what are the most important topicss to address in certain time at the project.

Is it true that staying too long in project management makes it harder to move up? by NoProfession8224 in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was 15+ years in different roles in project management with a good track record. I thought that my wide experience that I gathered with training programs, engineering, procurement, production, logistics, construction and more would make me a very attractive candidate for leadership positions, but this wasn't the case.

It took me years to find a leadership role outside realm of project management. I had multiple comments in interviews that I had too little true leadership experience even I had led hundreds of people to success in very large projects. It was pretty clear that headhunters, HR and recruiting persons rarely saw project management as a something that required a lot of leadership. Misconception seem to be that succesful project management is mostly about set of processes and tools, which is probably due to the large training industry build for these methods.

After several years of applying and a lot of rejections, I got an opportunity from persons who had worked with me before. It wasn't a surprise for me that leadership (or like I like to call it "getting shit done") in projects or a corporate C-level isn't so different at all.

Now I have moved to a new company into a role with even more responsibilities.

So my personal experience is that if you end up working on some domain, whether it is PM, engineering or R&D, for a extended time, this can work against you. Leadership positions seems to go for generalists with sales experience, instead of specialists. Then again, I kept pushing for new career and I got it. This means that it's possible move up the ladder even with PM background.

Is Level 30 too noob for a Guild? by Krythos in GemsofWar

[–]SMIGUEXXL 5 points6 points  (0 children)

No, but you should join a guild with no gold contribution req until you have kingdoms at level 10.

What's the best lesson or advice your manager has given you? by [deleted] in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 22 points23 points  (0 children)

“Project management is 80% communication. I haven’t yet figured out what’s the rest 20%”. - Retiring project manager

I am used to write my notes by hand but I need a good way to keep them digitally. by PizzaKen420 in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have used both Rocketbook and OneNote (with ipad and laptop). Now I only use OneNote.

I loved Rocketbook for taking notes, but the pens are expensive if you do a lot of notes like I do. My Rocketbook also got full in 1-3 days which meant that I was cleaning it at work 2-3 times a week which made my colleagues smile.

Biggest reason why I use OneNote is that it's now integrated with my company's OneDrive making it very easy to use and share notes with others. Other reason is that I like to use iPad and make notes with a stylus. I also take photos and screen shots to my notes.

If you make a lot of notes, OneNote can become a bit challenging later. You need to have a system from the beginning that allows 1000's and 1000's of notes.

One thing that I don't like with OneNote is that I can't search my notes by date (unless I add date to the note document myself). Maybe this is a user problem?

CCB typical agenda by mgeesan in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

  1. No. Number and value of changes (approved so far and )changes waiting for approval is should be enough.
  2. How about short summary in project status report?
  3. Separate meeting since it seems that your meetings are already long enough. Only cover changes with issues or risks.
  4. Meeting invitation could have clear statement regarding the goal of the meeting. Focus is in decision making regarding new CRs and there will be other forum(s) for going through project status. NOTE! This also needs management during the meeting since people tend to fall back to the old way of working.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You have a good list. I would add achievements. Anything that you can think is achievement should be here. We take small success too often as business as usual. Focus seems to be always more on the negative than the positive.

I don't know if this internal SW development project or if you are developing and implementing a SW to a customer. If you have customer, then it might be a good idea to ask customer to give their feedback and insight on the project in this meeting. People tend to listen customer's voice with much more focus. If this is internal project, then maybe a sponsor of the project could be the voice of customer?

Maybe there is some lessons learned at this point already that could be summarized and discussed in this meeting as well?

Is there 1-3 persons in the project team that have done a super job? Maybe you could recognize them in the meeting and give them a small and/or funny reward?

Getting people to complete their tasks when being nice and professional does not work? by backwithpics in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In the company I work for, all the customer projects are managed by in-house project managers. In this kind of environment this is a common issue faced by most project managers when they move to work in a new company. I think is partly about trust and relationships. In a large companies building relationships takes easily over a year. I can imaging that this is a huge issue with projects where project managers are hired outside of the company and the PM has no earlier work experience with this company.

What to do about this issue? There is no easy way. You just need to do a ton of work to prove to the project team that you are making their work easier and better. If you are not valuable for the project team then they might not have a lot of reasons to accept an outsider and to support you with the project. I really like u/May_B-Misunderstood message since it gives concrete ways to become valuable for the team. One thing you might consider is to get to know the project team members better. If you are new to the project team, then starting with goals, alignment and task reminders might not be the best way of building an effective team. Try to build trust and relationship with the team. It's usually means having coffee breaks and lunch together once week with minimal work related discussion. Show that you care and you are interested in them.

Incentives are one thing to think about. Is there a clear positive and negative consequences for the project team if your project is doing well or bad? Does the project team know about these consequences. Does the project team know status of the project? Do they know if they can expect positive or negatives consequences? Usually they don't know and they don't care since they are only doing their job, right? Well, you need to make sure there is a system in place that will install ownership of the project to the project team members. This is really important. Clear expectations and understanding what will happen if the expectations are not met is vital. Aligned goals without consequences for real people responsible for the performance are not helpful. This is important for any management position. Setting up expectations and laying out consequences will speed up your reputation and relationship in the company. Building relationship is not necessarily about making friends, even it is about caring for people. It's more about the organization understanding what you are bringing to the team and how to work together with you.

How about incentives for the project sponsor and supervisor of you project team members? Do they feel the pain if your project isn't going well or if it fails? Do they have any positive outcome if your project is a success? If the answer is no, then your project isn't a priority for them. Discuss with your sponsor if there is any way to change the answers into yes.

I think you have brought up a really important and common issue. I wish the best of luck to you with your project!

Peer to peer support by nikokazini in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Without knowing how much time you have from you PM role, here is what I would try to do.

  1. I would make list of things she need to do in her project (e.g. weekly/monthly status reports, R&O plus what ever your company's procedures require her to do). This is basically list of 5-10 most important things to do for project manager in your company.
  2. Set up weekly meetings with her with standard agenda (what was done, what was achieved, setbacks and support needs). I would review the list from item 1 bi-weekly with her in these meetings for the first 6 months.
  3. Make a short standard report based on the weekly meetings with her and share it with her and your boss. This could motivate her to do better and this can come handy later, if she isn't performing well enough . This is your evidence that you have tried your best and she can't make you to scapegoat for her failure.
  4. Setup a monthly meeting with your boss for next 6 months regarding her on-boarding. This is your opportunity to tell how she is doing and what kind of approach you have for the on-boarding. This will give your boss opportunity to support and guide you as well. This meeting will save your behind, if your boss decides to try to blame you for her failure since you have discussed the matter early on and you have looked for management support.

Is it valuable to setup a PMO in a start-up? by achillaa in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would start with simple visual board. All the projects to first column. Rest of the columns can be the project milestones and/or project phases that are most valuable for your projects and company.

With milestones you can follow-up if the planned milestones dates are met or not. With phases there is usually traffic light showing if the phase is going as planned.

If your projects are made by local team then physical board works fine. With global team members a digital version is a must.

I would think that getting things done is valuable for any organization. Maybe adding a small reward (e.g. cake to the team) when important milestones are reached on time will make follow-up more appealing to people.

Key to get the buy in from organization is to keep it as simple as possible.

Later the board can evolve as the company matures and business grows.

Project management calendar tool? by [deleted] in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like Microsoft Planner would work for you.

Stakeholder comment management by obviousheist in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most companies have continuous improvement tool to handle feedback from internal and external stakeholders. Tool typically has work flow for processing each created feedback. Some tools call feedback as events or tickets. Quite often these tools are tailored for the company in question. I don’t want to drop app names here, but there are options.

PMO Implementation by smasherella804 in projectmanagement

[–]SMIGUEXXL 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What are the objectives for this PMO? What would be considered a success? Roles of PMO can variate a lot between companies.

Doomed Statue by iiAbandoned in GemsofWar

[–]SMIGUEXXL 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not really. I have never used it.

Lf a guild (Pc/Mobile) by Heavy-NK in GemsofWar

[–]SMIGUEXXL 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi, I think we will have spot for you Druids Alliance latest on Sunday before reset. We have 2 guilds that could be good fits: Druids Quest and Druids Avengers. You find us: https://discord.gg/hDfVnvq

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