Samir interviewed me for his wonderful blog Future of Project Management. It is all about my perspectives on how one can seek new assignments for things that one has never done before and develop deep expertise in one area to create an enriching and satisfying career.
Flattening of organizations is an oft-repeated phrase that means different things to different people. My favorite connotation is what I call as ‘democratization of management’, which essentially means a more symmetric power distribution between erstwhile ‘management’ and the erstwhile ‘worker’- if at all such words make sense anymore. While there …more
The conventional wisdom is to try to find a via media but that is perhaps meekly surrendering to complexity by taking a short-cut to a suboptimal solution. He argues that the some of the most exceptional leaders do not succumb to the obvious “either/or” thinking but rather work patiently towards synthesizing the best from both of these opposing views to create a best-of-breed solution that is far superior to either of these. He calls it “integrative thinking”.
Ask any HR Manager on talent profile for their organization and you will get a ‘talent pyramid’ – an odd-looking ‘pyramid’ that is supposed to reflect the talent profile of the organization. Ask them further – what is the measure of ‘talent’ in this pyramid, and chances are 9 on 10 that the answer will be ‘experience’. This experience is typically the number of years of (supposedly relevant) experience in the workforce, and pretty much determines how roles, and consequently the compensation are derived out of it. Question is – is that the right measure of talent?
Past experience is often considered to be a proxy for future performance. After all, when there is no single perfect way to forecast someone’s future performance, the best you can do is to look at the past track record and extrapolate it! However, experience will only tell that if the given person were to undergo similar experience once again, would they achieve similar results? But, how do you know that experience is not really getting in the way of future success?
I had the wonderful opportunity to attend recently concluded 4th International PMO Symposium at the beautiful Loews Royal Pacific Resort in Orlando, Florida from 6th to 9th Nov 2011. I was invited there as a speaker. PMO Symposium is organized annually by the PMI PMO COP and is the largest and surely the best such event globally. This year saw over 435+ attendees – double from the last year!
We are seeking perspectives, experiences, insights and groundbreaking ideas from practitioners and thinkers on how they have applied the spirit of agility to create new products that have led to unprecedented and extraordinary market success compared to their previous conventional practices. Specifically, we are looking for proofpoints from the marketplace to demonstrate how software team’s agility was directly visible in business results.
Program managers are the glue that bring your best people and teams together to collaborate like never before. They crack the hardest problems by cutting through the red tape in your organization and aligning them to the single goal. Clearly, a lot depends on having the right program manager in place. How do you hire or groom good program managers?
Risk-seeking behavior has been stereotyped and templated over the years. We routinely associate rash and optimistic planning, aggressive schedules, seeking new gold, banking on unproven technology, and building for newer markets as some of the risk-taking behaviors. Unfortunately, we automatically assume that things that are non-risky are safe. But are they?
The visual of Obama’s Beast getting stuck on a speed hump recently was a hilarious sight. Here you have world’s most-secure car caught completely off-guard by a tiny speed hump! The visuals told a sad tale when the car literally came to an abrupt halt – the belly hinging on the speed hump and front and the rear wheels on either side of the hump. Is that how Murphy trumps your best-run projects?
