Over the last few years I’ve started noticing a trend toward specialization within the field of project management. These specializations seem to break down into the following areas:
Administrators - people specializing in the reporting, tracking, budgeting and other administrative aspects of Project Management.
Specialists - people who have specialized in industries or specific aspects of project management. Examples can be people who are experts in Risk Analysis, Earned Value Management experts, Portfolio Management, etc.
Leaders - those folks who have found that project leadership is their calling. These are the folks who gladly step in and take responsibility for a project and make sure things get done.
Technologists - focused almost solely on helping organizations implement and use technology in project management.
Most project managers can immediately place themselves into one of the three categories above (and many would actually fit into more than one…if not all three). Am I missing any specialization?
I’ve found that my particular area of interest and specialization is within the “Leadership” role of projects. A good project manager who has the administration of projects down pat can run circles around me in that regard….but I’ve found that many really good PM’s who are good at project administration tasks aren’t great at project leadership…and vice versa.
I’ve been talking with a few Project Managers that I know and they agree that they are seeing more specialization within the PM world. For more thoughts on this topic, take a look at the book titled “The Strategic Project Leader” by Jack Ferraro….I’m about four chapters into it and he seems to be saying similar things.
Management Issues recently published an article titled “Flexible working boosts the bottom line” that reports on some very interesting research results that says:
…a new study has found that greater flexibility reduces absenteeism, improves employee health and even helps to improve employee commitment.
The research report, released by Wake Forest University, provides some very interesting results. Look for my analysis toward the end of this post.
The study, as explained in the MI article is:
…a health survey completed by 3,193 employees of a large multinational pharmaceutical company, shows that flexible working is associated with definitive improvements in absenteeism rates, job commitment and employee health.
Some interesting results from the research:
An increase in flexibility of working hours was associated with a decrease in absence and and an increase in job performance
Part-time and flextime options create a culture of flexibility, especially when managers and supervisors encourage a proper ‘work-life‘ balance.
The research is summed up thusly:
“This study provides evidence that flexibility is associated with health or well-being over time,” said Joseph G. Grzywacz, Ph.D., senior author and an associate professor of family medicine.
“For managers, the results suggest that implementing flexible work arrangements can contribute to the bottom-line.”
Analysis:
I’m a big believer in flexible work arrangements…everyone that I know who works from home or has some other type of flex time arrangement is much more happy with their job. They feel as though their employer understands that there is things in life other than work…and…many of these people work much more than the ‘required’ 40 hours a week because they feel much more excited and interested in their job.
Contrast that with the folks that slog through a job that still holds to the 8 to 5 mentality and, for the most part, you’ll see less happy folks.
Well…my wife and I are about to head back to Dallas from Yosemite. The trip was a great one. We spent three days in Yosemite, a day in Kings Canyon / Sequoia National Park, a day in San Francisco and a day hanging out in Mariposa CA (where our rental house was).
We both got some great pictures…you can see some of my pics here by clicking through to the Picasa web albums below or clicking over to my “Photos” blog at http://onefourphoto.com.
I’m going to be taking a break from Sunday April 20 to Sunday April 28th. My wife and I are going to Yosemite, San Fransisco and other locales in Northern California.
I had some technical difficulties today with my website…I changed hosts and it looks like I’m having problems with the DNS changes propagating…I think everything is well now.
Also…just upgraded to Wordpress 2.5…some functionality isn’t working (popular posts mainly) but I hope I can get it back at 100% shortly.
One of the projects I’ve been working on over the last few months is the implementation and customization of a Content Management System (CMS). The CMS chosen by my client is Sitecore CMS, which is garnering some attention for its somewhat unique approach to the world of CMS and was recently named a “Cool Vendor” by Gartner.
Sitecore’s product is pretty interesting. It’s a .NET based product that gives you the ability to (er…forces you to) create everything from the ground up for your website. Everything is customizable…layouts, templates, everything. The product is delivered as a .NET ’solution’…in other words, you can open the ’site’ in Visual Studio and customize to your hearts content.
Personally, I like this approach because it provides a great deal of flexibility and provides developers with a way to easily ‘hook’ into a Sitecore website and customize it…..but it isn’t the right solution for every problem. If you are looking for a CMS, or just interested in CMS platforms, you should look into Sitecore. If you are looking to buy, expect to pay more than some CMS platforms and less than others
Here’s a quick Hit List that you can use to determine if Sitecore is right for your organization:
Sitecore is a good option if:
You have a good sized website and/or many websites to host.
You are a Microsoft shop with SQL Server, Windows Servers, etc.
You have a development staff who are fluent with .NET (C#, ASP.NET) or are OK with paying an outside firm for this work & expertise.
You are willing to invest in a long-term approach to migrating all your websites and web apps into a .NET environment (this gives you your biggest ROI in my opinion).
You are OK with looking at a payback period of over 1 year. My personal opinion is Sitecore is at about 18 to 24 months or longer depending on what you spend to implement and what customization you have done.
Sitecore is probably not the best option if:
You can’t spend much money
Your payback period is less than a year
You have no development staff with .NET experience nor do you want to pay for outside development
You aren’t a Microsoft shop
You have a few sites and don’t need .NET integration
For the developers out there…if you’re interested in jumping on a bandwagon and learning a new product, there is a tremendous need for sitecore developers in the marketplace. I’m contacted ~3 to 4 times a week for resources. You can download an ‘express‘ version from Sitecore for free (not to be used as a commercial site) and join their Developer network to jump in and start learning.
Sitecore is a good product and provides a very good ’skeleton’ for a CMS but might not be the best selection for anyone looking for a quick turn CMS and/or quick payback.
In a previous post titled “The Daily WTF: “Job Interview 2.0?“, I talked about an interviewee’s response to an interviewer asking him to “Design a House” during an interview for a software development position.
The original “Design a House” post at The Daily WTF published a story submitted by David J, parts of which are provided below for reference:
“Design me a house,” the interviewer cheerfully demanded.
“Ugh,” I groaned, “what do you want your house to look like?”
“But aren’t you going to ask how many floors it should have,” he glibly responded.
“Fine. How many floors do you want?”
“Two!,” he shouted, “no, three! I mean, one! Err… no, I want six, maybe sev–”
…….
“I like rooms,” he perked up, “lots and lots of rooms.”
“What,” I grumbled, “like, six or something?”
“Maybe,” he nodded, “but what if I want to add more later? Or combine them.”
…..
“Look,” I interrupted, “I don’t mean to be rude, but you haven’t asked a single question about programming.”
The interviewer scoffed, “you’ve got a lot to learn about developing good software if you don’t see the relevance here.”
Now…I know what the interviewer was trying to do here…they were trying to see how the interviewee handled pressure and responded to change requirements…all something that occurs regularly in the software development world.
The programmer didn’t quite see how the “design me a house” question fit into the world of software development…but it is a metaphor that can be used to help understand how someone will react to a client changing their mind.
I think I’d be hard-pressed to find a single example of a software project that was started with a particular set of requirements and ended with those same requirements…there are always additions, changes, scope creep, etc.
The interviewer thought the ‘design a house’ method of interviewing would be a good way to ’see’ how the interviewee reacts to pressure and changes…but are they really able to experience how that person would react in a real-world situation? Probably not…they are creating a contrived situation that moves the interviewee into a non-comfortable place…the interview is already stressful enough…why add more?
Why not just use software development as the ‘world’ for the ‘what if’ scenarios? Instead of ‘design a house’ use ‘design me a software product’…you can still use the same approach and keep the interviewee from getting confused and keep them closer to their area of knowledge and personal comfort level.
If you conduct the rest of the interviewappropriately, you should have a good feel for what type of person you have sitting in front of you.
And remember…if you ask a bunch of dumb questions, you may just get a bunch of dumb answers
One of my assignments in my Knowledge Management Class had me read and review am article using PowerPoint. I’ve just submitted the assignment and wanted to provide a link to my readers to take a look at the presentation and provide some feedback.
The article reviewed is:
Slaughter, S. A., & Kirsch, L. J. (2006). The Effectiveness of Knowledge Transfer Portfolios in Software Process Improvement: A Field Study. Information Systems Research, 17(3), 301.
It’s an interesting article with some interesting results but I’m going to make you watch/listen to my presentation to hear more about it
This is my first presentation using PowerPoint and recorded narration and I’m anxious to hear some feedback. Due to the assignment, the presentation is about 30 minutes long and is probably very boring if you aren’t interested in Knowledge Transfer. Even if you are interested in KM, it may be boring too!
Please drop me a message or leave me a comment about the presentation and/or ideas for how I could improve it.
I’ve been tagged by Jim Stroup at Managing Leadership to provide a listing of the books that I’m currently reading and/or are on my bookshelf.
Well…since my bookshelf is actually 3 bookshelves full of all types of books (I have very eclectic tastes in books), I’ll give a quick rundown of the books/articles I’m reading plus those that are on my ‘to read’ list.
Currently reading:
Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith - Interesting book that should be required reading for any person selling services. There are some excellent ‘nuggets’ of information in this book…”don’t let perfect ruin good” is my favorite.
The Strategic Project Leader by Jack Ferraro - I’m three chapters in and so far I like this book. The book describes the growing specialization of project managers and provides a ‘roadmap’ for those PM’s that want to step into the ‘project leader’ role (as compared to project administrator, project specialist, etc). Look for more on this book and the topic of specialization soon.
Working Knowledge by Thomas Davenport & Laurence Prusak - a classic in the world of Knowledge Management. This was an ‘optional’ book in my KM class I’m taking this semester but I think it should be required reading….not just for someone in the class but for any person interested in the subject.
If you don’t know The Daily WTF, you should…most of the content is programmer related (and usually goes over my head) but some of the content is quite interesting.
Take for example, the two blog posts below…they deal with Interviewing candidates. If you are a regular reader of my blog you’ll know I’ve blogged about Interviewing (here and here for example) and that I think that an organization should try their darnedest to hire the best people that they can.
The two posts below are meant to be funny but they also provide a bit of insight into the world of interviewing.
In “Design me a House“, the author describes an interview that he knew fairly early on in the interview process that he wasn’t a good fit for but couldn’t quite get the interviewer to stop the interview. The interviewer jumped into a ‘Job Interview 2.0′ interview style and asked the following question:
“Design me a house,” the interviewer cheerfully demanded.
“Ugh,” I groaned, “what do you want your house to look like?”
“But aren’t you going to ask how many floors it should have,” he glibly responded.
“Fine. How many floors do you want?”
“Two!,” he shouted, “no, three! I mean, one! Err… no, I want six, maybe sev–”
The interviewee played along until he could take it no more and said:
“Look,” I interrupted, “I don’t mean to be rude, but you haven’t asked a single question about programming.”
The interviewer scoffed, “you’ve got a lot to learn about developing good software if you don’t see the relevance here.”
Thankfully, the interview ended shortly thereafter. And while they never did extend me an offer, they did end up going out of business later that year. Apparently, they had issues delivering software to their clients.
In this blog post, the author approaches the ‘new’ ideas of job interview questions that have nothing to do with the job but try to pull out some ideas about the creativity, critical thinking abilities and other skills of the candidate. However, some of these questions can be very confusing and downright asinine.Take the example below that a reader of The Daily WTF sent in:
During a screening interview, I was asked how I would design a bike fit for someone visually impaired. I responded something to the effect of, “What, like, for blind people?”, and she answered yes.
I thought for a moment and then I responded, “Well.. a blind person riding a bike doesn’t sound like a very safe idea, so I would make the bike stationary, maybe with a fan blowing in the person’s face. He probably wouldn’t even know the difference.”
She was speechless.
The author goes on to say the following:
Now, granted, he will not get the job. Despite the complete absurdity of the design request, and the complete practicality of his answer, the job will go to a candidate who manages to answer the question by designing an extremely overcomplicated solution for a completely non-existent problem. And that candidate will be the same person who designs their software.
How would you determine the weight of a Boeing 747?
Given an opaque box with three light bulbs inside and three switches outside, how would you determine which switch corresponded to which bulb if the box could be opened only once and only after all the switches were permanently set?
You are at a ravine with three others and need to cross a rickety bridge. You can cross it in one minute, the three others can cross it in two, five, and ten, respectively. A flashlight (your group has only one) is always required to cross, and only two people can cross at a time. How do you cross as quickly as possible?
Do questions like this really help you to determine who the person is and what they are capable of? Sure they may might help determine the creativity and critical thinking capabilities but these days I’d gamble that most of these questions are out on the net somewhere (e.g., google “how would you determine the weight of a boeing 747“) so you may have lost that ability as well.
Do you really want to ask your candidates silly questions like this or would you rather get to know the candidate on a more personal level? How about taking the candidate out for a coffee and spending some quality time interacting and getting to know them? That’s my approach at least.
When I’ve been asked these questions in the past my ‘BS’ alert starts to go off in my head and I start looking for the exit. Next time I’ll have to submit the interview The Daily WTF
