Perspective PM

Lost in Translation

George Bernard Shaw once said, “America and Britain are two countries separated by a common language.” As an American married to a Brit, I can personally attest to the truth of this statement. Minor differences in culture can create a language barrier even when we think we’re using the same language.

While our countries of origin create a bit of a cultural gap, an even bigger one is created by the fact that I am a project manager, and he is a network engineer.

Read the rest of this article at digitalmediabuzz.com.

"Need more info" = Procrastination?

Have you ever sent a relatively simple request to someone and gotten a delayed response requesting more information? Was the request for more info justified, or did it just frustrate you and cause you to waste more time explaining something that to you is either obvious or irrelevant?

I seem to be getting a rash of responses that say in effect, "Gee I'd love to help, but can you be more specific about what you want? Please tell me the exact time of day you need this done, how much detail you need, and the color of the shoes you were wearing when you first made the request."

How to Deal with Bad Meeting Behavior

Most of us know how to behave in someone else's meeting, but what if someone is being disruptive or unproductive in YOUR meeting? Here are some tips on how to gracefully handle some of the worst meeting etiquette offenders.

A List of Don'ts for Presenters

Last week I attended a seminar hosted by the NYC chapter of a prominent professional organization with the intention of sharing and adding to any wisdom I may have gained from the experience. However, it didn’t go quite the way I’d anticipated, so instead, I give you:

How Not to Conduct a Seminar

Show up 20 minutes late.

In a city like New York, "there was traffic" is the lamest possible excuse possible for being late. There is ALWAYS traffic. You should plan for that. You should also plan to arrive early to check out the venue and introduce yourself to attendees before your presentation. That way if you're running late, you'll still show up on time.

Make no attempt to look presentable.

You don't have to be a supermodel to give a presentation, but you should at least look like you cared enough about your appearance to run a comb through your hair. You may also want to ensure that your shirt is buttoned properly.

Be sure any handouts are riddled with grammatical errors and typos.

There is no excuse in this day and age for more than one or two typos in any written material. If word processing isn't your strength, have your work proof-read by someone who knows how to use a spell checker.

Swearing in the workplace

Via Network World:

“Employees use swearing on a continuous basis, but not necessarily in a negative, abusive manner. Swearing was as a social phenomenon to reflect solidarity and enhance group cohesiveness, or as a psychological phenomenon to release stress, ” the study stated.  “Most of the cases were reported by employees at the lower levels of the organizational hierarchies and it was clear that executives use swearing language less frequently. "

More here.

In my own house, among my own friends, I have a mouth like a sailor.  I don't think swearing by itself has anything to do with stress relief. I think that supressing parts of your personality in mixed company is stressful, and that the relief of that stress comes when you have a casual/friendly enough relationship with co-workers that you can be yourself. Executives use swearing language less frequently because they have less casual/friendly relationships with most staff. It's more important for them to maintain a professional demaenor, lest they lose respect as an authority figure.

Try replacing the every instance of the word "swearing" in this article, perhaps even in the study itself, with terms like "dressing down," "coming out," "cracking jokes" or anything else you normally curb in mixed company & it's probably just as true.

Top 10 Signs You Aren't Cut Out for Anything

Via Tech Republic:

10 Signs you aren't cut out to be a project manager:

1. You're a poor communicator
2. You don't work well with people
3. You prefer the details
4. You don't like to manage people
5. You don't like to follow processes
6. You don't like to document
7. You like to execute and not plan
8. You prefer to be an order taker
9. You are not organized
10. You think project management is "overhead"

More here.

As I commented there, most of those qualities make you unfit not only for project management, but pretty much any job that involves working with the public or a diverse group of people at all. Number 2 implies number 4. If you don't like working with people but you do like managing them, you're probably just bossing them around. That's not managing.

To me, two key attributes that separate those who might be good at project management (in just about any industry) and those who might not are their ability to multitask and their ability to prioritize. Can you separate the critical issues from the minutiae? Can you get neck-deep in an issue but still switch gears smoothly if needed? Can you decide between costing your company lots of money or hurting its reputation? Are you as willing to take the blame if it all falls apart as much as the glory when it all comes together?

If you answered yes to all of the above, you're probably a bit of a masochist. You'd also make a terrific project manager.