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.

Agile Methodology

As I mentioned in a post last week, I have consulting at a client site that uses an Agile Project Management Methodology.  As a Project Manager, I had thought that I have not used Agile before, however, I now understand that as a Project Manager / Developer for many years, I have previously been using an Agile methodology.

In my very first job, after leaving university, I was coding a 4GL, and our Project Management Methodology was DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Methodology).  I went on a course and actually became a DSDM Practitioner.  This was back in 1997.

The new role in more detail

Over the last two years, I have been working for a Japanese Bank, without giving away the client name, it is the largest of the Japanese Banks.  I am now working for a consultancy, working on the client site of another Japanese Finance house.  There will be many similarities to the previous company, however there will be differences in processes.

The first few days

I started a new job last week, which will be to Project Manager the move of three data centres to two new locations.  I am quite excited about the new role, as always, and am looking forward to building new relationships and the hard work that will follow in the coming weeks.

Introducing me

I am from a development background. I gained my BSc (Hons) Computing for Real-Time Systems from the University of the West of England back in 1997. This was a tough, technical degree and only 30 of us passed of the original 150 (just 20%).

For the last 12 years I have been working in the Lotus Notes arena and have worked on a multitude of projects for various industrial sectors and in many countries. I have blogged within this technology and have enjoyed the life as a Lotus Notes consultant. There is not much that I do not know about notes, and if there is, I usually know someone who will know the answer.

In the last few years, I have been mentoring developers and leading projects. I have found that I enjoy this more than the actual development. Leading projects and teams gives me a buzz and is rewarding when things go from bad to good. I like to solve problems and enjoy joining companies with problems and leaving them in a better state.

I am keen to study. If there is ever an issue that I do not understand, or there is a technology that I have been using, I try to be the best. Examples of this are my qualifications as a Prince2 Practitioner, and IBM Advanced Application Developer and recently ITIL.

I try to study for 30 minutes per day. This means that I try to keep up with the latest industry news, technology and best practices. If I miss out on my 30 minutes, I do not carry it over to the next day as this could affect my workload, but feel guilty for missing an opportunity. 30 minutes a day does not impact your work, but it actually broadens your outlook.

Finally, I enjoy being a contractor because I have had the opportunity to work with various companies, with a variety of projects. I am always surprised at how many companies (big companies) fail to have simple procedures and workflow for the simple tasks. It also amazes me that some large companies do not have a complete handle on their full assets (hardware, software and people) to enable IT project to work with fluidity.... hopefully that is where I make the difference.