Leadership Skills : Trust

Trust is a key leadership skill.  Without trust, you will find many blockers in your projects and find that teams will not optimally perform for you within the execution phase of your project.  Gaining trust from your senior stakeholders ensures that your project has the appropriate level of support from the business and provides you with a level of authorisation to  smooth out any political issues.

Supplier Contracts

One of the many pre-project, or early tasks for a project manager is to arrange the supplier contracts.  In the last two client assignments, I have had to find and secure contracts with a multitude of vendors for various provisions.  Some vendors have been used for consulting, others have supplied software and a few have supplied hardware.  Often, a client will have a preferred supplier list that you have to work with.  Sometimes the supplier list is constrictive and cannot deliver the required service or product, so you have to take a recommendation to the project steering committee to gain permission to pursue a new supplier.  This can cause delays, as the on-boarding process can take considerable time and effort, especially in larger companies and corporations.

My PDU Plan

To maintain my PMP qualifications, I need to ensure that I continue to maintain consistent learning with regard to Project Management.  I like the idea that people cannot pass the PMI exams and then forget about keeping up to date with learning and modern practices.

Why education is important

As a consultant, I do not have an official career path, nor an HR department to provide a yearly development plan.  I have to make my own development plan and think about where my career will take me in the future.  To obtain a career path, it is down to me, what I do and how I do it. 

As a consultant, any time and money spent on education and qualifications, comes out of my time and my money, sometimes at the additional "cost" of not being able to work for a client, earning my daily rate.  The qualifications are quite expensive, often in excess of £1000.  In addition, I do not get given any paid time by my clients to study, as I would if I was employed.

My year in 2013

2013 has been a successful year.  It has been a good year in both my personal life and my working life.  I worked for two large corporate banking clients, had the biggest turnover for my consulting company, I passed the PMP-RMP exam and have seen both my children continue to grow into pleasant little creatures and are both excelling at school and extra-curricular activities.

MoSCoW

This is a short article to explain the fundamentals of the MoSCoW concepts.  I have been using RAD (Rapid Application Development) for many years, while being a Lotus Notes developer.  

Rapid Application Development does not mean lazy programming or rushed projects, but is a methodology that allows the Project Manager to cut out the "fluff" in projects and applications and to develop the right product, suited to the environment it is designed to work in. 

The 80/20 Pareto Rule means that a few (20 percent) are vital and many(80 percent) are trivial.  The concept of MoSCoW, it to concentrate on the vital deliverables and save the trivial to the end, or cut them all together.

Must haves - The "M" of MoSCoW, is for the priorities, the tasks that must be delivered, otherwise the project will fail.  For example, if building a house, these would be the walls and roof.

Should haves - The "S" of MoSCoW, is for the secondary priorities, the tasks that need to make the product complete and without them, the product will be functional, but not as functional as it should be.  For example, if building a house, these would be the plumbing, insulation, electrics, windows, flooring, fixtures and fittings.

Could haves - The "C" of MoSCoW, is for the additional tasks that would produce the best product possible.  For example, if building a house, this could mean the addition of a swimming pool.

Won't haves - The "W" of MoSCoW, is for the tasks that will not be completed.  If the project had all the time and money in the world, these tasks may eventually be completed, but they are superfluous to the final Product and therefore will not be delivered.  For example, if building a house, this would be the Helicopter pad.

As I said, this is a very short article, but a useful one, I hope.

Project Time

Time is part of the Project Management Golden Triangle.  I have blogged about the Golden Triangle before, but the concept is that you have Time, Scope and Quality, as three sides to a triangle and they all impact each other.  If you extend one side of the triangle, one or both of the other two sides will be impacted.

Time is an important aspect of Project Management.  People who understand scheduling will understand how simple and how complicated time planning can be.  On larger projects, the project plan will be controlling many different work streams in parallel and the Project Manager needs to understand the impact of time on each of the work streams and resources.