Last week Lori and I took a working vacation on Cape Cod.  Have you ever taken one of these?  Meetings are by conference call.  Your laptop comes with you.  You find yourself in a beautiful locale, preferably with someone you love.  While perhaps not exactly restful, such times can be incredibly refreshing and stimulating.

On the way to the Cape we had a fantastic meal in Mystic, CT at the Captain Daniel Packer Inne, which is recommended if ever you find yourself in that part of the world.  While waiting I read a column in a local paper which talked about the old measure of assessing a person’s character by their treatment of waiters.  This started me thinking about how we as project managers deal with our own power.

Waiters in Project Management

In your role as project manager, there are people who are in a lower power position than you.  How you treat them is an indication of your true character now, and may give you some ideas of ways in which you might want to improve.

Business Analyst

• Do you consider yourself more important than the BAs on your team?
• Have you ever changed documents that other team members prepared without notifying them or giving them a chance to make the revision themselves?
• Do you ever have requirements related discussions without the business analyst present?

Quality Assurance (QA) Tester

• Have you ever marked a bug “fixed” without notifying the test team?
• Do you intentionally leave QA out of the loop?
• Have you ever made a “joke” or snide comment about testers?

Security and/or Help Desk Staff

• Do you gripe or grumble if walking through the security check takes longer than usual?
• Have you ever smiled to the security or help desk person?
• Do you know even one security guard’s name?

Project management can be a demanding profession.  This is why ethics and values are so crucial to success.  The decisions you make about how you will act in given situations before those situations occur will tend to protect you when the high-stress times arrive.

Rest assured that over time, your true nature will become known.

How do you trait the waiters in your project management world?

If you feel good about your track record or would like to do better please let us know in the comments.

(Image by Tangerine Dreams on flickr)

Originally posted 2008-08-20 07:00:00.

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How do you treat the waiters on your project team? is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

This month I had my first meeting with a new mentor.  We met after work at the Radiance tea house in Manhattan.  The location was convenient.  The atmosphere was soothing, quiet and conducive to the kind of focused and relaxed conversation which marks good mentoring.  I left feeling hopeful, inspired and ready to act.

Have you ever thought of working with a mentor?  Here are some guidelines.

1.    What is mentoring

A mentor is a wise counselor or teacher.  In a mentoring relationship the mentor shares knowledge, skills, information, and perspective  to foster the personal and professional growth of the mentee.

Structured mentoring programs bring people together using a formal process to meet the goals of an organization.  While there are benefits to this kind of mentoring program, you would do well to focus on creating your own informal mentoring program.

Informal, or casual mentoring is arranged directly by the people involved, and can take a number of forms.  Peer Mentoring, either structured or informal involves two or more people coming together to provide mutual support and advice.

Informal mentoring between an experienced person and one with less experience is what is discussed in this chapter.

2.    Why have a mentor?

Mentoring provides you with the benefit of someone else’s experience.  The guidance you receive can shield you from having to reinvent the wheel as you grow in your career.  Being able to see yourself and your situation from another viewpoint can greatly increase your effectiveness.

To make the most of the mentoring relationship, it’s important to be clear as to what you want you are trying to achieve.  On which areas of your career would you like to focus?  (Some examples: stakeholder relationships, managing conflict, setting up your plan to land your next position).

Having a clear goal for what you are trying to achieve will make it easier for you to approach potential mentors.

3.    What’s in it for the mentor?

One of the great pleasures in life is to share the benefit of one’s experience with others.  Most working professionals have relatively few opportunities to do this.  For busy leaders, the time spent mentoring can provide a refreshing break in the midst of all their other activities.  This is especially true if you enter into the mentoring relationship with the intention of acting on the ideas the both of you discuss.

4.    What to look for in a mentor

Once you are clear as to what you want to achieve through your mentoring, you can begin to think about possible mentors.  It may be best to identify at least 3 people.  Some potential mentors will not have the time.  Others may not be interested in mentoring.  Don’t take this personally.  Just be courteous and respectful to everyone you speak with.  There will be someone out there more than willing to mentor you!

Your mentor may be in a different position, role or even field from your own.  This need not be a concern, as long as they have experience in the area or areas in which you are seeking mentoring.  What is important is that your mentor has these characteristics:

• Know what they are doing
• Respected by people at all levels (peers, direct reports, their leadership)
• Have skills and qualities you admire
• Demonstrate integrity (e.g. they do what they say)

5.    How to ask to be mentored

When you approach a potential mentor, be calm, confident and respectful.  If they do not know you, introduce yourself, give a brief description of your role, and explain that you are looking for a mentor to help you with the issue you are looking to address.

Let the mentor know exactly how much time and effort will be required.

For example, “My name is Joanne Wilson.  I’m a business analyst here at JJK.  You were recommended by Mary Hines as someone with a great deal of experience with project stakeholders.  I’m looking for guidance in this area, and wondered if you’d be interested in exploring a mentoring relationship.  If we decided to work together the time involved would be not more than a half-hour every three weeks or so.  What do you think about mentoring?

6.    Mentoring session

Whatever format your relationship with your mentor takes, it’s crucial that you show courtesy for your mentor by coming prepared to each session.  This means that you have a clear topic or agenda for the meeting, you show up when expected and keep to the allotted time.  Don’t contact your mentor between meetings unless your mentor has invited you to do so.

7.    Further Resources

• How to Find a Good Mentor by Ellesse Chow on Goal Setting College
• How to find and utilize a mentor no matter what you’re doing by Trent Hamm on Simple Dollar
• How to find a mentor by Roman Rytov on Roman’s Miles
• Finding a mentor on Inc. Guides
• The value of a mentor by Katharine Hansen on QuintCareers

(Photo credit: lebenszentrum adelshofen)

Originally posted 2009-08-25 08:45:47.

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Mentoring how to: Mentor and be mentored! is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

Your performance as a project manager is directly tied to your ability to make good decisions consistently.

This past week I was scrounging around my someday-maybe books to read pile when I came across Noel Tichy’s and Warren Bennis’s Judgment: How winning leaders make great calls.   A few wonderful hours browsing this 370-odd page tome yielded the following basic concepts.  They may be helpful to you as you think about your own decision making.

Leadership Judgment Process

Great decisions are more ongoing process than single action.  Tichy and Bennis divide decision making into a three stage process: (a) Preparation, (b) Call, and (c) Execution.   In using this process, the leaders they analyzed freely repeat or “redo” steps as needed.  What’s most important is not getting everything right immediately, but rather moving continually and inexorably in the right direction.

Judgment Areas

People, strategy and crisis are three of the main areas in which leaders need to consistently exercise judgment.  The book covers each of these areas extensively.

People

People decisions include building or rebuilding a team, and creating high level support.

Strategy

Strategy decisions continually change.
Strategy decisions require intellectual reasoning and intuition.
Strategy decisions are made by leaders themselves.

Crisis

Leaders take responsibility for handling crises.
In a crisis, it’s essential to remember the ultimate goal.
Poor judgment in people and/or strategy can lead to crisis.

During a PMO project I was fortunate to work in close proximity to a senior executive who was an excellent leader.  He spent a great deal of time formulating, planning, discussing and executing strategies.  I was impressed by how quickly he was able to modify or abandon a strategy when it became necessary.  He showed me the crucial importance of thinking before it’s time to act.

Handbook for Leadership Judgment

The book includes an 80 page handbook with exercises and guidelines.  Even if you don’t have time to read the whole book, this supplement would be useful if you seek to identify areas in which you’d like to improve your own decision making.

Recommendations Sought

If you have any articles or books which you have found helpful in the area of decision making, please let me know.  I have a keen personal interest!

Originally posted 2009-01-19 08:00:30.

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Judgment – How Leaders Make Decisions is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

(Okay, perhaps not everything.  And perhaps you didn’t want to know.  But please keep reading – this may be of interest to you.)

Why a Stakeholder Linkfest

This past week I took part in three different conversations in which the success (and in one case failure) of a project could be related back to the relationship the project manager had with the stakeholders.

Key to your success as a project manager is your ability to understand the opportunities, desires and needs of your stakeholders.  You may know this intellectually, but is it part of your day to day practice?  How well do you satisfy not only your primary stakeholders, but your secondary and indirect ones, too?

In this list are articles to get you thinking about some of the less obvious issues in pleasing stakeholders.  Primary selection criteria: (a) quick to read, (b) good value for your time, and (c) of interest whatever your level of experience.

Good project management transcends national borders.  I’ve included international perspectives wherever possible.

If you like any of these articles, please consider adding comments and subscribing to the blogs listed. Not only will you be supporting your growth and development, you will be encouraging the authors to continue to produce good content.

If you find other valuable articles on stakeholders, please note them below.  Let me know if you would like to see further linkfests like this.  Enjoy!

Stakeholders 101

• Project Sponsor FAQ by Elizabeth Harrin in A Girl’s Guide to Project Management. United Kingdom
• Back to the Basic: Stakeholders by Thomas Cutting in Cutting’s Edge Project Management. United States
• On Prioritising Your Stakeholders by duardo in On Projects* For Project Teams On The Move. United Kingdom

How Much Do You Include Your Stakeholders In Your Project?

• How Visible Is Your Project? by Philip Greenwood in Beaufortes: Developing True Project Leadership. United Kingdom
• Reinventing Stakeholder Value by Jennifer Pellet in BNET Business Network.  United States, United Kingdom, Australia

What Are You Going To Say To Your Stakeholders?  How?  When?

• On Stakeholder Communication by Chris in Better Projects. United States
• 12 Simple Tips For Building Group, Team, Organizational Trust by Raven Young in Raven’s Brain. United States

Stakeholder RISKS RISKS RISKS!

• Dictated Dates…not! by Jose Solera in UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley. United States
• Silence Fails and Crucial Conversations by The ITIL Imp in Adventures of the ITIL Imp. United Kingdom
• Don’t Be a Victim of Politics by Stephen Seay in ProjectSteps. United States
• Corner Cutting Survey Top Answer: Not Communicating With Senior Management by Paul Ritchie in Crossderry Blog. United States

Cross-Cultural Issues – Are You Unwittingly Xenophobic?

• What is the Biggest Barrier in Cross-Cultural Negotiations? by Cindy King in Get International Clients.  France

Social Responsibility – On Your Radar?

• Corporate Social Responsibility: End or Mean? by Dennis Berg in Berg Memories: Where Art Meets Rationality.  Ukraine

(Image by Stefan Gara)

Originally posted 2008-10-09 08:00:59.

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Pleasing Stakeholders Linkfest: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know But Were Afraid To Ask. is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

For every PMO that delivers on its initial promise, there are two that hobble along, never really achieving much in terms of bottom-line benefit to customers, project managers, stakeholders or the business itself.

It’s pretty easy to eliminate most if not all  benefits of a Project Management Office.  Which of the following hold true for your PMO?

1. Make sure to set up a climate of fear. Emphasize the penalties of non-compliance.  Use the stick and not the carrot.
2. Make sure to locate the program office as far away from the project managers as possible. Extra points if you make communication hard by limiting the use of online collaboration software and other tools.
3. Do not include project managers in decision-making. Take a heavy handed approach.  Issue pronouncements whenever you come up with a novel way of doing things.
4. Metrics over people. Make sure that the project managers understand that success means not more than 10% schedule and cost variance.  Qualitative measures should never enter into any equation.  Come to think of it, what are qualitative measures?  Don’t bother me with irrelevancies.
5. Leave vision to Oprah and Deepak. This is IT.  We’re here to deliver.  PMs should focus on getting the work done.  They don’t need to know about business goals, objectives, and customer needs.  Just read the documentation and get to work.
6. Discourage and eliminate contact between project managers. Make sure that all communication is rigidly defined, regimented and as unpleasant as possible.  Set meetings at inopportune times and force people to attend who have little to offer or gain by being there.
7. Do not define standard processes and templates. If you have processes, provide them only when absolutely necessary.  Do not give training.  If you must provide training, allow only a small fraction of your personnel to attend.  Do not include any contractor staff in training.
8. Establish your PMO as an entity unto itself. Provide minimal alignment up to higher management or down to the needs of the project managers.
9. Focus on irrelevancies.
10. Implement ITIL, SDLC, EVM, Project Server or any toolset without first establishing a firm foundation of project management best practices throughout your organization.

There you have it.  Ten steps to ensure that all your efforts will end in mediocrity.  Coming soon – the ten steps to ensure that your PMO will be a bright light to lead your organization to great project management success.

As always, wish you well.
Alec
(Image by trueblood on flickr)

Originally posted 2008-08-07 08:00:00.

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10 Ways to Destroy the Effectiveness of Your Project Management Office (PMO) is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

What Happened

Tuesday I found myself in the cardiac care unit of NYU Langone Medical Center.  On the way to the emergency room I wondered for a few minutes if I were on my way to meet my old friend John Harrell on the other side.

Almost no one wants to be in the hospital.  If you’ve never been a patient, know that it’s no vacation.  You have by default abdicated basic control of your body.  You can expect to be poked and prodded, hooked to machines, dressed in a sheet, and woken repeatedly throughout the night for blood to be taken. You are surrounded by strangers, away from familiar settings, and probably scared. You’re moved by wheelchair or stretcher and discouraged from walking.  The experience is profoundly unsettling. It’s also necessary – these people you’re trusting are working to restore your health and perhaps your life.

Thank goodness my colleague recommended NYU hospital.  The place is well run with caring, respectful, happy staff.  The doctors spend significant amounts of time with patients.  The food is made on site and surprisingly good.

I’ve always considered myself relatively healthy.  I neither drink nor smoke and have been a vegetarian for nearly 20 years.  My heart attack scare arrived out of nowhere.  The sharp, pressing chest pain intensified steadily over the morning hours and began to radiate leftwards down my back, side and arm. It left me in unfamiliar territory with a renewed appreciation of life’s fragility.  It certainly wasn’t on my agenda for the week.  As the Yiddish saying goes, “Man plans and God laughs”.

Lessons Learned

Here are 7 lessons from this week’s wild ride.  They’re presented to both inspire and encourage you to listen to your own heart as you progress on your work/life journey.

1. Listen to your heart

My heart’s been trying to talk to me for months now.  I haven’t been listening.  It finally found a way to get my attention.  When our bodies take direct action to get our attention, it’s seldom pleasant. Is there anything your heart’s trying to tell you that you’re doing your best to ignore?

Do yourself a favor. Listen.

2. Value your work community

The night before my scare I mentioned to my wife that on the previous 2 days I had experienced more positive interactions at work than I could remember in any comparable period over the previous six months.  On Monday I had had a delightful lunch with a Hindu friend who graciously shared some of the precious and hard-won lessons from his life.  In a different conversation a coworker described his hunger to experience the vast open spaces which connect him with the sense of something greater than himself.  His fear of this epiphany was only slightly exceeded by his longing.  On Tuesday morning a coworker casually asked about a book on listening he had seen on my desk.  Our resulting conversation invigorated his natural curiosity and marked an instant of mutual respect and genuine connection.  As social creatures we desperately need these moments.  Over time the moments become threads, the threads networks and the networks communities.

These are your lifelines.  Value them.

3. Let yourself accept help

Super-achievers are excellent at both helping others and doing things for themselves.  We’re often less skilled at accepting help. When my chest pain expanded past my ability to ignore it, I had to make a conscious choice to disregard my programmed do-it-myself response.  I approached a colleague my gut told me I could trust, and asked for help.  She listened in a calm, matter of fact way.  After truly hearing, she got the insurance company nurse hotline number and suggested I call right away.  When the insurance company instructed me to waste no time in getting to the hospital, my colleague respected my desire for privacy by not broadcasting the situation throughout the office.  She dropped what she was doing, got me to a close hospital, accompanied me to the emergency room, stayed with me, and provided a much needed anchor.

Let yourself accept help.

4. Care as much about your health as you do about your company’s or project’s success

For many of us solving problems, organizing teams and being part of the solution are essential to our self-image.  Many US companies have fired so many people that those left have job responsibilities too broad for one person to achieve.  As heroes and good corporate citizens, we fill in the gaps.  Such behavior can kill you.

Better is the attitude and behavior of my friend Sara.  When asked to take on yet another project by her manager, she replied, “I am doing A, B, C and D.  If I add E which would you like me to move to the bottom of the list?”

It’s easy to believe in your physical invulnerability.  Even if we’ve seen or heard about a coworker fall to stroke or heart attack, we never think it could happen to us.  Let my experience be a lesson for you.  Decide the limits of your work, and keep to them. Few jobs are worth giving your life for.

Care as much about your own health as you do about your work.

5. Accept that sometimes failure is the best option

Once a project leader I know sent around an email to his team which read, “Failure is not an option.” Do you think this is true? I used to believe it, but now I’m not so sure.

Some projects are doomed.  Even if a project has hope of success, sometimes the project manager has her hands tied in ways that almost guarantee the project won’t succeed.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Have other PMs failed on this project before you?
• Is this project continuing down the same path as others that have not worked well?
• Are your proposed risk solutions consistently ignored?
• Have consultants walked away from the organization or the project?

Sometimes superhuman efforts won’t work.  Be conscious of the danger to your health of trying to prop up an effort that the organization has already doomed to failure.

Sometimes failure is the best option.

6. Take 100% responsibility for your situation

It’s very easy to fall into the habit of blaming others for our unhappiness.  This sense of powerlessness over our work affairs can be subtle or not so subtle.  However it manifests, the result is a de-energizing, de-humanizing pain.  As the DC psychologist and radio talk-show host Pamela Brewer used to say, “If it’s unacceptable, it’s unacceptable”.  No matter what craziness exists in your work life, you must take the stance that you are 100% responsible for what happens to you.  If you have done everything in your power, and you know that you can’t succeed, then you must redefine your work until you can be successful.  If your employers will not support you, then you know what you have to do.

Take 100% responsibility for your situation.

7. Resist the urge to move into your zone of incompetence.

Both Gay Hendricks and Robert Biswas-Diener use similar models to group the skills we each use at work.  These are the zones of genius, excellence, competence and incompetence.  (To learn more get a copy of  The Big Leap or contact  Robert Biswas-Diener).

The zones of competence and incompetence contain those skills we use to do things at work in which our results are not so good. These are tasks we don’t enjoy doing, are not natural to us, and often take us more time and effort than they would for someone else to do.

Think about the things you do at work which cause your heart to drop when you think about them.  It’s likely that these are in your zones of competence or incompetence.  Get rid of them all.

Resist the urge to move into your zone of incompetence.

Conclusion

Without love, nothing that we do has any real meaning.  Value the people in your life and especially your coworkers.  Let them know you appreciate them in a way that they will understand.  Buy them coffee.  Bring in candy or treats.  Smile because you mean it.

Treat yourself with respect.  Don’t wait for your workplace to appreciate you.  Take 100% responsibility for your health and well being.

My story had a happy ending.  It turned out not to be a heart attack.  Nevertheless the heart attack scare was a real wake up call.

Have you been through anything similar?  Has it changed you in any way? Your feedback or suggestions will be appreciated.

Image: rescue 911

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7 Lessons Learned from a Heart Attack Scare is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

While out and out mutiny may be rare on project teams, lackluster performance and disconnects between the project manager and the team happen more often than they need to.

Observing some of the actions and attitudes of the cold, hard Captain William Bligh can provide you with a measure to use against your own behavior as a project manager.

For those who are not familiar,Mutiny on the Bounty tells the fascinating true story of First Officer Fletcher Christian’s mutiny of 1787.   While the book is excellent, the quotes in this post are taken from the 1962 film version starring Marlon Brando as Christian and Trevor Howard as Bligh.

This post was originally published on Sept 15, 2008.

Here are Bligh’s 6 guidelines for leadership.

How many of these describe your attitudes or the attitudes of other project managers you know?

1.  Fear is the Best Motivator

Bligh sees laziness and weakness in both officers and crew members. Early in the film he incorrectly accuses his first officer of interfering with the progress of their mission.  When Fletcher questions him on this, the Captain responds, “You would do nothing to speed its progress.”  As for his crew, “The typical seaman is a half witted, wife beating perpetual drunkard.”

The Bligh style leader believes that a team is only ever truly motivated by fear.  “Cruelty with a purpose is not cruelty, it’s efficiency”.

2.  Policies and Procedures Must Be Followed To The Letter

Upon overhearing a crew member speaking against him, Bligh orders the man to receive the full punishment of two dozen lashes in accordance with the naval code.  While the punishment is being administered, he commands that it be given harder.  “You are going too lightly.  Lay on with a will or you will take his place.”

3.  You Must Have a Fanatical Fixmindedness to Metrics

The narrator describes how the Captain, “….studied his charts hour upon hour to the exclusion of all else.”  Bligh’s terrible decision to take the shorter South American route around Cape Horn instead of the traditional African route around the Cape of Good Hope was made solely to shave 5 months off the voyage.  The Captain knew at the time that only one other ship had successfully made the journey in Winter, and that a cost of 50% of the crew.

In project management, we refer to this as the path of numbers over common sense.

4.  Treat Information That Doesn’t Fit Your Plans as a Direct Challenge to your Authority

In the midst of a terrible storm Bligh goads Christian, “Afraid of a little weather?”  When Fletcher responds cautiously that the masts are in danger of breaking, Bligh verbally strikes at him. “Are you arguing with me?”

5. Take No Regard for the Well Being of Your Team

Bligh sees everyone as expendable and secondary to the success of the project.   After one of the Captain’s orders leads to the death of a crewman, Fletcher requests a proper burial for the man.  Bligh explodes at him. “Never mind Norman!  We lost one full league before I countermanded your order!”

Don’t be fooled.  It doesn’t really matter if your project is on time, on budget and on scope. If you destroy your team, you are a failure as a project manager.

6.  Make Crucial Decisions Without Providing Explanation

After coming through four weeks of horrifying weather, Bligh suddenly institutes “half rations”.  As a team member observed, “Starving the crew is not going to make the ship go faster.”

Have you ever been on a project where the the team’s task deadlines are shortened by half but overtime is forbidden?  This gives people a choice of poor performance or working without pay.

Words from the Admiralty

At Bligh’s court martial, he is exonerated, but reproached by the Admiralty with these words:

You can watch a trailer here:

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6 Lessons on Leadership from Captain Bligh is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

“Stakeholder Management” is one of those terms that could easily be removed from our project management vocabulary.  The next time you hear it in conversation imagine that what was really said was “stakeholder manipulation”.  Would the sentence still make sense?

People are smart.  Manipulation seldom works in the long run, and especially in complicated group endeavors like most technology projects.

Stakeholder as Enemy

When did it become acceptable to have an US versus THEM attitude in regard to our stakeholders?  I remember counseling a fellow project manager about a web content project he was managing.  The gist of the conversation was how bad the stakeholder was because (a) she would never sign off on a deliverable and (b) she would constantly insist upon changing details of screens, organization of data (taxonomy) and even file naming conventions well after the requirements had been finalized.

Sound familiar?

While most of us have had similar experiences on one or more of our projects, there is a difference between normal project friction and toxic level project disorder.  Part of being a good project manager is knowing how to bring together people with varying personalities, roles and ideas such that they can create a joint outcome much better than it would be otherwise.

On a normal project there are times when business needs will shift before the project has been completed.  The tendency will be for the business owner to want the project to change to meet the new business reality.  It is up to the project manager to work with the stakeholder to understand the impact of such changes.  In a bad project situation, no agreement can be reached.  In a worse situation, no such communication takes place.

Some stakeholders will always be difficult to deal with.  Nevertheless, to do a competent job as a PM, you will need to find a way to present your best face and make the communication you have with him or her as best as you can make it.

Og Mandino to the Rescue

Og Mandino (1923-1996) is best known for his book, Greatest Salesman in the World.  His books focus on helping people develop the skills needed to lead.  Constant themes throughout are the essential values of patience, kindness and compassion.  These qualities are as important to project managers as subject knowledge, tools and detail focus.

Og wrote a short book later in his life called, A Better Way to Live.  One of the 17 sections of the book provides a method which might help to create and maintain these attitudes in us when dealing with those stakeholders who are particularly hard to deal with.

Dead at Midnight

For the rest of the day today, treat everyone you interact with as if you knew without a doubt that they would be dead at midnight tonight.

This is your whole assignment.

It will work.
(Photo credit: lsirtosky)

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Manage Your Least Favorite Stakeholder is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

(This is a guest post by Stefano Paolinelli, PMP.)

These are tough times, the toughest since the great depression, according to many experts. Often you need to hit the bottom before great things start to happen. Michael Jordan used to say that you can be great only after failing and learning from those failures.

I have seen political changes and demands for government transparency, at a national and local level, as never before. It also seems unprecedented the way people are questioning boards and executives of major corporations. These organizations must change and adapt to the needs of the new market to survive crises like these. Answering to the demands of Wall Street alone, may not be enough to survive, anymore.

The question now is what next? How do we get out of this mess? Who is going to lead us to a better place?We need a new class of leaders, in the private and public sectors. We need honest and reputable leaders that can help us get out of the deep holes we are in.

Peter Senge, American scientist and director of the Center for Organizational Learning at the MIT Sloan School of Management, believes that the era of individualism and self-interest needs to come to an end and that the future is in a holistic vision where organizations grow and collaborate and we all see ourselves as part of a whole. Bangladeshi Economist and Nobel prize Muhammad Yunus, believes that we can have strong economies and win the war on poverty at the same time. Is this too utopist? Dr.Yunus with his book “Banker to the Poor” explains how he has done it.

Many third-world countries are at a crossroad: they could head toward democracy or back to chaos, poverty and civil wars. They need our help, our leadership and encouragement to move toward an era of growth and stability.I see opportunities as never before around the World. Africa is headed toward an unprecedented stability, China established itself as a new economic power, Brazil is showing that a Country can grow its economy even without ignoring its poor, hospitals and medical researchers from around the world are sharing information, programs and protocols via online conferences and International seminars. We live in a planet that is more global than ever. Ignorance, prejudice, diseases, and bad governments tend to spread and become everyone’s problems. AIDS, terrorism, religious bigotries have shown us how everyone can be impacted.

We need leaders who believe in creativity, honesty and who empower the creative souls and change-enablers inside their organizations.

Our government and private corporations need to reinvent themselves to be competitive and admired once again. Steve Jobs (with the Apple iPod/iPhone), Google and Pixar showed us that America can still create products that everybody from India to Canada, knows and wants.The opportunity of a next “Renaissance” is within reach.

I recently created a new blog-azine called “Champions”. With this blog-azine I want to capture the essence of great leadership, great people and great organizations that can take us “there” and win the upcoming battles against our past, our failures, interests and roadblocks that want to block us from moving forward. Winning is not necessarily about taking down our competitors. Winning is about meeting our goals, proving ourselves, getting better.

I would like YOU to be part of the “Champions” community and provide your advice, comments on what is needed to mold and grow a new era of mature organizations and better leaders.  Please join my blog at: http://stefano-vincere1.blogspot.com/.

Stefano Paolinelli, PMP
(Photo credit: Stephen Norman)

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Who and Where? New Leaders and Directions is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

Andres Vivas is an a technical leader with business focus.  He helps his clients keep their IT operations relevant and cost effective through the use of strategy.

I was honored when Andres asked me to write a guest post on the marks of a great project management office (PMO).

Seven Marks of a Best PMO.

(Image by ideologie)

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7 Marks of a Best PMO on IT Strategy Planning Blog is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process