Moving The Matrix...

Moving the PM Matrix to ... http://rcubed-pm.generation-joe.com/ my new Wordpress MU install!!! Woot!

Be sure to check it out :)

-Optimal Optimus

Google Wave ... DAAMMN!!!

A tweet from one of my friends yielded this video on Googles new Wave application. Looks like communication and collaboration just got a shot of combat stimulants.

I am looking forward to leveraging this tool in the near future.

What will those crazy kids at google come up with next.

- Optimal Optimus

My Favorite business books... No Surprises here...

Back when I was in college I loved reading pulpish novels about Spies and Specialized Warfare along with a whole bunch of Fantasy and Science Fiction etc etc. I am a creature that tries to stay as close as I can to my roots.

So back in the late 90's I found Dick Marcinko's Rogue Warrior series and I was hooked. I liked the gritty in your face style. It was most definitely attractive seeing as how much fun it was to read about a guy and his like minded pals, who bucks all the little rules and fights for all the big ones.

Then it got worse... I found his Business Book line and I was in heaven. All the foul language aside it was all just takes on the Art of War and the Go-Rin-No-Sho and all matter of treatise on Strategy and Combat that I had already absorbed at an early age.

Nowadays Rich Marcinko is making a Videogame and I actually know a couple of those folks. But I must say that I am lucky to have gleaned those insights from those tomes of knowledge that have helped inform if not shape my career.

People should check'em out. They are definitely entertaining if not insightful. Nowadays my reading list is a lot more ... tame, but man while definitely not on the Harvard Business Review top 10, did these Rogue Warrior Business series resonate and still continues to do so today.

-Optimal Optimus

An Amazon Link:


* Rogue Warrior (1992) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-70390-0
* Leadership Secrets of the Rogue Warrior: A Commando's Guide to Success (1997) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-54514-0
* The Rogue Warriors Strategy for Success (1998) ISBN 0-671-00994-X
* The Real Team (1999) (with John Weisman) ISBN 0-671-02465-5

As promised - Primer on Agile Project Management and SCRUM

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

I presented this on 051509 to the San Diego PMI Chapter during their annual PMI Conference.

-Joe

Primer on Agile Project Management and SCRUM

View more presentations from Joe Riego.

The Importance of Management

OK so kinda scrambling to find a topic and wanted to talk a little bit about the importance of management in general not just PM.

Management as intangible as it is, is crucial to any organization. Clarity of vision, facilitating communication, and focusing work efforts is the role of management in general and in my experience its a rare thing to have clear thinking management in position.

Whether its the pressures to perform or that the majority of management is pulled from the rank and file technicians of an organization who by virtue of their work earned their commission not taking into the account that management skill and expertise are rare skills to be sure.

Some Principles that Have to be there to make it work:

A Vision Shared and Articulated Vision - Management has to get their resources on the same page.

Empower and Be Empowered Command Style - This means you trust the people that are under you to do their jobs and provide them an atmosphere to do so.

Versed in the Art and proficient in the science - You understand people and the situations and can artfully navigate them to a positive outcome and you understand the science of management the generation of performance metrics and the processes to get them.

Hopefully this helps a little on the management aspects of project management

- Optimal Optimus

Software Development is like cooking with too many chefs in the kitchen ;p...

Working with Software Developers is always a challenge IMO (not so humble opinion) its the more difficult challenge as compared to other more tangible Project Management disciplines (IT, Construction, etc). The simple reason is that you are dealing with the intangible and often fluid nature of software.

Software of any significant value is simple in its value offering, but inherently complex in its development. This complexity is an equation of developer personalities, responsibilities, organizational infrastructure, communication levels, political battles, resources all shifting to meet the needs of the consumer of the application that needs to be balanced adroitly. The same could be said for a construction project or server deployment but the concept of ground being broken and servers are on the dock is by and far more real than, how an abstract object will be handled by the as yet un-coded system.

Where in traditional IT shops and more concrete project organizations like construction there are a lot of regulatory strictures that exist, governance is part of the overall development model, in software similar concepts exist but the ways to meet them are as limited only by the architecture and skill of the development team(s) and their product owner(s) framing the problem space. That's why software is so different. So many factors so many people feeding the critical mix soup, then factor in the vendors, the methodologies and the time and associated risks it often is a maelstrom of chaotic decisions and knee jerk reactions all to the beat of the all mighty "Time to Market Drum" hammering away at you.

This is not to say all Software shops are the same they aren't, like anything there are orders of Magnitude of chaos. Software serving high governance industries will never be built the same as a video game (having worked in both sides of the spectrum I can attest to that). But it never looses its fluidity its almost art like quality, that when your cooking it it has to come out right or it will fail to meet expectations. Developers are like Chefs striving to make the experience unique and to their liking, like true artisans of their craft and the restaurateur the product owner or management hammering away at them to make the restaurant shine and then there's the general manager of the restaurant doing his best to keep the kitchen in shape and the chef's from fighting with each other and churning out wonderful dining experiences so that people come back and buy more.

Awfully flowery but close enough.

The whole idea here is that for me at least, a project manager in a software environment is supposed to bring harmony in a world of dissonance. To pull together the team by whatever means (hard selling or soft selling methodolgies, tools, communication models whatever is apropos to the problem space) necessary to bring clarity and concordance to the team and start delivering value add as quickly and as efficiently as possible. (Somewhere in there there has to be management support but that's a whole other story)

Ok Grasshopper ... When you can take this pebble from my hand...

On the Merits of Certification:

At its very core, Certification is a piece of paper that says you have been exposed to or have been trained to a certain level of proficiency in a certain body of knowledge.

I won't question the value of the certification. I for one think that there is intrinsic value to being trained and certified, Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Project Management Professional(PMP) whatever. For me the issue is that the connotation that one can be certified in something like the PMP or the CSM and they walk away a master in the art/discipline is specious.

All PMPs are not created equal all CSMs are not created equal. All those credentials really mean is that they have exposure and ideally a better than average understanding of what the methodologies offer as value propositions to an organizartion and how to implement them, to what levels of success may vary.

In the case of the CSM, I think the real weakness of the certification is that because its "Agile" it is some how easy and fast a panacea of sorts. This connotation sets erroneous expectations of what someone walking around with a CSM is or is not capable of. Maybe a more hardcore approach to the certification is warranted. Hopefully the discussion with the village elders of the Agile Community will come up with something that better protects the integrity of the skilled practitioner and brings more value to the table.

For the PMP, while the certification is much more rigourous with the concept of an auditable period of time before qualifying and continuing education requirements, that really only scratches the surface of what it means to run a project or be a project management professional or a leader in general which is really what project management provides at its basest level, and any leader worth is salt will tell you no one can just magically wave their leader wand and bam you are a leader, something about blood, sweat, and tears needs to get mixed in there,

Let's use a metaphor for this issue (everyone loves metaphors), I look at it like the mall strip Karate Studios and how many people have black belts these days? 2k and 1 year and bam you get yourself a black belt. They were certified in "attaining" knowing a certain level of skill, practiced it in a prescribed time, and a governing body approved said level of skill.

I have studied and trained for more than half of my life never got more than a brown belt at any one school of martial arts. To the uneducated many would discount me as a dabbler or amateur until they check my references as a closed door student to several highly respected masters of the martial arts, renown by blood and by deed. Maybe one day I will pony up 2k and join the certification class but then the master's would look at me funny and say so what's this about you want to start your own school too huh? (like that?... yeah like that and all it implies.)

Certifications are always nice to haves. I for one am far more concerned with practical skill and experience than fancy papers even though they can make me look really cool. My real value lies in how I apply my skills and expertise not whether or not I have a pedigree and I sleep-walked through it all. Black belts like that get weeded out eventually, usually by a kick to the neck and a short nap on the canvas.

Does that mean I don't value a certification process? No but I do check under the hood and kick the tires a couple of times just to be sure things are where they are supposed to be.

Remember in Kung-Fu the series Grasshopper's journey didn't end when he was able to take the pebble from his masters hand... It was only the beginning. Oooooo...Zen-esque Mystical stuff now what would be the billable for that?

- Optimal Optimus