Teachable Moments: Make Use of Organizational Process Assets

Michael Adams is a husband, and father to three boys. He currently works for Los Alamos County as an IT Business Analyst and Project Manager. He also operates a small business performing computer maintenance. Professionally, Michael has led a construction crew, worked as a caregiver for disabled adults, operated the wire for a brokerage firm on Wall Street, and run the night audit at a hotel. Michael was elected to serve as VP of Education for his local PMI board in 2013. He now serves as President Elect for his chapter, PMI Otowi Bridge. Check out his blog, PM-Interface, on ProjectManagement.com.

 

Teachable moments are formed when you have done something--regardless of the outcome--and learned from the experience. Learning makes us better at what we do and provides a great opportunity to develop others and sharpen skills. We’ve compiled our best Teachable Moments from our community members for you to learn from and share with other project managers.

My first IT project was to implement a major upgrade in our organization’s HRIS software. This required new contract negotiations, sole source justification, meetings with procurement and legal. At the time, I wanted to get this done fast and right. I would circumnavigate our red tape and ensure that everything went exactly right.

We received a contract from our vendor, which I reviewed, highlighted, stuck sticky notes to and altered so that it was consistent with our technology standards and support expectations. After six weeks of back-and-forth via emails, phone calls and Web-Ex sessions, I finally had a contract that met everyone’s needs. I forwarded the contract to our legal department for their approval, and prepared to send it to County Council for a green light.

BAM…POW! Legal sent it back, accompanied by our boilerplate contract, and told me that I needed to fit this contract into the county’s template. In the end, this added weeks of negotiations with our vendor, I lost …

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