And The Winners Are

The Academy Awards ceremony, otherwise known as The Oscars, was held on Sunday 24 February 2013. A night of glitz and glamour where gongs are given, speeches made and the occasional mishap occurs.

On this same night another glittering star-studded Oscar ceremony took place – the virtual Project Management Oscars. To quote directly…

“For The Third Year In a Row #pduOTD – PDU Of The Day (pduOTD.com) tweeted their choices for 150 of the “Best of the Best PM BA Leadership & Agile/IT Twitter Users” & issued them PM Oscars throughout the day.  Every 5 minutes @pduOTD gave out another #PM_Oscar to an amazing person or organization.”

With sequins in place, lip gloss applied and acceptance speeches at the ready the Twitter community traversed the red carpet then waited with baited breath to see who would be honoured as Best of the Best. 

As Martin Chernenkoff and @pduOTD announced, one after another, an amazing list of talented knowledgeable #PM_Oscar winners I was heard to tweet “OMG, seriously?! WOW! Honoured, gosh”. To be awarded a prestigious PM Oscar by your peers and colleagues ‘For Excellence in International Project Fixing of Business IT Projects’ in the category Highlighting Project Management Field Experts, is a wonderful compliment.

Congratulations to Martin and @pduOTD on a superb ceremony and for their excellent work supporting PM’s around the globe. 

Now without further ado or falling over on my way to the podium, I’d like to thank…

A recap of all the Winners can be found here.

'Manager' - Not Just a Job Title

The posts you read on this blog are mostly about projects, the way an organisations DNA must change if it wants what it says it does, and the challenge of balancing the business drivers for that change with the dynamics of those on the receiving end of it. 

Balancing all this takes a combination of leadership and management. Without leadership people won’t have direction or guidance, and without management the company has no clue whether they’ve achieved the desired result or not. A company can be as inclusive as it likes, empower its employees, and push the boundaries of innovation but…  if it has people filling roles entitled ‘manager’ without knowing how to manage, it’s got a problem.

From executive level to daily ops, from programmes of multi-million dollar/pound/euro proportions to projects with miniscule budgets, the ability to manage is critical. Yet ‘management’ seems to have been pushed into the background. Execs that give a damn may now been seen as abdicating responsibility as, unwilling to deal with conflict or with bigger fish to fry, they look to their direct reports to pick up the slack. Middle management may be more concerned with keeping the peace rather than making those tough decisions and taking the necessary action to effect change.

How did this happen? Why has it happened? There is a multitude of reasons and of course gazillions of books written on the subject. Because there’s no single reason and rather than discussing the why’s and wherefore’s, let’s take a look at options for re-establishing an equilibrium for ‘manager’.

Season's Greetings and a Helping Hand

Season's Greetings and a helping hand from Unlike Before
	Our way of saying thanks to our loyal readers this season is by making a financial contribution through Kiva; an organisation whose mission is 'to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty'. Our contribution will help provide microfinance to those striving to create opportunity and better lives for themselves and their families. We found Kiva when we were given a Kiva card and realised the good work they do towards anti-poverty; helping others helps all of us.	Kiva is a gift that has the potential to change lives. Click here to view the Unlike Before donation page

PMTV and Why Some PM's Suck

Being involved with initiatives such as PMTV (Project Management TV) and WIPM (Women in Project Management) are great for two reasons:

1. I get to meet and interact with many genuinely nice people I otherwise wouldn't come across; and
2. Together we get to share our combined experiences and expertise in a variety of ways for the benefit of others. 

This is exactly what happened when I joined forces with Jon Hyde, Bernardo Tirado and Naomi Caietti for PMTV on October 16th.