Hi Mr. Davis!

First, you’ve asked an excellent question.   I think there’s really two parts to it.   Some of the ones you list could affect the project only (resignation) but some of them are corporate level risks (cyber-attack). 

There should be good risk-stewards at the corporate level, working with the accounting and general management folks to forecast and protect against hurricane, tornados, zombies, whatever.   These risks are out of the project manager’s hands and are part of the overall business risk assessment.  You *could* say these are “organizationally accepted risks.” 

That’s all “C-Suite” stuff.   Sure, your project may get washed away in a hurricane, but the PM isn’t really held responsible for insurance, or claims, or set-asides for that.  Perhaps, a PM may get involved in planning for data safe-backups (offsite) but even that is not common.

But!  As a top-notch Project Manager, when you think of these ORGANIZATIONAL types of things, I believe it’s your duty to ensure that the general business folks have considered them.   So, for instance, I had the sprinkler system come on over a weekend (no fire) and it stayed on until Monday.  I never imagined that would happen.  If I was just a bit smarter I would have, and would have politely asked the folks upstairs in the corner office if they had set aside funding to take care 2 feet of water from sprinklers.   I don’t consider this to be a project risk, but an Organizational level risk

So, if you can imagine a business risk and it has some likelihood of occurring you have an honor-bound duty to inform the business risk people about it.    If they don’t take care of it, then you must handle it on the project. 

If it’s a commonly accepted risk taken at the project level (a late deliverable) then it should be in your project’s risk register and you’ll be the grass and the executives will be the lawnmower.

-- Dave

Chalk Talk - A Valuable Problem Solving Tool

For some strange reason, I find myself blogging about chalk and chalkboards for a second time.  No, I’m not hung up on them. But, yes, I *do* enjoy good old-fashioned slate and the smell of dusty chalk.  But – that’s not the purpose of the blog.

To make things even more confusing they’ve started painting the inside walls of classrooms where I often show up at - with “whiteboard” paint.  Now that bugs me.   A student walked right up to the wall and started drawing on it with a marker!  It looked pretty much like any other wall.   I kept yelling it was just a wall!   Some of her quicker witted fellow students whipped out their phones and announced, “This is going on Facebook!”  But of course, they were all having a fine time with my old-man ignorance and it was a “white wall.” 

OK.  Back to Chalk-talk. 

Sometimes at NASA, working as a team we’d come across a problem that just seemed impossible.  We’d work for days, sometimes weeks trying to solve a single problem.  I remember multiple times staying up for 30 hours in a row trying to solve one problem – not recommended!  This sort of effort required third-shift coffee, cherry pies from the vending machines and lots of second-hand smoke.  

What’s Third shift coffee?  Each preceding shift was honor bound to have a pot of coffee waiting for the next arriving shift.  So, the guys on second shift, at around 11PM would make an extra strong pot for the third shifters arriving at 11:30 PM.  The first thing a real third shifter would do is to add a tablespoon of instant coffee to each cup.  Everyone knew what third-shift coffee was like.  A hard (not necessarily big) problem required around-the clock third-shift coffee. 

None of this is healthy, smart or conducive to solving complex technical or mathematical problems.  But… we did it.  Our (very good) branch chief would drop in from time to time, ask a few questions and then wander off.  At some point, based upon his instincts, he would call for a “CHALK-TALK.”  This meant we’d have to leave wherever we were working, go to a new / different conference room.  And take turns standing up in front of a chalkboard explaining what the problem was and how we thought it could be fixed.  We each took turns doing this.   

I can’t remember a single time when this method didn’t get us to a solution. We were all tired, grumpy, short-tempered and wired with caffeine, but it worked. Sometimes someone would be talking at the board and the solution would hit us all at-the-same-time like a hammer.  Other times, parts of the group needed to explain it to the others.  A few times only one person would see the solution and explain it to everyone else.   Again, no rules and not much of a pattern fell out.  But I can think of a few guidelines...

Guidelines:

1. Research the problem until you know all about it.  Exhaust all possibilities.
2. Have a “judge” call for “chalk talk” time.
3. Remove the group from the area of the problem – the more different the environment is, the better
4. Have a blackboard, chalk and eraser (OK, whiteboard markers….)
5. Let one of the group play “teacher” first.  If the solution doesn’t come, someone else takes a turn.  They can restart or build on whatever is on the board
6. Participants don’t have to be quiet.  I remember them being QUITE vocal.  This involved name-calling, whistling, foot-stamping, whatever… But those sitting couldn’t stop the person with the chalk from expressing what they thought the problem or the path to the solution was.  The chalk was the power.
7. The person with the chalk could give up at any time.  Someone would have to pick up the chalk, but hopefully not someone who just was “up.”

When a solution is arrived at – everyone knew it.  It was like the room filled with water.  Quiet.  People looked at each other.  Eyebrows went up.  Some people went home to sleep right then!  Other’s went back to (regular) work to try the arrived-at solution

Who is an Expert?  What makes them an expert? 

I don’t pretend to be a cognitive scientist, nor have I done much research on the topic – but it is a fascinating field.  And there is a *lot* of literature, books, theses, and studies on the topic to choose from all the way back to Plato and perhaps before.  This blog entry is based upon what I’ve read plus personal opinions and thoughts.  The question “What is an Expert” was planted in my brain by the good folks at ProjectManagement.com who have asked me (and others) to participate in “Ask the Experts.”  

Please let me know if you disagree or feel I need to add something!   

An expert is generally considered to be a person with extensive knowledge or ability based on a combination of personal research, experience and occupation and in a discipline.  In our case, Project Management and related topics.

I found a  scale by which experts can be judged within a specific field (Germain's scale 2006) that  gives some interesting hints…

• Specific education, training, and knowledge
• Required qualifications
• Ability to assess importance in work-related situations
• Capability to improve themselves
• Intuition
• Self-assurance and confidence in their knowledge

More down to earth definitions exist.  Mark Twain defined an expert as "an ordinary fellow from another town." Will Rogers described an expert as "A man fifty miles from home with a briefcase."

Application to Project Management

I’d going to tailor this write-up for Project Management as well as drift away from academic studies and simply express my own views.

1. Has experience: There is clearly a level of experience required to be an PM expert.  My guess is that 10+ years as a full-time PM are required.  This experience can be either specific to a field or it could be spread across many different fields that have projects.  I don’t think that makes much difference.

2. Survived failures: I also believe that an expert has had a lot of failures, and made a lot of mistakes; big and small.  I don’t mean to say that an expert always fails, or only fails, but that their projects stumble and recover or may even fail outright. That’s the hard learning that occurs during the years of experience in number 1 above.   Perhaps if a project manager had never had a failure, they could not be an expert… 

3. Is observational:  A PM is always observing what works, what doesn’t what almost worked and is thinking about what to do next time.  So, combined with item 2, It’s not just about recovering from mistakes, it’s about recovering the project in the smartest, best way and learning what *not* to do next time and how to avoid getting into that mess again.   They also observe small details in the project’s operation that don’t appear to be important.  These are all signs that can be read and parsed out to see how things are going and what the general health of the project is. 

4. Highly Confident: An expert PM has confidence in what they say and do.  Of course, this combined with number 2 makes for a wild ride.  We’re letting loose people that, with confidence – make mistakes and then recover, which leads me to point number 5.

5. Story Teller:  I’d like to substitute the often-quoted top-job of a PM is communication with the most important skill a PM has is 'Story Telling'.  I’m not talking about making up stories, I mean explaining what has happened, or what is expected to happen in an easy-to-follow cogent fashion.  *They don’t lose the listener*.  How story telling is learned is something I’m still struggling with.  I have a few ideas, but of course practice helps!

6. Strong Sense of Mission: The expert Project Manager carries within them a “sense of mission” in other words, a sense of the value of the project.   It’s the answer to “Why are we doing this anyway?   Every action, decision and communication is made with the internalized, overriding strong sense of mission of the project.  It’s expressed in meetings, to people working on the project, to stakeholders – everyone and, the PM believes it… strongly.

7. Feels the Flow of the Project:  Once all the above are in-place, confident, has failed (and recovered) many times can tell the story of the failure, and can sense the smallest details of a project and how they inter-relate, they’ve arrived.  I’d declare them to be an expert. 

OH!  They’d have to have at least one PMI certification as well! 

An Open Question During the 2015 PMI Congress

The Blank Chalk Board

During the 2015 PMI Congress in Orlando, the ProjectManagment.com Community Engagement folks wheeled out a blank blackboard.  NOT what I expected them to do!  Then, someone with a steadier hand than I have carefully drew the PMI logo (good job too!) and then the simple statement – “Why I became a Project Manager.”  Then…. They walked away leaving various pieces of colored chalk there.  I had a ringside seat in the “Ask an Expert” area so I just watched it.

Not a Well-Stated Problem to solve! 

My first thought was: “It’s not finished!”  There’s only one of the famous W’s up there!  What about: “Who? Where? What? When? and How?”  That’s CRAZY!  I didn’t do anything about my concerns -- I watched and was quiet.  But of course, the engagement folks are 100% more socially adept than I am, so I figured this must make sense somehow.  But it’s just a statement!  No guidance, no rules, no method of grading answers!  A chill crept into my engineering brain. 

WAIT!  Perhaps someone from PMI GOC would walk out and chalk in the answer based upon some expensive scientific study.  But, no, they left it blank.  No expensive answers.  Soon, some random Project Manager wandered by and boldly chalked up a response to the statement.  (Clearly, Project Managers aren’t shy.)  Within the two days of the congress, the board filled up and there was a very interesting collection of answers left on it.  Also, I didn’t see anyone erasing their answer.   Project managers, it seems - once they have an answer, have no need of an eraser.

Why I became a Project Manager

It took me a while, but I decided to study a photograph of the board (thank you Marjorie), to see if I could make sense of the complete randomness of the answers. To attempt that, I created categories and mind mapped it.

And the answers are…

NUMBER 1: IT WAS AN ACCIDENT! 

It seems that most of us probably didn’t plan to become a project manager, but fell into it, so to speak. You weren’t originally employed to do (or manage) project work, but with time you were asked to look after a couple of projects in addition to your regular responsibilities. You haven’t received much training—if any—and your company may not have a unified method for managing projects.  These people suddenly found they were responsible for managing a project but are unfamiliar with the “art and science” of project management.   It happened to me, and it seems it was the number one response to the chalkboard’s statement

NUMBER 2: TO FUTHER ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS

It’s not clear if these are “accidental” project managers that perceive the organizations goals and wanted to lend their skills to help achieve them, or if they were directly chosen to be a PM by the big bosses to forward the organization’s goals.   Notable in these answers is: “Change the world and me too.”  I like that!

1. To make a bigger impact to the organization
2. Change the world and me too*
3. Produce results; drive strategy
4. Link IT world to end-user’s world
5. Make a difference
6. Company needed someone who was organized

NUMBER 3: A FUNNY ANSWER (JOLLY JOKER!)

Project Managers are people with a good sense of humor!  I really like the first one: “I wanted to predict the future and figure out how to control it.”  If’ they’ve figured that out – they’re the world’s best PM!  I’d recommend they move to Las Vegas and start gambling!   “Work Release” is also very funny (I hope).    And, I’m just a tad worried about number 5 – I’m hoping I correctly put it in the “funny” category:  “I’d rather tell than be told.”  I’ve had managers like that, I’m sure we all have. 

1. Because I wanted to predict the future and figure how to control it 
2. Job security
3. Work release*
4. Retirement plan
5. I’d rather tell than be told

NUMBER 4: TO BE A LEADER

People want to be a leader in their organizations and saw Project Management as the way to achieve that goal.   Number 2 is my favorite: “It’s what I was born to do.”  And none of us could ignore number 4 – “Because I love the profession”

1. I’m a leader
2. It’s what I was born to do*
3. I love the ongoing challenges and change faster!
4. Because I love the profession

NUMBER 5: TO USE SOFT SKILLS

These are great!  People with soft-skill-ability decided to be a Project Manager to use their soft skills to help their organizations and themselves.  Perhaps number 4: “I think” isn’t really a soft skill but this seemed like a good place to put it. 

1. Because people [is] are what matter*
2. To use my soft-skills in high-tech
3. Big picture thinker
4. I think!

NUMBER 6: MONEY

1. I need[ed] the money!
2. $ (thanks Charles!)
3. Because PMPs bank!*
4. Good career path

A few of these are clear to me.  But, who is Charles?  Maybe the PMO manager?  The one that stopped me dead in my tracks was number 3.  When I closely looked it seemed to say "Because PMPs bark!”  I didn’t “grep” that.  Maybe it belonged in the “FUNNY” category?  Then it looked like it wasn’t really bark, but bank.  I put it in the money category, but was still clueless.  Maybe this was a financial PM?   

It bugged me enough that, I decided to rely on the (100% more socially adept) PMI engagement folks. My question to them was: “What does PMPs Bark mean?”   The answer (thanks Kristin!) was that’s “modern talk” for PMPs make money – it's not that they "BARK"  it's that they “BANK!”  Oooooh. 

NUMBER 7: PLANNING

We all plan.  These people became PMs because they LOVE planning.   I’m not sure I LOVE it, but I do a lot of it.  And I would probably fit into the first answer: “I think in plans.”

1. I think in plans*
2. I love planning
3. Love launching new programs

NUMBER 8: THE WORLD IS A PROJECT

These seem like people that have been a PM a long time and probably are PMPs.  After a while EVERYTHING becomes a project.   Typing up this blog is a project.  Uploading it to ProjectManagement.com is a project.

1. I’m a parent so I’m already a PM*
2. Because we are managing projects everywhere, home, work, etc.

Non-Scientific Conclusion:  

People that have a good sense of humor and are concerned with their organization’s objectives are picked to become PMs and leaders. 

SMART MARJORIE

PMI knows how to put on a Congress event!  The first Congress I attended (and presented at) was in 1995.  I haven’t attended them all since then, but I’ve attended quite a few.   At the 2015 congress, I was hanging around the PMI booth talking to my good friend Marjorie Anderson (PMI).   She had a remarkable, brief and amazing insight.  I can’t remember her exact words, but it was something like: “I love the energy of this group, I can feel it!” 

It took a few hours to sink in – but she was right on the mark.  All the attendees were happy, engaged, thrilled to meet fellow Project Managers, and impressed with the great show PMI always organizes.  Why didn’t I realize this 20 years earlier? 

While thinking about the “Marjorie hypothesis”, I started wandering the halls (when I should have been part of the “Ask the Expert” group).  While Absent Without Leave, I realized just how right she was.  There is TREMENDOUS energy in a group of thousands of Project Managers.  You just need to witness and reflect on it for a few minutes.   I believe this energy comes from the unity of purpose and direction.   Everyone was trying to learn more about their craft and their joint passion – Project Management, in its many variations and styles.

SESSIONS

There was a dazzling array of varied presentations being given, and most of the crowd was eager to get to the next one on their list.  Just standing in line to get my badge scanned I could sense the anticipation, interest and of course – the energy.

Which brings up an interesting issue.  Which sessions should you attend?   After 20 or so years, I’ve developed two methods of choosing.  Neither is scientific or probably even recommended.  But there is an overwhelming selection of sessions – too many to attend. 

My first method is to the session with the biggest crowd waiting to get in.  Maybe I invented “crowd sourcing!”  My thinking is that a hundred or so Project Managers combined are MUCH smarter than I am.  So, like a fish in a school, I followed them. 

My second method is to attend a session that I know little or nothing about.  After all, I am at the congress to learn new techniques, concepts and “stuff.”  So, by going to a session that I know next to nothing about helps expand my brain a bit.  Sure, I have interests that I can’t avoid – risk, aerospace or academic projects, but going to a healthcare project session (not my ball of wax) helps expand my brain a bit and I often pick up a concept that would *never* have occurred to me otherwise.

ASK THE EXPERT              

For the past few years, ProjectManagement.com has invited me to attend the Congress as a Subject Matter Expert.   The idea is that people sign up to ask a question of an expert and expect to get an answer or at least a direction to go in.  It’s always a great experience and lot of fun for both the person asking and the expert.   To tell the truth, I enjoy these 1 on 1 sessions more than anything else – even the 2016 marching band and beer! 

Of the many people I’ve talked to in my “Expert” role, there has been an Engineering Senior from a major American university who was the project lead of an electric car build and competition wanting to know about how to task his team members, to a PMO manager of a billion-dollar company about implementing risk management as unified PMO activity.   One eager PMP wanted to know why SAFTEY or safety planning is not a concern in the PMBOK guide.  (A good question!)  With a group at breakfast ‘expert table’ we talked about how each of us has dealt with complex technical issues.   These sessions were brief, enjoyable and I believe; helpful to the person asking for help.

And, just to confirm the “Marjorie hypothesis” each person I’ve talked to during “ask the Expert” was filled with energy.  They WANTED to succeed, they WANTED to learn a better way, they were thrilled to talk to another PM who understood their issues. 

PERCEPTIONS

The typical perception of a Project Manager is someone who sits in an office and plans all day or, a Dilbert-like character.   We all know this is incorrect and nothing illustrates it more than attending a PMI Global Congress.   I’d like for non-PMs to attend!  I’d like the Project Manager’s bosses and higher-ups to attend.  Let them feel the “Marjorie hypothesis.” It’s undeniable.