http://psvillage.com/pulse/why-your-project-management-sucks

http://www.gantthead.com/blog/Project-Workforce/2594/

Please share your experiences with the management of your professional services teams. I will collect your feedback and report back to everyone with some comments and recomemndations in a part 2 of this post.

You can read the entire article at this PSVillage link.

- We are still recovering from the recession; we cannot invest
- We only want to do the basics; we cannot afford to do more
- Our management team is cutting all costs; everything non-essential has to go
…

On the other hand, with companies on the rise you hear words like:

- We want to substantially increase productivity, we are ready to make the investment, what does it take?
- The basics are not enough. We want to do more. We want the most advanced tools so we can compete more effectively
- We want to leverage our existing investments but our management team is looking to invest in game changers
- What are some best practices you recommend?

Companies that take risks, make investments in good or bad times and stick with them all the way, and empower their employees to think about, find and implement game changers win. Those who start “restructuring”, “right-sizing”, “focusing on essentials only” “leave projects unfinished” don’t do very well.

Hundreds of prospects and customers later. The pattern is undeniable.

Would you characterize your employees by gender, age, race, religion, or in any other way when it comes to managing them and enabling them to be successful at their jobs? Of course not. And I’m not talking about verbally or publicly. I’m talking about when you sit down to do their review, determine their raise, have a one-on-one, or interview them, would you take any of that stuff into account? Again, of course not.

You know why? Because there are at least a dozen more important and relevant factors, like job performance, experience, knowledge, team work, etc. The only profiling I’m aware of in the real business world has to do with multinational companies managing workforces in other countries where employment law, compensation, and culture are different. To me, that makes sense.

But profiling groups by generation is ridiculous, no matter what the management researchers and gurus say. Not to mention that it’s dehumanizing.

I somewhat agree with Steve Tobak’s observations in that some of this generation talk is overblown and its importance exaggerated. However, from our own experience at Tenrox younger generations have very different expectations. When it comes to recognition, rewards, raises and bonuses, of course you look at job performance, experience, knowledge and other such factors to determine what is appropriate. But everyone does not feel appreciated or get motivated the same way. For some, an equivalent valued gift, a few extra days off, a paid vacation works better than a cash bonus or a raise. We try to take such things into account when communicating with or rewarding our team members; and yes, the employee’s generation plays an important role in how we approach such discussions.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1278413

The most interesting one is “By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets”. The argument they make is that essentially more and more organizations will use cloud computing and refrain from buying their own equipment. Also, more and more users will access corporate data using personal mobile communications and their own laptops. In other words the company will own and control less hardware; the equipment will all be owned and managed by third parties.

This is a surprising and rather aggressive prediction. I agree with the trend and I can see a future in which IT departments focus a lot more on strategic initiatives rather than managing now commoditized IT equipment and infrastructure. Cloud computing is radically transforming the IT function and will have a major unquestionable impact on IT budgets and how IT is perceived within the organization. But 2012 is awfully close. I do not think the transformation will occur so quickly.

Applying Occam’s Razor Principle to Product Design – Lessons learned from our Project Management Software design experiences

Occam’s Principle Applied to IT Investments

I outlined how Occam’s Razor principle could apply to product design and IT investments. I recently stumbled on to the writings of John Maeda who has authored a book on the laws of simplicity. A summary of the laws can be found here:

http://lawsofsimplicity.com/category/keys?order=ASC

A review of the laws is a good refresher for anyone in charge of project management, new product development and software design. The last law states: Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful. This is actually Occam’s principle which I described and provided some examples for in the above mentioned posts. In fact as John Maeda mentions in his book and on his website Occam’s principle is really an encapsulation of the first nine laws.

http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/500/interview-with-microsoft%E2%80%99s-seth-patton/

I guess Seth has not kept up to date with technology trends all that much. If Microsoft’s strategy is to try and drive out independent software vendors (ISV) they are not going to do all that well with their customers or partners. With Software as a Service and cloud computing, best of breed is a clear hands down winner in this market. Just look at the huge success stories of salesforce.com, RightNow, Taleo, and Success Factors all of which are SaaS offerings; there are so many more SaaS and cloud winners out there. I think Microsoft is better off focusing on strengthening its ISV partnership base instead of alienating them with this kind of thinking and interviews. This is not forward thinking.

Here is another interesting exchange in the interview:

While PPM products, Microsoft’s included, contain many of the functions needed by professional services firms, they are still some key functions not available within Project just yet. These include: client billing; dedicated time entry for vendor, client, contractors, etc.; two-way interfaces with payroll systems; proposal tools; and, more. Nonetheless, Seth reminded me that thousands of Microsoft partners are service firms as well as users of Project in client work.

This sounds a lot like the old we have it all ERP type of talk. Well then I guess customers should wait another 10 years for Microsoft to develop these and other capabilities. Or customize the heck out of Microsoft Project to fulfill the gaps they perceive in the solution and to get what they need like these other companies he mentions have.

I still remember the first time I read a brochure from one of these large vendors. The brochure said they do everything under the sun. I got the same impression with virtually every release of Microsoft Project. To this day, all of these products have only fallen behind more, become more bloated, more complicated, and more out of touch with what customers really need.

• Type 1: A person who apologizes for his or her own mistakes and accepts the mistakes of others
• Type 0: One who never says sorry, denies everything

Like most companies we have both types of people at Tenrox. Thankfully we have more type ones than zeros. Recently, there has been a huge surge in customer activity and we need everyone at Tenrox to be at the top of their game these days to try and serve every single one of our users.

A few days ago I had to talk to a type 0 project manager regarding some of the issues we have with his performance, the projects he manages, his overall approach to the challenges we have, and how important he is given the current resource crunch.

As usual, his automatic patterns kicked in. I got the “It is just your impression”, “but you don’t understand”, “no this is not true”, “you are wrong” … types of responses. This is a hard working person with good intentions and reasonable abilities. Unfortunately, his inability to take responsibility for any mistakes, wholeheartedly apologize for them, and his constant slippery denials virtually guarantee that he will always be nothing more than a second rate mediocre consultant or project manager, at best.

I sometimes call myself the Chief Mistake Officer at Tenrox followed by a list of my personal and professional mistakes just in the last twelve months to try and convey how important it is for everyone to take chances, innovate and get out of their comfort zone … but none of that is any good if we don’t have the capacity to sincerely apologize and to accept our mistakes.

Here is a very nice article on the power of apology: http://ccr.byu.edu/content/power-apology.
I hope more of our team members adopt this mindset.