Podcast with Guerrilla Project Management

Earlier this year I was absolutely delighted to be interviewed by Samad Aidane for his Guerrilla Project Management podcast. Samad is not only a genuine and generous guy who I'm honoured to know, he's also a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) with over 15 years of IT experience. His Guerrilla Project Management blog is the place for "conversations about the mindset that Project Managers must adopt to be able to effectively manage today’s complex projects".

An experienced and good PM is always prepared and Samad proved this 10 fold with his prep work. He didn't just flick a few questions through on an email, oh no; Samad had absolutely done his homework and identified exactly the pieces from my articles he thought would interest his audience. I'm just glad he forwarded them to me so I had sufficient time to get my responses into some semblance of order!

Figuring out our time zones was probably the most difficult part as Samad made our interview together feel like we were having a normal conversation. Go listen and while you're there subscribe to his RSS feed, listen to his other podcasts and read through his various blog posts. You won't regret it.

International Young Project Manager Award 2010

Nominations are now open for the 2010 IPMA Young Project Manager Award. Introduced in 2006 at the IPMA Young Crew conference in Shanghai, China, the IPMA Young Project Manager Award recognizes rising talent in the project and program management industries by honoring young project managers for their accomplishments early in their careers. These honorees have demonstrated invaluable impact to both their profession and their companies, and are on the fast track to becoming influential project leaders on an international scale.

Unlike Before is thrilled to be a member of the esteemed award jury who will be assisting with selecting the finalists for this award. ”Being asked to participate in the selection process for the 2010 IPMA Young Project Manager Award is an enormous honour.” says Deanne Earle, Director of Unlike Before Ltd, ”It’s critically important to recognise talented project managers early in their careers as through their success we can sustain strong project leadership into the future.”

All prospective applicants should complete the online application. Initial applications will be accepted by the Award Committee until midnight, 30 June 2010 Eastern Standard Time (EST). Details about the application procedure, assessment criteria and award jury can be found on the IPMA website.

Read more or submit your application here.

When Urgent isn't Urgent at all

In January I was chatting with someone I know who asked if I knew anyone who could ‘operationalise a project’. What he meant was that his company needs help with business readiness and handover of what has been a very long project. Of course I reminded him who he was talking to and started asking questions about what was needed and the timeframe. Our conversation concluded with a mutual understanding that the need was urgent.

Now urgent to me means that the situation is important enough to require immediate attention; straight-away, no mucking about, decision made, let’s get on with it. Even the online Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines the word as:

urgent    adjective   1) requiring immediate action or attention   2) earnest and insistent

Pretty clear really isn't it? Apparently not...

Mind the Gap – Where emotional intelligence rules

Anyone who’s been on London’s Underground will have heard the world famous warning for passengers. “Mind the Gap” was introduced in 1969 to warn passengers about the space between the train carriage and the platform. Just like passengers in a hurry or who think they know best run the risk of falling between the two, businesses need to maintain conscious awareness of the very real and tangible gap existing between their strategy and desire to achieve effective operational change.

Business Strategies are specific when it comes to the organisation's mission, vision and objectives; Direction is clear, ROI specified, and growth expectations and market share targets listed to support both. Now the challenge starts. This beautifully constructed well thought out strategy must be turned into operational reality and if the strategy is one that sees the business moving through previously uncharted waters, there will be the inevitable changes along the way to operational practises.

What's all this got to do with emotional intelligence?