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What's New?
New Products: Mastering Projects Workshop has been morphing and mutating nicely. We now have a one day self-study version covering project context. We also have the capacity to deliver a one, two, three or more day workshop experience. Ask! We'll be glad to discuss these possibilities with you. We are also developing an online Mastering Projects workbook that Mastering Projects Workshop graduates can access on the net. Interested? Drop us a note. New Newsletter: Some subscribers will find a PSL Insighter inserted into their latest edition of Compass. This is also available online as a .pdf here. The PSL Insighter is a quarterly insert published by Weinberg and Weinberg to advertise their Problem Solving Leadership (PSL) workshop. Why am I distributing it with Compass? I think you'll think the content is wonderful! Also, I'm a member of the PSL faculty. I think PSL is an experience you should consider. Finally, I designed the newsletter and my son, Wilder, created the graphics. New Relationships: We are working out the details of a relationship that will bring open enrollment Mastering Projects Workshops to the San Francisco Bay area. This is an exciting opportunity. Many have asked for more open enrollment venues. Here comes one! Please let us know if and when you're interested in attending. We'll publish a schedule as soon as we can. Mastering Projects comes to Texas? Following my very successful presentation of The Grammar of Goal Setting in March for the Houston chapter of the Project Management Institute, we began to evaluate the Houston market's potential as a location for open enrollment Mastering Projects Workshops. I should not have been surprised by the warmth of the reception there. Those who manage the projects that build oil refineries face the same dilemmas that all project managers face. One attendee greeted me after the talk saying, "I came expecting to yawn through the evening and I'm leaving with a fire in my belly." If you're in Houston and would like to see Mastering Projects presented there, let us know. The July/August issue of Software Testing and Quality Engineering features an article I wrote based upon the Grammar of Goal Setting presentation I gave in Houston. The piece is called, Keys to Setting Achievable Goals. STQE's website is www.stqemagazine.com. Thanks to Brian Lawrence for the entre and to III for the clarifying conversations. New Learnings: The learning never stops in this business, no matter how much I might sometimes like it to stop. Much of what we teach is centered around the idea of being more aware of what's going around you. Awareness is an essential first step. But these steps are cumulative. Once awareness is achieved, it cannot be set aside as a goal achieved. It has to come along for the ride. I have watched several plannings in recent months and I have noticed a common reaction to the experience. Many seem to withdraw. A few engage actively, some almost maniacally, until some organizing principle is recognized. Then, no matter how poorly adapted this organizing principle, the planners rarely reorganize away from this initial ordering. The first ordering "sticks." This is Gestalt psychology at work. For many of us, work is just so much noise until an organizing principle is found. We are so grateful for the foundation this order provides us that we are struck blind about its effectiveness and cannot see its shortcomings. What usually happens is that as the plan becomes less and less well adapted to the circumstances, the story about the goodness of the plan gets richer and richer. This is a significant learning for me, and it may be a guiding principle of project control. The richer the story about the goodness of the project plan, the more subplots and subtleties, the poorer the plan. The richness of the story indicates the poverty of the plan. The goodness test is simple. How close to naming the organizing principle can someone come who has never seen the plan before? Gaps between the uninitiated reviewer and insider are always telling. Where the gap is large, the plan needs throwing away and reorganization. This is nearly impossible for the creating group to do because their possibilities are limited by the pattern they've already imprinted over the situation. Outside help is usually required to change. New Possibilities: The Heretics' Forum represents a significant new possibility for the community around True North project guidance strategies. Sharing our stories sustains us. Two new books are noteworthy this time: The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (ISBN 0-316-31696-2) and The Community of the Future, compiled by the Drucker Foundation (ISBN 0-7879-5204-4). The Tipping Point suggests that context defines much of what we experience as intent. Put someone into a certain context and certain behaviors result. Trying to fix the person without addressing the influencing context usually fails. A useful strategy for resolving issues, the author suggests, is not to fix the people but to change the influencing context. Gladwell tells a decent, often compelling story. Some will find this book not quantitative enough, but I believe it adds significantly to the dialogue about change. The Community of the Future is a compilation of articles on the subject of community. Most interesting for me is the piece by Dave Ulrich called Six Practices for Creating Communities of Value, Not Proximity. Since True North's ProjectCommunity.com is focused upon maintaining such a community, my ears perked up. Ulrich identifies the following practices as significant contributors to creating and building stronger communities in a world where proximity is no longer the defining attribute of association. 1- A strong and distinct identity. 2- Clear rules of inclusion. 3- Share information across boundaries. 4- Serial reciprocity. 5- Create and sustain values by using symbols, myths, and stories. 6- Manage enough similarity to feel familiar Most significant to me is his notion of Serial Reciprocity. What does this mean? It means giving without expectation of direct payback. We contribute to the community, in the belief that our contribution will improve the context and so improve the overall experience. This is the purpose of the Heretics' Forum. It is a medium within which this community can practice Serial Reciprocity. Try it out and see if Ulrich's model holds. I think you'll learn that it does. Thank you for stopping by! David A, Schmaltz, President True North pgs, Inc. Copyright © 1999-2005 True
North pgs, Inc.
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