This morning I found myself once again taking a negative tone in a conversation.  A coworker was speaking to me about the benefits of life in Australia over the United States.  When I came to myself I realized that I was again spouting facts and figures about the declining US Middle Class (see here, here, or here).  All these things may be true.  But who likes a pontificator?  I sure don’t want to be one.

Negativity as an indicator
When I catch myself holding negativity in a conversation, I’m usually feeling indignation at an injustice being done to some group of people.

This is almost never an effective response.

At better times, I am able to identify the policy, situation or behavior triggering my emotional response, and from there come up with improvements.  Such suggestions almost always are less expensive and result in a better experience for the people involved.

False Positive
Have you ever been around someone who insisted that only happy things were discussed?  While it’s essential for success to get in the habit of focusing on solutions, part of the growth process involves preliminary discomfort on the way to something new.  My teacher John Pierrakos used to say that all of life has a beat of Expansion – Contraction – Rest.  In the growth phase the expansion is larger than the contraction, leaving the organism at a higher level during the rest, and future cycles.

Insisting on ignoring true problems and issues is akin to taking painkillers after a serious accident rather than seeking medical attention.  You may be okay – but is it really wise to take the risk?

Originally posted 2008-04-25 11:13:00.

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Being Positive is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

Are you enjoying your BlackBerry smartphone? I’ve had mine for a few weeks now, and find it a real pleasure to use. It’s elegant, works well as a phone and provides 24/7 online access. Here are two add-ons and one built-in feature that can save you time and increase your enjoyment of this excellent tool.

1.  Install the Opera Mini Browser

According to the Opera website, more than 20 million people use the Opera Mini browser on their mobile phones.  You’ll like it because it is faster than the default BlackBerry browser.  (Opera compresses data before downloading.)  It’s also better organized, easier and more fun to use.

To install:

From the built in BlackBerry browser on your phone, visit mini.opera.com and follow the instructions to download.  In a few moments the new version of Opera will be installed and you’ll be ready to go.

2.  Keep your calendar and contacts synced with Google

Even if you don’t normally use these products, Google Sync for BlackBerry is worth installing.  It will keep a complete and automatic backup of all your contacts and calendar entries.  In case you lose your BlackBerry or have to turn it back to your company on short notice, your contacts will be preserved.

To install:

From your BlackBerry visit m.google.com/sync and follow the instructions.  You’ll need your google or gmail userid and password.  The first sync takes about 10 minutes.  After that, your BlackBerry calendar and/or contacts will be kept in sync with your Google calendar and contacts automatically.

3.  Use SMS Autotext

The autotext feature in your BlackBerry can save you a great deal of time, even if you only send occassional text messages.  The built-in autotext shortcuts fix some common transposition errors.  It can also be used to make it easy to type contractions.  For example, try the following from your SMS compose message screen (SMS and MMS -> Compose SMS Text -> Choose recipient)

• Type il(space) – You’ll see I’ll
• Type shel(space) – You’ll see she’ll
• Type hel(space) – You’ll see he’ll
• Type wel(space) – You’ll see we’ll
• Type wer(space) – You’ll see we’re

You can easily add the current date and time

• Type ld(space) – You’ll see the current date
• Type lt(space) – You’ll see the current time

Add Custom Autotext

If you find yourself typing the same words or phrases in multiple text messages, it makes sense to add custom autotext entries.  You may want to adopt a naming scheme to more easily keep track of your custom entries.  I tend to start all of my custom entries with 0.  This places them in a group at the top of the list.  The 0 key also does not require the ALT key.

For example:
0in(space) -> In a meeting, get back to you later.
0tt(space) -> Talk to you later.

To add a new autotext entry, from your SMS compose message screen (SMS and MMS -> Compose SMS text -> Choose recipient), open autotext (menu button ->  Edit Autotext -> menu button -> new).  In the replace field enter the autotext shortcut (e.g. 0tt).  In the with field enter the full text (e.g. Talk to you later.)  Save and you are ready to go.

Enjoy!
Alec
(Photo credit: ifatma)

Originally posted 2009-05-26 08:00:31.

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3 Blackberry Smartphone Tweaks is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

You may be wondering why anyone would plunk down $54 to purchase a dictionary of project management terms.  After all, you can google terms or use the online PM dictionaries available at PMHut, Project Auditors, or Visitask.

Your time is valuable!

There are too many books out there.

PM Bookshelf posts present you with a core of books that are worth your time to buy and read.

I wondered too when Christine Hohlbaum contacted me on behalf of ESI International and offered to send me a review copy of J. LeRoy Ward’s new third edition of the Dictionary of Project Management Terms.  Here’s what I found.

Impressions

• The book itself is lightweight and comfortable to hold.  It’s bound in what used to be called “imitation leather” and feels like it could withstand a lot of abuse.
• Good typeface choice.  Text is easy to read.
• The definitions are clear and concise.
• It begs to be picked up and browsed.

Why You Might Find This Useful

• Wonderful reference for the PMP exam.
• Could reduce the learning curve significantly for new project managers.
• Answers questions you might not know you have.
• Easy to carry with you.
• Gives you a reason to look away from your computer when Workrave reminds you to take a break.  (If you are not using Workrave, please contact me – we need to talk!)
• Impress project team members with your knowledge.
• Looks good on your desk.

Summary

If you are a new project manager, or think you might want to be a project manager, you would do well to purchase this book.   More experienced project managers will also find value.

In future you can look forward to other quick summaries of books which can improve your abilities as a project manager or IT leader.

Originally posted 2008-12-02 12:24:42.

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PM Bookshelf – Dictionary of Project Management Terms Third Edition by Ward is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

(Public domain image on Wikipedia)
Getting up in the morning and having work you love is what makes life different for people.  And if you get into a position where you really don’t love what you’re doing, get off it.  It’s easy to be on someone else’s track or something that sounds like a safety play.
-Bob Woodward, as quoted in Bits and Pieces

Originally posted 2008-07-17 08:00:00.

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Quote – Work you love is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

(Public domain image on Wikipedia)

All the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time.  This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
-John Kenneth Galbraith, as quoted in Bits and Pieces

Originally posted 2008-07-10 07:28:00.

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Quote – Essence of Leadership is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

Barbara Mauro and a few others have had questions about getting PDUs for articles and other documents published online.  These questions have shown up on LinkedIn Project Management discussion groups and the #pmot (project managers on twitter) group.

This morning I spoke with a PMI representative, who confirmed that project management articles published online can be submitted for PMP Professional Development Units (PDUs). The same applies to templates and white papers.

If you happened to be audited, you would need to be able to verify where and when the item was published.

The guidelines talk about “scholarly articles”. It’s up to you to determine whether you would consider your submission “scholarly”. If PMI has any issues or questions with a particular PDU submission, they said they will contact you directly.

While not as definitive and clear as we might like, this does provide more guidance than we had before. Hope it’s helpful.

Alec

P.S. An excerpt from our conversation is below.

Quote——-
“…It doesn’t matter if it is published online or in print. If it is a scholarly article you can submit it as category 2B.”

PMPs would claim credit for the category 2B option if he or she has authored or co-authored an article pertaining to project management in a non-refereed journal.

A non-refereed journal would be a journal in which scholarly articles have been written by specialists in a particular field. Unlike refereed journals, the described articles are not evaluated by a panel of experts before acceptance for publication.

Sole authors can claim 15 PDUs per article
Co-authors would claims 10 PDUs per article
End Quote ———-

Image via Wikipedia

Originally posted 2009-04-17 12:30:03.

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PMI: Project Management Articles Published Online Can Be Submitted for PDUs is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about.  We define ourselves by our actions.  With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are.  Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.
- Bill Watterson, as quoted in Bits and Pieces

Originally posted 2008-07-03 10:15:00.

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Quote – Compromise is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

Twitter Tweets – Week 12 (March 2009)

Do you twitter?

Twitter, a microblogging platform,  allows you to send and receive free short messages of up to 140 characters.

Tweets can be private (called direct messages) or public.  Twitter is 21st century CB Radio.

Here are selected project management and career twitter tweets from the last few weeks.

How can you use these?

• Look for project managers to follow @ravenyoung @sreejith_gce
• Scan the topics (Project Management Tools, Efficiency and Productivity, etc.) for subjects of interest to you
  
• Read some or all of the twitter tweets!
  

Take a look – you might find something that could help you on your project, with your career, or in your life. Have a great week. -Alec

Project Management Tools

1. Agile and Scrum? Brief review of Pivotal Tracker Project Management Tool by Andy Volk http://is.gd/opzqabout 1 hour ago from TweetDeck
2. @wefrahm have you looked at deskaway project management software? Looks promising http://www.deskaway.com/8:18 AM Mar 18th from web
3. New guest post by Paul O’Brien – Free Project Management Tool – Delivery Status Grid http://is.gd/neBA Clients and executives love it.10:17 AM Mar 13th from web
4. Free Project Management Tool – Paul O’Brien’s Promise Keeper. Dare you to use it and not improve your project metrics! http://bit.ly/Vd6N36:10 AM Mar 9th from web.

Efficiency and Productivity

1. Are you losing 28% of your productivity every day in “switching cost”? Myth of multitasking on cranky middle manager http://is.gd/o0CW4:53 AM Mar 19th from TweetDeck
2. Reading How to increase the value of your mind maps by up to 80 percent by @chuckfrey Refactor! http://is.gd/n5VN4:47 AM Mar 18th from TweetDeck
3. How Bill Gates is said to take notes http://is.gd/ntHn3:51 PM Mar 15th from TweetDeck
4. Five best (paper) note taking tools from Lifehacker http://is.gd/1N7a12:57 PM Mar 15th from TweetDeck
5. Reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The social life of Paper http://is.gd/nszv Do you take paper notes?11:57 AM Mar 15th from TweetDeck
6. Reading How to Take Notes Like an Alpha-Geek by Tim Ferris – http://is.gd/vTz – How do you organize your notes and information?11:45 AM Mar 15th from TweetDeck
7. reading: 8 ways to use twitter more effectively @mintblogger http://is.gd/mHBx9:11 AM Mar 11th from TweetDeck

Career

1. Seth Godin – what to do when you have slack time? http://is.gd/mvtv12:25 PM Mar 20th from TweetDeck
2. get help for your project – 6 Free Project Management Forums http://is.gd/nBdJ by @alecsatin5:26 AM Mar 17th from web
3. Shawn just added Making Project Management Better PM blog to the ICPM. http://tinyurl.com/ckjlll Thanks @TheICPM9:44 AM Mar 13th from web
4. reading: How to use twitter to job hunt http://is.gd/kUAi Thanks @ravenyoung Happy Friday the 13th everyone – Alec5:23 AM Mar 13th from TweetDeck
5. @ravenyoung @sreejith_gce It is good to see sreejith here. PM Karma is good stuff http://pmkarma.blogspot.com/8:57 AM Mar 10th from TweetDeck in reply to ravenyoung
6. Will Monster.com help your Job Search? I ask Jeff Taylor on CNBC On The Money tonight @ 10pm ET http://tinyurl.com/8s8lan2:50 PM Mar 6th from web

Quips and Quotations

1. For every complex problem there is a solution which is clear, simple and wrong! Jurgen Appelo on @projectshrink http://is.gd/oeSY11:53 AM Mar 20th from TweetDeck
2. RT @LimConsulting People don’t want a business opportunity; they want someone to lead them to success! So true.9:33 AM Mar 16th from web
3. @sreejith_gce: You’re in good company. Most of us are learning twitter as we go. Maybe twitter is learning itself as it goes along.8:55 AM Mar 10th from TweetDeck

News and Views

1. RT @RobertLGoodman @Hakicoma Google forced to black out Street View photos http://tinyurl.com/ce64ca6:22 AM Mar 20th from web

Blogging

1. Iris blog improvement program (now in beta) gives excellent advice. http://www.visionarybloggin… THX @easton10:59 AM Mar 7th from web
2. @SHurleyHall the wordpress Thesis theme and support are excellent. You won’t be disappointed. http://diythemes.com/thesis/4:10 AM Mar 18th from TweetDeck in reply to SHurleyHall

Video Podcasts

1. If you ever liked Jacques Cousteau – take a quick break and watch Sylvia Earle’s short video podcast on TED http://is.gd/k6AHabout 21 hours ago from TweetDeck
2. RT: @ptcraven @alecsatin this is Dean Kamen o TED, incredible http://tinyurl.com/5a8oy2 truly so. Thanks again Paul.12:32 PM Mar 16th from web
3. RT: @ptcraven and then there is this remarkable woman http://tinyurl.com/b8krtj – Fantastic!9:33 AM Mar 16th from web
4. @ptcraven BTW I am so grateful for TED. Did you see this one by Larry Brilliant on pandemics http://is.gd/nyal6:35 AM Mar 16th from TweetDeck

(Photo credit: Shovelling Son)

Originally posted 2009-03-22 10:33:43.

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PM Twitter Tweets? is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

Click here to view segment.

My wife Lori and I were on the Today Show with (love doctor) psychologist Diana Kirschner to discuss effective arguing with your spouse!

Originally posted 2008-01-30 16:30:00.

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Today Show – How to argue with your spouse is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process

Over the past few weeks I’ve been wowed by business people who have really got customer focus right.  As
project managers, we can learn a lot from their example.  When was the last time you:

• Identified cost or time saving options for your customer?
• Anticipated your stakeholders‘ needs?
• Went out of the way to make all stages of their project easier for them?

Being a customer focused project manager means that you make a regular practice of putting yourself in your customer’s place.  You make it a point to determine what would make  them successful, happy or even less irritated.

It does not mean that you disregard project management basics such as delivering to agreed scope and requirements.  Adding extra functionality outside of some sort of process will very quickly MAKE EVERYONE UNHAPPY.

Toni Emory

Toni Emory is General Manager of the 415 Madison Avenue Regus Group office in Manhattan.  The Regus Group provides virtual office (hoteling) services.  I called Regus to see about using their business lounge near Grand Central to do some blog writing between clients.  When on the tour it became clear that the lounge wouldn’t suit this purpose (no real tables), Toni took extra time to (a) listen to what I was trying to accomplish and (b) explain how her company could meet the need.

You might say that this is nothing more than good sales or marketing.  Perhaps.  But then she went further and provided me the use of one of the best offices for the day at no charge.  She made sure that the chairs and lighting were comfortable.  She then sent in her technical support person Ornan Charles who stayed with me while my laptop booted until he was sure that I could use the phone and access the high speed internet.

It turned out to be wonderfully productive day.  So productive in fact that I worked through lunch, reaching into the in-office mini-bar for water and treats.  At the end of the day when I went to pay for the snacks, Charles insisted that they were on the house.

How did I feel after these interactions?  Like a million bucks.

Crystal Misner, Kerri Baird and John Henry

Crystal, Kerri and John make up the Printing for Less Mustang team.  I’ve been using Printing for Less for more than 5 years.  Even though they are an internet company, they are easily and quickly reachable by phone or email.  Their standard customer service is so far above what I’ve gotten used to from most other businesses that I’m sometimes almost embarrassed at how well they treat me.

Recent example:  I needed printing of a Microsoft Publisher 2003 file.  There was no easy way I could find to transfer this file to a more standard package without destroying the existing formatting.  I called for help, expecting a large cost and week turnaround.  A proof was ready to go that same day at no extra charge.

When it was time for shipping, they provided an unexpected free upgrade to overnight Saturday delivery.  The printing arrived two weeks before I needed it.  It was professionally done and without error.

How did I feel?  In the hands of competence.

Application to Project Management

When you think about these examples, think about your situation.  No matter what the structure, at some level your work comes because someone, somewhere believes that your organization can do the project work that they need done to meet a particular business need.

If in the end you can provide them with the type of feeling experience that Toni Emory, Crystal Misner, Kerry Baird and John Henry consistently do for their customers, you will provide a tremendous service.

Your customers are asking these questions regularly:

• Who will I go to?
• Who will I recommend?
• Who can I rely on?
• Who gladdens my heart to work with?

Make sure that when they do, you are the one that comes into their mind.

P.S.  I’m writing about these companies not because they asked me to (which they didn’t), nor because I receive any money or other benefits from doing so (I don’t).
(Image by louisiana)

Originally posted 2008-11-04 11:19:58.

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Redoubled Customer Focus and Project Management is a post from: Alec Satin on People, Projects and Process