Social Networking, It’s All about Me

I started a new assignment implementing an internal community site. That got me to thinking about how are communities different from the other information sharing techniques, such as web, SharePoint, etc. A glance at a social networking site reveals a set of features and functions that are not unique or, in some cases, not very impressive. Social networks are a form of knowledge management systems. They are also content management systems. They are also information sharing and collaboration systems. We see email functions, blogs, web pages, tagging (adding Meta data), RSS (Real Simple Syndication), WYSIWYG editors, etc.

These have been around, in some form, for some time. It is not the specific features or combination of features that are unique and different. It is the context and point of view that have made social networking sites popular. With the previous tools (web pages, content management systems, knowledge management systems, file folders, etc) someone set up the hierarchy and structure based on a corporate point of view. This could be an information architect (if you were lucky). More likely, there is no defined structure and naming conventions. Even if this was easy to learn, intuitive, and everyone in the organization could quickly understand and use it, as more information and documents are added becomes a big problem.

Adding a search engine, tagging documents, and storing virtual links (or worst copies) in multiple places are only bandages. The real problem is that people think differently. Memory is experience based. People sort and categorize information by comparing to new experiences to what they already know. Social networking has tapped into that by shifting the context from a document definition or business process view to providing users with tools to add, label, and link content based on their frame of reference, themselves.

People do not think of themselves as lines on an organization chart. Almost all work is cross functional, team based, or project focused. Social networking supports this, starting with the user profile. A number of knowledge management projects in companies tried to capture the information about skills and experience. They had limited success because they started with the corporate view and labels. Then people were told to fit into the predefined slots. The user profile in a social networking system is how you think about you.

The other key to success is providing the tools to allow information to find you instead of you having to track it down. A document and data centric view makes you figure out how things are labeled, where they are stored, and if you have access to the right systems. Using tagging, RSS, and email notification, a social network provides a simple set of tools to enable information to find you. Unlike a web page or a database, where the Meta tags are not readily visible, with social networks, all the tags are visible, along with a ranking of each. That allows a user to see quickly how others categorize the content they are entering and to map those terms to terms they use.

Changing the Metaphor of Work from Machines to Humans

I heard a great talk by Mark Morgan at the monthly meeting of the Northern California Chapter of the Association of Strategic Planning yesterday. He based his talk on the new book, Executing Your Strategy, by Mark, Dr. Raymond E. Levitt, and William A. Malek. Using the Strategic Execution Framework (SEF) diagram he pointed out the interconnections and dependencies between the different imperatives in a company.

He started by pointing out how we talk about the work that goes on in a company. The terms used in the books, classes, and consulting have their roots in the work by F. W. Taylor back in the 1900s. That was the Industrial Revolution. Company management process was put stuff into the machine, make the machine more effective and efficient, and sell the stuff coming out cheaper than the other company does. The major component of work today, especially in the United States, is people.

We can find a number of people that specialize in one or two of the different functional bubbles on the SEF diagram. They have studied, consulted, and written about their functional bubble. Where management at companies gets into trouble is that this is a dynamic continuous system, not a set of hierarchical points. The arrows connecting the bubbles on the SEF diagram, especially across what Mark refers to as the six imperatives, Ideation, Nature, Vision, Engagement, Synthesis, and Transition, often are overlooked. As any experienced software programmer will tell you, the interfaces are the critical problem areas.

The driving force behind activities in companies today, even manufacturing companies, are interactions between people, more than between machines. To succeed, all of the bubble functions have to be in alignment. Communications and actions have to work together. This view of the company as a system is what resonated with me. It is critical for everyone to look at the entire system, the ecosphere, inside the company and the alignment of each of the parts. Looking back, I can see that this was what drew me to get an MS in Systems Management, and to being a Project/Program Manager.

It also explains some of the problems I have encountered on engagements to create systems to move strategy through portfolio, programs, and into projects. Optimizing only one area will not improve the implementation of the strategy. If we do not align all of the parts, we will not move forward.


Technorati tags: project management; program management; management; business strategy;

All Project Managers should be part of the Department Of Doing

I was reading a blog and found out about a New Zealand company called the Department of Doing. The founding partners created a Directives of Doing forming their code of conduct. Richard Hollingum set up the company because he saw that the world was full of ideas. Unfortunately, a large number of ideas do not happen, they became compromised or they do not turn out as planned. His company focuses on making them happen and generating ideas that will happen.

Many times people only define the Project Manager role around budgets, schedules and resources. While they are important, it is more important that the project deliver a usable solution aligned with the business need. When a project tends to stray from one of these measurements (admit it, they all will), instead of blindly stuffing it back onto the track, we need to use that as an opportunity to step back and take another look. This is the chance to pull the two hidden components, quality and usability, out into the light. Instead of blindly pushing to get back on schedule, on budget, or get more resources, let us ask if we are still on track to deliver a usable solution at the right level of quality.

In Jeff Pfeffer and Robert Sutton’s 1998 book, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge Into Action, they pointed out that organizations and people can know the right thing to do but do not take the right actions to make it happen. Too many times talking about the problem or solutions are a substitute for taking right action. As a Project Manager, we see these at Lesson Learned meeting, status meetings, and project reviews.

As the Project Manager, everyone looks to us to “get it done”. Leading cross functional teams in a matrix environment, we must be vigilant. We need to make sure we are translating the ideas into a usable solution at the right level of quality. We must weed out and eradicate the tendency to substitute talk for action. At the end of the day, being able to say you were on time, within budget and did not need more resources does not win points if the deliverables do not match a strategic business need and are not usable.



Technorati tags: project management; program management;

Bamboo and Project Management

No, this is not about some Project Management software from China. This is about using a flexible, light weight structure to support the Project Management efforts. There is a large amount of confusing about Project Management. My approach has been to use it to apply structure and form. While traveling through Asia, I saw people using bamboo as scaffolding for construction work on buildings. Most people see Project Management structure modeled on traditional Western scaffolding, heavy, strong, durable, and complex. My approach has been more aligned with the properties of bamboo, light weight, flexible, and simple to use. That is not to say that it is flimsy or fragile. As with the bamboo scaffold, your Project Management structure gains strength by adding more where you need it.

Ok, it is a great metaphor, but how do we turn that into action? The obvious but often overlooked starting point is to keep it simple. People, especially senior mangers, need to see the message with minimal explanation. While a number have are familiar with Gantt charts and other views from project software, it is not the right answer for everyone. So, I start with a pretty picture on a MS PowerPoint slide. The picture should show everyone, at-a-glance, what projects are underway, top level time based depiction of each phase in each project, and a simple stoplight color scheme to illustrate the project status. Based on that one slide, we have a great deal of information to talk about resources, risks, project portfolio management, and candidates for extra resources or termination.

Of course, a large amount of detail and data needs to be collected and analyzed to create that simple picture. I do not think that this task should mandate using any specific tool. Instead, you should be free to use or not to use any tool or software that makes collecting and updating the information easy. I have worked at places where they had a full time person whose job was to update a MS Project schedule each day. Projects that have short durations or are in a high state of change need a more light weight and flexible approach.

I found that giving the tasks owners a simple template in MS Word or MS Excel provides enough structure and easily gets me the information I need. But there is one hole in this system that still needs to be plugged, tracking resources for each task. If you are careful, you can use MS Project to map it out. And this can serve as the building block when you need to show an “official” project Gantt chart.

Keeping the Project Management structure flexible and light weight, like bamboo, provides the tools to support the work without diverting a large amount of work into changing the scaffolding when the project changes. This approach is even more useful when you are introducing Project Management into an organization.




Technorati tags: project management; software;