In this presentation I talk about the need for knowledge management in projects and methods for sharing different types of knowledge.

I’ve embedded the video below from vimeo (jump over and watch it on vimeo) and uploaded a slidedeck to slideshare.net for your review. I’ve also provided a PDF version for your review.

Enjoy.

Knowledge Management In Projects from Eric D Brown on Vimeo.

A review of current research and literature covering knowledge management methods and practices in projects

A review of current research and literature covering knowledge management methods and practices in projects

If you liked this one, you might like my other presentation titled “Stories, Projects & Knowledge Management”

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Knowledge Management In Projects – An Overview is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Stories, Projects & Knowledge Management
2. Project Knowledge Management
3. Improving Knowledge in Projects
4. Article Review on Knowledge Management
5. Using Stories to share knowledge

Why do ads have to be boring?  They don’t…and Cheetah has figured out a way to get their point across in a funny manner.    Enjoy the video…and if you’re looking for some excellent PM training / learning aids, check out Cheetah Learning.

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Cheetah Learning – funny video ad for CAPM is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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In this post Gene highlights the pros/cons of IT Certifications and asks these questions:

Do you rely on IT certification when hiring? What has your experience been, good or bad, when hiring IT resources with or without certifications? Do you have an IT certification or more than one? Have they been helpful to you in your career as far as being a gate item or helping you get more money?

Some interesting questions here that might be worth looking at.

When I’ve hired folks in the past, I’ve looked at certifications as part of my overall view of the candidate.  If I’m hiring for a Database Administrator, a DBA certification helps me understand that this person has knowledge in the area…but it doesn’t help me determine their experience or skills in the area.

On the other hand, if I’m hiring for a Project Manager for a large enterprise implementation, a Project Management Certification like the PMP really doesn’t do much for me.  The PMP certification tells me that the user has experience in the project management world and has passed a test…but it doesn’t tell me anything about that person’s real abilities.

At the end of the day, the certification helps quantify a candidate’s skill-set but not their abilities and experiences.

The certification is a piece of the puzzle but, in my mind, a small piece.

What’s your thoughts?  Leave a comment here or jump over to Certification: No Guarantee of Competency – But it Can’t Hurt and leave a comment there.

Certifications in IT – Worth it or not? is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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5. The Strategic Project Leader

The article discusses how Ogilvy & Mather‘s Worldwide CTO Yuri Aguiar is using the Project Management Office (PMO) to drive business and IT alignment.  Linda writes:

The power is not in the PMO, per se, Aguiar said, but in a fundamental change in how projects are funded and managed at Ogilvy. All projects are reviewed by three architects and subjected to a risk mitigation and management (dubbed RM2) metric before approval. Top priority is given to revenue-generating projects. Urgent projects trump “important” projects, and timelines run about 12 to 14 months max. Also, all project managers report directly to Aguiar. “If somebody is running one day late, he or she is knocking on my door,” he said. ”

Interesting concepts here.  In many of the PMO’s I’ve seen / worked with, they’ve had a senior leadership team that made decisions on which projects to fund. Aguiar’s approach seems to be based around a lower level decision making process (which is good) which determines the viability of the project from a usefulness, risk and priority of projects.

Looks like Aguiar might be on to something here with this approach to a Project Management Office.  I do have some questions that might be answered by a more detailed article by Tucci (as she states she’s planning on writing one), but until I see more, I’ll voice my questions here for discussion.

Question – PMO and PM’s reporting directly to the CTO/CIO?

I don’t really have an issue with this if the PMO handles only IT issues. That said,, I have to wonder if this is a viable, long-term approach.  The article says that the Projects Managers report directly to the CIO.  Managing a PMO and PM’s is a full-time gig…does today’s CIO have time for this? Maybe they have to make time? Is this the best method for a CIO to align IT projects with the business?  It might be.

Question – How are project priorities determined?

This isn’t really answered in the article but if the project priority is assigned by the CIO, is there a large voice of users and stakeholder’s being missed?  Does the organization have a Project Committee that reviews projects to assign priorities?  How should priorities for projects be assigned to ensure proper IT / Business Alignment.

Question – Who “approves” the Projects?

The article states that each project is reviewed by architects and a risk mitigation and management metric is assigned prior to approval but no real description of the approval process.  I’m just curious as to what the process is here.

Total CIO – PMO becomes cornerstone of IT executive leadership is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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I’m not talking about ‘not following through’ on things.  That’s a performance issue and one that can be addressed with some coaching and basic management skills.

What I’m talking about are those folks (or organizations) that like to tell everyone how something should be done, why it should be done or why it’s important for the organization to do ‘project X’.

I’m fine with being told how or why something is important…everyone has their opinions.  But don’t tell me the same thing for 6 months without ever taking a step forward and doing something about the project. If you think Project X is so damned important, then DO IT.  Or Don’t.  Just stop talking about it.

There are a lot of reasons for people to talk about doing something but not executing. Analysis Paralysis can kill any project before it starts.  Lack of courage is a killer too (you know…those folks who are scared of making decisions?).   Ego plays a role as well (people like to show how smart they are right?)

I’ve run into many leaders within organizations that talk about undertaking the big ‘strategic’ projects.  And they talk.  And talk.  Talking doesn’t “move the needle” (sorry…I promised someone I’d insert “move the needle” into this week’s blog post….they’re playing buzzword bingo and I want them to win!).  Talk without action does little more than frustrate people.

The New CIO has to “do it or don’t”

We all know  the foreseeable future of an IT group will be one of being understaffed and overworked.  There are a lot of projects that need to get done and a lot of projects that won’t get done.

The role of the future CIO is one of project executive. The New CIO has to step up as a decision maker and decide (along with the leadership team of the organization) which projects get funded and which don’t. After the decision is made, communicating that decision down the chain of command has to be done quickly and efficiently so the the entire organization knows what projects are a ‘go’ and which aren’t.

You notice that in the last few paragraphs I never say that the CIO and his/her IT staff should stand around talking about the projects and why they are important. There isn’t a lot of discussion about why Project X should be done.  A decision is made whether it should be done or not and the team moves on. The New CIO has to take the lead in not talking things to death and just get it done.

Now….I’m not saying you should stop discussing the value of a project or a strategy.  Quite the opposite actually.  You should discuss. You should debate.   That’s something that must happen.  But…there is a time when the debate has to end and something has to be done.

The New CIO needs to foster open debate on a subject but quickly make a decision.  With resources as constrained as they are in this economy, talking means wasted time and money.

Discuss, Debate, Decide.  Either DO or DON’T…just stop talking about it.

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges. Join me next week for another article in the series.

Do it or Don't….just stop talking about it is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
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2. Project Success and Failure and The New CIO
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CIO and the Art of Decision Making by Arun Manansingh on A CIO’s Voice

Before you can truly talk about Change Management, you have to focus on achieving clear vision by Olivier Blanchard on The BrandBuilder Blog

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The Only Way to Become Amazingly Great at Something from Zen Habits by Leo Babauta

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The Intersection Of Quality And Expectations by Jono Bacon on jonobacon@home

Links for November 8 2009 is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Links for November 22 2009
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Recorded Presentation via Vimeo:

Storytelling, Project Knowledge & Knowledge Management from Eric D Brown on Vimeo.

A review of stories, project knowledge and sharing project knowledge using stories. Includes an introduction to to my storytelling model for KM in projects.

Don’t want to listen to me drone on and on?   You can view just the slides on Slideshare:

Stories, Projects & Knowledge Management is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Knowledge Management In Projects – An Overview
2. Using Stories to share knowledge
3. Project Knowledge Management
4. Improving Knowledge in Projects
5. Article Review on Knowledge Management

The New CIO is a weekly article about the challenges facing today’s CIO as well as what can be done to prepare for future challenges.

Do you know the full capabilities of your team?

Sure…you know what their resume’s said.  You think you know their backgrounds and their experience…but do you really know your team?

Do you have a developer who, in their free time, is extremely active in the blogosphere and the social media world?  Do you have a project manager who really wants to make a lateral move into service management?

Do you really know your team?  If you don’t, you may be leaving a lot of talent, skills and passion on the table.

Dangers of Hidden Talent

Leaving talent untapped is unforgivable to me and should be unacceptable to you. We live in a world where we’re expected to do more with less and rely more heavily on people’s knowledge & skills to make our businesses work.

Knowing this is the case, why do we hire a person, train them (do you train your people?) and then forget about them?  Why do we ignore the idea of talent management and human capital? Read more of my thoughts on those topics here and here and if you’re looking for a great book on Talent & Competitive Advantage, check out Talent : Making People Your Competitive Advantage (amazon affiliate link) and/or Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty (amazon affiliate link).  Both of those books are excellent.

Do you have regular meetings with your team?  Do you talk about their careers?  Do you know that your star programmer is a widely read blogger?  Can you use the talent and passion of that programmer to more than just develop the next application?

Hidden talent doesn’t just sit within your front-line teams.  Did you know that your Director of Technical Support is working on her Masters of Fine Art in Creative Writing?  Are there things she can do to provide more value to the organization than just leading the service desk?

Hidden talent is hidden profit, hidden revenue and hidden advantage.  Hidden talent can also be the death of your team if it isn’t uncovered.

Uncovering Hidden Talent

Do you know what drives each of your team members? What really gets them excited in the morning?  I’d bet there are a few people on your team that aren’t that happy in their current role and who are looking for something else to do.  Rather than lose them to another company, why not help them find something more interesting within your team and/or organization?

What can you do to help them become happier and more engaged? Could you get your programmer / blogger to work on more projects where he can use his writing skills?  What could your Tech Support Director provide to the organization now that you know she’s extremely interested in creative writing?

Of course you can’t make everyone 100% happy all the time.  People still have jobs to do…but if you take some time to talk with your team about the career ambitions and do what you can to help them reach their goals, you’ll be amazed at the response you’ll receive from them.

What can you do to uncover hidden talent?  Simple…talk to your team.  I mean really talk.  Try to understand their aspirations and what drives them.  Look for their hidden passions & skills.  Work with your team to uncover the hidden talents and you’ll see new vigor from your team.

Finding the Talent – A New CIO skill

So…time to add one more skillset to The New CIO’s job requirements…that of Talent Miner.  Of course, this role can be fulfilled by any member of the IT staff (and anyone else in the organization), but as the top dog in IT you’ve got to lead people in this area.

The New CIO needs to get things done with the resources given to them…but those resources might be able to provide  more value than originally thought…if you look for the hidden talent. “Doing more with less” is the mantra these days…find those folks on your team who are passionate about something and find ways to let them bring that passion to their job.

Uncover the hidden talent within your team/organization and watch the growth that occurs.  Fail to uncover that talent and you’ll fail to reach the potential of your people and your team.

Join me next week for another article in The New CIO series.

The Dangers of Hidden Talent – New CIO Series is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Keeping your IT staff Engaged and Happy – The New CIO Series
2. Can you do it all? – The New CIO Series
3. Leading by saying No – The New CIO Series
4. The Future of IT and the CIO – The New CIO Series
5. Defining "Right" – The New CIO Series

Are you agile?

I’m not talking about the Agile development methodology…I’m talking about BEING agile.  Are you able to deliver what your organization needs (with less resources)?

Build it….or they will

Do you have a Shadow IT group or groups in your organization?  If you said no, I’d bet you’d be wrong.   There are always Shadow groups within organizations….the difference between your organization and others has to do with the governance and network security.  Perhaps you don’t have a full-blown shadow IT group with non-supported applications and and/or hardware, but I’d put money on the fact that there is a person within your company that has purchased access to a software-as-a-service (SaaS) product.

Why would someone go outside your IT organization?  That’s an easy answer….because you can’t get things done for them.

Forget that IT governance, security and processes have to be followed…the end-user can’t get what they need from you so they go out and find something on their own.  If you’re lucky, all they’ve done is purchase a SaaS application. If you’re unlucky they’ve gone out and procured a third-party platform that they want to integrate with the rest of your IT systems.

Why does Shadow IT exist?

There’s a ton of reasons that these types of things occur, but most simply, Shadow IT arises because people don’t feel they are getting what they need from the IT group.

They feel like it’s too difficult to work with IT.  It takes too long to get things done.  There are too many restrictions placed upon them from IT.

You know what? They’re right!  At least from their perspective, they are.  Think about it.  Should it take a year to get a new project management tool setup for your Marketing group?  Should your Finance group really have to care about the technical restrictions?  I say no.

How do you fix it?

While I believe the real answer is a difficult and deep one but the place to start to looking for answers is a simple one: Be agile.

Make it easier for your organization to get things done. Make it easy for your Marketing group to implement a PM tool.  Take the restrictions out of the equation when talking to Finance about a new platform.  Understand their needs first and then you and your IT staff figure out how to deliver the system that they need.

The New CIO will have to be agile and build an agile team. Agility can mean many thinks but it doesn’t mean you have to ignore IT governance, security or your processes…just don’t use them as excuses for not getting things done.

Join me next week for another article in The New CIO series.

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Agility and The New CIO is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

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Earlier this week, I listened to an interesting webinar hosted by Michael Krigsman and led by Chris Curran.  The topic of the webinar was the CIO’s role in success or failure of IT projects. Great webinar with some excellent folks. Both Michael and Chris provided after-action blog posts about webinar…you can jump over and read them at:

• IT failures town hall recap: Exploring the CIO’s role – Michael Krigsman
• The CIO Role: One of Influence or Control? – Chris Curran

Chris has a few great points on his post (did you read it? Please do).  Basically, he asks whether the CIO’s role is one of Influence or Control.

Great question…because it gets to the heart of the issues we see today in organizations & how The New CIO can influence the organizations to succeed (or fail) in the projects that are undertaken.

Command & Control – The Old Model

IT groups (and organizations) have historically been run in the command and control mentality with the CIO being the one that commanded IT and taking orders from the CFO, COO or CEO.

This worked well in the old days of legacy systems,  centralized application & centralized IT.  Those days are leaving quickly with users quickly adopting web applications to get their jobs done quicker.

The New CIO – Influence First

As Chris suggests,  the CIO’s role in the future will be that of influencer in large organizations and influencer and controller in medium and small organizations.

I believe The New CIO will have to be an influencer first and foremost. The New CIO will need to influence both upward (to the CEO), sideways (CFO, COO,CMO, etc) and downward to their teams.  She’ll have to find ways to build consensus on the “right strategy” while keeping an eye on how to implement that strategy and continuously building the best the she can.

The New CIO & Projects – Influencing Success

There are a lot of things you can do to improve project success, but the most important method to improve things are often the most overlooked. Those overlooked items can be addressed via Influence…either by influence others in the leadership team, influencing the organization’s project selection or influencing the ability to deliver.

Here’s a few examples of what The New CIO can do to influence project outcomes:

• Influence others within the organization – This helps ensure that the projects undertaken by the organization fit the organizational strategy as well as the technology strategy for the company.

• Build relationships with the other CxO’s & VP’s – CIO’s have been notorious for not have good networking and relationship building skills.  Work on that. The better you understand your peers, the better you can understand what their needs will be.

• Clearly communicate what success /failure means – Does your team / organization understand what a successful project looks like?  Do you have people who think that a successful project means one with zero problems?   You need to let the organization know what success looks like.

• Build your project management team – Project Manager’s are a dime a dozen.  Certified Project Manager’s are too.  But GREAT project managers are hard to find.  Go find one, hire them, pay them well, give them the ability to lead your project team(s) and watch out.  BTW – Project Management Certification does NOT equal good project manager.

• Build your project delivery team – How many times has a project slipped because of manpower?  If you have the ability, dedicate some of your staff to be project delivery staff…take them away from the busy work that most IT folks find themselves buried in.

• Improve your relationship(s) with your vendor(s) – You need your vendors. You need them to make money and you need them to be happy.  Don’t treat them like second class citizens.  Your vendors can make or break your project.

• Improve the lives of your contractors – Do you use contractors for most of your projects?  Then you need to see above.  You need your contractors to be happy too.

• Stay Involved – A CIO that doesn’t say involved in projects is setting themselves up for failure.  Staying involved doesn’t mean you need micromanage or be in every project meeting, you The New CIO needs to stay close to the projects to be sure to see any problems that might pop up.

There are other things (feel free to share your thoughts in the comments) but as you can see, project success / failure hinges on the soft skills…those pesky people skills.

On that topic – People Skills + Analytical Skills

While analytics and metrics (project schedules, % complete, etc) are necessary, you need to be able to talk about your projects with your team & with the organization.  Engage in discussion early and often to see what’s happening in the project(s) and what can be done to address any issues.

Don’t wait for someone to bring you a problem…talk to folks and find the problems before they come up.  Have meaningful conversations about the project(s) and even take time to debate the issues to find solutions.  Add this rhetorical skill set to your project team’s skills, and you’ll see an increase in the success rate of your projects.

The New CIO – Project Manager in disguise?

Kind of. Perhaps project manager is the wrong term but you will need to be a Project Leader.  On top of the other items on the plate of The New CIO, you’ll need to do everything in your power to ensure project success.

Help the organization pick the right projects, make sure you can implement those projects by building a great delivery team and stay involved in the projects as much as you can (do not micromange…just stay involved).

Any other suggestions for The New CIO to take help influence projects along the road to success?

Join me next week for another The New CIO article.

Project Success and Failure and The New CIO is a post from: Eric D. Brown.
About Eric Eric D. Brown is a Dallas based Technology Consultant, and Entrepreneur focused on helping businesses and non-profits merge business, marketing and technology. He writes extensively about technology, strategy, people and projects at ericbrown.com. Eric is also an amateur Photographer and shares his photography work at Photography Minute and on his flickr photostream.
Read more about Eric...

Related posts:

1. Organizational Alignment and Project Success
2. Project Failure
3. Innovation and The New CIO
4. Culture of Failure?
5. Minding the gap between Strategy and Tactics – The New CIO Series