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Tag: Skills

VISUAL – The Catalyst for project acceleration

Written by Sean Lowe on . Posted in Articles.

An effective PM pushes obstacles out of the way of the team to make a clear path for the project to move ahead, communicate, etc. If unable to move or eliminate the obstacle themselves, a successful PM finds ways to influence others or alternate mechanisms to employ.

Obstacles can be any item that is hindering progress or the ability for the team to collaborate and communicate.

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There are the seven key techniques:

Seven key Techniques: “VISUAL”

  • Visibility – Bring items to the forefront that need attention and increased visibility. This also involves being sensitive, intelligent, and creative with regard to who’s on copy in your communications. Unfortunately, certain individuals need a bit more management scrutiny than others.
  • Integrate – Drive effective communication within the project and connect parties. Leaving messages or sending emails with dozens of folks in the to and cc line and hoping for answers is a futile pursuit. The PM must drive integration

Identify key decisions that need to me made to remove roadblocks and get moving! Step up and ask the difficult questions your team does not want to.

  • Show Empathy and commitment– Realize that you work for your team, not the other way around. Provide constant care and support, even when team members are not asking for it. Set aside personal wants and needs and lead by example.
  • Urgency – Remain focused on results and deadlines, and bring continued visibility to them until tasks are completed. Keep focus on priority tasks and associated dependencies and drive them forward.
  • Anticipate – Anticipate the materialization of a road-block and take measures to prevent it from coming about. Part of this is early and often communication with stakeholders regarding needs and expectations.
  • Listen (then clarify)- Actively listen to what your team members are telling you. There will be no doubt what their obstacles are. Your job is to get creative and quickly remove them. Seek to understand, then to be understood. Remember that a problem clearly stated is a problem half solved. Lack of clarity breeds problems and frustration. In absence of clarity, the PM should make assumptions and present them to the team. Folks are quick to refute assumptions that indicate they owe or are responsible for something that they are not. It should be no surprise that a fairly enlightening conversation ensues.

Utilization of these tools will greatly enhance your effectiveness as a PM. Your team will immediately notice your actions. The momentum created by the acknowledgment and positive reciprocation will accelerate your project forward!

Performance, Attention and Focus

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles.

The way you and your teams pay attention and focus is crucial to achieving sustained optimal performance.

“A primary task of leadership is to direct attention. To do so, leaders must learn to focus their own attention.”[1] Daniel Goleman

Optimal performance is sustainably achieving goals efficiently and effectively, to your best ability within current conditions.  To perform, individuals, teams, and organizations manage and apply situation specific technical and administrative skills, project, program, and process management, supported by relationship capabilities like communications, conflict management, decision making, and expectations management.

These capabilities rely on attention and a realistic perspective informed by positive values like objectivity and servant leadership. A realistic perspective realizes that change is inevitable and that there is uncertainty because we live and work in a complex system (our environment, organization, etc.) [2]

While attention, perspective, and values are equally important, this article focuses on attention. Let’s look at what we mean by attention, its importance, and what you can do to cultivate it.

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Attention

According to Amisha Jha, a neuroscientist, there are three kinds of attention:

  • Focused attention – directed to a specific object. It is concentration like shining a flashlight on an object, for example, a person in a conversation or work on a task. On an organizational level, focused attention directs resources to a specific project or process.
  • Open attention – seeing or being objectively aware of what is occurring in a broad expanse, mindful awareness. Open attention enables a stepping back from focus to be in touch with what is occurring in and around the object of focus.
  • Executive attention – deciding what within the field of open attention to attend to and what to do about it, regulating responses with awareness and discernment.

Objects of Attention

Objects of attention may be anything – a project, an organization, a task, presentation, thought, sound, physical sensation, or any observable phenomena.

According to Daniel Goleman focused attention has three modes: awareness of self, others, and the wider world. [3]

With self-focus, the primary objects are thoughts, physical sensations, and feelings. With other-focus, the principal objects are other people and things and their behavior.  Focus outward is diffuse open awareness without focusing on any particular object. It is seeing the big picture and disengaging from routine attentiveness to allow for creativity and exploration.

Projects are Objects

A project is an object. It focuses an organization’s attention by dedicating human effort and other resources to create or change a product, putt on an event or make a change of any kind. Effective project stakeholders are aware of the impact their actions have on their environment and the way the environment impacts the project. Executives govern to manage a portfolio of projects, avoid distractions, and choose the most effective places to focus attention.

Projects, tasks, or activities, whether performed by teams or individuals, are objects of attention. A project team focuses on the project. Teams and individuals focus on performing, attentive to the way they perform and interact, aware of what impact they are having on their environment and how their environment is affecting them, their tasks, and projects.

Why Focus Matters

Lose focus and performance suffers. Fail to be attentive to what’s going on in and around you and performance suffers.

Concentration and skillful attention elicit a Flow experience, being in the Zone, a state of optimal performance and deep relaxation.

Consider what happens when sponsors or clients lose interest in a project, they once considered important. Other “interesting” things crop up to grab their attention. Resources start getting pulled away. The project manager is less able to influence some stakeholders to fulfill commitments. Performance suffers. The same kind of thing happens when you as an individual are distracted. Performance suffers.

The more undistracted the focus the greater the quality of performance. According to Cal Newport:

“Decades of research from both psychology and neuroscience underscore that undistracted concentration is required to learn complicated information efficiently.”

“Focus also produces better results. Recent research on the attention residue effect,  for example, reveals that when you switch your attention from one target to another, there’s a residue left behind from the first target that reduces your cognitive performance for a while before fading. In other words, if you quickly check your phone or e-mail inbox, your brain will operate more slowly for the next 15 to 30 minutes.” [4]

Fatigue and Distractions Get in the Way

Attention is a natural capacity that varies in strength depending on one’s energy level and powers of concentration.

The tired mind easily slips away from objects of focus and lacks the strength to bring focus back to the object. Open attention and executive function suffer because the mind is too easily drawn to the many distractions that call to it and it is too weak to return to awareness.

It may seem relaxing to just go with the mental stream of thoughts, feelings, and external distractions. However, when you regularly allow yourself to flit from one thing to another as they randomly appear, you weaken your concentrative powers.

Improve Your Attention

Three things enhance all the aspects of attention – focus, open awareness, and executive function:

  1. Strong concentration, mindfulness, and objectivity aided by minimizing distractions and managing the ones that cannot be avoided
  2. A process and systems view that recognizes the realities of interdependence, cause and effect relationships, and continuous change
  3. Values upon which to base skillful decision making.

Exercise Your Mind

Let the practice of consciously managing distractions seep into day to day, moment to moment experience. When you notice that your focus has slipped away, make the effort to bring it back. The more you bring your mind back to a chosen object of focus, the more you strengthen your power of concentration.

There are many exercises to strengthen your power of concentration. One is to take a few minutes a day to sit quietly and count your out-breaths from one to ten. If you lose count (it is quite normal if you do), don’t beat yourself up for it. just start from one again. Don’t worry if your thoughts stream like a waterfall. Persist and the concentration will calm the mind.

Cultivate relaxed concentration. Distractions will come. Congratulate yourself for noticing and going back to the counting or whatever your object of focus is. No need to strain or over think it. Your open attention notices distraction and your executive function brings you back or lets the mind wander.

Mindfulness meditation is a highly effective means for honing your focused attention, open minded observation, and executive attention. See www.Self-AwareLiving,com for exercises and information on how to integrate meditation, and systems and process thinking into your life.

[1] https://hbr.org/2013/12/the-focused-leader

[2] For more on perspective see “Putting the Power of Process Thinking into Action“[2]  and Vision And Systems View To Improve Performance[2].  For more on values and decision making see “Making Effective Decisions: What Is The Truth And How Important Is It?“[2]

[3] https://hbr.org/2013/12/the-focused-leader

[4] {https://time.com/4166333/focus-is-the-new-iq/https://time.com/4166333/focus-is-the-new-iq/}

Critical Skills Needed for Project Success

Written by Elizabeth Larson on . Posted in Articles.

Part 1 – Elicitation

This article is the first in a series I’ll be writing about critical skills that all project managers (PMs) and business analysts (BAs) need for success. We need these skills regardless of the type of project we’re on, the industry we’re in, the technology we use, or the methodology we follow. Each of these skills requires a combination of what are commonly called hard skills with those needed to work effectively with others.

This first article is about elicitation. It seems easy. After all, what’s so difficult about asking stakeholders questions? Elicitation, of course, is far more than the questions we ask. When all is said and done, it’s about learning. We learn what our stakeholders want, what they need, and hardest of all, what they expect by asking really good questions and listening to what they have to say with great attention. It’s tricky, though. We can’t do what I did early in my career when I tried to develop a list of requirements by introducing myself and asking what the stakeholders’ requirements were, what they really needed, and what they expected by the end of the project. Simply put, we won’t learn enough to create an end product that they’ll be happy with.[i]

What makes the elicitation process so hard? Here are several pitfalls.

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Common Pitfalls

#1 – Missed expectations

Expectations are requirements, but they’ve never been stated. Therefore, we cannot get expectations by asking about them. Our stakeholders don’t think to mention them, and we don’t think to ask about them. I didn’t know about hidden requirements early in my career when I asked the questions like those noted above. Another problem– my focus was specifically on the future state solution. I asked for the features and functions, documented them, and got stakeholder approval. Then the development team built the final product according to the specifications with the inevitable result—a lot of stakeholder complaints.

#2 – People fear the future state.

This major pitfall is hard to overcome for many reasons. Some stakeholders are comfortable with their current state and don’t want to learn or train on the new processes and automation. Others are concerned for their jobs. Still others have a stake in the existing ways – perhaps they were part of its development or a known expert on its use. Whatever the reasons, the fear of the future state can make elicitation difficult.

#3 – The time trap

Many of us are often under so much pressure that we don’t have time to dig deep. We gather some high-level requirements, but we don’t have time to uncover the expectations. And even if we have time, which is rare, many of our stakeholders don’t. Many are available for an initial set of sessions, but interest wanes as the difficult detailed meetings drag on.

So, what can we do? Here are 3 tips for successful elicitation.

Tips for Successful Elicitation

Tip #1 – Use a variety of elicitation techniques

The first tip for uncovering expectations is to use a variety of elicitation techniques. That’s because each technique that we use uncovers a different aspect of the requirements. Here are some examples.

  • Process modeling. This has always been one of my favorite techniques. It documents how people get their jobs done. But as with all elicitation, it’s not easy. For example, one of the most difficult aspects about process requirements is that stakeholders argue over where to begin and where to end and how the processes fit together. Using different process models helps avoid this contention. SIPOCS (suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, customers) help narrow the scope of each model and swim lane diagrams help visualize how the processes fit together.
  • Data modeling. Process modeling is great, but people need information to get their work done. Data modeling helps us figure out what information supports each process step. It also provides business rules and is invaluable on our AI initiatives.
  • Use cases. These models help us understand how our stakeholders want to use the final product. They provide not only the scope, but all the functionality of the solution. And use cases, if completed thoroughly, turn into test cases.
  • Prototypes show what the final solution will look like.
  • Brainstorming yields the power of the group, while one-on-ones often reveal what stakeholders really think.

Tip #2 – Ask context questions

A context question is one that surrounds the solution that we’re building. While we do need to ask questions about the  solution’s features and functions, such questions do not provide the complete picture.

I like to group context questions into four categories of questions:

  1. These questions relate to what’s happening outside the organization and include questions like demographics, language, weather, technology, and compliance/regulatory. These may or may not apply to the project. If they do, we need to understand their effect on our work.
  2. These pertain to how ready the organization is to accept the final product. The bigger the change, the more issues there usually are. We need to know, for example, which stakeholders will be on board, which will resist the change, and what needs to be done to prepare the organization for the change.
  3. We need to ensure that the business problem we’re solving and the proposed solution align with the organization’s goals and objectives.
  4. These context questions are usually those about the current state.

Tip #3 – Know when to use open-ended, closed-ended, and leading questions

Open-ended questions allow the respondents to expand their thoughts. We ask open-ended questions any time we want to learn more. For example, we ask these questions when we’re just beginning an effort, during brainstorming, and when we need to get all the issues out on the table, etc.

Closed-ended questions are forced-choice questions. They have the answers embedded in the question itself, sometimes explicitly as in a survey question, or implicitly. I like to ask closed-ended questions when stakeholders are all over the board and we need them to focus. For example, given all these issues we’ve identified, if you had to choose 10, which would they be?

Leading questions are not questions at all. They sound like questions, but they’re really our opinions stated in the form of a question. “This is a pretty cool feature, isn’t it?” My least favorite leading question is one we often hear: “Have you ever thought about…solution.” Again, it’s not a question. It’s us presenting our opinion rather than asking what our stakeholders think. What’s wrong with that? Remember we’re in the middle of elicitation, which is about learning. Presenting our solutions during elicitation cuts off exploration because we’re telling rather than learning. Later, after we’ve completed elicitation and analysis, whether it’s for the whole project or a smaller part, we can make a thoughtful recommendation.

To summarize, effective elicitation is critical to the development of a final product that our stakeholders are happy with. Elicitation is not easy. There are several pitfalls which are difficult to overcome. But if we follow the tips provided in this article, we will deliver a product that our stakeholders actually like and want to use.

[i] I use the terms solution, final product, and end product synonymously. It’s the solution to the business problem we’re solving. It’s also the product or product increment being produced at the end of the project, project phase, or iteration.

Be Straight with Yourself to Get What You Want and Want What You Get

Written by George Pitagorsky on . Posted in Articles.

Being straight with yourself puts you on solid ground for getting what you want. And who doesn’t like to get what they want?

Can you own up to your motivations and limitations, your values, and your intentions? Are you self-aware enough to acknowledge your capacity and capability and to own up to your strengths and weaknesses? Can you manage your emotions to be responsive rather than reactive? Are you clear about your values and intentions and how they motivate you?

What Do You Want?

Here is a little story about owning up to what you really want.

A person came to the Guru to get instruction on how to deal with an exploitive partner (it could be an abusive, uncooperative, or incompetent boss, subordinate, or peer).

Guru asks, “So you want to change your partner.”

“No, I want to change myself” the person answered.

Guru (who is a bit of a mind reader) says, “No. You only say that because you think wanting to change the other is not “spiritual,” not giving and allowing; that it is manipulative.  You might have read somewhere that the only thing you can do is to change yourself and your perception, that you need to accept things as they are.”

Influencing

“Admit it.” the Guru says. “You are unhappy with the relationship, and you want change. You want to change the other or to have them change themselves into someone you’d like them to be, doing (or not doing) the things you want them to do.”

Guru continues, “You want to change the situation and you think the only thing you can do is to change yourself because you can’t change your partner. You are correct, you can’t change others.  But you can change your perception. When you do, behavior changes. When your behavior changes, you influence others, so they are likely to change their behavior. Though the change may or may not be to your liking.

You can’t change others, but you can influence their behavior.”

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Are You Being Straight?

The Guru concluded, “Are you being straight with yourself? Are you acknowledging your true feelings, thoughts, wants, and needs? Do you have an accurate sense of the situation? If not, you won’t get the change you want.

“Once you acknowledge the situation and your part in it, you can look in on it. You can be both a part of it and an objective observer, a witness. Stepping back to objectively observe you can better know the situation and it’s causes. Then you can apply the courage to work to change it or learn to settle into it.”

A Self-serving Boss

Take the example of a self-serving, manipulative manager. She exploits and verbally abuses team members. She takes credit for successes and blames others for failures; expresses no gratitude.  You are frustrated, depressed, and angry.

You’ve read a self-help book or listened to a podcast that says you can only change yourself and you begin to deny that you want to change her. So, you learn some techniques to manage your anger. You apply them and the frustration seems relieved; you’ve accepted the situation. Or have you?

The frustration doesn’t go away, instead, it gets buried or turned inward. You become frustrated with yourself and your inability to accept the situation as it is. You feel powerless. Your anger turns to resignation and depression.

A Solid Foundation

When you acknowledge your desire to change the situation and accept that you can change yourself and influence others, you courageously do it or you learn to settle into it, truly accepting what you can’t change.

If it’s neither change nor settles, then you complain (to yourself or out loud) and everyone suffers. When you are straight with yourself you can decide and do.

What You Can Do

When faced with a challenging other, do a reality check.  Are they behaving in an abusive, exploitive manner or are you overly sensitive or expecting too much? Or is it a combination? Are you being open and empathetic? Are they? What are the risks of being straight with them?

Answering these questions will put you in a position to more effectively manage the situation to get what you want and be more likely to like what you get.

Depending on the situation, voice your wants and needs. You can confront your partner gently but firmly and tell them what you are feeling and how their behavior affects you. You can ask them to change their behavior.  If you don’t say what you want, the likelihood of getting it is small.

At the same time, you can change your perception and become less vulnerable to their abusive behavior. Here we are on a slippery slope. You don’t want to become a doormat or accept the unacceptable. You need to know your limits  In negotiation it is knowing your best and final offer and having the resolve to walk away.

Changing your perspective to unconditionally accept what is, is wise. However, accepting what is does not mean that you can’t do something to influence the future. Remember, you can’t change the past or the present moment, but your thoughts, speech, and actions create a ripple that changes the future.

Knowing what you want and don’t want, influences your behavior. You establish goals and objectives, and these motivate you to do what you can.

Values, Intentions, Implications

What are you willing to do to get what you want? Does getting what you want to harm others?  What are the immediate, medium, and long-term implications?

Being straight with yourself includes knowing your values and intentions. The values may be saving time and making money, health and happiness for yourself and others, environmental health, ethical and non-harming behavior, safety, and security. Your intention might be to win at the expense of everyone or to find win-win solutions. Your highest intention may be to become a great servant leader or the richest and most powerful.

Getting What You Want

Opening to self-knowledge, being straight with yourself, may sound easy, though for many people it is not. It requires the courage to confront your beliefs and acknowledge realities that you do not like. It requires stepping back to objectively observe and accept things you don’t like.

When you own up to your motivations and limitations; your values and intentions, and acknowledge your expectations, capacity and capability, strengths, and weaknesses you can get what you want and be more likely to like what you get.

Cultivate self-awareness and be straight with yourself.

The faux thinking: “I know it all”

Written by Divya Kishore on . Posted in Articles. 8 Comments on The faux thinking: “I know it all”

Often, I feel I am living under a delusion that I know the answers to all the questions when it relates to me.

Fair enough, right? Each of us knows ourselves the best.  However, a self-assessment check is not only a healthy habit but also aids in taking corrective actions based on the results. How do I perform a self-assessment? Here’s an idea to conduct this evaluation test: Ask questions by playing the role of a stakeholder (describing your needs) and a business analyst (eliciting requirements) at the same time. I know what you are thinking, “How is interviewing myself going to add any value?” This simple yet powerful technique forces us to reflect and come up with honest responses. You will be surprised to see how much of a gap is there between what we are thinking vs what responses we give when questioned.

Imagine you are considering pursuing a certification. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself:

Interviewer (You): Why do you want to become certified?

Response from stakeholder (You): I want to enhance my professional credibility. Also, the sense of accomplishment that I met a professional goal will be satisfying.

Interviewer (You): What specific problems are you facing in your progress towards achieving this certification?

Response from stakeholder (You): I am unable to take out time to prepare for certification and tend to procrastinate.

Interviewer (You): What are you going to do to stop procrastinating?

Response from stakeholder (You): By scheduling the exam date and then backtracking to prepare based on this date.

Interviewer (You): What are the risks associated with this certification?

Response from stakeholder (You): Time and opportunity cost.

Interviewer (You): How would you measure success?

Response from stakeholder (You): Passing the certification exam on the first attempt.

Interviewer (You): What if you don’t pass in your first attempt?

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Stakeholder (You): I will focus on the topics I didn’t score well and schedule my next exam date so that I don’t procrastinate (again!)

Interviewer (You): How will this certification add value to your career?

Response from stakeholder (You): I can apply what I have learned to my daily work and it gives the external world a chance to interpret my level of knowledge in my domain.

Interviewer (You): What would you do differently from what you have done in the past?

Response from stakeholder (You):  I will allocate dedicated study time and follow a schedule diligently.

A few recommendations relating to the self-assessment check:

  1.      Tailor the interview questions to whatever you would like to achieve (personally or professionally). Tip: Find sample questions online.
  2.      Questions and responses can be short or extensive.
  3. Skip the typical questions that you would ask in a requirements elicitation session. Example: You don’t have to ask who is going to benefit from this initiative since this is an exercise for yourself.
  4. You must be self-disciplined to conduct this interview at least once a year. Tip: Schedule a meeting on your calendar for a self-assessment check.
  5. You must be honest when responding to questions.
  6. You must take time to evaluate your interview results and analyze areas of improvement.

What next after this interview?  Create a “to-do” list based on the interview results and post it in a place where you can see it. At a minimum, it will be a reminder to work on those action items before it goes off your radar. I hope you can follow the interview style (or come up with a style of your own) to help you to track progress towards your goals.

“My goal is not to be better than anyone else but better than I used to be” (tinybuddha.com)