Journyx Project Management Blog

World-class leaders have the personal resolve and willpower to create effective plans and the organization to implement their strategies. They energize their organizations through these plans. They act decisively. They assess and adjust their plans constantly on the basis of sound situational awareness and outer directed information gathering.

This level of adaptability depends on a few leadership strategies, techniques and principles. When you follow my advice below you will achieve success.

My Top 7 Leadership Strategies You Need to Lead Your Organization Under All Circumstances

1. Get clear on objectives and stick to them.

If you don’t know your destination, you and your organization will meander aimlessly and enter storm-tossed seas.

Effective leaders know where they are and where they want to go. And, they stick to their aim.

2. Create robust plans.

Plans have three key benefits.

* Effective planning allows you and your team to delve into a situation beforehand
* Plans create a common language for everyone involved in the organization’s mission.
* Plans tell you what needs to be done, by when, and with what resources.

Read the rest at the CEO Refresher.

Fair warning: Journyx is based in Texas, the 4th hottest place on earth. Also, it’s the middle of July. And yet I am about to complain about the heat. If I were to read a piece written by someone in upstate New York that complained about the cold in the winter time I’d feel pretty comfortable telling the whiner to shut up and live with it. But I’m asking you to stick with me because despite the whining, I really do have a point that’s germane to projects. Trust me. Would a marketing guy lie to you? Don’t answer that. Just keep reading.

It’s been a very hot summer. Incredibly, painfully hot, even for Texas. It was the hottest June on record, with 20 days at 100° F or higher. It’s also been very dry - like 3 inches below average dry. Why am I going on about this? To make the point clear that, unlike last year’s temperate and waterlogged June, this season hasn’t been very good - or very inspiring - for gardening. You remember my bit about gardening (oh, and time boxing) from back in February, don’t you?

Anyway, the garden has fared rather poorly. Almost entirely due to the heat. Well, that freak hailstorm back in May that utterly destroyed the tomatoes and demolished our bean pole tripod (lovingly lashed together by yours truly - thanks knot-tying merit badge!) didn’t help. But really, it’s the heat. If you have to work the land to survive, it’s one thing. But if it’s really just a hobby, well, there are indoor hobbies that keep you safe from the raging anger of the sun. And that means that the garden suffers alone.

Right, so here’s where we get to the point. Said green brown patch is part of a community garden, and that means that other people care about the state of the plot almost as much as we do. They care because it can affect their plots - if it gets too weedy, say, or if it gets overgrown and blocks out the sun (normally bad, though possibly a good thing this year). You get the idea. So, last weekend an email went out to the gardener list barking at everyone to clean up their plots by the end of Sunday or have their ownership of said plots revoked. Apparently, we’re not the only ones hiding from the intense ball of fusion in the sky.

Now, I’m all for keeping the garden looking nice and going strong, but to threaten to revoke ownership in July - after membership fees have been paid for the entire year, no less - is a bit, well, unreasonable. I suppose the tone was taken to try to spur action, but instead it really just sounded petulant and overly-demanding. Kind of like the way upper management sounds when they demand completion of a project without any effort at understanding the situation on the ground. You see, it’s easy to look at a situation, see something you don’t like and decree that changes be enacted. Heck, it’s probably human nature to do so. But we’re out to change that - in project land, if not in community gardens across the country.

How does a Timesheet company aim to help management get a better idea of what the lay of the land looks like, you ask? Sssssh. It’s a secret.

- Andrew Trent, Journyx Director of Web Content

IT certifications are one way to distinguish between well-trained job candidates and prospects whose skills on specific hardware or software aren’t quite up to par.

At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work. In recent times, however, an overabundance of certifications and widespread cheating on exams caused in part by lax security at testing centers have tarnished IT certifications’ reputation in the eyes of many human-resources executives and hiring managers.

“It’s a big problem,” agrees Don Sorensen, marketing vice president at Caveon, a Salt Lake City test security company. He says there are “literally hundreds” of so-called “braindump” websites that share or sell test questions.

According to a 2007 report from the Association of Test Publishers, of 101 IT vendors and certification test centers surveyed, slightly more than half said that 46 percent or more of their IT certification tests had been copied, stolen or breached in some other way in the recent past. Some test givers said their new tests could be found on braindump websites within a month of being published, and in some cases, as soon as two days, according to the report.

Read the rest at Inc. Technology.

Managing technology projects can be one of the most challenging arenas of project management. Ironically, it is rarely the technology itself that presents obstacles for the technical project manager. Being mindful of the most common traps that await the unsuspecting project manager can help ensure your technical projects don’t end up as financial disasters that don’t deliver expected function, and diminish the reputation of yourself and your technical organization.

1. It is about business process, not the technical tool

The intent of a project is to move the business to a better place. That better place can mean increased efficiency, additional capabilities or an improvement in the accuracy of the business’ output. Regardless of the nature of the business improvement, it is enhanced process that will drive the superior results. It is not necessarily as a result of a tool, a new IT system or improved technology – these are only the catalyst for the improved process which drives business results. Many project managers and their teams mistake the new technology as being the output of the project, rather than the enhanced process that results in conjunction with implementing new technology.

Read on at PM World Today.

Long before that, I was working at another firm where we did fixed cost software development work for a client. They paid us $300,000 and we delivered a ported hunk of code. We had underbid quite a bit, which was partly due to inaccurate specifications of the work since issues arose that no one could have predicted in advance. The scope crept ever higher as we went through the project, which is not a rare experience in software development projects.

We tracked our time very carefully per issue that we came across. Eventually we went back to the customer and essentially said, “We in good faith performed these services without arguing about it, even though these things were not specified in the original contract. This is how long it took for each problem that came up and here’s how much money we would like you to pay us for all of that. Or you can choose not to pay us and this will be the last project we ever help you with. It’s your choice.” They tipped us exactly the amount we’d asked for - about $58,000 as I recall.

The next time we worked on a project, we bid much more accurately thanks to the timekeeping data from the first project.

When the heat is on, you live and learn.

- Curt Finch, Journyx CEO

I have spent most of the last twenty years researching, studying, writing and speaking about Time Management and Personal Productivity. I have learned a whole lot and my full-time mission now is to share that knowledge through my writings, seminars, consulting and keynotes with people who want to get more done in less time in their business and personal lives.

One important lesson I learned is that there are three simple, yet powerful Time Management Secrets. Knowing these will go a long way to helping you to better manage your time each and every day and get more done in less time and with less stress.

We all have too much to do. Almost everyone I speak with tells me they have more to do than time permits. This says a lot of good things about you. That you have too much to do means many have entrusted a lot to you. People who seldom have enough to keep them busy and are always looking for things to do may not have earned this level of confidence from others.

There is never enough time for everything. If you have too much to do, by definition, you will not have enough time for everything. In fact you will only accomplish but a tiny fraction of what you will want to accomplish in your lifetime. You will leave undone far more than you ever get done in this world. Your life is going to be like a sandy beach. Take one grain of sand and let that represent all that you accomplish in your lifetime. The other billions of grains of sand will represent all of the other things you might have done.

While there’s never enough time for everything, there’s always enough time for the important things.

Read the rest at PROJECTmagazine.

The debate over whether to run IT like a business is hot right now. Before implementing a new management structure into a department, it is important to understand that each part of a business affects the others.

Phyllis Post, Senior Director, Global Business Planning & Management, Corporate IT, Merck & Co., suggests that IT should be managed like a portfolio. In fact, to function as well as possible, Post adds that companies need to understand that the IT department must be included in the “rhythm” of a business. Additionally, to create the best marriage of the two, the overall values of the business need to be up to date. The IT department should not be viewed as a regular maintenance or office supply expense. The department can break a company’s budget if not respected as an integral department within the company as a whole.

Good portfolio management involves checking in on a team regularly (monthly, quarterly and annually). According to Post, the three parts of portfolio management include value creation, knowing the demand and ensuring effective execution. By managing the IT department in this way, a company is able to continually measure how well the IT department is staying on strategy in relation to the rest of the company. Without a set strategy to keep the IT department in sync with a company, more money will be spent overall as the company may rush to spend on the IT department to get it back on track. However, if a strategy is set and followed and there is a budget cutback during this time, the CIO will know where to trim, instead of evenly shaving off a little money dedicated to each project.

Read on at CIO.com.

Once upon a time - a long, long time ago - Journyx was in trouble. We were out of cash and we were out of time. A large customer had just backed out of a huge purchase that we thought was in the bag. An investor that we thought was sold also backed out. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was the beginning of the end of the dot-com error (ahem, I mean era).

My business partner and I were in California on the way back to the airport. Payroll was looming like an ominous mountain in the road ahead. As we drove, we talked about our options for pulling this jet out of its nosedive. We cursed the people that had reneged on their commitments, leading to our bad luck and predicament.

We were so engrossed in the conversation that we missed the exit for the San Jose airport and didn’t realize our mistake for 20 minutes. We then turned around and missed it again for the same reason. I’m not sure, but we may have missed it a third time. By the time we finally got there, we had missed our flight. Luckily my partner sweet-talked the ticket lady into getting us on the next one. He had the gift of gab. “Can you get us home?” he crooned sweetly.

By the time we got home we had a plan for survival. Squeeze a little there, push a little here… voila! We’re in business.

Those hard times taught me lessons I still carry with me today. Never quit. Keep looking for answers. Try to get systems in place that will lower financial risk for as long as possible while still providing the money necessary for growth.

Journyx has been through many lean times over the years. We always figure it out, and every time we go through it, we emerge stronger.

So when the heat is on, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. When you’re back out in the sun you will have skills that you lack today, skills that will be second nature to you in the future.

- Curt Finch, Journyx CEO

For project managers, “no” is often the toughest word in the English language to deploy. We often prefer the classic PM strategy of “Yes, but…” as the softer, kinder, gentler alternative. “No” sounds harsh. Uncooperative. It sounds reticent and recalcitrant. It sounds negative. And yet, for many of us, the time has come as professionals to set “yes, but…” aside and venture into the world of “no.”

I say this because I note that with increasing frequency, clients are not taking “yes, but…” as an answer. No sooner do we offer a “yes-we-can-do-that, but-it-costs-you-another-million” response that the customer hears only the first half of the equation. They often seem far more interested in capability than cost. As a result, when we come to the table with the costs for their ventures, they balk.

One of my clients recently asked for a much higher level of review and a much higher degree of involvement in my consulting work than that to which I have become accustomed through the years. I agreed to a single review, but during that review, it became very clear that this was not to be a one-time event. They wanted more and more involvement in the work I have historically done to great accolades. And so, at the end of the first conference call, I tried a “yes, but..” approach.

“Yes, we can do additional reviews, but there will need to be a change in our contractual arrangements to accommodate them.”

When they replied that they saw this as work under the contract, I realized it was not a “yes, but…” situation. It called for clear, defined action.

“No. I cannot continue to do these reviews, so we need to develop an exit strategy, as I cannot provide the requisite number of reviews and still achieve my financial objectives.”

The client was flummoxed. They wanted to know why I had suddenly changed my tune. They wanted to know why I was willing to walk away from such a critical opportunity. They wanted to know why we should terminate a long-standing agreement over such a minor issue. I explained that I had attempted to provide reasonable accommodation, but that it was no longer possible to make the required margins with the additional reporting pressure.

They grumbled. They groused. They threatened to walk away from the contract. And then they ceded the point and went back to the original levels of tracking and reporting.

At first the post-event relationship seemed strained and tenuous. But I think the reality is that I was projecting that on them. In fact, since I said “no,” only once, they have actually been more cooperative, more supportive, and more sensitive to my organizational needs. And I’M the consultant!

Read more at ProjectConnections.

The PMBOK defines Risk Management as “The systematic process of identifying, analyzing, and responding to project risk”. That being said, what is project risk? A project risk is an event that, if it occurs, causes either a positive or negative impact on a project. Not to be confused with issue management, which addresses those factors that are already causing impacts, risk management is about identifying potential risks and mitigating or managing them.

Elements of Risk Management

The purpose of risk management is to identify, address, and eliminate sources of risk before they become threats to successful completion of a project. Risks can be addressed at any of several levels.

1. Confrontation — Addressing risks only after they have become problems. Also called crisis management.

2. Reaction — Detect and react to risks quickly, but only after they have occurred.

3. Mitigation — Plan ahead of time to provide resources to cover risks if they occur, but do nothing to eliminate them in the first place.

4. Prevention — Implement and execute a plan as part of the software project to identify risks and prevent them from becoming problems.

5. Elimination — Identify and eliminate factors that make it possible for risks to exist at all.

A good project manager addresses schedule risks at levels 4 and 5 rather than at levels 1 through 3. The project is heading for failure if a project managers daily activity is addressing risks at level 1, 2, or 3.

Read more at PM World Today.