Why Physics Matters to PMs (plus Survey Results and 26 other resources)

Does your team have the whole picture? Do you? We'll never fully appreciate the complexities or possibilities of our elephantine projects, or know how much our teams can really achieve, if we're holding on only by the trunk. (Or, more often, by the tail.) Schedules, work breakdowns, charts, and lists tell only part of the story. The rest lies in the synergy of team cooperation, the savvy understanding of organizational goals and priorities, the willingness to look beyond the prescribed processes and deadlines and see the true needs of the project, the customer, and the team.

This week, columnist Kimberly Wiefling addresses the mammoth topic of holism and nonlinearity in project settings, and our bloggers have touched on similar themes. In addition to these thought provoking articles, we've provided links to several related articles, templates, and guidelines that can help you take the next steps into a larger world.

Curious how the polls turned out in our last issue? Check out the Site Highlights, below, to find out which course and content pieces will be released in May. Plus, there's still time for subscribers to download our April course release. You can get to it below, or from the Premium Home Page on the site.

As a kid, when I first studied how the world worked I learned that light was a wave, atoms were made of particles called protons, neutrons and electrons, and you could take apart a clock to figure out how it worked. But as my education progressed, I learned that the world was a bit more complicated than the simple models I'd been taught. Light wasn't really a wave, at least not all the time. Protons, neutrons and electrons weren't exactly billiard ball-like particles. And while you can figure out how a clock works by examining its guts, the same isn't true of a flock of birds.

As a result of these mind-bending experiences—a natural extension of my education as a physicist—I stopped thinking about the world as a machine which could be dissected into its component parts, and started appreciating "wholeness" and the nonlinear, highly interdependent nature of the world in which we live. This change in my thinking hasn't made me a better bowler or saved me money on my taxes, but it does help me attack problems that seem impossible and make progress on them, as I no longer expect to see a direct connection between my actions and the end result. Let's take a look at three interesting concepts that I've found to be powerful metaphors in project leadership and management.

Kimberly Wiefling explores holism, nonlinearity, and emergence, and suggests how these modern perspectives on reality can give us a new perspective on our teams and projects. Click here to read the rest »

NEW – April Subscriber Survey Results
We want to prioritize the courses and resources that are most important to you, so we asked subscribers which ones we should release next. Maybe we're just funny this way, but we get a charge out of watching our subscribers vote for their most requested content and adjusting our priorities accordingly. If you enjoy stuff like that too, you can see the full results online. Meanwhile, here are the winners for April (to be released in May):

Watch this newsletter and the Premium Home Page for announcements on these releases in the next few weeks. You may see some of the other resources we mentioned as well, but these are our top priority.

Stay tuned in May for another subscriber survey on our development priorities. (If you would like to be able to vote on these priorities in the future, start your subscripton.)

REMINDER – Hurry Up Just a Little Faster! – Recognizing and Dealing With a Lack of Urgency for Meeting Deadlines – 1 PDU – PREMIUM
Free to Premium subscribers until May 7, 2010
There's still time to get your copy of this month's how-to course. This course will be pulled down in May to make room for the next release, but subscribers can still download it for a couple more weeks. Don't miss out! PDU credit available for paid Premium subscribers.

How can you get hardworking team members to see that little slips add up to a big problem, without demoralizing them? It's time to counter "death by little slips" with a dose of urgency. If you're trying to solve this problem with your current team, or just trying to keep it from happening to you, this course can help you inject a much-needed sense of urgency when it's really called for, without stressing everyone out. This 45-minute session with Cinda Voegtli will show you how to model that urgency with small changes in how the team is run, and talk everyone into better ownership of those critical daily deadlines.

NEW – Why Not Just Think It At Them Really Loud? – BA Fast Track: Transfer Knowledge
Now that you've unearthed the project requirements you've got to find a way to communicate them so they can't possibly be misunderstood (at least, not as much as they were last time). The final tab in our Business Analyst Fast Track provides the resources, answers, and problem solvers you need to present the requirements in a meaningful way. There are new answers to Burning Questions covering different types of requirements documentation—like process models, user stories, and use cases—and suggest possible uses for your requirements documents after the project is over. (Careful now…) Find out how to get the most out of your requirements work now and in the future. Read the Fast Track »

NEW – Awww, Do We HAVE To?! – Is a Complete Requirements Walkthrough Really Necessary? – PREMIUM
Q: Is it really necessary for everyone to walk through all the requirements? Is there any way to lessen the pain?

A: No matter how thorough and careful your team has been in capturing requirements, it's a pretty sure bet that they won't be perfect the first time. Mistakes, oversights, and misunderstandings are inevitable, and even minor oversights can be responsible for major delays or cost impacts. That's why it's highly advisable that you walk through your requirements documents with your key business and project team stakeholders, especially if they contain pages and pages of details. Reviewing these documents is important both for the sake of accuracy and to make sure everyone truly understands them. The odds of mistakes rise as the volume of requirements and the depth of their detail grows. Missed requirements account for a huge proportion of project overruns and project failures, so it's just smart business to seize every chance to minimize errors.

However, how the walkthroughs are executed will have everything to do with their effectiveness—and therefore people's willingness to participate. Read the rest of the answer »

NEW – Once the Best, Always the Best? – Are Use Cases the Best Way to Capture Our Requirements? – PREMIUM
Q: I've been asked to help capture the requirements for our project, and I'm thinking about using use cases. It seems like the best strategy for us, but are there times when use cases aren't the best way to capture requirements?

A: Use cases are a wonderfully practical way to present high-level contextual information. They're also one of the best ways to document the requirements when you want to capture functionality related to the details about user/system interactions. They're easy to create and use, they're versatile, and they blend visual and narrative elements in a way that most audiences will enjoy and understand. But use cases aren't necessarily the be-all end-all of requirements capture. Read the rest of this answer »

Another project, another chance to design a new status report from the ground up. How much of the schedule should I include ... which risks should be mentioned ... dates or just status statements ... Does anyone ever manage to fit these things on one page without spending an hour explaining it? You shouldn't have to start from scratch on key project tools like status reports when many before you have already sweated over them. Of course, there's no one-size-fits-all option, but a few good templates can get you, or your project managers, most of the way there, and there's a lot to be said for consistency of documentation. This bundle provides more than 20 variations on status report formats for different situations, many with sample data so you can see the level of detail other teams and managers use. Save time with real world examples for real world projects.

Individual use license is just $17.45 for Members. (Free to paid Premium subscribers.)

Multi-user licenses for up to 20 users and corporate licenses for unrestricted use are also available. Premium Subscribers also receive a 25% discount on multi-user bundle sets. Find out more »

Randy Englund has some advice on Getting Others to Accept "No" as a valid answer. His extremely practical take on it includes a huge variety of possible answers and approaches to saying No without generating backlash (or at least as little as possible).

In A Bit of a PM Pep Talk, Margaret de Haan posits that project managers, by holding the power of the schedule, have a lot more control over project success than commonly thought. Is the Gantt half full, or half empty? Maybe our perception of our power as project managers all depends on how we look at things.

A close call with an executive board meeting's agenda reminds Nova Rose how important it is to be prepared with a thorough understanding of your project's status, mission, and place in the organizational strategy.

Related Resources:
PM Raves: On Being a PM I Want to Hire – STANDING UP for Real Release Dates
by Cinda Voegtli
How one engineer-turned-PM took a stand on sales quoting unreasonable dates to customers, and kept everyone on speaking terms while doing it.

Speaking Up – How to Make Your Case – PREMIUM
This guideline coaches you on how to build a case for action in 5 sentences (or less), so you can make your point quickly and convincingly.

Setting Strategic Project Selection Criteria – PREMIUM
Everyone should know where their project falls in relation to organizational objectives. The first step is understanding what those objectives are, and how they affect project selection. This is a great guideline for steering committees, executives, PMOs, and the project managers they work with. Even if you aren't in charge of the process, it helps to understand it.

Project Definition – Mission Statement – PREMIUM
Does your mission statement inspire action, or indifference? A quick guideline on creating mission statements that will keep the team focused and motivated.

The Long and Short of Project Mission Statements
Do you have a 3-sentence project, or a project that's a life sentence?

Are you an initiator? Alfonso Bucero outlines the characteristics of The Project Manager as an Initiator and provides suggestions to help you identify and develop a quality that can set project managers apart from the crowd.

Jerry Perone reminds us that there's more to skill than training, in Failure to Follow Fundamentals Equals Failed Projects. Do you and your project managers have what it takes to get to the project management equivalent of Carnegie Hall?

It's one thing to be involved, and another to take over. Are you over-involved in the work of your project team? Ann Drinkwater challenges us to Release the Reins of our projects, and offers four practical suggestions for letting go without losing track.

Related Resources:
Project Manager Coaching Guidelines – PREMIUM
If you're looking for help learning some new, better PM techniques, few options will get you further than a coaching arrangement with a trusted peer. This guideline describes how to set up something that's reasonable and productive for all parties.

Conquering Micro-Management – MEMBER
This case study provides a great model for project managers learning to let go a little and adapt their project management techniques to their project environment and their team's work style.

Ways to Gain Career-Enhancing PM Skills and Experience – PREMIUM
You don't have to log decades in the trenches in order to call yourself an experienced project manager. This guideline provides several creative options for accruing valuable, career-boosting experience today.

Implementing and Develop Project Management Procedures and Skills – PREMIUM
This guideline provides a great outline for PMOs and project offices looking to build project management skills throughout the organization, without taking forever or being heavy-handed about it.

The Business-Savvy Project Manager – MEMBER
This presentation is easy to understand, quick to read, and does a bang-up job of explaining what it means to be a business-savvy project manager, including the leadership role PMs play (or should) and their key project responsibilities.

Niel Nickolaisen conducted an informal survey of his CIO peers about their progress on and use of virtual servers, and shares his results in his blog this week. What are the possible effects of the growing acceptance of virtualization?

How much do you really know about how your brain works? Michael Aucoin has been studying the current research, and he believes that what we're learning about the human brain can dramatically influence how we work on projects. His blog this week hits some of the highlights of current research, like the strengths of our filters, the weaknesses of working memory, and the very real dangers of saber-toothed schedules.

Related Resources:
Project Alternatives Tradeoff Table – PREMIUM
When you're weighing the pros and cons of various project or business options—virtualization, for example—a complete, compact table like this one can help focus the discussion on what the tradeoffs really are.

Recording Key Project Decisions – SPECIAL
This Premium resource is free to registered Members until May 13, 2010
Don't trust your brain to keep track of all the decisions made throughout the course of your project—at least, not without a backup plan.

Stakeholder Analysis Summary Table – PREMIUM
Do you know what's important to your project stakeholders, and why? What filters are they using when they review project goals and milestones? Keep track of this critical project understanding, and how it impacts your project choices and communication.

Kent McDonald will be at I-BADD in Des Moines, Iowa on May 7th to address "Business Value: It's a Conversation, Not a Number." For more information, and registration, see the Central Iowa IIBA website.

Randy Englund and Alfonso Bucero are headed to Milan, Italy May 13-14 to facilitate a seminar on "Achieving Management Commitment for Project Success" in conjunction with the PMI Global Congress EMEA. Participants will receive a copy of their book on Project Sponsorship. Randy and Alfonso will also be presenting papers during the Congress, so it's a great chance to hear from them if you're on the Continent. The following week, on Saturday May 22, Randy caps off the PMI Wine Country Chapter Professional Development Day with a presentation on "The Complete Project Manager."

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