Project Management – The Talkative Man

Nine Elements of Organizational Performance

Motivation: Inspiring and encouraging employees to perform and stay
Coordination and Control: Measuring and evaluating business performance and risk
Innovation: Generating a flow of ideas so that the organization is able to adapt
Leadership Team: Ensuring leaders shape and inspire the actions of others to drive better performance
Direction: Articulating where the organization is heading and how to get there, and aligning people
External Orientation: Engaging in constant two-way interactions with customers, suppliers, or other partners
Work Environment and Values: Shaping employee interactions and fostering a shared understanding of values
Capabilities: Ensuring internal skills and talent to support strategy and create competitive advantage
Accountability: Designing structures/reporting relationships and evaluating individual performance to ensure accountability and responsibility for business results

Ten Quotes from Bill Hewlett and David Packard that Every Manager and Leader Must Read and Follow

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard

On 23-Aug-1937, two electrical engineers who had recently graduated from Stanford University met to consider the idea of founding a new company. During the course of their studies at Stanford, they had developed a strong friendship and respect for each other. Bill Hewlett and David Packard put their ideas to paper, starting with a broad declaration about design and manufacture of products in the electrical engineering field. Initially, Hewlett and Packard any engineering product would be fair game to move the company forward, and expand beyond their Palo Alto garage. Therefore, they were unfocused and worked on a wide range of electronic products for industry and agriculture. Through hard work, perseverance, and forethought, Bill Hewlett and David Packard developed Hewlett Packard into an instrumentation and computing powerhouse before retiring and handing over management to a new crop of business leaders.

“The greatest success goes to the person who is not afraid to fail in front of even the largest audience.”
“Set out to build a company and make a contribution, not an empire, and a fortune.”
“The best possible company management is one that combines a sense of corporate greatness and destiny, with empathy for, and fidelity to, the average employee.”
“The biggest competitive advantage is to do the right thing at the worst time.”
“A company that focuses solely on profits ultimately betrays both itself and society.”
“Corporate reorganizations should be made for cultural reasons more than financial ones.”
“A frustrated employee is a greater threat than a merely unhappy one.”
“The job of a manager is to support his or her staff, not vice versa and that begins by being among them.”
“The best business decisions are the most humane decisions. And, all other talents being even, the greatest managers are also the most human managers.”
“Investing in new product development and expanding the product catalog are the most difficult things to do in hard times, and among the most important.

Source: “Beyond The Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game Changing Innovation” by Phil McKinney. Phil McKinney was an innovation manager at Hewlett Packard. Phil’s book has great questions for managing and leading businesses.

For Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard’s legendary management style and the history of Hewlett Packard, read ‘Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company’ by Michael S. Malone and ‘The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company’ by David Packard.

Responsibilities of a Process Consultant

A Process Consultant is a process expert who is part of the project team right from the project initiation till the project closure. The main responsibilities includes,

During Project Initiation

Participate in the project kick-off meeting
Help the project team in understanding the customer requirements, scope and expectations about the project
Identifying the necessary Quality Assurance mechanism for the project

During Project Planning

Review the project plan, estimation document, risk management plan, project schedule

During Project Execution

Providing process support and ensure that there is no process violation.
Intimate quality manager on any process violation.
Review weekly process activity reports of the project
Participate in weekly meetings of the project
Review the monthly status report
Participate in reviews of monthly status reports
Send weekly Process Activity reports to the top management and the quality manager.
To routinely take the Quality and CM view in project’s technical screens
Assist the project team in closing the discontinuities and ensure that the project team closes all audit discontinuities by the target date

During Project Closure

Participate in the closure meeting of the project and contribute as to ‘what went right’ and ‘what went wrong’

Four Questions Every Mentor Must Ask

Mentoring

When mentors ask the following five questions in the order presented below, they can precisely form an effective analysis of the mentee and therefore can provide specific, practical guidance.

Question 1: “What are your passions? What do you want to be? What are your aspirations? What do you want to do?”

Enthusiasm is what separates good purposes and opportunism from true achievements. Professionals who pursue exceptional possibilities for their career are passionate about their objectives and persistent in pursuing their goals. Many professionals have good ideas, but only a few are dedicated enough to put themselves on the line for their passions and work hard towards their goals. Understand how your mentee defines success. Employees perform better in their jobs when they are doing what they believe matters and work towards their goals and objectives.

Question 2: “What are your strengths? What has enabled you to be successful in the past? What skill sets do you possess that will help you get where you want to be?”

Very often, leadership traits and skills tend to come together in steady patterns. Exceptional leaders with strong technical backgrounds are often also good at building relationships with the people around them, developing teams, and communicating effectively. Remarkable professionals who are exceptional problem-solvers tend to be strong-minded, self-assured, and cheerful. Strengths contain the mentee’s greatest potential for growth. Ask the mentee what his strengths are — the things he does naturally and well.

Question 3: “What do you think you will need to learn in order to do what you want to do? What constraints have you experienced in similar situations in the past? What feedback have you received?”

Building on the mentee’s strengths is not enough for success. Career success comes from delivering value to an organization and value of a professional’s work is eventually measured by the organization. Therefore, competent professionals who want to mature into great managers and leaders must stop doing what makes them successful in their individual roles and assimilate new competencies. Determine if the mentee has any self-defeating behaviors that could inhibit his success.

Question 4: “What can I do to help you succeed?”

Once you examine the drive and learning opportunities of a mentee, you need to determine what is it that the mentee would like to learn and then ask what experience you, as a mentor, have that might be helpful to the mentee. Asking this question will help you determine if you have the relevant experience and time to make this mentoring relationship effective. Analyzing the answer to this question will also help you maintain your mentoring relationship, which can be just as challenging as finding the right candidate to mentor. By understanding the development needs of the mentee, you can provide structure, expect learning discipline and rigor and establish goals that will enable you to close the mentoring relationship.

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