"The danger of the single story"- Chimamanda Adichie

You know that I've blogged before about the danger of PMs taking a single-point estimate. I want to draw your attention to a nice talk given by Chimamanda Adichie (shown on the left) called, "The Danger of the Single Story".

I'd like to acknowledge Pervez Mohammed of VISIONS non-profit group for making me aware of this video.

It takes the idea of a single-point estimate to a whole new level.

Listen to her. The video is about 20 minutes and is located HERE.

Then think. Or maybe reflect is a better word here. Think about using this as you identify risks, as you build your teams, as you take inputs from contributors. Don't rely on one source. As a PM you need to be unbiased and open to wider sources of information and willing to listen to alternate versions.

This talk may help you with that.

Enjoy.

Bored --> Board --> Exciting

Today, I'm very happy to announce that I've become a Distributor for a tremendous product that brings fun, intrigue, and yes, even thrills to the world of learning about project management. Thus the image above.

Project management learning should be a little more like that, don't you think? Well, it can be, with a board game that takes project managers on a bit of a roller-coaster ride through a project and teaches them about risk and much more.

The board game, which was carefully developed over a nine year period by Kay Wais at Successful Projects can now be obtained via my company, Exclaim!PM.

See the press release HERE.

This game and supporting materials - although focused on project risk management - really uses the "churning is learning" philosophy that Kay and I agree is so basically important to the way adults learn about project management in general.



I plan to use adopt it in my series of courses that make up a Master's Certificate in PM, and if you are an educator or student of PM and would like to do the same, please contact me for information and availability of the materials.



Here's a picture of the game:




















There's a video of the game here.



For more about the game, contact me directly at exclaim@verizon.net

Thanks!

Free WBS tool for download

Here's a very small program with a very specialized task: make quick work out of genrating a WBS.

It's free, fairly intuitive, and does its task well.

Check it out here:


http://www.wbs-tool.net/

Get SMARTER

Some of the "more seasoned" of us may recall the old TV series, Get Smart, and the more youthful readers will certainly know the Get Smart movie that came out a few years (based on that original TV show). The title, and most of the writing, was very clever, and 'played with words'. Smart was the name of the agent, and the bad guys were always trying to 'get' (as in capture) Smart. But it was of course also a reference to getting smarter - as in 'gaining intelligence or wisdom'.

To remind you of the show, click here to see the opening music and credits which were a thing of beauty in and of themselves.

And most of us in the wonderful world of management will recognize the acronym SMART for dealing with goals and objectives. Remember?

S - specific, significant, stretching

M - measurable, meaningful, motivational

A - agreed upon, attainable, achievable, acceptable, action-oriented

R - realistic, relevant, reasonable, rewarding, results-oriented

T - time-based, tangible, trackable

Well, we here at ScopeCrepe, and also at EarthPM, our related endeavor, would like to say that the time for getting SMART has passed. It's gone. It's fizzled. It's deceased. Would you believe that it was at least getting old?

Instead of just getting SMART these days, we think we need to be SMARTER. How, you ask, can we be SMARTER?

Glad you asked.

We can be SMARTER by adding two more letters to SMART. Of course, those two letters are E and R.

E - Environmentally

R - Responsible

In other words, it's not just enough to set our project goals and objectives as we said above, we also have to consider the effectiveness of the processes of the project itself, and its own waste and inefficiencies, we also should consider the end-product and its disposal or re-use.

If this intrigues you at all, or even if it annoys you, you should find out more about what we're saying and how you can add those two little - but important- letters, by visiting EarthPM - http://earthpm.com .

And while you're at it, Get SMARTER!

Don't miss it, even by that much.

Take a guess. No googling allowed, though.

Okay, here's a quick question for you. Without going online or doing any research, just off the top of your head, how many computers do you think are disposed of daily? To answer, fill out the POLL on the left top side of the blog. I will have the answer - as well as your guesses - on an updated version of this posting within 2 weeks.

In the meantime, if you're interested in project management (and you ARE, by virtue of your being here) and the environment (which you should be, as a resident of this particular planet), have a look at a website devoted to the intersection of those two things - EarthPM. Visit http://earthpm.com .

5 seconds of your time...please?

Please follow the link below to answer a 1-question poll about how your organization deals with... with... well, you have to go to the poll to find out.



This is the link below that I was talking about above:
OK, I will give you 5 seconds!

Choices...choices...

As a project manager - even if you ended up in the career, as many of us did, as an accident - you will be making lots and lots of choices. Add more resources to this task? Use the Jones company or the Smith company as your subcontractor? Have an on-site project kickoff meeting or a virtual one?

I just listened to an excellent podcast on the subject of choice. It was on NPR's Radiolab, one of my favorite podcasts and one I would highly recommend you subscribe to.

It's brain food. Eat well.

In the podcast was something interesting about the way our mind works. A psychological study was referenced in which people were given numbers to memorize - numbers which were short, like "23" or numbers which were long, like 034789328. The people went into a room, were given the number and were told to memorize it and move to another nearby room down the hall and repeat the number there. That was their only task.

On their way, they were interrupted by a woman with a pushcart who said something like, "excuse me, as part of your participation in the study, you get a snack; would you like a slice of chocolate cake, or a fruit cup?".

Here is the interesting part.

Participants who were given the longer numbers (like 034789328) were much, much, much more likely to choose the chocolate cake, and those given short numbers (like 23) were much more likely to pick fruit.

So what?

Well, it turns out (according to the continued research) the rational part of the brain that needs to process the analysis/memorization of the number is the same part which would make the rational decision that the fruit was the healthy, better choice. However, while occupied with the number, it was distracted, and the more emotional part of the brain, the one that says, "mmmm, gooey, yummy chocolate", takes over and makes the decision.

The connection to PM? When you need to make choices like the ones I mentioned at the opening of this posting, you may want to be sure that the rational part of your brain is free -- or you may be making a "chocolate cake" decision.

If this tickles your interest, see an article from Stanford University here.

And please - add RadioLab to your list of podcasts!