Analyse yourself before choosing a Career

It is quite well said since centuries that 'do what you do best'. However the main question for people of this age is to know what they can do best? Under highly competitive conditions and availability of knowledge every one is almost expert in every thing. Still one can notice that people who were able to pinpoint their 'best skills' became highly successfull through utilizing those skills.

Unfortunately most of us either cannot locate the skill we do best or we have to ignore this discovery in order to stick to what we have been doing or what we need to do for everyday life. As a result we end up being utilized below our potential or simply doing something we never intended to do.

There are many behaviour tests or aptitude tests one can use to understand himself/herself. One of them is 'compass' test as described by Paul H Brisk in his book, 'Creating Your CV as a self marketing tool'. 

The book is wonderful guide for all those who are either embarking on their career or intend to search new waters. Knowing your traits right is first step but equally important is going in right direction with patience.

Simplify the Documents

It is expected that all team members might have gone through the project documents before the commitment meeting was held. However the project document approved by the sponsor is generally not very understandable by the individual team members.

Therefore it is highly recommended to have implementation procedures simplified and made usable by the team members. The most important issue in most of the cases is the lack of information about different procedures towards acquisition of necessary resources to perform certain activities.

Not many people will go for reading the thick procurement manuals but would instead leave it to time when they’ll need any such activity. In order to overcome the delays caused by misunderstandings or lack of knowledge about different procedures a simplified document could be prepared and circulated.

A very feasible option could be to have one person hired exclusively for knowledge management who keep the updated records of different project activities at any time and also find and provide solutions to those who ask for them. This needs someone committed and trained, and it cannot be delegated to just anyone from the team busy in other activities.

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Where is Common Sense??

Common sense is the most important gift given to creatures by their creator. Even among wild animals one can find this skill while they make their rest places or perform their daily courses. Common sense is the only sense which keeps one cool minded during most complex situations. However unfortunately this sense is no more common, especially among Project Managers.

The reason behind extinction of this gifted skill is in fact availability of too much knowledge in the world. Now people give a damn to their common sense and look for some thing 'sophisticated'. Similarly in the projects whole team including their manager develops complex tools to implement and monitor the project activities. Due to these complexities they forget the real purposes of the project most of the time.  Being lost in these complex details they never find enough time to stop and think, 'if this makes sense also or not?'

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What a Project is NOT!

Project is not a routine work, neither it is repeated each and every day. Even if same set of activities are repeated either time frame, place of implementation, or team members would be different. Therefore no two projects are same.

Project is not the path leading to problem from solution. It is never the implementation of a solution and thus designing activities accordingly to find a problem at some place. Many times a solution is promised through some project proposal and people involved try to find/create a problem in order to execute the planned project.

In the hope to solve one problem sometimes a new project simply replaces the whole system which was not required at all which leads to wastage of resources. Although the new system may work well in the initial phase, it may bring its own problems with passage of time thus raising a need for some new project to solve the new issues.

It must be noted if the solution provided by the proposed project is not related to the original problem or it creates its own problem or addresses some other problem and then proposes a solution.

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HEY! Culture in Project Management

Hey culture as defined by author is present in almost all countries but is dominant especially in the eastern culture. The culture of Hey means ‘in principal ok but we’ll see later’.

The person who is not familiar with this Hey culture takes it as a sign of acceptance and readiness to move ahead but this ok is accompanied with many hidden ‘buts’.

During a project meeting or even informal communication with any project team member the project manager asks her for a certain job. The answer would be generally Hey. It is taken as commitment and sign of agreement by project manager alien to Hey culture. Project manager becomes happy that the problem would be solved or activity would be done.

But after a long time if she finds out that problem is still there or activity is not started even yet, the concerned team member is consulted. Team member’s answers may include, Oh I forgot it completely; Can you tell me details again; I am going to do it now.

In addition to these common excuses another two most important answers of the team member could be; I agreed but thought that we will discuss and finalise details later but you never came for that, and second answer as, you did not ask me to do it right then- you just asked if I could do it or not.

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Progress Meetings

Many project managers and team members like to have progress meetings as often as possible. The reasons behind these meetings include sharing the progress/problems, seeking solutions from team members and also to have more networking. Most project managers consider it as a toll for better control. No matter how sincere each participant might be, the progress meetings do not come out to be as fruitful as expected. Following are few issues which must be addressed to make these meetings better.

i. Meetings frequency: Progress meetings for whole team should never be done on weekly basis as this leaves the concerned people involved in meeting preparation and meeting report writing phases only. A progress meeting once a month seems a better idea to get the results.

ii. Progress or problems: These progress meetings should not become problems-reporting meetings. People should be asked to communicate problems before meeting and come up with the solutions to the meetings and concentrate on reporting the progress and not problems during the meetings.

iii. Meetings’ attendees: All meetings should not include all members of team(s). The attendees should be selected based upon purpose of the meeting.

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Project Manager's Tool

Being a Project Manager (PM) is sometimes taken as being Prime Minister (PM). Unfortunately regardless of team it is generally Project Manager blamed for any failure of a project. This makes him or her to stay on toes!

While worrying about success of a certain project the PM becomes jackal of all. He/she tries to do each and every activity and take role of every team member. Any project manager who finishes any project with this approach successfully is indeed not a project manager or simply not a manager even!

There could be many tools a PM can use to make situation better and D3* is one of them. It implies- Decide, Delegate, Do.

A PM must Decide what is to be done in project as clearly as possible, then he/she must Delegate the work to team members (most rare skill among PMs) and finally Do what he/she has to do i.e. Manage!

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The Cc Game!

Project team with its manager is working hard to meet the deadlines. Being humans a natural clash takes place between the manager and one member of a team. Nothing unusual happens in next 7 days except that Cc game was started by the said team member.

Cc game is one of the worst nightmares of any project manager. It can create a mess of confusion which even Bcc can not clear. In this age of 'digital communication' and 'empathy' Cc game makes people apart from each other.

So what exactly is Cc game? It is sharing your information with more than one person or one group. For our team member mentioned above it was meant more. The said member while reporting to the manager started sending all reports with Cc to donor! So in medium to short run if project is screwed he would be the 'honest', 'hard working', and 'loyal' team member in the eyes of donor!

So can we ask if communication is key to a lock or a way to deadlock? (https://www.createspace.com/3492429)