Insights

Assimilating research is hard

While academics worry about the relevance of their work, practitioners are often oblivious of what is available and don't have time to sift through the plethora of articles to form an informed opinion.

That's why I've chosen to bridge the gap by advancing research in practical NPD while educating professionals on how to control projects and make good portfolio decisions.

Intuition without research is star math and wishy thinking*

To make a good strategy call you should test your intuition against reality.  In our uncertain world this takes scientific discipline - a hypothesis, measurements, and the objectivity to see and courage to admit that you might just be staring at tea leaves after all.  This cartoon ultimately led to my master's thesis.

PMs are often undertrained

This seems to happen more often than not.  Engineers, technicians, scientists, park rangers, accountants, lawyers, doctors .. all get dragged into project management without the proper skills.

Similarly, technology entrepreneurs become R&D portfolio managers without the necessary skills.

That's why I'm here to help.

Too task focused?

Focusing on numbers and outcomes is a natural consequence of training in STEM and related disciplines.  For a decade we reward students for competitive success in analytical activities, then one day we tell them "you're not a good team player."  Doh .. who's at fault here?  Task focus is a brain preference not a personality trait.  With practice it can be brought into balance.

Plan with confidence

Scheduling is much more than just adding up task durations.  There is a heaping helping of psychology in the mix and if you don't understand how this influences your plan you're in trouble.  Taking account of bias and uncertainty from the start will yield better results in the end ... particularly happier stakeholders.  It takes courage to have the tough conversation up front, but it's worth it come Christmas.

Rapid team building

Many project "teams" are ephemeral at best.  Members come and go and many are part time.  In this environment, a project manager needs to be able to build and constantly rebuild her team in order to maintain engagement and productivity.

Clear and fair

Leaders and PMs often struggle with giving feedback and managing performance issues.  The fundamental reason for this has nothing to do with the non-performing team member.  This happens because the leader feels uncomfortable, which is understandable, human, and yet totally irrelevant to the issue of the individual's performance.  Being clear and fair is far better than leaving them in the dark and expecting them to improve.

Easily forgotten

I often see clients on both sides of this divide.  Individual contributors dehumanise their manager as the face of the organisation (part of "management"), when in fact most managers stretch themselves thin trying to do the best for their team.  Despite good intentions, many fail at this, or more precisely, fail to understand how, and this is where coaching (for the manager) can be very beneficial.

The easy way to remember!

What's a more commonly understood risk than standing in dog sh!t?

Note with dependencies and risk controls it depends on whether the activity blocks execution of the project.  If you're not going to start the garden party until after your teenage son has picked up all the doo-doo then it's a dependency.  If you're doing it as an integrated part of the main activity then it's a risk control.