In this audio I share my experiences as a guest speaker at the PMI Global Congress 2009 North America conference. I took away some very insightful tidbits from other guest speakers about how to be a great leader that I think you’ll enjoy.

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I attended PMI Global Congress 2009 – North America in Orlando last week and spoke on Best Practices and Tools for Lessons Learned. This is the first time I had a speaker role for a Global Congress. I really enjoyed it, and look forward to doing it again.

There  is always so much information to digest at a conference, and of course there’s the networking to which I avail myself with fervor. I couldn’t possibly absorb everything, but decided to blog on the nuggets that inspired me. I hope they are beneficial to my readers as well.

First, I attended the opening keynote session by T. Boone Pickens. His talk was mostly about the “quiet crisis” we US citizens are enduring with our dependence on foreign oil, and his grassroots effort (and substantial investment) to reduce this dependency. He tied it to project management by discussing how every president since Nixon has declared that he would at least slow down the inflow of foreign oil, and none of them have succeeded. The link to project management was that he is shocked by the fact that these past presidents have never been asked for a status towards their declared objective. Instead it was forgotten.

Another nugget I got from T. Boone was that he works out at 6:30 AM every day. He’s 81 and he looks fit as a fiddle. It just goes to show you that personal habits lead to success or failure.

I then attended a session entitled Leadership Practices that Provide Extraordinary Results by Werner Don Gottwald. A few things I gleened from this persentation were:

• You’re only a leader if others are following; you cannot declare yourself a leader (I have run into a few of these in my career)
• Only three things happen naturally in organizations 1) friction 2) confusion 3) underperformance. Leadership is what over comes these.
• If you are afraid for your job because of your manager, then it is time to move on. Get training or whatever you need to prepare yourself for a move.
• If you are a good project manager, jobs will find you even in a tough economy.
• When rewarding your team be complete. Don’t give them a reward that costs them money. For example, a gift card to a nice restaurant that doesn’t cover the entire cost for two diners including tip, parking and babysitting.

The last nugget I wish to share in thispost is from the session: Improve Your Crystal Ball – Using Agile Concepts in Project Planning by Brian Herman. He reminded me of the overriding premise of Agile development. At the end of the sprint or iteration, does the customer have something useful. Is there value to the customer? This is what you should plan for when planning the sprint. Something immediately useful after the sprint.

These were my major takeaways. I didn’t stay for the whole congress because I’m a consultant and every hour at the conference is a non-billable hour, but it was a worthwhile experience and I look forward to my next one. Maybe I’ll bite the bullet and stay longer next time.

All project managers are familiar with the concept of lessons learned. Most people think it is an important aspect of project closure and many project teams and organizations have formal processes and IT-based tools to assist the processes. However, studies show that even when lessons learned activities are routinely conducted, the organization does not learn.

How does an organization learn? Well, it doesn’t. The people in the organization learn or the organization ingests people with knowledge that does not currently exist. Then, what happens with all of the project lessons learned activity output? In the better cases it is nicely codified into an IT system that is searchable for use by future project teams. The challenge is ensuring that the project resources seek out the knowledge that has been gathered and then assimilate it for use on the next project.

Why wouldn’t a project team want to tap into the wealth of information so painstakingly gathered and categorized by their fore-project managers? It’s right there for the taking. I can think of a few reasons off the top of my head:

• No one knows it exists
• People know about it, but don’t have the time or desire to review it
• The information is deemed as not useful
• The information is not codified and searchable

Really, when you want information about a past project what is the first thing you do? Do you log into your knowledge management system and start trolling for useful tidbits? Not usually. Usually you ping someone you know who worked on it. Or someone you know who knows someone who worked on it. Then you engage in some email exchanges or phone conversations and possibly meetings. We tend to think tacit knowledge is the most useful knowledge. The most well documented lessons learned won’t give you the back story that a conversation with a person will give you. 

For this reason, people think that communities of practice, blogs and other social venues are the best place to gain project knowledge. If that’s the case then why do companies invest in document storage systems to file all of the information and knowledge? Well, a two-pronged approach is probably the best. Gaining information socially is a good way to learn about what is available and to get personal perspectives. Afterwards it may still be useful to tap into the data that is available. There may be statistics, estimates and other hard facts that  can be useful in your project initating and planning activities.

Another lesson that should be gleened from this revelation is that as you as the project manager and team are gathering lessons learned, you cannot omit the social method of disssminating this knowledge. Leverage blogs and have your team members tell their stories about what they learned. Initiate and participate regularly in project management communities of practice. Tweet about the lessons you learn.

We cannot learn unless we understand what we need to know or are in a mental place to accept information. We still need human interaction in order to learn. The tools assist us in our learnings, but they are not the only resources. Think about your knowledge recipients the next time you perform lessons learned activities. How will they know your information exists, how will they find it, how have you helped them?

To follow Lisa on Twitter go to http://twitter.com/EPMSolutions. If you’d like to increase your knowledge about lessons learned and get some how-to tips, check out our Lessons Learned eLearning class that is worth 4 PDUs. www.enterprisepmsolutions.com

In this episode of the Insightful Project Manager, I offer some reminders about the basics of Project Management and what qualities will make one a successful manager. It never hurts to look at your current career status and re-evaluate what has worked for you and what hasn’t worked. It may be time for you to go back to the basics.

Enjoy!

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Project managers must be able to schedule their projects efficiently while also knowing what “critical tasks” can be shortened or eliminated to meet the expected deadline. This is no easy feat when dealing with a team of people and project stakeholders but knowing what the terms “critical tasks” and “critical path” mean will help you to schedule projects with finesse.

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This week I explore how you can find out more about your team members by asking them questions about their life philosophy. Certain skills are learned and others are innate but knowing a person’s outlook on life can give you a preview of how they’ll work as part of your team.

Enjoy!

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In this episode, I explain how to manage a project successfully when you have frequent reviews and feedback sessions. There are ways to keep the project scope under control even when it appears that everybody wants to make changes, thus changing the outcome of the project.

Enjoy!

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When someone asks you that age old question, “What do you do for a living?” what do you say? If they look at you blankly when you announce your job title, do you then launch into a 5 minute job description?

Preparing an elevator speech is a simple way to explain exactly what you do in less than 30 seconds. In this episode, I explain the 5 things to include in your elevator speech and why it’s beneficial to have your speech ready at all times.

Enjoy!

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Companies are outsourcing in an effort to cut costs and even a project manager’s position can be outsourced. Today I discuss the debate between extreme specialization vs. being a generic project manager. Can extreme specialization protect your job?

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In this episode we explore the future of the PM and whether managing projects is a skill that everyone possesses or a specialty. Examine what you’ve done today or this week and ask yourself if there’s value in what you do. Everyone needs to show their value to the team or the company or they’ll risk losing their position to someone more valuable.

Enjoy!

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