Penny's Blog

My notes from Business Analysis Conference 2010 in London

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:18:00 GMT

I spent three fabulous days at the BA2010 conference last week. Here are my notes from Twitter, taken real-time during the sessions I attended plus others notes which I retweeted. They are in reverse order, so most recent ones are first:

Bringing Creativity, Clarity and Engagement to Your Work

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:36:00 GMT

This year, I submitted three possible ideas for talks to the BA2010 organising committee. One of them was very different from anything I'd seen at last year's conference and, guess what, that was the one they picked for me to present! The title was 'Bringing Creativity, Clarity and Engagement to your Business Analysis work'. I tried to do this while presenting the topic through lots of visuals, live drawing, interaction and organic chocolate bars. Yes really! Word got around that I was providing chocolate bars and many more people attended than we'd expected.

Do project managers really need to have domain knowledge? Debate...

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 09:32:00 GMT

Debating is completely different from speaking from a stage. Despite being the number one fear of many people, speaking is something I feel relaxed and comfortable doing. The groups I present to are generally receptive, engaged and polite. They ask interesting questions and I enjoy the dialogue. In contrast, debating is competitive and unpredictable and adversarial. In short, not really in my comfort zone.

So why on earth was I the lead speaker in a debate a couple of weeks ago? Well the topic was compelling: 'You can't project manage a Tube upgrade unless you know the difference between a bullhead and a flat-bottom.'
The crux of the matter was whether or not a project manager required detailed domain knowledge of the area they were working in to be effective. As Chair of the Women in Project Management group in the UK, I've met so many people who have moved from one industry sector to another while flourishing as a project manager. Take me as an example: I've worked in engineering, consultancy, pharmaceuticals, fast-moving consumer goods and recently I've been in industries from utilities and banking through to non-governmental organisations. I know from my own experience that a good project manager who can facilitate others to get things done is able to work across industry sectors. Of course it is tough; of course it is a challenge; of course you need to build credibility quickly. However, it can be done. That's why I took on this challenge!

An hour before the debate, though, Karen Sagar, my seconder and I were sitting in a coffee shop with butterflies, wondering what we'd let ourselves in for! Still, there was no going back and we joined up with Bryan Barrow and Richard Langedijk (for the motion) and David MacLeod, our Chair for the evening.

Bryan started out on an unexpected tack. Bryan argued very eloquently that while you needed to have some knowledge of the domain, you didn't need to know everything. Karen and I sat there thrilled that Bryan was building our case so effectively. We agreed with Bryan that a project manager needs to understand project management and have good interpersonal skills. We agreed with him that the PM needs to have a high level overview of the domain they are working in.

I started my opposing talk by reading out a proposal I'd found the day before. It was for a project manager. The requirements included: a track record of working with sheep farmers in Scotland to, wait for it, evaluate breed differentials of commercially available pedigree rams. Everyone in the hall fell about laughing! They don't want a project manager, they want an expert in rams!

I continued by adding that, while a project manager needs to understand that business context, they also need to have a good relationship with technical experts in order to deliver the objective. Of course, deep domain knowledge will help you get the job - you'll be credible, you can hit the ground running and identify project risks. But therein lies the biggest risk. You can get too involved in the detail, slowing others down and micromanaging them. This lead to duplication of effort and sometimes even technical experts who are completely fed up! I then told of the story where I had too much knowledge and messed up (You can find it here )

I finished off by saying that project management is by definition about delivering unique things. It's the glue that gets everyone else to deliver. Effective project managers deliver in unfamiliar domains by:
communicating effectively with the operational business
understanding what's happening at a high-level
being free to ask 'dumb' questions (which are often very clever questions)

Richard continued Bryan's theme adding in that he was concerned that diluting domain knowledge would lead to 'good enough' or mediocre project managers. None of us would want that.

Karen followed with her story of how she went from marketing to nuclear engineering, via a charity. Domain didn't matter for her - she succeeded wherever she went.

We had a debate around the room with lots of views put forward with passion!

At the end, all but two people in the room voted for the opposition. Despite our butterflies and the eloquence of the other side, Karen and I took almost everyone with us.

More importantly, we had a good time. Everyone who attended rated the event as either excellent or good. Perhaps I should move outside my comfort zone more often!

Getting things done through others: a dilemma

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 10:59:00 GMT

Last month, Project Manager Today published an article about the training dilemma of just how to develop the skills to get things done through others. It tells the story of a poisonous project I took on years ago and how I learnt from what happened next. It goes on to review aspects of the unique course that we run: 'Facilitation Skills for Project Professionals'. You can read my article here. Let me know what you think!

Energy not time is key

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:57:00 GMT

I spent most of August in Switzerland, in the Alps, not far from Davos and St Moritz. The break gave me the chance to indulge in one of my favourite activities: reading. While most of the books were completely unrelated to my work, one book stood out as having a useful message for my readers. It was called 'The Power of Full Engagement' by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwarz. I've read it before, but after a gruelling few months, the message hit me more strongly than before. You can find it in our bookshop here.

Jim and Tony's thesis is that we need to manage our energy not our time. If you (like me) have ever spent ten hours in a row sitting in front of a computer with little to show for it, you may agree. For example, the authors suggested to a jaded writer that it would be more effective to spend three 90 minute sessions writing through the morning, rather than trying 'the-ten-hour-sitting-in-front-of-the-computer' marathon. So he started working from 6:30am to 8am followed by breakfast with his family. Then from 8:30 to 10am, he wrote again, followed by a walk. From 10:30 to 12 noon was his final slot of the day. His output doubled, despite cutting down the time spent writing to less than half.

You may say that, since you work from an office, it would be difficult to have these productive 90 minute focused spurts. However, if you could do twice as much, wouldn't that be worth it? The authors suggest including rituals in your day until they turn into habits.

Since getting back from Switzerland, I've been trying a couple of new rituals. These include:
* Going for a walk or visiting the gym in my slow time (around 2-3pm in the afternoon) setting myself up for a good finish to the day.
* Making dinner at breakfast, using a slow cooker, so it is ready at the end of the day without needing any more work from anyone.

I haven't yet tried the 6:30am start, but with less than two weeks to go to submission, I think that tomorrow would be a good day to try it out!

You might not have to spent millions...

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:51:00 GMT

This week, I returned from holiday and found that my first business appointment was at the National Space Centre in Leicester. While there, I noticed an exhibit: a special pen which was developed as ballpoint pens don't write in space. Apparently it took a while to develop and cost quite a bit (millions?)

The Russians used pencils.

What's the 'pencil' for the latest thing that you're developing?

Virtual Working and the next generation...

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:49:00 GMT

In June and July, my focus was Virtual Working as I hosted the first Virtual Working Summit. This was such a success that it's happening again next year, with taster events each month. You can sign up for these at the Virtual Working Summit site. It's free to register.

Anyway, while I was talking with experts from around the world about building trust remotely and how to grapple with the tools for virtual work, my children were exploring a new game. It's called Club Penguin and it allows children to create their own penguin. Then they can connect and interact with other children from all around the world. Both my girls, aged 8 and 10, took to it straight away. In fact, they didn't even seem to think that it was any different from any other game. They explained the rules you have to abide by (or you lose your penguin) and told me all about how they made friends virtually with other penguin youngsters from around the world.

It struck me that they were naturally doing a lot of the things that those of us in older generations have taken a long time to learn. The thought struck me that we might not need a virtual working summit in 2025.

Finally, though, it seems that maybe, just maybe, the virtual world of the future might need some help. My elder daughter failed to connect with a school friend two afternoons in a row after school. It turns out she didn't have a Plan B (ie the telephone number of her friend Katie) in case they didn't manage to meet up at the set time inside the Club Penguin game.

A Conference of Risk Facilitators

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:48:00 GMT

Early this summer, I presented at the APM's RISK SIG Conference in St Albans. The first day was devoted to 'Facilitating Risk'. This is the topic of the book which Ruth Murray-Webster and I are writing at the moment, so it was very useful to hear many different views about how to tackle common problems with risk.

On day two, I heard from several key people including David Hillson, who is going to write the foreword of our book. He spoke on Risk Motivation. I enjoyed Ranjit Sidhu who spoke on her mix of NLP and project management.

I presented on 'Making Risk Workshops Work' and was invited to present again at the end of the day as one of the most popular sessions. Thank you APM RISK SIG! You can see all the outputs from my two groups here.

Don't miss their next big conference in 2012.

Sometimes good things come out of tragedy.

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:33:00 GMT

When my mother died suddenly in 2008, we didn't know that she'd had a heart attack. A few days later, we heard that this was the case. Living in a small, rural village, she didn't have much chance of survival as the ambulance took a while to reach her.

Tips on Global Project Management with ICR and APM

Wed, 26 May 2010 20:07:00 GMT

Last week, after a four-day workshop in central London, I headed out to the leafy village of Bourne End for an experiment. For one afternoon, the Project Management Forum of the Institute for Clinical Research (ICR) and the Association for Project Management (APM) met together to look at Global Project Management.