Project World – Orlando, Florida – November 6 – 9



Project World & World Congress for Business Analysis

Orlando, FL

November 8 – 10, 2010

Friends and Colleagues,

Welcome to “Chuck’s Snippets 18.0!” The theme for this year’s Project World & World Congress for Business Analysis conference was The World is Thinking Differently; Your Time to Thrive is Now. I have included the highlights of the presentations that I attended below.

My presentations during this conference were titled, “One Cannot Live by the PMBOK® or BABOK® Alone – Trust Me” and “Out of the Gate Running – A Case Study on Requirements Management.”

If you are interested in discussing any of the specific topics and/or speakers in more detail, please feel free to contact me.

My standard disclaimer: While I believe all of the content of the attached summary is extremely valuable, I do not fully accept each premise or believe that all of the concepts fully apply in every organizational environment. However, these basic principles of effective leadership, business analysis and project management are definitely worthwhile contributions to our professional development.

Remember…if you do not want me to send you these summaries, slap me down electronically, and I’ll remove you from the distribution list.

Speaker: Bill Greenwald, Director, Humana Business Advisory Group

Topic: Learning Leadership Disney Style for Employee Excellence and Strong Business Results: Humana Inspires Action and Creates Magic

1. Chuck’s comment: Unfortunately, I missed the first few minutes of Bill’s presentation. Sorry, I couldn’t help it. This was the first presentation of the day and the line at the hotel’s Starbucks was long! Based on what I captured from Bill’s presentation, my hodgepodge of notes below is a bulleted list of desired leadership traits their team values and tries to develop.

2. Leaders that demand excellence need to model excellence, or they will have no credibility. In other words, the best leaders teach desired behaviors through their actions. Consider this: When someone observes actions that contradict words, the actions communicate a much stronger message.

3. Leaders “harvest” solutions from the front line. Who better to seek recommendations from than those closest to a problem? Quality gurus throughout recent history have lauded those leaders that seek process-related recommendations from the resources that have direct contact with an issue.

4. Leaders seek to learn the truth, not just hear the truth. You learn the truth by getting out and about to gain a ground-level view of operations, processes, interactions, etc. This means adopting a hands-on approach to collecting information and listening to employees about their needs and suggestions. MBA students learn the concept of MBWA (Management by Walking Around) in management theory classes. The challenge is that we become so overwhelmed with our daily routine that we forget this fundamental approach to keeping our fingers on the pulse of the organization.

5. Leaders focus on much more than technical expertise. Consider Albert Einstein’s quote, “We should take care not to make the intellect our god: it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.”

a. Did you realize that the majority of what makes people successful is not based on their intellect (or level of knowledge about a topic, process, or methodology)? In fact, 70 to 80% of an employee’s success is driven off their emotional intelligence (EI).

i. Chuck’s comment: This was one of the most “attention grabbing” comments that Bill made during the presentation. He went a step further to say that his team intentionally hires for EI. This begs the question, “Where can I buy some of this emotional intelligence stuff!?” I must admit, it is a bit scary to offer advice for developing emotional intelligence. Kinda makes you a target for criticism, wouldn’t you think? ( Oh well, at the risk of having colleagues that know me better than I know myself taking jabs at me, I’ll summarize what I’ve learned from my research and (hopefully) practical application.

1. Be proactive. In other words, make it a habit to understand your own emotions (what you’re feeling), the factors that influence your emotions (your hot buttons), and how your emotions impact your behavior and performance. Some of the sources I’ve read referred to this as “Emotional Awareness.” The key here is to understand triggers and respond proactively. If you know your emotions are about to influence your behavior, either control your behavior or separate yourself from the situation. This is more difficult than it sounds. We are biologically programmed to feel and respond before we think. It takes practice to successfully identify and manage emotion, or “think” before responding.

2. Be happy. I’m not just quoting the Bobby McFerrin song; however, there’s a great deal to be said about remaining positive (or happy) throughout the day and the associated impact on your attitude. Sometimes, the only thing we have direct control over is our attitude. As the wise McFerrin says, “In every life we have some troubles. When you worry you make it double.” As the even wiser Luke said (Luke 12:25), “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Ok, Chuck is coming down from the pulpit. Smile, even if you’re not happy. At a minimum, others will think you’re in a positive mood and react accordingly.

3. Be respectful. Observe others’ actions and understand they have factors that influence their behavior too. Pay attention to body language, voice tone, their choice of words, etc… More important, act appropriately when you sense emotion is influencing someone. Think for a moment about one of your worse days. Would you want to be judged on how you acted on that day? Of course not. Then try not to judge others so quickly either.

4. You can also see Chuck’s Snippets 15.0 (click here) for a summary of a presentation on Emotional Intelligence by Karen Tate delivered at the Southwest Ohio PMI 2010 Mega Event in April 2010.

Speaker Panel

1. David King, CIO, WellDyneRX

2. John McGuthry, CIO, Armstrong Atlantic State University

Topic: IT Leadership Panel: The Skill Sets You Need to Advance Your Career

1. Chuck’s comments: You could have heard a pin drop. At times, there was almost complete silence in the conference hall with over 150 people (maybe more) in attendance. Why? Read on my curious friends!

2. The approach for this panel discussion was to elicit responses to a set of canned questions provided by the attendees (as captured by an advance survey).

3. Question 1: When making tough choices about staffing (read as “downsizing), what factors into your decision making?

a. Response 1: Developers, business analysts, or project managers? Consider this...my job is to keep the lights on. I’m going to keep the resources that help me do just that. If you’re considered overhead, you’re gone.

b. Chuck’s comment: BAs and PMs, our job is to avoid being considered overhead. How do you do that? Make sure you’re seen as a critical resource. The best way to become indispensable is to regularly prove your value. Are you ensuring projects are meeting business goals over project goals? Are you demonstrating your understanding of the business and demonstrating how your role contributes to strategic goals? If you’re worried about your job security, perhaps you should be.

4. Question 2: What are you looking for in PMs and BAs?

a. Response 1: I do not put much importance on certifications. I have brought in plenty of certified folks that were not effective. I’m more concerned that my PMs and BAs:

i. Have the ability to understand complex systems.

ii. Can gain credibility quickly so they can effectively lead an experienced team.

iii. Come equipped with soft skills.

iv. Have strategic insight (in addition to a tactical execution focus).

b. Response 2: Let’s face it; there are many, many more applicants today than there are openings. Certifications are a starting point. I may use certifications to narrow down the field; however, I hire for personality.

c. Response 3: I tend to hire my senior PM roles from within. I want someone that understands the business and our people. I can train them on PM and/or BA skills.

d. Response 4: I’ve heard enough about candidates’ ability to deliver on time, on budget, blah, blah, blah. Everybody is doing that, or at least everybody is saying that they’re doing that. I want to know what makes them different. What makes them good at what they do? What benefit are they planning to bring my team?

e. Response 5: I want them to ask me questions during the interview. This is their first chance to show their curiosity, and my first chance to gauge how engaging they will be within my team.

5. Question 3: How do you view the importance of social networks?

a. Response 1: I frequently wonder why people are connected with people they’ll never meet, never exchange a personal email with, and never talk to on the phone. The size of someone’s network is really unimportant. The quality of someone’s network is much more important. Networks should be built based on the benefit of the connection. It is not rude to say “no,” when someone you do not know sends you a LinkedIn request. A much more telling question is “How many people in your network have you interacted with in the last 6 months?”

b. Response 2: If people are leveraging their networks to solve business problems, then social networks can be extremely valuable. For example, when one of my PMs or developers are on a blog, Facebook, etc…trying to identify solutions, I am getting free consulting. I’m only paying for the resource on my team. What I want to know is how team members are using their social network.

6. What advice do you have for PMs or BAs looking to advance their careers, and what propelled you to the position you’re in?

a. Response 1: Always be prepared for the presentation you are not expecting to give. In other words, do your homework. Know the true status of your project, what is going well and why, what is not going well and why, and be armed with recommendations based on your analysis.

b. Response 2: Understand the specific impact you are having on your projects and team members. This has nothing to do with completing the project and everything to do with lasting results. If you finish, but leave bodies lying around, you’ve damaged my team or a relationship with my vendor/partner. This is not the lasting result I’m looking for and tends to create resistance to our project management processes.

c. Response 3: Step outside of your role and comfort zone. Be willing to take the job that no one else wants.

d. Response 4: Understand the business. Constantly seek ways to learn more about your industry, your competitors, and the market trends. You will be surprised by how much this information can support decision making.

e. Response 5: You have to be able to sell! Sell yourself, sell your ideas, sell solutions to identified problems, etc. You don’t know how to sell effectively? Then take a class!

7. How do you remain relevant?

a. Response 1: Leverage mentors. Find people with insight and listen to them. Get out of your box and seek constructive criticism.

b. Response 2: Read trade magazines and newspapers to stay current.

c. Response 3: Don’t forget how to learn. Sit in a classroom on a regular basis. Talk less and listen more; learn as much as you can.

Speaker: Jennifer Battan, CBAP, Senior Business Systems Analyst, Express Scripts, Inc.

Topic: Taking the BA Out of the Box

1. Chuck’s comment: I wasn’t familiar with the “mental flexibility” term that Jennifer used throughout her presentation, so this led me to do a little research after the conference. Come to find out, mental flexibility is another term for critical thinking. Here’s a quote that I would like to share to get us in mood for an “out of the box” presentation summary: “Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not get bent out of shape.” Chuck Gallozzi

2. What is mental inflexibility, or mental rigidity? In short, the absence of critical thinking. If that’s not enough, here are a few more traits associated with mental inflexibility that will likely sound familiar to both PMs and BAs:

a. Resistance to change of any kind, regardless of the potential benefit.

b. Comfortable with their fixed routines and defined solutions.

c. Can only see facts that have been presented and proven.

d. Strict adherence to rules, processes, and methodologies.

3. Mental flexibility is taking control of your thought processes and actively leveraging different tools to assist you in “thinking outside of your own box.” Why do we need to take control of the thinking process? Consider these factors…

a. Admit it or not, we all develop our own thinking “box” throughout our lives and careers. Our experiences, assumptions and perceptions all define the boundaries of our box. This is simply human nature. We perceive in a highly automatic, yet frequently inadequate way. Here are a couple examples that Jennifer presented. Read the following statements:

|Paris in the |A bird in the |

|the spring |the hand |

Did you catch that? Chances are that you automatically filtered out one of the THEs in the sentence. Why? Our minds make assumptions based on our experiences. In other words, our familiarity with these phrases causes us to filter information contrary to our experiences. Ouch! The more reinforcing experiences we have, the more certain our mind is that our perceptions are factual. The problem is that our perceptions are not always accurate.

b. Our minds are also programmed to provide automated responses to specific stimulus. For example:

i. If I say “Table,” you say ______.

ii. If I say “Black,” you say ______.

Chances are your responses were “chair” to the first statement and “white” to the second statement. Funny enough, the first example generally elicits a natural paring response and the second example usually elicits an opposite response. Why? Because these are learned responses to the provided stimuli.

4. So, if human nature can be a barrier to critical thinking, what can we do? Jennifer presented a series of tools to help us overcome these predictable barriers to critical thinking. Read as, ways to improve our mental flexibility. These tools help us to both avoid predetermined solutions and to “jolt” us out of assuming an original perceived solution is the best, or only, alternative.

5. Chuck’s comments: I captured the details associated with two specific tools (False Faces & the Phoenix Checklist) that I plan to leverage in the coming weeks.

a. False Faces technique: This is a proactive approach to challenging assumptions.

i. The process is;

1. State the problem.

2. List the assumptions.

3. Challenge the fundamental assumption(s).

4. Reverse each assumption - Write down the opposite for each one.

a. For example, if the assumption is that we are restricted by time, the reverse is that we have infinite time to complete this task.

5. Challenge the reversed assumption. Record differing viewpoints that might prove useful to you.

6. Analyze the results. Are all the original assumptions valid?

b. The Phoenix Checklist: This list of open-ended questions was developed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and designed to help CIA agents look at issues/challenges from different angles. The idea is to define and challenge both the problem and the plan.

i. Chuck’s comment: This is a Project Manager and Business Analyst’s dream set of questions. As you read through the list, you will quickly see how these “discussion points” are an exercise in project definition, scope definition, business objective definition, requirements elicitation, etc.

ii. Challenge/define the problem

1. Why is it necessary to solve the problem?

2. What benefits will you receive by solving the problem?

3. What is the unknown?

4. What is it you don’t yet understand?

5. What is the information you have?

6. What isn’t the problem?

7. Is the information sufficient? Or is it insufficient? Or redundant? Or contradictory?

8. Should you draw a diagram of the problem? A figure?

9. Where are the boundaries of the problem?

10. Can you separate the various parts of the problem? Can you write them down? What are the relationships of the parts of the problem? What are the constants of the problem?

11. Have you seen this problem before?

12. Have you seen this problem in a slightly different form? Do you know a related problem?

13. Try to think of a familiar problem having the same or a similar unknown.

14. Suppose you find a problem related to yours that has already been solved. Can you use it? Can you use its method?

15. Can you restate your problem? How many different ways can you restate it? More general? More specific? Can the rules be changed?

16. What are the best, worst and most probable cases you can imagine?

iii. Challenge/define the plan

1. Can you solve the whole problem? Part of the problem?

2. What would you like the resolution to be? Can you picture it?

3. How much of the unknown can you determine?

4. Can you derive something useful from the information you have?

5. Have you used all the information?

6. Have you taken into account all essential notions in the problem?

7. Can you separate the steps in the problem-solving process? Can you determine the correctness of each step?

8. What creative thinking techniques can you use to generate ideas? How many different techniques?

9. Can you see the result? How many different kinds of results can you see?

10. How many different ways have you tried to solve the problem?

11. What have others done?

12. Can you intuit the solution? Can you check the result?

13. What should be done? How should it be done?

14. Where should it be done?

15. When should it be done?

16. Who should do it?

17. What do you need to do at this time?

18. Who will be responsible for what?

19. Can you use this problem to solve some other problem?

20. What is the unique set of qualities that makes this problem what it is and none other?

21. What milestones can best mark your progress?

22. How will you know when you are successful?

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