Lonnie Pacelli's Blog, page 14

The Secret to Managing RAID Effectively (Part 1)

Risks. Assumptions. Issues. Dependencies.

Four concepts that almost every project manager has dealt with in one form or another. When managed effectively, they significantly reduce execution friction and better secure scope, schedule and budget success.

When not managed effectively, it’s like riding a bike with the brakes engaged—you may ultimately get to where you want to be, but it takes a lot more effort to get there.

Key to managing risks, assumptions, issues and dependencies (RAID) effectively is not just understanding each concept—it’s truly internalizing how the concepts interrelate. Understanding the interrelationships better positions the PM to not just manage each individual RAID component, but also to proactively address problems and avert scope, schedule or budget impacts.

To that end, my focus is to not just explain each of the RAID components, but to demonstrate the connection points between them. In my view, which I call the RAID 101 Model, the relationships look as follows:

Read more at ProjectManagement.com

Free 10/4-5: Know When to Say When

Free 10/4-5: Know When to Say When

Get it at https://amzn.to/2KhhN2n

#freebook #teamwork #leadership #kindle #kindlefire #ebooks #ebook #Kindlefreebooks #Kindledeals #FREE #mustread #goodreads #greatreads #freebie #freebies #kindlebook

The Mentor Sandwich: A Recipe for Career Success

Alina has been Maya’s mentor for the past year. They were just about to wrap up a mentoring session at their favorite coffee shop.
“Alina, I so appreciate your being such a great mentor. You’ve helped me so much!”
“Thank you for saying that, Maya. Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” Maya said.
“Are you mentoring anyone?”
Maya paused. “…me? A mentor?”
“Uh huh.”
“I just don’t think I have the wisdom to be a mentor to anyone.”
“Why’s that?”
“I just feel like I have so much to learn,” Maya said.
“We all do. The point is, you’ve learned a lot about life that someone else might be able to benefit from. We’ve talked a lot about inner-city youth and your personal experiences with overcoming challenges in your upbringing. You’ve done an outstanding job and could really be helping others follow the same path you took.”
“I don’t know,” Maya said.
“How about you think about it, Maya. You’ve been a great mentee, and I think you could also be a great mentor in the right situation.”
“Okay, I will.” Maya got up from her chair. “Same time next month?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
Maya walked back to her car. “Me, a mentor?” she said to herself. It was then she thought about a young girl she met last month who reminded her a lot of her own upbringing.
“Maybe so,” she whispered as she smiled and drove off.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com

Not All Thought Leaders Are Great People Leaders

Bud was one of the most brilliant people in his organization.  Only in his mid-thirties, Bud amazed his senior managers with his ability to grasp problems and develop innovative and effective solutions to those problems.  He was highly sought after as a "go-to" guy and would consistently come up with creative approaches.  His management decided to give him a thorny project with a team of over 100 professionals.  "This is my chance to really prove I can deliver", Bud thought as he willingly accepted the project.

Bud wasted no time in coming up with some great solutions which his management thought were brilliant.  Expectations were sky-high and Bud was on a project high.  Then the problems started.Though Bud did a great job of defining solutions, he had extreme difficulty articulating the work required to get from the current state to the desired solution.  He frequently lost patience with project team members when they brought up problems or issues and accused them of "stonewalling" the project.  Project risks were ignored and dismissed as trivial.  The team grew increasingly frustrated with Bud, the project schedule was in chronic slippage, and management grew increasingly concerned about Bud's ability to deliver.  Bud ultimately was removed as project lead.
Thought Leaders Aren't Necessarily Good People Leaders
In my years I've seen many great thought leaders crash and burn when they had to implement one of their creations.  In most cases someone in management made the assumption that because the thought leader came up with a great idea, that they could -- and should -- actually implement the idea.  This if-then relationship simply doesn't always hold water.  Unfortunately this lesson typically is learned the hard way; with the thought leader being thrust into the people leader role only to crash and burn. 

Now don't get me wrong; the world desperately needs thought leaders regardless of their ability to lead people.  What does need to occur, though, is a conscious recognition of whether a leader is a thought leader, people leader, or can do both.  For those leaders who are great thought leaders and not people leaders, don't expect them to implement large-scale solutions.  For those who are great people leaders and not thought leaders, don't expect them to design innovative solutions.  For those who do both well then enjoy the versatility and leverage it to the fullest.

The nugget here is simple:  decide if you are a thought leader, people leader, or you excel at both.  Then seek out assignments that best leverage your strength and provide the greatest value to your organization. 
Thought Leaders Design Innovative Solutions
People Leaders Implement Innovative Solutions
Lonnie Pacelli
Keynote Speaker | Board Director | Autism Advocate | Author | Project Management Expert | Microsoft/Accenture Veteran 
See his books on Amazon.

The Importance of Situational Mentoring

I have a very good friend who is several years older than me. Aside from being a close friend, he also refers to me as his mentor. I used to cringe a bit every time he said it. I am younger than him and felt that our relative overall life experience didn’t earn me my mentor status.

I took some time to reflect on some of our discussions. I realized that there were some topical areas where I had a significant amount of experience where he had gaps. He understood that my experience filled his gaps, and didn’t consider age to be a barrier to helping him in those areas.

While neither of us were seeking a mentoring relationship, our friendship has morphed to include his mentoring of me in some areas, while I mentor him in others. We are situational mentors to each other based on experience and need.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com

Free 9/10-14 my latest book: The Ribeye Alibi

Free 9/10-14: The Ribeye Alibi

Get it at https://amzn.to/3RauWi8

#freebook #teamwork #leadership #kindle #kindlefire #ebooks #Kindlefreebooks #Kindledeals #FREE #mustread #goodreads #greatreads #freebie #freebies #kindlebook #plagiarism #copyrightinfringement

The 4 C’s of Compelling Presentations

In my four decades as a professional, I’ve delivered many presentations and keynotes. Some went well, others totally bombed. Through my learnings about both the good and bad, I’ve identified key success factors necessary to create and deliver compelling presentations. The factors, which I call the “4 C’s of Compelling Presentations,” have helped me more effectively get my point across. Let’s dig right in…

See more at ProjectManagement.com

Free 9/6-7: I'm Too Busy to Plan

Free 9/6-7: I'm Too Busy to Plan

Get it at https://amzn.to/2Bj6C6k

#freebook #teamwork #leadership #kindle #kindlefire #ebooks #ebook #Kindlefreebooks #Kindledeals #FREE #mustread #goodreads #greatreads #freebie #freebies #kindlebook

The Five Biggest Mistakes a Human Resources Professional Can Make…From the Client’s Perspective

A number of years back I was in a meeting with two HR representatives at my company.They were explaining to me how the HR organization wanted to be more “strategic” with its clients and how they wanted to help us with annual resource planning.   At the time, our biggest problem was filling open positions with qualified candidates; a number of key positions had been open for months with no qualified candidates in the hiring pipeline. When I asked the HR reps about how they were going to help with this problem, they both told me that they didn’t have time to address the hiring issues because they were tasked with being more “strategic”.  Needless to say, the meeting went downhill in a hurry because the HR reps were more interested in fulfilling the HR organization’s “be strategic” mandate than they were in helping me with my real-life problem. 
As a longtime client of numerous HR organizations, I’ve learned to appreciate the value that HR professionals provide and the times my HR partner protected me from potentially difficult situations.  When working well, the client, employees, and company as a whole benefit.  When things don’t work so well, though, everyone ultimately loses.  Through my years as a client, I’ve locked down on five of the biggest mistakes that an HR professional can make in their relationship with the client, as follows: Not understanding the client’s business – Foundational to an HR professional’s success is s strong understanding of their client’s business.  What are the key products the client offers?  What does the client want to accomplish in the next fiscal year?  Is the client’s product emerging, stable, or declining?  What are the client’s key business challenges?  Does the client face any significant financial issues?  Have the professional self esteem to know that the client wants you to invest some time to understand their business.  Being a team player means spending time with the team to better understand how your services can be best applied in the client’s organization. Trying too hard to get the client to understand the business of HR – Many HR professionals I’ve worked with wanted to “educate” me on terminology, concepts, or the latest HR trends.  While the education was interesting and helped broaden my horizons somewhat, much of the education wasn’t relevant to my job or important for me to know.  If there are truly important terms and concepts that the client is going to need to know to get their job done effectively, then by all means educate away.  However, if the HR-ese is not material to the client getting their job done, then skip the education session.  Help the client with what is need-to-know and keep the rest in your bag of tricks. Not understanding the basics of employment law – My most valuable experiences with my HR partners were situations where my HR partner helped me to understand employment law issues and advised me on courses of action to take to minimize legal risk.   When an HR professional understands the basics of employment law and can recognize situations where further legal advice may be required, potentially hundreds of hours of lost productivity are mitigated.  By not having employment law basics down, the HR professional not only puts the client’s business at risk but also suffers a credibility hit in the client’s eyes.  Know enough to advise the client and when additional legal help needs to be brought in. Showing bias in supporting either management or employees – A crucial credibility factor for an HR professional is demonstrating impartiality while dealing with HR issues.   If an HR professional has a reputation for being biased toward management, then they get a rap for being a “company” person and potentially legitimate employee issues may never surface.  Conversely, when the bias is toward the employee, then they can be accused of holding “witch hunts” against management.  The best HR professionals walk this line carefully and ensure that their thought process and advice represents consideration of sound business and legal thinking.  They also need to have the courage of their convictions to tell either management or an employee when and where they think they are going wrong.  Don’t become a "yes man" or “yes woman” for either side.Not establishing expectations of work to be performed – Perceptions of the services an HR professional provides can be radically varied from client to client.  While one client may see an HR professional as a recruiter, another may see the HR professional as an employment mediator, while a third may see him or her as an overall generalist.  Establish a service-level agreement or contract with the client to ensure a common understanding of services performed, what is expected from the client, and expected timeframes in which services will be performed.  Key to this is ensuring that the contract is mutually understood and agreed-upon; it’s not enough for the HR professional to quote department policy about what will or won’t be done for the client.  Make it clear about what you’ll do for the client, what you expect from the client, and in what timeframe the work will be done.  An HR professional that understands the client’s business, shields the client from the HR-ese, is unbiased, delivers against clearly set expectations, and protects the company and employee fairly can be an invaluable partner to both the client and the company as a whole.  Avoid these five major mistakes and you’ll build a high degree of trust and credibility with your client, be viewed as a trusted business partner, and save potentially countless hours of lost productivity and waste.
Lonnie Pacelli
Keynote Speaker | Board Director | Autism Advocate | Author | Project Management Expert | Microsoft/Accenture Veteran 
See his books on Amazon.

Are You Becoming a Critical Copy/Paster?

A college professor and I were talking about artificial intelligence and what she’s seeing from her students. She confirmed that AI-generated content is a regular occurrence in papers students write. Some tools (such as Turnitin.com) are getting smarter about detecting AI-generated content to help professors determine when work is authentic versus AI-generated. One situation, though, was sadly amusing to me.

One of the papers turned in by a student included a statement to the effect of, “I’m sorry, but I don’t know the answer to that question.” It was clear that the student had submitted a query to an AI chatbot—which didn’t know how to respond—and the student blindly copied the content into the paper without actually reading it. I probably don’t need to tell you the grade the student got.

In my article Critical Thinking Isn’t Enough: 8 Ways to Be a Critical Persuader, I talk about a fellow named Vick, who was very well-versed on a topic but couldn’t present coherent thoughts in a way that would convince someone of his way of thinking. Vick was a critical thinker, but couldn’t make the leap to being a critical persuader. The situation the professor mentioned underscored a new “critical” category I hadn’t considered.

Read more at ProjectManagement.com