A short misery of projects

Preamble

Having just concluded a module on my MSc course pertaining to Project Management, I was given the opportunity to discuss one project that suffered seriously from the interference of politics.

I rose to the occasion with this tome.

The Facts

My ex-boss - Arthus Gratedane - pseudonym - was a rabid political dog, the day was not made if someone somewhere in the organisation had not received the political equivalent of a body slam.

Anyway, in this case we had at the head-quarters of a mainly European company constituted the Infrastructure Programme Management team at just one level below the CIO office and we had opportunities for innovation and improvement of services in the organisation.

We had only recently notched up a success with the implementation of a secure remote access solution which allowed users access to their data and standard applications from any internet connection if they had their secure token.

This created a launch pad to take on many more daring projects.

Then we started with Strauss which was a new desktop environment based on Windows XP, a new domain structure based on Windows 2000 Active Directory Services and Microsoft Exchange 2000 for email.

One particular trait Mr Gratedane had was a complete unwillingness for different teams to interact, especially if they were not teams he himself built. This for us was a kind of advantage, but in general made our work ever more difficult.

This meant our well-intentioned plans met with resistance with the local support teams around the Netherlands. Mr Gratedane solved that problem by advocating the centralisation of administrative services, thus making the core expertise of the regional teams redundant and retaining only box shifters.

We were to conduct an aggressive take-over of all that disparate infrastructure then recruit new staff and handover that infrastructure to the new staff within three weeks; which we did.

Then that gave us the opportunity to railroad the Strauss solution throughout the Netherlands without subjecting the solution to a decent pilot.

What should have been a resounding success was panned and criticised not because of the quality but because of how it was implemented through management aggression and the lack of consideration.

Managers in other departments just resisted anything that was in the interest of the company that came from any team managed by Mr Gratedane, but he had the ear of the executives in everything he did so people left rather than engage him.

When it came to rolling out Strauss to other European countries with Austria being the first, we encountered the fact that we could not sell Strauss to Austria, so the project was changed to the Hydra PC project.

The people in Austria were primed to act, any minor issue was a complete showstopper, it was so frustrating and nerve-racking.

Austria already had an advanced implementation that pre-existed Strauss by at least 6 months and the company could have used that solution quite easily all around Europe, but not on Mr Gratedane's watch.

We ended up implementing a parallel system in Austria with people logging into two environments for services and data, sometimes on two PCs.

Our implementation was a very poor alternative and received even less accolades, however, we, the team had to find ways of interacting with other teams without the knowledge of the boss to help facilitate issues and make things work.

The unfortunate political atmosphere in the company, which thrived on empire building, finger-pointing and atrocious escalations lead to unnecessary waste of resources, ideas, goodwill and productivity.

As an observer it looked like company had more competition between the departments than with their competitors. If that energy had been directed to more positive things, it could have yielded probably 10% to 20% company growth year on year.

The Figures

One must say that Mr Gratedane always got sponsorship for all his projects and all were fully implemented with varying degrees of success.

We probably had more project managers than project executors at one time.

The document churn rivalled that of a newspaper house with presentations about every little detail. [1]

The Failings

What created failing projects even though they were delivered as described and intended were the following

• The stakeholder, sponsor and senior project manager were the same person
• Project Managers were pen-pushing administrators [2] who were not allowed to model or method processes despite the fact that they were PRINCE 2 educated or at times certified – things were done on the whim of the sponsor – Mr Gratedane
• Responsibility and opportunity was taken for everything that went right, no matter how trivial but blame was quickly averted for problems - A typical, its my baby isn't it beautiful? Its our baby smiling, but its your baby crying - syndrome.
• The perception of risk was minimal except for where there were competing interests within the company, then the quest to excel and deliver at breakneck speed was tempered with a bit of reasoning
• The executors were hardly part of the assessment, decision or specification process, they were talked down to never communicated with
• The Human Resource element thrived on motivating staff by threatening their jobs and irrelevance, never by encouraging them to do their best
• Solutions were always delivered but the expense of goodwill and acceptance

More so, I really felt for the project managers caught in the middle of the megalomania and the chaos. Since I left in July, Mr Gratedane has become the ex-boss of 7 other senior infrastructure personnel.

This is the least palatable face of company politics and I have only reviewed on of the many.

References

Project Victim Support archives – mine.

[1] Alexis' PowerPoints were her shoulder pads...

http://akin.blog-city.com/read/389826.htm

[2] The Pen Pushers Posse Pogrom

http://akin.blog-city.com/read/436628.htm

Are you selling or shelved?

Recently, I was touted as someone who knows a bit about making CVs do what they are supposed to do. Create interest and get an interview.

So, in the end, I did receive a number of CVs and ended up writing this commentary which I believe would help towards ensuring that you are represented to the standard you do want to be recognised when your material lands on a recruiter’s desk.

Some of the commentary is directed and personalised, but no less relevant to any CV you read or write.

Introduction

I read your CVs with interest and decided it might be better to share a few thoughts about what I believe makes CVs do the talking before they really, really want to meet the persona behind the data.

I have a number of analogies which I think would help reframe a lot of the detail of what in your CVs to bring out the qualities that really sell.

At first, I view a CV as marketing literature, it is your brochure that says, when I sent you my resume, I saw myself as the best person you could recruit for that role. How do you get your CV to do that.

First Analogy:

This is quite morbid but contains some interesting facts of life. When I visit a cemetery, I first look round the first few tombstones to give me an idea of the time frame in which people were buried in this cemetery after which I go looking for the mausoleums or grand edifices that tell you about the persons, persons and families buried therein.

Then I hear a famous person is also buried there and go looking for their headstone usually expecting to see something grand. If the stone is grand, fine, however, if it is ordinary, I am a bit underwhelmed.

What is the point here? Many CVs are tombstones, ordinary, plain and simple, nothing of note apart from gleaning an idea of what is about. The CVs that stand out have professional formatting, straight to the point and clearly engage the interest of the reader - these are the mausoleums.

Always give your CV a different look.

Second Analogy:

Culled, edited, personalised and updated from an article about the Perfect CV.

This chap comes round and says, "I've got a gun", in some cases he would instil fear, if well known, he is probably trying to show off and his friends say "so what?" Any one can get a gun.

That is the Feature - many CVs are full of features and lists. The reader has to figure out how each feature might apply to his recruitment situation or rather discard the CV and pick another up.

Maybe, the chap was caught mid-sentence and he says, "I've got a gun and I shot someone". That is an Achievement, of sorts, but it could also be murder and everyone is appalled and horrified, he is about to be shopped to the police.

And so, many CVs are full of achievements, but who are the achievements for and why?

Then he really gets to complete his sentence, "I've got a gun and I shot someone with it and because I did that, we won the war". Everyone exclaims, "You won the war?" He is feted, honoured, respected and the feature or achievement pale in significance because he used those two to gain a Benefit.

Anyone who reads that benefit through from the feature has his imagination excited about who this person is and that is what your CV should do.

Anything you have done that cannot be quantified as a benefit to the firm you work in is of no great significance.

There is not though that the order you bring into the chaos of change management saves money, time, resources and increases productivity and so on.

People who can clearly illustrate that they have brought benefits to any environment in which they have worked are seen as people who have something to bring to the party even if they are initially not considered qualified for the job.

Work to be done!

Your profiles should be a brief about you which should cover 3 essential things - who you are, what you bring and your pledge to fit in. Eliminate jargon and profession letters from that profile.

Each aspect of your work experience should concentrate on how your contribution helped and benefited, then you can list or analyse how you used the tools to get there.

Use statistical stuff like you halved waiting times, increased success results by a percentage, got people involved in some scheme.

One of my jobs was tough to explain and this is how I put it down "Three teams were combined into one; my role was to make them work as one." - Then I talked about how we got about it.

How do you get promoted at interview? Your CV raised expectations, your presence exceeded expectations.

Only put in the jargon where it helps shed more light on what you have done.

The area where you did temping jobs, you were useful to whoever employed you and achieved and benefited those organisations, spruce that up.

If you travelled, give a general idea of what you did - white-water rafting, crocodile baiting or lion-riding.

Recruiters like unusual, weird, crazy but collected people; they have a great outlook on life. - Statement from Tom Peters the uber-guru.

Close your CV with an idea of where you think you are going career wise and what general skills you have that do not fit in the body of the CV per se.

Do not waste space on old jobs except if they do contribute positively to the whole picture.

Have fun!

Half of a quarter full of an eighth empty

The psychology of charlatans

The false psychology that informs interviewers in interviews has unfortunately misrepresented interviewees, if not done them an unfair disservice bearing on the result of probably not getting recruited.

Two such questions in interviews belie that fact that the intention never really gets the intended answer or the interviewee gets wrong-footed on a subjective assessment that has no objective bearing on suitability for the job.

a) What do you see yourself doing in five years time?

b) Is the glass half-full or half empty

Five Years Time

In answering one has been a victim of the crass unprofessionalism and subjectivity that accompanies giving the right answer to this question.

One would suppose this question seeks to appreciate career goals within the company with adequate training, promotion, prospects and advancements. Probably in five years time you would have attained the post of your interviewer and your interviewer should have moved higher in the organisation.

Unfortunately, the person who asks the question does not at first consider the relative basis of having advanced five years within the company before considering the new recruitment, so laying out a plan could in effect create the impression that the interviewee is out to unseat the interviewer.

It could also flag the fact that the company has bad career development policies and the mentoring factors in the company are very poor.

At which point the interviewee could already be judged as ambitious, over-rated and unsuitable for the team, no fault of the interviewee, rather a sitting failure of Human Resource processes within the company.

Having put this question to my colleagues, one suggestion was to reply by asking if there was the scope for the advancement that would allow you to have career prospects, developments and promotions and how this was managed in the company.

On ascertaining if the company does have its employee’s interests and developments at heart, you can then frame your answer within that context. You have in effect debunked the psychology and infused a sense of objectivity into a rather unpalatable situation.

It however, does not take away from the fact that the question is unnecessary and it does turn the focus on what the company is prepared to do for career progression and how it can accommodate the well-intentioned aspirations of the new entrant.

A glass of half truths

What is really missing from this question is the context. Why at any time would a glass be half-full or half-empty? One would paint a number of scenarios to debunk the false psychology of optimism and pessimism that this question is purported to reveal in an individual.

Any glass on a table

If you approached a table which had a glass of some liquid content in it observable before you touch the glass but without you knowing who put it there.

If you were a cleaner you would probably take the glass away and pour the contents down the drain, if you were anyone else, it would not matter what was in it, curiosity however, might make you take a whiff to find out if it is alcoholic or some other concoction.

That the glass if half-full or half-empty would be of no significance.

If you knew who placed the glass on the table and you were at a party, you would probably pick up the drink and take it to the owner of drink, who would have the view of emptying the glass rather than filling it.

So the optimistic import of this would be that to enjoy a drink you have to empty the glass and then fill it again to empty the contents by drinking and ingestion.

A glass of wine or some alcoholic beverage

In the setting of a bar, you will be served with a filled glass of beer or lager which you would systematically empty by drinking in a social setting.

Once you have drunk a bit, the glass of half-full, I am not aware of people filling their glasses whilst it still contains beer except in a case where the beer is being served from a bottle. The intent would be to empty the glass and obtain a new glass of beer at the bar.

In the case of wine, the glass is full for white wine and champagne and half filled for red wine, during the course of drinking the glasses can be refilled to their appropriate levels.

For a glass to be refilled the observer who would be one of the party or a sommelier would notice that the glass is half-empty as the impetus to refill, because if the glass is half-full, there would be no case for refilling.

Context of glass and contents

It appears that this issue is taken completely out of context if not represented in the continuum of why a glass is full and why a glass is empty.

The reason for filling a glass is to empty it by drinking and as you empty the glass it gets half-empty as would be the case of the person drinking and the glass becomes half-full when it is being filled either as a service or by the drinker or observer.

To capture a moment in time and without the characteristics and events surrounding the moment delivers a wrong interpretation of the event.

It goes without saying that a glass becomes half-empty from the pleasure of drinking and it becomes half-full in order to experience or continue the experience of the pleasure of drinking.

Whilst we would all want our glasses full before we start drinking, the reasons a glass would be left half-full or half-empty would revolve around the person having had enough to drink, the person not enjoying the drink or some other circumstance that has allowed the person to abandon the drink.

A glass half-full or half-empty without a person to manage its contents is useless.

Hence, there is no psychological value in asking a person to answer this question and no psychologist worth his salt would use this question as a basis for judging character.

In fact, the simple think is we should stop pretending to be good judges of people's character at an interview with such silly questions.

The real purpose of the interview is to ascertain qualification, suitability, flexibility and ability to contribute to the team in which they would be working; we should stick to those things and avoid veering off to areas where we are no experts or proficient enough to assess character with trick questions.