Written by Ilya Bogorad on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Twenty Ideas du jour for the Practicing Project Manager
(Bonus) Forget that it’s April Fools’ Day and start typing an angry letter to the Editor.
Remember that it’s April Fools’ Day when you’re on the third page of it!
Ilya Bogorad is the Principal of Bizvortex Consulting Group Inc, a management consulting company located in Toronto, Canada. Ilya specializes in building better IT organizations and can be reached at [email protected] or (905) 278 4753
Written by Mike Lecky on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Security Considerations for Managing Project Information
How do we achieve balance between ensuring that project information flows freely and protecting sensitive information?
As project managers, one of our primary roles is to make sure information flows between those that need it to do their job and support the project. But we’re also responsible for ensuring that corporate information assets and strategic information about the project remain secure.
The 2005 edition of ISO 17799 (Code of Practice for Information Security Techniques) advocates a risk based approach to managing sensitive information. This applies equally to information flows in projects.
It’s well understood that achieving increased security usually occurs at the expense of the user and, in this case, project stakeholder expense. For example, certain files we may want to view may be subject to restricted access. It’s an extra step which serves to limit the exposure of information to those granted the privilege of access. Access may require an additional password or other authentication technique, adding yet more difficulty to the process of restricting the information on an ongoing basis.
So what do we need to consider when deciding how to protect sensitive information? We don’t wish to overburden project participants with access limitations, nor reduce efficiency in our project execution? We need a balance.
First, identify sensitive information and rank the risk of exposure. This will guide the level of effort you apply to restricting access to key project stakeholders. “Need-to-know” is the guiding principle here.
Second, you can review your project activities and resource allocations in terms of “separation of duties.” The idea here is to limit an individual’s ability to act irresponsibly (intentionally or accidentally) based on the information they have access to. Of course, clear lines of separation and an understanding of what individuals need to know is necessary for this to be effective. Segregating roles reduces the risk of collusion as well as protecting corporate assets.
Finally, “cross-training” can be used to increase the likelihood that the people with the right knowledge will be available to perform project activities at the right time. It ensures an alternative when individuals who have developed specific knowledge based on their access to privileged information become unavailable to support the project. The availability of key people should play into your assessment of risks regarding sensitive information.
By considering these three security principles, the appropriate level of protection can be applied to project plans based on the risk of exposure of the information assets. Plans can mitigate or avoid risks of exposing sensitive information and project delays due to the unavailability of key stakeholders.
Written by Cynthia Low on . Posted in Articles. 3 Comments on Can You Still be Trusted as a Leader?
Most leaders will readily agree that earning and keeping the trust of others is critical to their effectiveness as a leader. That’s true whether you’re running the organization or a project team.
It is quite possibly the single most important prerequisite for leaders at all organization levels. Unfortunately, it can also be the most fragile. Recent events in the economy have spilled over into all business sectors and have shaken the confidence in organization leadership to the core.
To the leader trust is not simply one more element on a long list of desired characteristics. It is more like the foundation that will support all your leadership efforts. If people do not trust you, everything else you do as a leader becomes inconsequential. Forget trying to be inspirational, coach-like, innovative, supportive, a team leader, or visionary. If you don’t have people’s trust they may follow your orders because you have positional authority, but you will not get the passionate engagement that is the result of true leadership.
So how high is your trust index these days? Here is a quick check up. Ask yourself the following four questions. Do you think most people in your organization or on your project team:
These are important questions. If you are uncertain about the answers now might be a good time for a 360 assessment or to consciously ask for feedback?
It is likely that during the past year both your personal trust brand and your company’s trust brand have diminished. In a recession as serious as the one we are in now, people tend to operate in a climate of personal fear, a consequence of which is an erosion of trust. This personal fear includes fear of loss of income, loss of position, loss of relationships and loss of security. Most of all it includes fear of what the future is going to look like. That is where you come in as a trusted leader. One definition of trust says that it is “the confidence to guide them to a place and create hope”. If people cannot see a better tomorrow they will naturally tend to trust in you less, even though on a personal level you may not have changed.
Edelman, the world’s largest independent public relations firm (www.edelman.com.) recently published its tenth annual Edelman Trust Barometer. The results show that nearly two thirds of the people surveyed trust corporations less than they did a year ago, and only 17% said they would trust information from a company CEO (insert your name here if you are a senior leader!).
Most alarmingly of all, 77% of the people said they refused to buy products or services from companies they distrusted. That’s quite a sobering thought for anyone, whether you operate in a business to business organization or one that directly serves the consumer.
So what steps can you take to actively try to recover the trust that has been lost?
It’s worth recognizing that it typically takes much longer to regain people’s trust than it does to lose it. Just ask yourself, how long do you think it will take Main Street to start trusting Wall Street again? As Tom Peters once said, “There is no such thing as a minor lapse in integrity” It is going to take time and effort on your part to build back the trust you have lost, especially as this climate of fear is unlikely to disappear in the short term.
Regaining your company’s trust brand could be the subject of a whole other article, but here are a few suggestions for regaining your personal trust brand, and if it is going to take a long time you may as well get started now!
Be Inspirational. Right now, it is more critical than ever that you as the leader are able to create hope. You need to build back your people’s confidence in you, and in your team or organization. They need to know that if they respond to what you are asking of them that the future will be brighter than today.
Be Visible. It is unlikely that sitting behind your desk or hiding in your office is going to cut it. Get out there, be visible and let your people know that you are willing to confront the issues head on.
Earn Their Respect. If you are asking your people to go the extra mile for you right now, make sure they know you are willing to do the same for them.
Communicate. People’s sense of fear tends to grow when they are kept in the dark. We naturally fear the unknown, and tend to think the worst when confidence is low. On the other hand most people can handle the truth and will trust and respect you more if you communicate openly, and often.
Self-Awareness. Take a moment to look at yourself. Are you still acting in accordance with your own values or are you sacrificing some of your core beliefs in return for some short term relief. Do people still see you as authentic? Does the room light up when you walk in …or when you walk out? Now more than ever is when your people are looking to you to stand up for what you believe in and lead with integrity.
Put all of these into practice and make them part of who you are as a leader and you just might be able to reverse the trend and see your trust growing back.
Bryn Meredith is a principle of Bluepoint Leadership Development. He has extensive experience as a business leader, entrepreneur and leadership development specialist. Bryn can be reached at [email protected]
Written by Cynthia Low on . Posted in Articles. 4 Comments on The Psychology of Risk and How It Relates to Project Risk Management
Risk and risk management have been around for a very long time. But until recently, they have not been applied well to project risk management. In this article we shall examine the psychology of risk and see how it affects our attitude towards project risk management.
We shall look at the following points individually and then link them to project risk management:
When one hears the term risk, we might think of:
All of the above come to mind without thinking about what the term “risk” really means. In everyday life, we face the issue of controlled and uncontrolled risk. For example: if we choose to snow ski, it is voluntary. We believe that we have control (of the skiing process) and therefore we have control over the level of risk we expose ourselves. But is this really true? Once we start down the ski slope are we really that much in control of the outcome? Even expert skiers have serious accidents, some are fatal. Another example: if we choose to smoke, we do so voluntarily, even though the dangers of smoking have been well documented for some time. However, once the decision is made to smoke, we no longer have control over the risk of contracting lung cancer.
When confronted with risk, people generally find they are turned off by it. But this is not a universal feeling. In fact, there are some people who are attracted to risk (bungee cord jumping, etc.).
Our perception of risk varies widely and can lead us to the wrong conclusion. Our perception, for instance, of a rare disease such as botulism, which is only slightly less lethal than a more common disease like asthma. But the fact is that asthma is actually many times more likely to kill you than botulism. Despite this, we fear botulism more than asthma. Another common example is the fear of flying; people who feel flying is too big of a risk often opt to travel on the ground. Most studies demonstrate, though, that your chances of being killed in a car accident are about 500 times greater than being killed in an airplane crash. But the risk seems so much greater when you are several thousand feet in the air and in the hands of someone else – the pilot.
When it comes to risk and probabilities of negative events, people choose their behavior based on the way the risk scenario is framed and not on an actual evaluation of the risk. For example: imagine that the US has two different alternatives to combat a new disease that is expected to kill 900,000 people. If treatment A is implemented and followed, 300,000 people will recover. If treatment B is implemented and followed, there is a 1/3 probability that all 900,000 people will recover and a 2/3 probability that no one will recover. When presented with these two options (A or B), almost 3/4 of the people choose treatment A even though both have exactly the same expected outcomes. In this instance, people over-value the probability that no one will recover.
Now, let’s frame the same issue in a different way. If treatment program C is implemented and followed, 600,000 people will die. If treatment program D is implemented and followed, there is a 1/3 probability that no one will die and a 2/3 probability that 600,000 people will die. Only slightly more that 1/5 of the people choose treatment program C when presented the choice, even though both choices again have exactly the same expected outcomes. Here the people over-value the probability that 600,000 people will die.
In 1738, Daniel Bernoulli described the “best bet” as the one that maximizes the expected utility of a decision. He developed a summation equation (which we shall not repeat here) that calculated “expected utility.” This theory provides a basis for making best bet decisions when risk is involved. We know that it is impossible to make risky decisions that turn out best in every situation, so we regard decisions as gambles and attempt to make the best bet decision.
There are additional human factors that affect our ability to properly assess project risk. Frequent events are usually easier to recall than infrequent events. Residents of countries frequented with violence, like suicide bombings, repeatedly hear about people being killed by the acts. Since it happens so often, the people probably feel their chances of meeting the same fate are high, given that these types of events occur so often. But because in other places, like the United States, where we don’t hear about bombings very often, it would appear that your risk of meeting a similar fate is not very great.
However, single mega-disaster events are easily recalled and often result in over evaluation of the risk. Sometimes we segregate risk into components such that we only see one side or part of the risk. Sometimes we eliminate common parts of the risk and do not consider them. An example of this is not thinking about the additional risk of driving 65 mph instead of 55 mph. Another common mistake is failing to recognizing the risk altogether, such as using a cell phone as we drive a car.
Classical risk theory is choosing between fixed and known risky alternatives. But in the real world of project risk management, alternatives are not given, but must be sought. Many times not all risks are identified because the search usually ends when we find the alternative we like or have found three or four risks. This leads to risk identification being incomplete and biased. Because of this, our projects suffer greater consequences from risk events than is necessary.
Copyright © Global Knowledge Training LLC. All rights reserved. 3/09
William (Bill) J. Scott is a Global Knowledge Professional Skills Instructor. He has two undergraduate engineering degrees and a Certificate in International Operations from the Stockholm School of Economics in Stockholm, Sweden. Bill Spent 30 years in corporate America as a project team member, project manager, functional manager, project sponsor and in senior management. He ran his own project management consulting and training company for nine years prior to joining Global Knowledge in April of this year. For more information visit (www.globalknowledge.com).
Written by Cynthia Low on . Posted in Articles. 2 Comments on Are You
The U.S. government is getting ready to make unprecedented investments in energy, healthcare and education. Whether you see it as pork or progress is not the question. The question is what can you do as a project manager to be shovel ready?
Think about what many of these projects have in common: technology and infrastructure. For project managers, this means we have an opportunity to play a major role in rebuilding the economy. We just have to be shovel ready.
In project management, shovel ready can be abbreviated to three letters: PMP. The federal government now requires the PMP certification to be part of most contracts, and many state governments are following suit.
You may be thinking, how can one project manager like me have an impact on programs this large? Think about it this way: All of these huge programs are made up of smaller projects, and in order for these programs to succeed, the projects have to be successful.
That’s where you come in armed with your PMP and Project Management expertise. The good news for PMPs is that the PMP is much more than a certification that gets you in the door; it’s even more powerful once you are through that door. Your PMP gives you the knowledge and skills to meet deadlines, manage resources well and be able to bring projects in on time and within budget. If you are in transition and looking for a job, the PMP can give you an edge in the market, and research shows that PMPs can earn as much as $10,000 more per year than those without certification.
Here are five ways you can get shovel ready and be a project manager who is part of one of the largest infrastructure government programs in history.
Five Ways to Get Shovel Ready
I know there’s a lot of debate about the government stimulus package, but there’s one thing we can all agree on: We need to be as effective as possible with these programs. As project managers, we’re already ahead of the pack. We just need to arrive, shovel in hand, and ready to go!
Michelle LaBrosse, PMP is the founder of Cheetah Learning, and author of the Cheetah Success Series. Recently honored by the Project Management Institute, Cheetah Learning was named Professional Development Provider of the Year at the 2008 PMI Global Congress. Michelle was previously recognized by PMI as one of the 25 Most Influential Women in Project Management in the world. She is a graduate of the Harvard Business School’s Owner President Manager’s (OPM) program and also holds engineering degrees from Syracuse University and the University of Dayton. To hear more about what Michelle has to say about getting shovel ready, download her podcast at http://podcast.cheetahlearning.com/podcastgen/
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