The start of June 2016 was very intensive. I visited one of the biggest IT conferences in Ukraine. It covered a huge variety of topics related to project management. I also participated at the local PM Community (PMI Chapter) and gave a speech there. It was on basics of motivation and leadership. Now I want to share with you the main takeaways from these events.
First, I want to share my attitude to these conferences and events in general. I was not always interested much in them before. I did not understand them. Quite often there was too little value there.
Now I think I got the point. For me, there are at least three sources of value in each next event.
1. New information. This one is obvious. I go and listen to the lectures and presentations. Though, there is always a lot of water in them. So, I try to keep my eyes and ears open for the real experience. It contains unique approaches, methods and ideas. Quite often it is something you will not find in textbooks.
2. Self-awareness. It is an excellent opportunity to compare your knowledge with others. Do you manage projects like other do? Do you understand the same concepts the same way?
I do not suggest to adopt everything you hear at an event. But you need to check if you know what is it all about. If there is something unknown for you, log it. Find time to discover. It is a good way for self-development.
3. Networking. Building relationship is a part of your job. Though you should not limit it to your team. Meeting and talking with peers is so important! Finding mentors is priceless. You will be surprised how many people are willing to share their knowledge and help others for free.
These are random thoughts and notes. Though, it is the precious output of professional events. They only scratch the surface of actual value. Hard work of going through new material and resources is still ahead.
1. Scrum is (not) Dead
I’m sure that the buzz around agile and scrum did not pass you by. Most likely you know people who praise Scrum beyond measure. And some people does not believe in it. They say that Scrum is dead.
I hope we are beyond that. And we understand that Scrum is just a tool. A methodology that has it’s application and place. So where does the buzz comes from?
Like any new technology or engineering approach Scrum life through a particular life cycle.
Scrum is not dead. Just illusions are gone.
Luckily for us, we are at the stop where the “fairy magic” of Scrum goes away. I hope that marketing slogans and cliches will perish too. Only the useful tool with its pros and cons will stay.
2. Motivation
A lot was said about motivation. Recent research of motivation discovered that we were doing it all wrong. Money, luxury offices, bonuses do not provide the consistent and long lasting results. Project team engagement requires more personal approach.
1. Managing for happiness. I discovered Jurgen Appelo for myself. Haven’t heard about him before. But with his forty minutes presentation, he got my buy-in. He is about to release his new book “Managing for Happiness”. So I put in into my reading list.
2. My presentation on motivation. Hopefully, you already saw slides from my presentation on basics of motivation and leadership. Your feedback and questions are highly appreciated. Just send me an email.
3. Breaking the false motivators. There was another excellent presentation. As a project manager, you will usually work on the projects where teams already exist. Relatively rare you will hire the team from scratch.
The point is simple. In an existing team, there are always false motivators. Team members expect (or demand) them to stay motivated and work productively. They can vary from bonuses to extra weekends and business trips.
However, a team should give a normal output without any motivators in the first place. Bonuses and extras are intended to improve productivity beyond average. Therefore, as you get into a new team, you must identify and eliminate practices that are the false motivator.
You can watch the presentation here. Though it is in Russian only. Alexey Egoshin is worth following as well.
3. Quantifying requirements
I met Tob Gilb. A grandfather of agile development. A man with of tremendous experience. I think he had managed project before I was born. Besides that, he still has fascinating ideas.
Most of the requirement we collect are ambiguous. Even more, that are wordy nothingness. We talk about user-friendliness or security. But what does it mean “application should be (very, super) secure”?
Tom Gilb suggests that all requirements can be quantified. Even such vague as a user-friendly interface. Therefore, you can have a range of possible values. You can now set an acceptable value or value that will mean success.
What is the benefit? In general, you can never fully fail a project. You may miss the designated value for a requirement. But you will for sure achieve acceptable value for the most of them.
What is the problem? I think it can be quite hard to persuade your customer and sponsor to take this approach. At least you need to be an authority like Tom.
Nevertheless, his related book called Competitive Engineering is on my reading list now.
4. The Most valuable skill for a junior project manager
There were a lot of presentations and discussions related to project manager’s skills. The management and leadership approaches are changing. And not only because of broad adoption of Agile.
I have asked a lot of professionals, and they still think that communication is the most valuable skill. Self-responsibility goes next. The third is productivity.
5. Delivering Value
It is another good idea from Tom Gilb. And it is something I notice from time to time. A lot of project activity does not mean delivering value. For example, writing a lot of lines of code doesn’t mean that you produce something of value for a customer.
It is quite often that we are caught in the process of doing work. Then we forget while spending time and budget of a project we need to deliver something valuable.
I feel inspired. I always felt that focusing on value delivery is a right approach. Getting a confirmation is great. Anyway, it will be a topic I want to investigate in details.
6. Best career options await during changes
Changes and disturbance are the best environments for career development. You should not be afraid of them. Changes bring opportunities.
So what should you do for maximum effect?
1. Take on the tasks that no one wants to take. All out of sudden such tasks become highly visible. Your efforts will be rewarded. And you will be known as a self-starter guy.
2. Take more responsibility than asked. I firmly believe that to achieve something, you must give something away. So the best way to increase your credibility is to help your boss. Look for a task that you can take away from your manager. Do it diligently and take some more.
3. Develop your productivity. Doing a lot of things is not the same as delivering value. Yep, Tom’s ideas are sticky. Anyway, the best managers can manage their time and energy better than the rest. If you want to climb the career ladder fast, you need to do the job and find extra time to learn.