“Finding Your Next PM Job without a Resume” –from PDUs2go Webinar

I have been joining Webinars to earn continuing education credits related to my PMP credentials. This one caught my eye, in light of the current state of our economy. God has blessed me with W2 job situation. However, most of us know the status quo is never the same, over a period of time. I thought of writing salient notes from this webinar—most from the MS Powerpoint slides.

The following are common Job Hunting Mistakes:

1.       One resume for every job application.

2.       A cover letter that does not offer your benefits.

3.       Looking at anything and everything.

4.       Searching job boards. Most jobs have been filled before the job is posted on the web.

5.       Negativity.

6.       Not creating opportunities.

7.       Wait and see approach. A passive attitude towards a job search. Get busy living or get busy “dying.”

8.       Using your resume.

Jobs are closer than you think. You have 6 degrees of separation from your next job.

Alternative view of job search:

1.       Top of the stool—relationships

2.       Leg one—awareness. Being aware of people around me, along with people being aware of my “brand.”

a.       Treat your search similar to marketers, i.e., “what would Google do?”

b.      You are in the relationship business

c.       You are a brand. Brand illustrates value. What is your value? Think of yourself as a brand. Target the location where you want to work. Inventory your assets when targeting where you’d like or love to work.

3.       Leg two—activity. Create activities that place you in front of others. If you lost a significant amount of money, what would you do?

a.       Referrals—ask for it.

b.      3^rd party endorsements—6 degrees of separation, everyone is on the average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on earth.

c.       Networking events—join those events.

d.      Volunteer in the community. In church, in the community.

e.      Research companies that say to you, “that would be a great company to work for!” Find out more about the company and the people who work there.

f.        Think about your background, what could you write, speak, develop and offer to those that might be interested.

g.       Be active in Organizations—not a wall flower.

4.       Leg three—community.  Current examples are:

a.       Apple

b.      Facebook

c.       Pinterest

d.      You—What value do you have that others know about? How often do you seek out new opportunities? Are you looked at as a thought leader in the PM industry (if you are looking for a job as a project manager)?

Best practices:

·         Think like the legs of a stool

·         You must be actively engaged

·         Seek counsel and ask advice,

·         Listen to what you attract

·         Do not waste time on principles that do not work. Be active in your job search.

March Madness

I am not one to join a pool for the NCAA Basketball Tournament, nor predict who will win the national championship. You probably are wondering what March Madness has to do with Project Management. It is this: the process of predicting who will make it to Final Four and win the national championship is about as much science (and art) as predicting Risks and coming up with a Risk Management Plan in Project Management.

I don’t exactly know what input variables predictors use, but I would imagine the following (with how little I know about basketball):

1.       Schedule strength, who the team’s opponents are in the bracket, as they move on from one round to another,

2.       Production per player and as a team statistics, e.g., Field Goal percentage, Free Throw percentage, blocks per game, turnovers per game, assists per game, points off turnovers, etc.

3.       Compare team production and statistics versus the opponent,

4.       Regular season AP or some other analyst or analysts ranking.

I am confident there are other key statistics that pundits will consider, but these primarily come to my mind. Similar to predicting who’ll be in the Round of 32, Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final 4, and ultimately who’ll win the national Championship—there is as much science as predicting varied risks to a project or program. There is a lot that goes on to identify Risks:

1.       Briainstorming

2.       Delphi technique

3.       Checklist technique via historical information and prior knowledge base

4.       Assumption Analysis

5.       Diagramming techniques such as Cause and Effect Diagrams, System or Process flow charts, Influence Diagrams

6.       SWOT analysis

7.       Expert Judgment.

At the conclusion of Risk Register, this information is a basis for a Probability and Impact matrix—as the risks impact scope or quality, time and schedule, i.e., perform a Qualitative Risk Analysis along with a Quantitative Risk Analysis. Quantitative Risk Analysis can be complex, as laid out in PmBOK (4^th Edition):

1.       Data Gathering and Presentation Techniques

a.       Interviewing

b.      Probability Distributions (beta or triangular distribution)

2.       Quantitative Risk Analysis and Modeling techniques

a.       Sensitivity Analysis

b.      Expected monetary value analysis (EVM)

c.       Modeling and Simulation

3.       Expert Judgment

I won’t discuss the outputs from the Qualitative and Quantitative Risks Analysis. Suffice to say that there is a lot of science and statistics that can be applied to predict the impact of Risks, along with predicting the NCAA 2012 champion. There are however (pardon the cliché in sports) intangibles that may surprise the batter, as a curve ball is pitched. In sports:

1.       We do not know what goes on at a half-time break, or what the coach says.

2.       What the team captain says to the team,

3.       What personally motivates each player, during substitutions,

4.       What coaching occurs during time outs, and finally

5.       What fires up a team when they are 20 points behind at the half time break.

Within a project, a lot of unknowns are taken into account, or at least attempted to be accounted for. However, it is impossible to predict and account for all key project inputs—along with external parameters that can potentially impact the project or program, e.g.,

1.       Gas price or jet fuel price,

2.       Local or Governmental policies,

3.       Inclement weather,

4.       Weather-related disaster,

5.       Downturn in domestic economy,

6.       Downturn in the European  Union economies, and

7.       Consumers being spooked by a failing European economy.

In project management, Risk Analysis and Risk Management is a must to mitigate scope, time and financial impact. In the NCAA Championship prediction, the same analytical approach can be utilized. Experts who do this continually can sharpen their prediction skills, and predict with more accuracy. However, there are still intangibles that can come from a blind corner. However, this should not preclude anyone from following a certain process or analysis.

Project Status Reporting, A Lesson We Can Learn from Costa Concordia Report

As more information unravels from the tragedy (today 1/19/2012), I am very surprised and appalled that Captain Schettino was not the one communicating with the Italian Coast Guard but a member of the crew reporting that the ship had a “black out.” As the Italian Coast Guard presses for more information, the crew member repeated that a “black out” occurred, and that they “are checking conditions.”

As a Project and Program Manager, it is incumbent upon the project manager not to sugar coat nor hide any project issues (or information) to the Project Sponsor, nor to any stakeholders for that matter. It is human nature to fear repercussions when an issue or issues surface. Hiding any issue or information, big or small, or have the potential to be a huge issue—has no place in any program or project. As project managers, it will do us well to remember this reality.

Photo Credit: Vincenzo Pinto / AFP - Getty Images

Lessons from Kodak's downfall

I heard about the declaration of bankruptcy by Kodak today. Saddening to learn about such an iconic American company that invented the camera and printing of photographs—that capture specific points or way points in our lives. I did not even know that Kodak invented the digital camera. For the executives to not have pursued the digital camera wave, for fear of cannibalizing the film portion of their business—was short sighted. This reminds me of other technology innovators in my lifetime, e.g., Palm (brought us the Palm Pilot PDAs or even the Apple Newton), tapes replaced by CDs and now MP3s, AOL (ISP regardless that it was 56K, at its peak bought by Time Warner), Wang, Compaq (now owned by HP), well, you get the idea.
It is difficult to compare Kodak’s predicament to a movie franchise’ (1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd sequel such as Star Wars), or a successful TV series’ demise (such as “Friends” or “Seinfield”). Most if not all (well, maybe with the exception of “the Oprah Show”) TV shows or sequel movies “jump the shark.” The story line or the characters (I would guess due to scriptwriters attempt to extend the show’s success) becomes unexciting, inane, does not make sense, feels old, lame, or plain boring. Sometimes, the actors or actresses depart from the show, asking for astronomic pay raise. Sometimes, for just unforeseen or inexplicable reason, the viewership dwindles and falls irreversibly.
To me, Kodak’s downfall is due to failure to innovate regardless that the marketplace was changing. There is a lesson to be learned here. Technology and product lines now change in weeks and months, not a year or 2. From a career perspective, our personal “brand” has to change with the needs of the marketplace as well. To continue to rest on past successes would be foolish on anybody’s part.

Costa Concordia Disaster—Short Notes and Analysis

As of today, 5 people have been identified as fatalities, 29 missing among the 4,000 passengers and crew. 1. No training at muster station for passengers, to provide training on proper use of life boats and full awareness of life boats’ locations. From a project management perspective, training is sorely needed during the implementation process for users and stakeholders. 2. Disinformation by the captain, saying it was only an “electrical problem.” When in fact power had gone out due to engine room taking water. There is no room for disinformation at any time line during a project or program. 3. Lack of training and help by the crew—based on survivors account. See #1. 4. Not following protocol regarding safety and charted route—by captain. It is very clear that all processes and procedures, including protocols be pre identified during the project. Corollary to the latter, all stakeholders are expected not to deviate and not follow protocols. 5. Very late command to abandon ship—by captain. From a project management perspective, any issue that has potential of being a bigger problem or issue, it is incumbent upon the project manager or program manager to sound the alarm. 6. Human pride (for lack of a better definition), to “show off” cruise ship to local island residents—precipitating the accident and caused by the captain. From a project management perspective, it is clear all stakeholders follow pre define protocols. 7. Lack of care at the island for survivors—no cruise ship company’s response to care for survivors at the island. A risk management and risk/emergency response plan would be appropriate in this case. 8. Lack of leadership by the crew, no help from the crew, assessment by the survivor contrary to Carnival’s statement. This is a huge PR damage that Carnival will need to address. This is a very unfortunate event that did not need to happen, or a very preventable accident. I do not envy the captain’s position right now. My prayer is that Carnival will completely review all failure points, and address them completely. Hopefully, sooner than later.

PMI knowledge sharing group notes

1. How is change management undertaken when the project is underway?
A. What systems are used to manage change within the project?
*Document time,
*cost impact
*Document scope creep
*Provide change management process to stakeholders
*Set expectations early on
* Have periodic meetings to anticipate changes
*Communicate scope often to stakeholders

2. How best to communicate changes
*Simplify, red for urgent, yellow for semi urgent, green for non issues.

3. Resolving conflicts and resolution tips
*Set roles and responsibilities
*Find out expectations from other stakeholders, lay it out

4. How does one address someone who is uncooperative?
*How does one gain cooperation? Communicate well. Bring input from all team members, to make them realize how critical their input is. Team evolves around unity of purpose- this is the reason why communication is important. Be candid and straight forward.

5. What's the most common format for project plan? A real project plan is a compilation of different plans. See gantthead.com for templates. "Just enough project management," great reference on level of detail to be provided re: project management plan.

6. Enterprise project management, what is the optimal # of enterprise level projects per PM?
*Wait for resources, acquire more resources, or reallocate resources?
7. Reasons for project failure? Missing project plan.

8. Best practices IT project? Understand the technology.

9. Lessons learned? At start of new one, at end of a project.
10. Project accountability in a weak matrix organization: figure who's running the organization.
11. PM value *Show value in PM processes to encourage buy in. 1 concept at a time.

12. What key PM value are employers looking for? Innovation and collaboration/ alignment with business group.

Spring 2011 PMI Chicago event

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Spring 2011 Special Mentoring Session - Register Today - only limited seats

The Project Management Institute (PMI®) Chicagoland Chapter mentoring group is planning to have two 
special events this year to deliver face-to-face seminar for PMI members. This is to understand how project management 
techniques are used in a specific vertical industry than one most of the PMs are very familiar with(eg:brewing, 
food production, utility, trade show or hospitality). 

In Spring 2011 event we are focusing on the industry which conducts big trade shows 
and corporate events. This helps exhibitors make technology decisions in the most efficient and timely manner, providing 
full solution support throughout the event; Pre-Show, On-Site, Post-Show, Exhibit Theater, main event and allied services. 
The seminar will include 1) a presentation from one or more industry subject matter experts and 2) a walkthrough of 
a typical project site. You can expect a fun filled two hours of experience which can help you to shine in your current 
job or more job opportunity.You will learn about A/V, earn 2 PDUs, and network with your peers and industry experts for just $25

Come and see behind the scenes of the Audio / Visual world at an industry trade show  
See what goes into planning and executing the A/V for a convention, PM role in event hosting and become a star 


Where:  Sheraton Gateway Suites O'hare.6501 N. Mannheim Road
Rosemont, IL 60018. (847) 699-6300
Date:  May 17, 2011
Time:  5:30 - 9:00 pm
Registration Required:http://guest.cvent.com/d/cdqy2h/4W