Project

There is something seductive about knowledge, and one's reaction to it can border on addiction - or perhaps there is no such border. This was illustrated by my trip last weekend to the San Mateo Maker Faire where the subtext of each exhibit is "how?". How do I make a robot, how do I knit, how do I shoot flames out of a 40 foot steel sculpture? Certainly some people go to the fair for the spectacle or the society or to pay $7 for a hot dog, but I believe most are driven by that fundamental question and the vendors at the fair offer answers in the form of example, tool, training and conversation.

But like any binge, there can be a hangover. In this case I have a pocket full of discount coupons, leds and batteries and a new set of half-started projects and distractions (I learned that both silver and platinum catalyze hydrogen peroxide reactions and I even learned how to knit).

Was it worth it? Well for me it was, just like a cool beer on a hot day.

There is a chemical reaction somewhere in the brain which is releasing something my neurons are hungry for.

I'm inching here towards the proposition that the quest for knowledge is something which is not entirely rational. Sure, it serves a valuable purpose, but like all instincts it can be exploited. A number of vendors at the fair are aware of this. And the same is true outside the fair grounds.

An example showed up in my emailbox this morning, an invitation (OK, corporate mandate) to fill out a "predictive index" survey so that people can know what motivates me and how I behave. A ten minute survey and my motivations, desires and behaviors can be known. So what sort of knowledge is this? Humans are complex, but are not entirely unpredictable. I do not doubt that the knowledge that this survey delivers is true at least at a gross level. But the real question is what is the value of the knowledge?

At first glance it would seem valuable. KNOW WHAT DRIVES YOUR EMPLOYEES WITH AN INVESTMENT OF ONLY 10 MINUTES!!! The proposition seems unbeatable. But the true measure of knowledge is not the absolute value, but rather the derivative of the function. What is the rate of change in my state of knowledge?

At the fair, my kids demonstrated this clearly. "We did that last year" was good cause to skip a booth and move on to something new. "They showed us some new tricks" was praise for the guys manning the soldering stations. In the case of this survey, what it adds to what is already known should be the true measure. And if that answer is zero Knowledge calories, then it is no better for us than a pink and purple puff of cotton candy.

I haven't taken the survey yet.

But the testimonials are all confirmations of its predictive power by people who already KNOW the behavior of the subject under test. It is praised because it tells us what we already know.

Now, with fading memory and all that, my brain gives me a warm twitch even on this sort of recycled knowledge. Trivia games play on this in a highly developed way. So is this sort of survey just a clever party trick or does it really provide value? I'll have to take the survey and find out...

I'm getting a bit out of order here because I just passed the exam without finishing my series on how to pass, but I'd like to jot down a few impressions of the exam while it is fresh in my mind.

First. You can pass (or fail) a large number of questions by knowing (or not knowing) the positive from negative in Earned Value calculations. SV = EV - PV, CV = EV - AC, SPI = EV/PV, CPI = EV/AC so for variances a negative number is BAD and for indexes a number less than 1 is also BAD. We all know that bad means you are spending more or taking longer than planned. Frankly I was shocked by the number of questions on this simple topic.

Second. This experience validated my thesis that it is possible to pass the exam solely using the Guide to the PMBOK as your reference material. There may be a few minor questions which are outside the PMBOX but if you follow up on the references in the appendix then you likely have things covered.

Third. Read the questions. I've worked on a couple of certification exams and believe me that writing the questions is as hard as answering them. There are often many acceptable answers so the person writing the question will have to put limiting words or scenarios into the question so that there is one right or best answer. Look for those words as they will help you choose the answer.

Fourth. Read the answers. Just as writing the questions requires limitations, writing the answers also requires putting something in to make an answer false. There were certainly some answers which were "half-right" but were negated by addition of something irrelevant or incorrect. This and the last point are probably sufficient to pass a quarter of the questions even if you have no idea what the correct answer really is.

Fifth. Cramming apparently works. Psychrometrically the test is supposed to determine if you are a real project management professional, but I think if you have a good memory you can pass this test.

Sixth. Some people advocate a brain-dump technique to write down all the formulas etc. before you start the test. I think this creates unnecessary stress. There were few formulas needed in the test, and if you can remember them long enough to get to the test center, you can certainly hold on to them for another hour or so. In my opinion this is just superstition. That said, the act of writing things down does cement items into your memory, so take notes while studying, but there is no need to worry about carrying all the stuff around with you and barfing it out on paper just before the test.

I hope to continue my series on preparing sometime soon...

Until then, good luck!

Latest news is that Office 2010 (and Project, Visio and Sharepoint 2010) are on track to release to manufacturing next month. Unless something unexpected happens, they are supposed to be released to businesses on May 12, 2010. Regular users who don't have enterprise agreements will have to wait until June for the software.

I'd expect that they would be on MSDN at the May 12 date as well if history is any guide.

To keep sales from completely stalling while people wait for the next version, Microsoft has also announced a "tech guarantee" which will give you a free copy of the 2010 version if you buy a 2007 version after March 4, 2010. Details are here: http://office2010.microsoft.com/en-us/tech-guarantee/

Introduction:

First in a series of reviews of Project Management web resources. For the full list click here

"Herding Cats"

Herding Cats is Glen Alleman's blog about Project Management. The sub-title "Ideas, Comments, and Resources about Project Management from field experiences" fits pretty well. Glen focuses heavily on the experiential side of things and likes to write about what is proven to work in his years of experience - primarily in large and expensive projects.

There are a few common themes to Glen's articles. First is setting clear scales of measurement. You aren't talking with Glen unless you hear "What does done look like?" a few times. For this reason, you will often finding him tilting with Agilistas who are a bit more flexible (if that is the right word) about what the end state might be.

A second constant is data. He likes what works and is sceptical of things with no strong track record. Data about the efficacy of Project Management methods and processes is hard to come by, but claims about them flow like water. Glen's background in science makes him critical of mis-applied statistics and bad math in general.

The final theme to mention is discipline. I think Glen's own words speak to this best:

"Project estimating, and project management is hard work. Software development is fun work. Still hard but fun. Project Management is hard work, with almost no fun."

What I like best about his blog is that there is always something for me to both agree with and disagree with. I haven't figured out how I'm going to map all of the sites I'm planning to review, but if I place myself at the center, Glen would be orbiting somewhere off near Mars. Not a gassy bloated planet. Not hot enough to melt lead. Firm and solid with a regular orbit. Interesting enough to send a probe to.

Here is my rating based on a number of statistics:

• Constancy: Posts regularly and has for a long time
  
• Spelling: Fair
  
• Depth: Longer than twitter, shorter than War and Peace
  
• Comments: Almost all reasonable comments get followed up by Glen - a good place for discussion.
  
• Recommended for all ages.
  

I started this blog five years and a million visitors ago.

In that time a lot has changed. Blogs have come and gone. Twitter was invented. Communities have died and new ones have been born. So with the 5 year anniversary coming up in April I thought it would be good to explore and remap the landscape.

I'm approaching this in a random fashion. I'll review a site, then ask the owner which site they like best, and continue until I reach a barrier or run out of energy. I'll also inject a few of my favorites as I go along if no one else brings them up. This post will be updated with a list of all the posts.

If you would like to suggest an inclusion, please make a suggestion in the comments.

• PM Web #001 - Glen B. Alleman's Herding Cats

Here is this blog's monthly growth chart for the first 5 years. I didn't start measuring until it was about 6 months old.

People from colder climates come to the Bay Area and claim that we don't have seasons here. But that is not true. You can almost tell the day of the month from some of the trees around here. This Magnolia (I think it is Magnolia × soulangeana) in particular is like clockwork in the month of February. If I can remember to keep it up, I'll post something for each month.

This one lacks the delicate pink coloring because I dragged out my 64 year old 4x5 speed graphic to take the shot on black and white film. Click the image to go see a larger version.

To accomodate the new features in Project 2010 there have been some new fields introduced. Here they are with some idea of what they are used for:

In case you missed the live event, here is the link to the webcast I did earlier this month:

http://www.microsoft.com/events/series/epm.aspx?tab=Webcasts&seriesid=51&webcastid=12426

It covers how you can best use some of the new functionality in Project 2010 including the new interface, the team planner view, the timeline view and using active tasks to do scenario-based planning. Active tasks fill a big hole in Project and allow you to do what-if analysis in a quick and intuitive way.

Go take a look!

I'm doing a free webcast on some of the new ways to work with MS Project 2010 on Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 8:00 AM Pacific Time. You can register in advance at this link:

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032434176

I'll post the slides after the presentation.

I'm in the business of improving project management. That generally means there needs to be change in an organization. One of the most difficult things is getting people to decide to change. This book helps:

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions – Gary Klein

This book covers the topic of what Klein calls “Naturalistic Decision Making” which is defined as making decisions in a “natural” setting – one with which departs from the ideal by being under time pressure, with high stakes, inadequate information, ill-defined goals, poorly defined procedures, context (Klein gives the example of conflicting goals and stress), dynamic conditions and team coordination. Klein uncovers what he calls sources of power – intuition, mental stimulation, metaphor and storytelling. It sounds pretty soft, but these often are the real factors behind how decisions are made. If you want to influence an organization and help them decide to change, you would do well to read this book.

On the critical side, it is attractive to think of yourself as an experienced decision maker and this book justifies the use of your “intuition”. In the hands of the anti-analytical this could be dangerous, but on the other hand, it makes them no more dangerous than they already are.

Check reviews at Amazon: Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

One of the most tedious parts of applying for the PMP exam is filling out the application. It requests a bunch of information about each project you have worked on. The worst part is that it presents it one screen at a time, so it is difficult to figure out how many hours you have entered in what domain. On top of that, you may find yourself stuck in it trying to dig up a phone number or address for the contact person and finding your session timing out.

To help with this I've put together a spreadsheet:

It has two tabs. One for the project and contact information. Fill it out for each project to make sure you have the information at your fingertips.

The second tab is for the experience hours. It breaks them down into the same domains that the on-line form uses and contains the descriptions. You can start using this even before your exam application to see how close you are. The spreadsheet then totals the hours and offers a sanity check of hours entered against the time that you spent on the project. For example, if you worked on a project for two and a half months, the spreadsheet will calculate the number of working hours and compares that against what you have entered as individual hours.

You can download the spreadsheet here:

Download PMP Application Experience Record

I see that the Project Management 3.0 bus has already left.

• Project Shrink - "the real challenge will be a social one"
• Ed Lawler - writing about "Management" but same idea
• Shim Marom - a bit tongue in cheek...
• Craig Brown - talks briefly about leadership in a 3.0 world.

But don't worry, I'll come up with something which is mine alone! Look for it the day the sun returns to work.

Look how long this blog has been dormant! With the Winter solstice approaching I am reminded that darkness can again turn to light so I'm making an early New Year's resolution to post weekly once again. This is the first of those posts.

I've been digesting a lot of claims and ideas about the future. Things like cloud computing and Project Management 2.0 come to mind. One of those is a technology, a capability which may allow new practices. The other is a bit more foggy with a shifting definition. From Andrew Filev at Wrike software comes the Project 2.0 Definition 2.0:

Project Management 2.0 is an approach to managing projects that is brought to life by the use of Web-based, emergent, collaborative project management software and that focuses on collective intelligence, productivity and project leadership as the basic factors of project success.

Personally I think this definition misses at least one of the critical success factors that I've seen in projects. So I'm going to leap over 2.0 and start in with my derivation of Project Management 3.0. .

If you are familiar with my blog, you know I that I use it to help solidify my thoughts. So don't expect a manifesto at first, just some apparently random thoughts. The first is to reveal that the one basic factor of project success which went unsaid in the 2.0 definition is Trust.