Bravery and Vulnerability

At a business meeting I was in recently, a senior manager asked the facilitator if he should follow his instincts to make a decision, even if people didn’t agree with him.

I thought, "Isn't that brave?" He wasn't afraid to ask a question about his leadership style in front of colleagues.

A quality to be admired.

The Project Tribe

I listened to a fascinating interview of Sebastian Junger on CBC Radio the other week. Mr. Junger is an award-winning journalist and author. His most recent book - Tribe - talks about the war veterans who return home and experience PTSD. His findings are that it is the lack of closeness they feel when they get back, as compared to the friendship they felt while serving, that causes stress.

Junger claims the individualistic nature of modern society lacks the community we have evolved to need.

Applying this to working in projects, isn’t it the good feelings we have by working together that bring out some of the best experiences of project work?

I know, for me, achieving a goal as a team is much more powerful than achieving it on my own. I believe that is part of what Mr. Junger is getting at in his book.

All the best to you and your project "tribe"!

Click here for more information on Sebastian Junger and the CBC interview.

On "The Way"

I just got back from walking part of "The Camino" in Spain with three of my grown-up children. On our route, we stopped in a few towns. There, we would check in at an information office or store to see how to get out of town and back on the trail. When we asked where the Camino was, the answer was always, "You are on it!" We thought it was pretty amazing that we were still "on the way" without realizing it.

Were we guided? Probably - it felt like it.

It got me thinking that, with a route to follow in our projects (a project plan), we are also on the way to a destination. If we check in every now and then (often enough), we can know what we need to do to "stay the path" and achieve our goal.

Happy trails!

The Unmet Needs Committee

I was listening to CBC Radio while driving in my car last week. With the recent Fort McMurray fire in Alberta, CBC reporters were interviewing people from Slave Lake, Alberta, who had assisted those who needed help when a fire occurred there a few years ago.

When asked what they had done to help, one of the interviewees said they had formed an 'Unmet Needs Committee'.

I had not heard of this term before, but thought it was pretty clever. It turns out, an unmet needs committee is a standard procedure in the case of disaster. This committee is generally used as a last resort, where other groups or funding cannot help with the situation.

This got me to thinking - are my projects always on the lookout for unmet needs? Sometimes it is easy to overlook or ignore unmet needs - certainly not a PMI best practice!

On a final note, I would like to extend best wishes to those who escaped the Fort McMurray fire.

Projects, Not Complaining

I was driving to Truro the other day and thought I would listen to a CD on the way. So I listened to Jack Canfield's Success Principles.

Jack's first rules had to do with taking responsibility for yourself and not complaining. This got me to thinking about project management (of course...) and how those who initiate projects do so with an "opposite of complaining" mindset. That is, instead of going on complaining about something, they take a "let's get it solved" attitude and turn it into a project.

If you are a project initiator, congratulations on your proactivity.

Mindfulness and Project Management

I was reading a book on mindfulness the other day. The author, who was also a manager, found she was always thinking of planning her next project when she wanted to be focusing on what she was doing. So she came up with a workable solution: she set aside time for planning. When she wasn't in this planning time, she would focus on what she was doing. When she was in the planning time, she focused on planning. Seems to me a good way to be efficient.

In thinking about mindfulness and project management, I did some internet searching and found this article, which I hope you like: Be a Mindful Project Manager by Kiron Bondale.

Too Busy?

I work on a few volunteer committees. This week, one of my committee colleagues called to prompt me to answer an email I had overlooked. Feeling bad about not having replied, I heard myself say, "I was very busy this week..." As I was saying it, I was thinking, "Oh, oh."

I know 'too busy' to me means it wasn’t as high on my priority list as other things which I did do on time. Or maybe I didn’t have time to think about the answer, so I left it.

My biggest and best time management tool is my Harvard Planner. Someone recently said to me, "It's unusual to see someone still using a paper-based system." But it works for me. My planner tracks all of my to-do's and lets me see them all at once. I put the activities in their place and check them off as I go. (It's not infallible, though, since I still missed that email response. Having the right tool only works if you use it properly!)

Decisions

At my home, we often share dreams we had the night before. This morning my son Zachary told me the he had dreamed about Poppy (my father) who passed away two years ago. In the dream, Dad told Zachary that I should say "No" to a decision.

This got me thinking about how many decisions I make in a day - which turns out be be a lot. So, I wondered which decision that might apply to.

Related to decisions, I saw this post on LinkedIn today about decisions, and you could say Expert Judgment. In the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), Expert Judgment is often a tool used for making decisions.

How do we know who is an expert? It's generally someone who has done the work before. And how do you become an expert...?

Choices

When it's a nice day and I am around, I walk with my 9-year old son, Zachary, the 25 minutes to his school. Yesterday we walked. It was a bit windy and, within a few minutes of leaving the house, Zachary said he was cold. I said for him to walk behind me so I could shelter him from the wind.

About two minutes later Zachary said his foot hurt. I said, "It will go away in a minute." We got to chatting and he seemed happy enough.

About ten minutes later we took our usual path, up the hill through the woods and over the guard rail, when Zachary bumped his leg and arm on the rail. He was a bit upset. Again, I told him it would go away in a minute. He cheered up after 30 seconds.

We crossed the street and Zachary said, "We all make our own choices." Then he went on to show me how he could choose to jump on one foot, run on the grass, or run zig-zagged.

I was thinking for the rest of the day, off and on, about Zachary's statement.

Yes, we make our own choices every minute. And how we look at life every minute is certainly a major choice. Thanks Zachary.

The Value of Not Working So Much

I saw this post on LinkedIn, and thought it was intriguing: Why Germans Work Fewer Hours but Produce More: A Study in Culture. After all, who doesn't want to work fewer hours yet produce more?

Then another article caught my eye: How the Supposedly Lazy French are More Productive Than Germans.

This article stated “According to OECD data from 2011, French worker productivity stands at $57.7 worth of output per hour, while German’s is $55.8 and the United Kingdom’s is $47.2.”

What I got from both articles is that these cultures work when they work, and keep their working time to reasonable limits.

Good advice for all of us, I think.