Dinner date scandal - Communication and Understanding of Objectives

By Roger Doyle

You would be amazed at how objectives for a project can be misinterpreted. A meeting with 10 people will generate 10 different views on any one objective and how to achieve it.

At my local cricket club we hold an annual Dinner Dance with a guest speaker. We award trophies for bowling, batting, ducks (currently in my study a large yellow plastic one with wheels that glow) and dropped catches etc. for performances of note. (non-cricket fans bear with me!)

The date is selected a year in advance so all arrangements can be made and bookings confirmed. Over the years the date
of the dinner has varied between the last Friday and the last Saturday in October (NB).......until this year.

The first point of note is the word booked and when, assumption one in any communication is challenge your assumptions. Was the hall booked a year in advance, er no, but we got passed that one on grandfather rights, the village hall diary owner had fortunately penciled something in.

Point two check for clear understanding, on calling the caterers to confirm booking, note, eight weeks before the dance date (because organiser had done it that way for years), guess what! "Oh I've got that in for the Friday" said the caterer to the club of twenty plus years "that's when you usually do it" no buts… we had guests, speaker, hall etc. all lined up for the Saturday; because that is what we published in the fixture card.

To carry on this saga, we finally rearranged the date when most people could make it, but not the original speaker so we had to go buy one, many people who had planned to come could not come, much disappointment and "never happened in my day" voiced loudly in local hostelries.

So we rolled with the new date, time and price; on posters and tickets 7.00pm and £18; on letters directly inviting folk 8.00pm and £20. What do the minutes say, well that's not entirely clear and anyway we don't publish those until a couple of days before the next meeting. Why, because we have always done it that way.

Lessons learned- publish actions minutes ASAP, post-meeting check and confirm any actions and data. Look for positive affirmatives, i.e. get folk to acknowledge receipt and understanding.

Why did we not change caterers, we did not want to jeopardize the quality of the meals.

Impact - we now have to pay for a good speaker, 200 plus people affected, had to review their diaries, much muttering in the village, questions raised at Annual General Meeting by Senior Vice President and the Chairperson decided to resign.

We are now rebuilding trust with all of our supporters, sponsors and players (all stakeholders!). The combinatorial explosion caused by one assumption is amazing, should we run a risk analysis on a local dinner dance?

To the good points, new chairperson fresh views, and because the usual crowd could not all make the new diner date we managed to attract a few new attendees.

Next years dates are booked and confirmed in writing, so am told; I think I'll check that assumption, that's trust for you. My role I just pay the bills and am now a fully practiced spin doctor.
- Happy Project Management!

Is Project Management Ageist?

My thoughts in this world where PC (Political Correctness not Personal Computing :) is ever present I often wonder about this question!

Is this a profession where it is valid to have an ageist view on life? YES I boldly state, I believe it is.

My own belief is that no person can be an effective Project Management practitioner by just having read the books, passed the PRINCE or PMI exams, attended a project management course. No university course can create a Project Manager; the best practitioners have all been through the University of Life!

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying education isn't valid. What I am saying is that the real practitioners have a wealth of experience, battle scars and real life scenarios upon which they base their decisions, judgements and actions, generally balanced with formal education.

Most project managers I have worked with and more recently placed haven't started their professional life as a project manager but evolved into the role as their natural talent has shone whilst undertaking other project related roles. They have served an apprenticeship, delivering under the wings of other project managers, watching and learning, picking up on good practices, looking to eradicate or improve areas that they disliked.

This I believe is what makes the project manager the beast he/she is and at the age of 21 very few people can have had the relevant exposure to prepare them for this most crucial position! Don't you agree?

- A 43 year old ex-Project Manager

Careers

In the last edition of Project Management Tip-Offs we asked the question;"Do you think having a PRINCE2 or ISEB PPSO qualification is important in your career development?".

We had placed a small survey on our site to get your opinion and 54% of you thought it was important. In this issue we decided to find out why clients like to see candidates with qualifications in Project Management (PRINCE2, APM, PMI etc) and ISEB qualifications (PPSO Foundation and Advanced).

When Arras People is working alongside clients to define their requirements for a role, one of the most important questions we ask is "what methodology does your project organisation use?". 9 times out of 10, the answer is PRINCE2, but often when you delve a little deeper, it's often a case of ,"well we're suppose to follow PRINCE2 but we taken the principles and adapted it to suit our needs".

So many organisations are not actively using many of the principles of PRINCE2 but still they look for potential employees who have undertaken the exams and passed with flying colours. Something of a mismatch? No, not really, we talked to a number of clients recently to get their thoughts as to why they prefer to see this on CV's.

A Programme Office Manager responsible for a team of project co-ordinators said;

"It's often a good indicator of the type of person the candidate is. If they've attended and passed an exam in a subject related to their field it tells me a little about their competency levels. This qualification coupled with good works experience would often give them the edge over other candidates because it shows to me they're dedicated to their chosen role." The ISEB qualifications in Programme and Project Support Offices are currently the only qualifications for Project Co-ordinators etc, which is why many prefer to complete the PRINCE2 exams.

When talking to another client, a Senior Project Management Consultant about why PRINCE2 qualifications are important to him when selecting candidates for interviews, "it demonstrates a couple of things to me; a candidate has a good combination of the theoritical side of project management and the hard and fast experience and its important to our organisation as a whole. We're raising the project management maturity capability levels and to do this we need project management professionals - the qualifications are a good step in the right direction"

Slightly different reasons from different organisations, but the interesting thing here is that there is no mention of attracting new employees with PRINCE2 or ISEB qualifications purely because they want people qualified in the methodology that the organisation uses.

In the next issue we turn back to the original question and ask you - "Why is it important to you to have a qualification like this?". To take part in the short survey Click here to take the survey now

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Project Manager Interviews - Preparing for the interview - soft skills questions

Continuing the series of project manager interviews and in particular soft skills, in this edition we look at a recent real life scenario which recently occured in preparation for an interview for a position of Project Manager. Arras People likes to spend time with its candidates going through interview preparation and here's some of the questions we've used.