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Dedication

Preface

PROJECT MANAGEMENT - A LIFE COACHING APPROACH

Leading to Sane Project Management

Introduction

[Include a precis of each chapter]

There must be thousands of books written on Project Management, probably as many as there are literary practicing project managers out there. I personally feel that unless you've actually been a project manager in real life, writing a book about it from an academic point of view is worse than useless, it is dangerous and does not have the benefit of personal experience illuminating its pages. It would be advocating courses of action based on a dry analysis of project management principles. Based on my experience, PM principles are first base and often, sometimes, deliberately forgotten when in the midst of demanding or extortionate projects. Those I classify as hazards to your health and peace of mind. Managing projects takes your mind, blood and soul. It is difficult but occasionally rewarding and fun.

My aim with this book is to provide practicing and budding PMs with a handy reference that should help them with identifying the danger signs of projects that have started on the wrong foot, how not to compound the problems inherent with the genesis of the project by sleep walking through the development of the project plan and schedule and so landing you with an almighty problem when it comes to delivery. If you find yourself uncomfortable with the schedule, then that is a valid sign that something is wrong and you must do something about it. This book should be able to help with what to do in these and many other similar situations perceived by the PM as "out of control".

The benefit of a practicing Project Manager (PM), is that he brings stories of blood and pain from the battle field, he brings stories of successes and failures, he has been forged in the crucible of experience, squeezed between the account manager and the client, between the actual cost and budgeted cost, between the estimated time he promised it would take versus the time it actually took and explaining the difference to a difficult client, between the number of resources he promised it would take versus the number of resources it actually took, between the quality he promised and the quality that would have been delivered had not the PM (after being pushed by the client) or the client put their foot down and asked for, no demanded that the quality promised be delivered (and at no extra cost).

As a practicing PM, these are some basic axioms at work. Keeping you prisoner even and locking you down to delivering the impossible. The first of these is in whatever business, mode or type of business or type of relationship you have with the supplier or client, to get the job in the first place, someone else, perhaps even a salesman (called Account Executive) would have put in a bid or offer which to make it attractive to the client, would have been pared back. This can be at one end pared backed somewhat or slightly to the other end pared back substantially meaning there is absolutely no fat or in PM parlance slack built into the budget meaning you're from the word go working to a mean and lean budget.

This tightness will inevitably find its way into a killer (yours) schedule which you will dutifully build and which will just as dutifully either shoot your in the foot or kill you. Note here you built the instrument of your downfall or failure from what you were given to work with, a very tight budget meaning a very tight schedule could only be drawn up from it. What else you ask? Knowing what you were given well, this is about the best you could do with it. But it can and will get much much worse and that is, based on the limited, tight or pared back budget, you will obviously only be able to engage yourself for a certain amount of time, your resources only for a certain amount of time and the equipment that the dollars will buy.

You would then think that then based on these "limitations" that you could then let your schedule, based on the required items that need to be done in a sequential, ordered and timely way (also known as the critical path) decide when you could deliver your widget or whatever. A project schedule is great at working out what your deliverable end date is working from all the preliminary tasks that need to occur before it can be completed and in fact it is best in doing that when it has the least number of tasks with constraints in them. I will explore this much further inside this book.

But no, life is not that easy. You will be told the date that the deliverable is to come in. No ifs or buts. So now you are left with a schedule which has a fixed deliverable end date and every task that would normally be a predecessor (read subservient to it and which would in effect decide the deliverable end date) to it now actually becomes fixed in reference to the delivery end date. For example, if you previously would let the date of delivery of your equipment decide when you could install and then implement and then test and then execute (your deliverable end date), well now based on your equipment delivery date, you would decide arbitarily mind you that equipment delivery had to occur 4 weeks prior to install to meet all the times required that would ultimately lead to execute and achieve your deliverable end date.

The reality is that equipment delivery will probably be either a week early (in which case you're ok but the schedule won't tell you that) or delivery will be late one week if which case, your fate in on the line and the schedule will still not tell you there is a problem. The thing here is that your head will tell you there is a problem but the schedule which should naturally tell you there is a problem by pushing your deliverable end date one week cannot do so because it has been locked in a deathly hold. Sure if you set it as a milestone and then run a report for missed tasks you will pick it up but the point I am making here is that a red traffic light that should have gone off has not, will not, cannot and never will.

In this case, the deliverable end date cannot shift if there is a problem with equipment delivery. The schedule cannot move back one week if the equipment delivery is late one week. What remote use is the schedule then? The schedule is actually next to useless because the end deliverable date is not driven by those tasks dependent on it. It is only marginally useful when used to derive a calculated equipment delivery date from the deliverable end date. In this case, that task and those similar to it are only there for the record. They have no useful relationship with anything else in the schedule. They are neither used anywhere as a predecessor, that is, what happens to them does not influence tasks downstream and in reality dependent on them.

They cannot be influenced. These tasks themselves have no predecessors. Hence if there is shortage of this equipment from the suppliers or there is a world shortage of this type of equipment or the container ship the delivery was on sunk or whatever, then this is not reflected in the project schedule because the equipment delivery date is fixed and must occur 4 weeks prior to final deliverable end date. When it doesn't and when you need the schedule to immediately recalculate your new final execute date based on a changed equipment delivery date based on another ship delivering a week later say, it cannot because you have set it up so that it cannot do the recalculation as it has no dependencies like supplier lead times.

Another interesting situation arises when you have finally implemented your project and in this case, say the deliverable end date has been met more or less but it cannot be handed over to operations (in PM Parlance to operationalise) because it has a number of typically quality problems that haven't been yet sorted out as part of the delivery of the project. The problem here is that the budget was enough to get you over the line with just the minimum level of quality but due to equipment not meeting specifications or equipment delivered to specifications not meeting quality control standards, the project can't close (in PM parlance Project Closure cannot commence). This will be one topic explored in the following chapters.

All my thoughts, ideas, principles, suggestions and approaches I have termed in the rest of this book Sane Project Management or SPM for short. It is a total view of project management taking the Life Coaching approach. I have worked my Life Coaching approach from first principles and these are used to bring light and shade to enable the understanding of the practice of Project Management. What is wrong with it? What is right with it? What should we use on an ongoing basis and what should we discard and forget we ever thought they were any use.

Chapter 1 Life Coaching - The Background

Life Coaching The Journey Begins

Please click on this link if you only have 30 seconds to spend looking at this particular site for a Life and Executive Coach.

I am a Life Coach practicing in Sydney, Australia but utilising modern internet technology to service clients in most parts of the world. I offer a broad range of services and a service mix which would suit most people and budgets.

I work with a range of clients at key moments in their lives.

  • People requiring work/life re-balancing (especially those in harsh or punishing corporate regimes) including those considering quitting the corporate treadmill. What are the opportunities out there? How can we identify those and take advantage of them?

    Let's explore and investigate the possibilities together in a positive and pro-active way. Let's meet the challenges before it meets us, as it inevitably will.

  • CIOs, Project Managers and other IT industry professionals requiring understanding, constructive listening, active participation in goal setting and decision making and advanced coaching from an expert in the field. IT professional positions have been disappearing since 2000. Where to from here for those who joined the boom in the 80s and now in 2003 cannot see a way forward in the industry, especially for those in their 40s and 50s.

  • To develop the field further, I am writing a book on Project Management and Life Coaching which I am currently calling Sane Project Management. This encapsulates all my project management experience but takes a life coaching approach to the challenges faced by project managers on a day to day (and night) basis. Project Management focuses on projects and Life Coaching focuses on people. My book is about recasting the focus in Project Management on people and this focus uses Life Coaching techniques I have written of elsewhere here, see Life Coaching Tips & Techniques. I am happy to share the principles from this book with Project Managers and others working under difficult, I use the words brutal and vicious, regimes whilst trying to do the best job they can.

  • Professionals requiring a mentor, friend and a confidant who will listen without judgement and offer advice, support and understanding. Professionals - a lot is expected of us. Excellence, service quality and the highest standards of customer service. But what about us? Who cares about us? It can be lonely in your chosen profession.

  • Students who may be just out of school or university, whether having completed their studies successfully or not, and not quite sure where they're going. Their path may have been clear two or three years ago but the world has changed a lot since then.

  • Near retirees (or even people in their 40s) who may be nearing the end of their working life and looking to transition as painlessly as possible to an alternative small business to ramp up as their formal working life comes to an end.

    You may have always wanted to set up a small business detailing cars, making hand made Australiana furniture, making kite kits, whatever let's explore these together. The key here is to do this sooner rather than later. A small proposition in your 40s may become a herculean task in your 60s.

  • If, whatever your situation in life, you believe that there is something better out there for you and you are willing to invest your time, effort and resources to explore that, then I may be able to work with you to flesh out the possibilities/opportunities and help you prepare to face the realities of what is required for success.

    We will set clear goals, we will put in place plans to attain those goals, we will execute the plan effectively. We will monitor and survey the results and ensure our goals are met. In most cases, we will envelope what we are trying to achieve into a program.

    I operate flexibly taking into account the needs of the client as we progress with the program.

    What is Life Coaching?

    Life Coaching is a profession and a vocation practiced by those who work with people at key moments in their lives to remove roadblocks, set clear paths, put in place plans, monitor the execution of these plans, review progress and set new goals as previously set goals are achieved. In short it is a continuous improvement process.

    But a Life Coach is normally only involved in key stages during the process. Once a continuous goal oriented process has been instilled, then the client can soar on their own but with guidance from the Life Coach as necessary.

    Once a Life Coach is on board, they are there with the client come rain, hail or shine. But they are only on board for as long as the client and Life Coach deem it necessary. Where solo flying is achieved, the Life Coach will be there looking up and providing encouragement and support.

    A Life Coach can be involved in many types of activities - Personal Coaching/ Executive Coaching/ Lifestyle Coaching/ Coaching for Excellence/ Career Coaching/ Change Management Coaching/ Leadership Coaching/ Specialised Coaching on an industry basis/ Mentoring Coaching to name a few.

    I specialise in Life and Personal Coaching. This is an action driven discipline involving the client and coach in a deep trusting relationship. The purpose of this relationship is to allow the client to feel comfortable with the coach so that they communicate freely about where they're at, where they've come from and where they want to go.

    The goals attained can be personal and career oriented goals.

    Career wise, it can cover working towards an advancement, a promotion or a transfer in your current position or engineering a move to a new position or starting a new business that you've always yearned to start.

    On a personal basis, it can be working towards losing weight, getting fit, learning to dance, public speaking, learning a new language, learning a musical instrument, designing a home page on the web or whatever takes your fancy.

    I help my clients formulate, articulate their needs and desires into solid concrete terms and realistic goals.

    Simply put I will constantly evaluate your needs and whether goal oriented Life Coaching will achieve your ends, determine what the best platform is for doing that and put in place action plans to achieve your aims.

    The purpose of the Life Coach is to work with you to develop a strong achievement mentality and work ethic. Everything comes from work and effort. Sometimes it only comes after an enormous efort has been expended.

    Where do you start? Sit down and think what is your ideal lifestyle, way of living, way you want to live, whether you want want to live independently, in common with a family, alone whatever your choice. Articulate your dream into a common message.

    Talk to different Life Coaches. Do they understand your message? Your dreams? Are they goal oriented? Do you have a rapport with them?

    Once you choose a Life Coach, you must find an initial space to begin to build a level of trust, to build a bridge between client and coach to enable that message to be articulated clearly, bravely with a view to bringing it out in the open (really in the privacy of the relationship between coach and client). So it can be nurtured, worked on, incrementally, over a period of time in intermediate steps to the goal state.

    Somewhere in your hearts of hearts there is a secret garden with the choice leaves, flowers, beds, soil. A Life Coach will unearth that choice secret garden and work with you to make it a reality.

    If there has been a history of failures in the past, our coaching techniques will understand what went wrong, what behaviours to avoid, what action behaviours to encourage, nourish and nurture.

    So Life Coaching then is about discovering the inner dreams that complete you, will nurture your inner self and will set you up for the future. In order to work with this, we need to build a deep understanding trusting working relationship. This is the key.

    Services and Products Available

    These are our offered Services and Products.

    For our Fees and Charges, please follow this link.

    This will provide for the following life coaching services and any mix of your choosing (this does not include the fee for the CD or the voice conference which are one-off and additional charges) -

  • One monthly 1 hour face to face session (during a time of our mutual choosing) - for those in Sydney, Australia or those who can make it to Sydney, Australia once a month. This is a critical part of the service and an initial face to face session is recommended for most clients. This can take place at a mutually convenient location.

  • 5 return emails (double that number if not using face to face or unable to use face to face session). If utilising this service, you will be using this email address.

  • 5 Return SMS Messages (to Mobile Phones in Australia only). If using this service, you will be SMSing to this number 0409 223 436. If overseas and unable to utilise this service, then you will receive an additional 15 minute telephone conversation for no extra charge.

    Use this service if you have an Australian Mobile and you wish to use the Web to send Free (up to a number) SMS Messages to Australian Mobiles (and mine is one).

  • 1 x 20 minute session on ICQ or similar (such as MSN Messenger) at a time mutually agreed beforehand. The time is is based on AEST. You will receive an additional session if not using face to face or unable to use face to face session. If using ICQ, please use ICQ# 671412.

  • 1 x 15 minutes session on Microsoft Netmeeting. I will provide meeting details beforehand confidentially.

  • First Life Coaching Session CD (One on One Format). This will provide you with the background and material to understand what will be covered in the first session. It goes for 60 minutes and provides you with the flavor and approach this practice takes. It simulates the first session areas covered and will provide you with a feel of the environment we maintain at all our sessions. This is AU$30 and free postage and handling within Australia.

  • First Life Coaching Session Live Voice Conference (Group Format). For those new to coaching and not sure what this is about and wanting to know if what they are looking at will provide value for money, I intend setting a conference call on an as required basis for anybody wanting to get a flavor of what a first session is about. Due to the numbers there may be not enough time to get around to everybody but this is a great opportunity to listen in to a life session and participate. A one-off contribution of $30 per participant is required to participate. Let me know of your interest by dropping me a note.

  • 1 x 15 Minute Telephone Conversation (initiated by you) - (at a time mutually agreed beforehand). I will provide a number in Sydney, Australia to call beforehand. You will bear all telephone costs.

  • Review of self penned material. You can send material about yourself of your own choosing if you think it will help create or accelerate the required co-learning environment (no more than 10 A4 pages per month).

  • Other services can be negotiated beforehand and a rate agreed (for example additional face to face contacts, additional ICQ sessions, additional phone calls, additional SMS messages and emails).

    In order for us to better understand your requirements and whether we are a good fit for you achieving your aims and goals, please answer the following questions in your response to us. Could you please provide some additional information on your current challenges and goals/targets you have set and how you may or may not have met them recently. What strategies did you follow to achieve your set targets/goals? Were you successful?

    If I feel you are a good fit for the services and specialisation I provide then I will reply with a program listing the services that I feel may be applicable.

    Fees and Charges

    Our Fees and Charges Philosophy

    At Life and Executive Coaching, we believe you should pay one charge on a per month basis and then use as much or as little of the services as you may reasonably require for that calendar month.

    Your monthly fee engages our services for a one month period and we guarantee our availability, provided advance notice is given, to meet your Life Coaching services requirements.

    At certain moments in your life, you may be too busy to utilise all our services but at other times when you are ready and eager for Life Coaching, then we aim to be available to cater for the demand placed on our time and services.

    Our Fees and Charges

    For comprehensive Life Coaching services each month, a fee of AU$500 is payable in advance with services commencing the 1st of the following month. It can commence sooner by prior arrangement.

    If you are from the UK, Europe, the US or NZ please pay the AU dollar equivalent of your currency at the prevailing exchange rate.

    For Life Coaching services on an ad hoc basis and usually for 3 hours or less per month of the total available services, there is a hourly fee of AU$125. For any more than 3 hours, the monthly fee will cover all additional hours required of the total services on offer.

    As soon as payment is made, Life Coaching services of your choice can commence.

    If you are looking at our Life Coaching services, please discuss with our principal your intentions so that a program, if required, can be tailored for your needs and so that we can advise you of payment and other arrangements.

    My Coaching Experience

    I have over 25 years of coaching experience in corporate, sporting and training settings. This has been in both group and one on one situations.

    What is my coaching, mentoring and training experience?

    I have been a people manager for over 20 years. I have coached, mentored and trained individuals for peak performance in corporate organisations.

    I have been a Project Manager for over 10 years. I have coached individuals and teams for top performance in an industry IT setting.

    I have mentored and coached other Project Managers. I have taught the principles and practice of project management to other individuals. I also coached new project managers to use my techniques to guarantee peak performance from individuals and team members.

    I have coached and mentored in the physical fitness industry. I have personally reached a level of peak fitness and coached clients to reach peak fitness.

    I have trained and taught in the dance industry. I spent a number of years training and reached a level where I was giving dance classes. This involved me in working with individuals to help them reach peak dance performance in terms of technique, style and performance aspects.

    I have trained, worked and have experience in the legal industry. I have spent a number of years studying law and have a rigorous, sharp analytical mind.

    I have coached winning sporting sides. I have been involved in successful soccer sides.

    I have coached and mentored as an IT and French Tutor. I have conducted formal training courses in IT related subjects and I have coached one on one french students.

    I am a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in Project Management, numerous IT related areas and French. I am highly intelligent and intuitive.

    IT Specialised Coaching

    I have a deep understanding of the industry based on 15 years experience as both a technical IT specialist and also as a people, line and project manager in that industry.

    I have coached, mentored, advised, counselled and managed people involved in all aspects and professions of the industry.

    I have coached people to attain advancement, promotion, to deal with personal problems, to better articulate their goals and also to find fulfilment in their current careers.

    I specialise in coaching people involved in the IT industry from CIO to information worker, whether coming into the industry, looking to advance within the industry or looking to leave the industry to another calling.

    If you are currently in the industry but find the going very stressful and you're deeply unhappy, then let me help you to look for another direction either in IT itself or elsewhere, I can coach, mentor and assist you to make that change.

    If you are currently employed in the IT industry and looking for advancement within the industry, my coaching and mentoring services will show you the way and provide direction, motivation and goals. I can coach and mentor you to achieve that advancement.

    If you are not currently in the IT industry but are looking to break into that industry I can help you to make that transition even in these difficult times.

    I can help with identifying opportunities and openings, help you to prepare your resume and also to prepare for the inevitable interview process.

    Finally, even if you're not in the IT industry but looking for personal coaching in your current position, then I can also help with my general industry experience.

    Life Coaching The Journey Begins

    These are the four key things you need to know about our service.

  • Our practice is based in Sydney, Australia but we can travel virtually using internet and telecommunications technology to service clients all over the world. We can also come and visit you anywhere in the world if you so desire.

  • Our practice is driven by a high degree of care for our clients who become our friends. We provide a very high level of engagement in a mental, intellectual and spiritual sense to provide you with the highest level of support possible.

  • We are passionate about providing the very best Life Coaching experience and service. Nothing will stand in our way of providing you with a life changing and fulfilling experience.

  • We have one charge payable per month (AU$500 or equivalent in your currency) which provides for all the services you may require in a calendar month. For Life Coaching services on an ad hoc basis and usually for 3 hours or less per month of the total available services, there is a hourly fee of AU$125. For any more than 3 hours, the monthly fee will cover all additional hours required of the total services on offer.

    Chapter 2 Life Coaching Perspectives

    Using a Life Coach

    When and in what circumstances should you consider using a Life Coach?

    The circumstances outlined below are not meant to limit or narrow the circumstances in which you would consider using a Life Coach.

    Nor are they exclusive of the circumstances when you may consider using a Life Coach. Nor do they try to be prescriptive of when you should consider a Life Coach.

    They provide guidance only about those times in your life situation when you may need Life Coaching to get you over a hurdle, for example.

    There may be circumstances when you are approaching a major challenge in your life and you want to be well prepared to meet it.

    The key with Life Coaching is that with a Life Coach you are better prepared than you would be if you were doing it on your own without additional help.

    The key is realising those circumstances when you might need help and being brave enough to put your hand up and seek it. There is no shame is admitting to yourself that you may need help in particular circumstances.

    These circumstances are for you as a rational human being to decide. They will vary from person to person. We are there to help when you decide it is time for you to seek help from a Life Coach.

    Firstly, generally speaking, with a Life Coach on board, you will recognise more quickly situations where, because of circumstances unfavorable to you, you may not be performing or achieving to your highest level.

    A Life Coach will provide the required level of detachment to be able to allow you to see yourself in your situation and understand the factors affecting your performance.

    Once the factors or levers of good or exceptional performance are understood, a Life Coach will create an environment where those factors are emphasised and used to promote better performance.

    Please use these circumstances as a high level guide only. Please consult Life Coaching Sydney or another Life Coaching firm to discuss your particular circumstance and situation. The following situations will have a different outcome with a Life Coach on board for guidance and support.

  • When you have previously set yourself achievable goals but did not complete them or complete them to your satisfaction within a reasonable amount of time or the time you allowed yourself.

  • You found when trying to accomplish previously set goals that in the actual hands-on doing, you were easily distracted from the necessary tasks or work that you had set yourself to achieve those goals.

  • Where you have taken on board large tasks, major goals or major projects and you've been unable to break down these major goals to more easily manageable smaller portions achievable within a shorted period of time, enabling you to get runs on the board in terms of a quick win.

  • When someone close to you in the past has provided the environment for high achievement and the support necessary to sustain that but that close support person is no longer available or in unable to continue to fulfill that role in your life.

  • You find yourself in a position where you seem ready to take on the world but the world is not ready for you. There is no traction with your ideas and it seems as if the world is not ready for you. Your ideas and dreams are not taking off and your initiatives are falling on deaf ears.

  • You find yourself at work in a position where you don't want you be. You are neither going forwards nor backwards. Every turn you take is a dead end. You do not have any new or fresh ideas and any that you do come up with are ignored or not listened to at all. You see no way out except resigning perhaps to another dead end job. Your whole outlook needs refreshing. You need a whole new fount of ideas. You want to go into work, a work that you enjoy doing, bursting with energy and ideas.

  • You may have made a decision to leave work, for your own reasons, but do not know where to go from there, what to do. You have built your level of motivation to leave but now require guidance to ensure where you move to and what you do will be in hindsight be seen as a brilliant move. You require career coaching and support to ensure you make the very best decisions with your career that you can in the circumstances make.

  • You're involved with a major phase of your life, a major enterpise or a major undertaking but you don't have the attitude or confidence of a winner or at least someone who will have a good go at it.

  • For anyone who is in a major phase of their life, their attitude should be, must be that of the climber waiting at base camp for the opportunity to climb the biggest mountain of his or her life. If you're at the base of the mountain but cannot focus and see your way to the top.

  • Nothing less that this preparedness, ready to go when the weather clears attitude, when the intermediate camps are built, when the ice trails are cut and finally when the way to summit is clear. Fear to summit or fear of success is as great as the dangers of failure inherent with the summit climb or any attempt at a goal.

  • In the mountaineering analogy I make, the window to the summit is very very short, a matter of hours. Have you got what it takes to make these critical decisions and is life any less demanding of the capacity to go full bore, at short notice, when it is required?

    Based on the circumstances described above, a number of Life Coaching principles may, if deployed correctly, be decisive. Decisive in turning failures to success and successes to triumphs.

    To help your cause, you should -

  • Recognise those circumstances when you cannot do it alone or cannot do it safely alone or cannot do it efficiently alone or cannot do it at all alone and ask for help and support.

  • Try to understand those factors at play in determining success or failure. This self knowledge will enable you and your Life Coach to focus on the action/doing verbs of your life vocabulary.

  • Appreciate that your Life Coach will work with you and be with you thorough highs and lows. He or she will share your failures but only you will taste the glory of your successes. Your Life Coach is, in these terms, egoless.

  • Understand your Life Coach is there to make you look good and perform well.

  • Accept that your Life Coach has no role to play once you have achieved what you set out to do unless of course you then set new goals which in most cases you should.

    Using a Life Coach

    Jackie Robinson - A life is not important, but for the impact it has on other lives.

    What should a Life Coach do for you?

    A Life Coach with whom you connect and have a deep and results-oriented relationship will -

  • Inspire you to, as George Mallory put it, "know there's no dream that mustn't be dared". To truly not just know that but believe it rationally and totally and with no involvement of luck. Machiavelli - "he who has relied least on fortune is established the strongest". Open up a world of possibilities limited only by your reach, your ambition, effort, talent, gifts and dreams.

  • Influence you to great effort and great quality work and make the work fun and enjoyable.

  • Take you on an adventurous journey of self-discovery into yourself, punctuated by your own revealing insights about the source and well-spring of your effort and performance.

  • Give you his or her undivided attention during the coaching session, be extremely alert and vital, will come to the session very well prepared for the session as you should and be able through constructive listening and participation in your life story, to get you thinking about and formulating ideas and plans for the future, whether that is immediate, medium term or more longer term.

  • Walk the talk and demonstrate by their behaviors, habits, approaches and story their total professional approach and commitment to your cause and be living proof of the success of their methods. Physician heal thyself. Actions speak louder than words. You will learn more from the body language of the Life Coach than what comes out of his or her mouth, initially at least.

  • Maintain at all times a strictly professional relationship with you and will not socialise with you as the client as that will compromise the independence of the advice given and introduce an element of ego and competition that is incompatible with being a Life Coach.

  • Provide practical help and tips that will help you with the current phase of your life whilst putting in place steps and plans that will lead hopefully to another newer more successful phase in your life.

  • Set and have their own life goals. They will display humility of those sharing the same path, the same journey, the same challenges.

  • Create an environment where you, as the client, will feel comfortable, free and at ease to contribute your life story, your worth, your dreams, your hopes to the mix without fear or danger. They will make you feel at all times that you are the centre of attention, the story revolves around you and the ego of the Life Coach does not play a part in the interaction or relationship.

  • Always ensure the physical environment chosen for the coaching session is suitable, that practicalities such as punctuality, the highest standards of personal hygience and dress are adhered to at all times. Your Life Coach should make you proud to be with him or her.

  • Appreciate and know that you come to him or her with a past and a present and know to take the time to explore what has been and what is before beginning the journey that will answer what could be or might be that will lead to the desired future outcome.

  • Genuinely care and understand what you care and feel about. He or she will, as a result, listen attentively and respond based on the information given by the client.

  • Know when you are ready to fly solo and will work with you to ensure you have the confidence and skills to continue the journey alone but be there in case you need support at any time.

    My next tip will be about what you, as the client, should ideally bring to the coaching sessions in terms of your own preparation.

    Preparing for Life Coaching

    This is about what you, as the client, should ideally bring to the coaching sessions in terms of your own preparation.

  • Firstly, I am not talking about your dress, grooming or preparation in any physical sense even though the Life Coaching may be ultimately about goals that have to do with positive body image.

  • If I may start with the use of a maxim from my old days (around 1990) studying law (equity in particular, one of my favorite subjects) which says he who comes into equity must come with clean hands.

  • Before plowing on with this area, let me direct your attention to my previous Tips & Technicques which dealt with some of the responsibilities of a Life Coach.

  • This has a lot of corresponding responsibilities on behalf of the client as it takes two halves to make one good relationship.

  • You must begin by understanding and questioning previous behaviors which have led to unsuccessful goal setting and achievement.

  • You must be prepared to admit to yourself and be able to discuss, the habits which led to a lack of success.

  • Nothing is achieved without, on your part, a dedicated focus, goal setting inspired by a deep analysis of your situation and circumstances and a willingness to try again where there has been a history or pattern of failures.

  • Nothing less that this dedication is required to break the cycle of failure and enter the realm of success. Be prepared and come to your session enthused and with this in mind.

    Selecting a Life Coach

    How to consider, select, engage and evaluate the performance of a Life Coach?

    Life Coaching Life Cycle

    This exploration of the Life Coaching cycle is not meant to be taken in any particular order or to suggest all cycles are passed through in life's journey.

    But they are more or less way points that fellow travelers may utilise to get from one point to another.

    No particular set of way points is right or better than any other and not all stages are needed on any particular journey and indeed there may well be way points that I have not covered here.

    Each of these stages correspond with a particular propensity for effort and achievement and an ideal opportunity for self-directed or externally directed Life Coaching. Taken together these form a mosaic of possible journeys going from the current state to one of greater effort, better fulfillment and achievement.

    Based on your personal circumstances, you may, if self-coaching, decide where you currently are, where you want to go and what way points are most suitable to get there. On the other hand, if using external direction, by utilising a Life Coach, then you may jointly review the same possible journey. The following can be noted -

  • As my previous advice makes clear, a Life Coach will provide the necessary objectivity to critically evaluate previous attempts at goals and jointly will help you determine what went wrong, what needs to change and when to attempt new goals with the lessons learnt from previous attempts creating the confidence for future guaranteed success.

  • As to whether the previous goals should be attempted with the new frame of mind, then I think that goals should be set with all the present circumstances in mind and if the old goals are the ones that bubble to the surface as needing to be achieved, then they can be attempted once more, this time with a greater probability of success than previously.

  • You want to avoid going from one way point to another which in the past has not yielded the results you expected, this is only natural and it is expected that you would learn from previous experience and errors of judgment and direction and benefit from it.

  • Go from one way point to another when your stay at a particular way point is at an end and you have learnt all you can from it, where you have made the connection with your next way point (from the previous one) and the journey between the old and the new way point is clear, is safe and you are comfortable that you can make it.

  • If you are not clear about any of these steps, then a Life Coach can clarify where you are, what your future direction could be, your journey and your destination.

    Life Coaching Way Points

    The Search For the Barn Dance

  • Content with where you are but knowing or feeling there is something better "out there" but not sure of the direction or course to set to get there. This way point is chracterised by the lack of hard goals or if hard goals are set then there is no genuine attempt to ensure these goals are met.

    In some cases, easier "soft goals" are set but this is also characterised by poor goal setting and poor goal execution. There is no strategy in place to ensure these softly set goals are met or any planning put in place to map out the way forward for achieving these goals.

    There is no inner energy expended or directed to achieving these softly set goals. The problem is not the degree of difficulty of the goals set but the lack of forward planning, strategy determination, selective and appropriate (for the stage in your life) goal setting and directed focused execution.

  • Not content with where you are but lack the skills or insights or knowledge to determine the best way of leaving this behind for a better way point. No knowledge of a better way point and no idea how to get there. No goal setting soft or hard. A state of confusion or agitation as if the ship is unhappily becalmed.

  • Not content with where you are but have previously and recently attempted to move from existing state to new way point but way point was never reached. No rational analysis of why that was took place. Disappointment and disillusionment set in once the extent of the failure was realised. Failure to complete the journey and partly thorough the journey the realisation that the wrong destination has been selected and inability to change destination once you had set out. Much prefer to hide the failure than talking about the reasons and circumstances that lead to failure. You are sitting out the storm until calmer weather returns.

  • Content with where you are and happy to stay where you are. In your comfort zone. But this happy state is fragile. You're in a position where you're not experiencing or willing to experience growth. You're not creating change nor reacting either positively or negatively to change. Change leaves you neutral. Change is anathema to your current state which is at a delicate edge but balanced if somewhat precariously for the time being. Unless you're out there running to meet change before it meets you, to meet challenges before they challenge you, you'll find yourself in a position where due to your state of inertia, getting moving again to react to change and challenges will be extremely difficult. Doing nothing is just not good enough. Going to this way point is the sign GO BACK YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY and if you happen to be there already, then you must overcome yourself to leave it.

    The Discovery

  • Self-Directed and Self Coaching

  • Informal and Family Oriented Life Coaching

  • Externally Professionally Directed Life Coaching

  • In the Hitting Zone

    Setting Realistic and Achievable Goals

    Background

    I have elsewhere on this web site commenced a discussion of goals. For a through discussion of goals in the context of way points, please consult this link. That particular discussion centered on the various positions and steps one needs to navigate before one gets to one's final destination, indeed if there is one at all.

    This particular discussion, here, is about an attribute of goals, namely under what circumstances do they come near to view and in a sense become one that we can attempt to achieve and in what other circumstances there near goals recede in the distance and become pseudo "impossible". This becomes key when to get from point A to point P one has to go via point K but K is the goal that is near now but not the next.

    As a generality, setting realistic goals is more about ensuring there is a realistic expectation of what you can achieve within a reasonable period of time and what you should then contemplate, knowing that, as your next step to get to your final destination.

    Knowing that you do not currently have the capability to climb Mt Everest but you may just have the understanding and capacity required to appreciate that technical and ice climbing training together with a gruelling fitness regime will get you perhaps 10% of the way there. That this is a way point on what will ultimately be many way points on the way to the top of the mountain may be clear to you.

    Where you do not have that appreciation or clarity, the job of a Life Coach is to provide you with the skills and understanding to gain that appreciation. A Life Coach operates where there are no clear set goals or where there are set, there are no "easier" set or mapped out early goals to enable you to reach the top in relatively simpler incremental steps.

    What is a realistic goal and what circumstances make it so?

  • A goal must not only be seen for what it is, which is a way point but also the circumstances in which it is brought to the surface.

  • The important goals are those which I will term "intermediate" goals that are a way, a journey, a path to an ultimate or even final destination. These intermediate are essentially a number of steps that lead you from one distant point to another distant point.

  • Firstly, one must have clarity and understanding of what where one is going or wants to go? Without that clarity, we're on first base as far as goals are concerned. A Life Coach can help you gain that clarity. This can be by a variety of methods including a through analysis of your current situation and how you got you there.

  • A goal that is a combination of other factors including lessons learnt - "life experience" from previous goal attempts has a greater chance of success that one that does not have that context or no context at all.

  • We do not take into account the element of luck as we do not believe that has any part to play in achieving one's goals. Any goal that utilises or requires an element of luck is by definition unrealistic.

  • A goal that has benefitted from someone else's Best Practice has a good grounding to start off with.

  • If preceding the setting of a future goal with an analysis of a previous successful goal attempt, then the habits and practice of success will suffuse the future goal. In terms of raising the confidence level that this attempt will also be successful but also assist with the reinforcement of previously successful habits.

  • A goal set with the support of someone close to us or failing that a professional Life Coach will have the benefit of providing you with an objective assessment of your current capability.

  • This capability, at the current point in time, vis a vis your current intermediate goals will determine if the capability is enough for the desired goal, is short for the desired goal or is abundantly short, that is the goal is unrealistic.

  • This analysis will determine what you are currently capable of and can confidently achieve, what with additional skills and training you may confidently set goals for and achieve in the future.

  • The key is that this happens before you set out for your goals. It provides for consideration and preparation for the challenges ahead and provides for support, should you wish it, from someone close to you and/or your Life Coach.

    Learning from Failure as a Key to Future Success

    My Thought For Today - 10 September, 2003

    Life Coaching Paradox

    Those who need Life Coaches can't afford them and those who can afford them don't need them.

    Let's explore that generalisation a bit (which is not totally true). There is a certain paradox in the Life Coaching industry and that is the service we provide is to those who obviously need our professional services but in some cases, the person requiring the service cannot afford the professional advice. What I mean is that they already need to be on their feet, so to speak, and able to afford our services before they can engage our services.

    We are professionals and deal with our clients on that basis and in the context of that relationship. On that basis, there is sometimes a tendency to say if you pay me I will care about you. That is care for payment. When one operates a small business as most Life Coaching consultancies are, that is a fact of life, a reality in modern living and business.

    You find this in operation at many web sites operated by small service businesses. They don't have time to talk to you unless the meter is running. A bit like the model who won't get out of bed for less than whatever.

    But I think Life Coaching is not in that category. As I have written elsewhere, a Life Coach should live the precepts they preach. Caring for the client in a self-empowerment context is paramount. Implicit in this is the openness and willingness to give of oneself and to do so in a way that does not affect our ability to work, live and contribute.

    By the same token if one asks of a small business person for a quote, a lengthly delay in delivering the quote or no quote at all is an indication the business is not delivering customer service and is poor at business development. On the other hand, a small business person that provides prompt and accurate quotes has got it together. The right balance between servicing existing clients whilst acquiring potential new ones.

    A good Life Coach provides quotes for his services after considering the client's situation. Does that mean, initially at least that the meter is not running, yes it does. Good service dictates that we respond initially (in a high level way) to the client's requirements and advise whether we can be of help and what of our services would be most useful in their context.

    My Thought For Today - 9 September, 2003

    Time Wasters/Wasting

    Are you now wasting time or have you felt you have wasted time previously or do you feel you are about to waste time? Just because you are working and earning money doesn't mean you're not wasting time. Just because you're in a relationship and providing for your dependents does not mean you're not wasting time. Just because you're part of your community doesn't mean you're not wasting time.

    In what circumstances are you not wasting time? You will know yourself when you are wasting time but these are some circumstances when you may feel you are not wasting time -

  • You, after a period of introspection, have embarked on a desire, a course, a way to attain the very highest and best you're personally capable of.

  • You have translated this vision into action plans and you're keyed and ready to execute them.

  • You are on a perpetual journey of self improvement, reaching in and reaching out to develop a method, a life force for success.

  • You are aware of what is required for success but also what ways can lead to failure and you make a conscious choice to go the way of the path of success.

  • You admit to yourself that you may not be able to do it all alone and let others into your space to help you. You are not afraid or ashamed of seeking and receiving help.

    In the 30's and 40's brilliant jazz bands played swing (considered pop music) to make money and saved their best music (jazz) for night time sessions and most albums they cut contained a number of pop numbers and a number of brilliant jazz numbers to remind the audience what a great band they were listening (and dancing to).

    Now in the 70s and later, most latin jazz bands play wonderful cuban, american jazz/blues influenced jazz music (it I think started with cross seminal influences between Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Kenton and Tito Puente in the 30s) but they also play for a living salsa music, which as I have read Tito Puente didn't think much of (the name that is, not the music).

    Do you have something that you are very very good at (and prefer to do), that may not have a wide audience (and doesn't make you much money) and something you are also quite good at (but is not your first preference to do) that does have a wide audience (your job that makes you enough money to live on)? What did the jazz musicians do when faced with these two choices? Well, they played salsa (or swing) to ensure the audience were happy and danced (and bought their records) but they also saved some of their energy for their favorite love. Can you do both and well? Contrast that with the supreme mountaineer Messner - do one thing, do only one thing, do it with all your might, all your money and all your will.

    My Thought For Today - 8 September, 2003

    This is sometimes very difficult to write because this is not (yet) a fomula like most newspaper columns and making this fresh and fun is sometimes tough. Even though during the day I think of what this should be, by the time I get home, eat and shower and relax I have forgotten it.

    I went trawling last night on the web for one thing not sure what but landed on a web site that was about the 80s band The Joy Division, discovered this name was based on a supposed Nazi hotel for providing comfort women for the troops. BTW their lead singer (Ian Curtis) committed suicide just prior to going on a US tour. I then spent some time on some other web site following some classic albums. I checked out a Fleetwood Mac classic album (Then Play On), they had all mostly been inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame.

    The thing that struck me was that three of their former members Danny Kirwan, Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer all had mental problems either from huge drug use and/or other personal problems. Not only did they supposedly have the fragile artistic temperament but they overdosed on psychedelic drugs.

    This reminds me of a story of a guy who sold everything he had to get to the top of Everest - house, car, boat, dog. He said he would get to the top even if the mountain killed him. Well the mountain took him at his word and did so. The point I am making is there is no point scaling great heights if you're going to have a very hard landing coming down. That may be unavoidable due to circumstances beyond your control but plan every other circumstance within your control.

    By all means as I have written elsewhere you have to live your life as if you're permanently at base/intermediate camp waiting for the weather to clear before setting for the summit. The key here is you don't try to summit when the jet stream is blowing a blizzard at 29000 feet and you can avoid it by waiting. The trap people fall into here is they are keyed to a target date/time to summit and if they see that date/time pass they panic and this makes them do foolish things or make hasty decisions that will kill them on the way to the top.

    What was a heroic effort and incredible bravery on the part of Mallory/Irvine (1924) will, in any subsequent attempt that repeats their mistakes, be seen as sheer negligence and poor planning/logistics. These subsequent attempts have not learnt from the mistakes of others.

    Summiting is one goal but even more important is coming down in one piece. This takes calculation, preparation, risk assessment and timing. Luck plays no part in it. Either on the way up or on the way down. By all means prepare to scale great heights in your career but also ensure there are mechanisms in place to ensure you have a soft landing. Can a Life Coach help with this soft landing?

    Yes certainly but ensure your Life Coach is both there with you on the way up and on the way down. Figuratively speaking the down, with the help of a Life Coach can also be an up as in a changed career, a changed perspective or an understanding and acceptance of your physical and other limitations and not trying to push beyond them.

    Today is Sunday morning. Father's Day. I wonder how that came about. Being cynical and saying the merchandisers needed it to move the stock not sold during winter is probably not right. It is a sign post on the way to Xmas really. Just like the flowering of the wisteria (brilliant blue flowers on a climber). It flowers just once a year for two weeks and then nothing. Ugly. Nature has its reason I am sure and I am just as sure our scientists have worked it out.

    Writing the previous thought for the day got me to thinking about what my dreams were during that time (circa 1980-83). I wanted to attend a dance college full-time in Victoria and study to become a dance teacher. I also wanted my own troupe. For a while I also ran my own dance studio. I wanted to take that further.

    But I never did it. I think at the time, there were two powers at play a certain lack of confidence that I could get entry (via an audition) and secondly my father was very much against it. He preferred I stay in my current dead end public service job. At around 23 years of age, this was madness. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. My father, who at the time had his own heavy emotional problems, did not act as a Life Coach for me. He sort of did but underneath really put his own interests at heart and wanted me to stay to support him through his emotional crisis. What is the lesson learnt?

    At certain moments in your life, you need an impartial Life Coach who has only your interest at heart because they are engaged to solely do this and they have no emotional involvement with the client. This is the reason why I write elsewhere that an emotional involvement between client and Life Coach does not lead to great Life Coaching. Am I upset that my Dad was in the guise of a Life Coach and pursued his own ends. I guess he couldn't help himself. But I should never have put him in that position of power and influence over me. It is 10 years since his passing and I guess I still have a lot to learn from him and his behaviour.

    Chapter 2 Project Management The Background

    This is a review of standard accepted project management practices and their standing in the light of Life Coachign techniques. Project Management focuses on projects and Life Coaching on people. The discussion will centre on making Project Management focus, centre, concentrate on people and everything else falls into place.

    My Thought For Today - 3 September, 2003

    Back in the early eighties when I was working in a major organisation and wanting to see my way forward (where I could see no way forward in the organisation itself) I immediately found an affinity with personal computers such as they were back then (Apple 2e, IBM XT even AT perhaps) and didn't know it then but managed to get myself on a huge wave that has kept me going till the present even though the wave itself has come in to shore. What the experience taught me was that I had made an excellent choice in looking for my future in the IT industry and I did know at the time what my excellent choice was doing for me and I loved it. It gave me a wonderful life which I led riding the boom.

    I believe there were many people like me in the eighties who may have had an aptitude for IT and sought it as their savior and way out of a job that promised no advancement. These people I am sure must have enjoyed their time in the last 20 years just like I did. I worked in the IT industry at a time when the newspapers has 30-50 pages of IT jobs and it was booming. Absolutely exploding and anybody who wanted to break into the industry could, with a little effort, do so.

    Fast forward to 2003 and I don't find myself now back in the situation back in the early eighties when I saw no future in what I was doing. But what if you do. What is the natural arena for those who now in 2003 find themselves in an occupation or position where they don't want to be in. Is there a similar industry to IT that is booming and taking on people experienced and inexperienced by the truck loads and paying them good money.

    No probably never again not for a long time. The IT industry has taken two major body blows. It seems to have lost some credibility when the Y2K bug did not have as much effect as predicted and secondly savvy business managers no longer believe better, faster, smarter technology is in itself a direct driver for increased productivity and profit. Back in the eighties and nineties, it was felt that it was and I remember organisations paying close to $30k for a server that was no more than a 386 machine and implementing modem sharing software in the eighties that nobody used. That's enough about IT. This is not about IT.

    If you're in a similar position that I was and many other people were in the early eighties and there is no booming industry to go to, where do you actually go from here? Do you stay in a job that is boring and not expanding your horizon or utilising your vision. One of the key things to do firstly is a Skills and Tools Audit. This will give you an indication of where you're starting from. This should then lead into exploring various options that you may be suited for. Unfortunately, there is no booming industry that you can take a six month course and then enter as a professional but there is no reason not to believe that by exploring other opportunities you may discover a niche or place for yourself uniquely utilising your skills and vision. If the advice on this or any of my pages can help you see your way forward, then please go ahead and read it. But if you only have one hour to spare and you want the distilled experience of the last 30 years, as applied to your situation, in a short form, then please call me.

    My Thought For Today - 2 September, 2003

    If you're a tree, no matter how hard you work or how much effort you put in or what shape wings you tie to yourself, no matter how much you turn yourself into a wing, you're never ever going to fly. Period.

    Is effort without direction or aim better than no effort at all? The hope of course is that some way into the effort, some inspiration will strike, like lightning, that will tie it all together in a weltanschauung. I myself am guilty of working (sometimes having to work) with no inspiration to guide me. What is the point of doing that? Necessity, need or want. There is no inspiration required to assemble rivets or push them into a superstructure.

    What then is the point of inspiration, of doing something and being in the zone? I think we might as well ask what is the point of some uplifting experience or conversation or finding inspiration in examplary experiences of others of oneself even. I think we all love being in the zone. In fact, one of the main goals of Life Coaching is to get you in the zone to perform exceptionally well.

    If we all could do that by ourselves, then I think we all would choose to work inspired in preference to doing something because we had to do it and when we didn't want to do it or felt like doing it or felt empty inside doing it. But, under what circumstances, are we in the zone when doing something? If there was a secret to being in the zone, on fire, happening all the time even when doing mundane tasks I am sure we would have it and all be doing it. The thing is there isn't and we're not all acting as though we're inspired even a small portion of the time.

    Getting into the zone takes a number of factors working together. A goal or aim reasonably set and reasonably easy to achieve. A small first step. The main game must be something you really truly want and are prepared to make sacrifices to achieve. Something you enjoy or have come to like or something that is challenging for you (in a good way not a threatening way).

    Something that you are prepared to invest your heart and soul into all your resources at any one time. Something that helps you grow as a person and that grows with you. No diversion of your resources or other distractions (read no traction otherwise). Don't stop until you succeed. Is this guaranteed to bring you inspiration? No. So where does inspiration come from? No one knows but somewhere along that track, there may be a chemistry, involving all those factors working together, that takes over and puts you in the zone. Can a Life Coach help get you in the zone? Yes but in conjunction with you understanding all the necessary precursors.

    Can you get in the zone without all this? Yes if you're a genius.

    Check this link if you're into asking questions like where does inspiration/creativity come from?

    Everybody at some time in their lives will, sadly, have some catastrophic event in their lives, perceived immediately as a failure, that spots them dead in their tracks. It will be some life changing or even life threatening event that can, in its most powerfully destructive form, come in combinations that at first weaken one and then knock one out.

    Singly, they are tough to deal with but together they can create an irreversible destruction of the will to succeed or to try again (without professional help). These events are well known involuntary loss of a job, separation/divorce from one's partner/spouse, death of one's spouse/partner, serious/life threatening illness or accident involving one's partner or immediate family, serious financial difficulties involving loss of business, reputation, bankruptcy and possible loss of house/car/boat and serious curtailment of once's life style.

    Somehow the more you have at stake, the further the fall. Ah possessions but that is another discussion.

    Any two of these catastrophic events especially as they affect one adversely can affect one's current and future goals. For example, serious illness of a partner may reduce the income (in the absence of any insurance policy) coming into a house to pay off a mortgage and threaten the family home. That one consequence can curtail one's view of what is possible or indeed can so embitter someone that they never again, dare to dream the dream. They live but they are utterly dead inside.

    They can be like that for 20 years and then die. Can life coaching help in these circumstances? Life Coaching cannot help where they are underlying illness but once the illness is treated, there is some opportunity for a Life Coach to help the person understand what has gone on, what they could or could not have done as the time (vis a vis what they did do at the time which in some circumstances is very limited and they had to go with the flow) and what is a realistic goal, in the circumstances going forward.

    The key is to find that initial first way point and help them get on their feet slowly and gently again. Can they do it without a Life Coach? Yes, certainly but it might take longer to even think about trying again, they might have some near misses to start off with initially. A Life Coach will help should they stumble. In these circumstances, any further failure after a series of catastrophes can be very serious indeed for further goal seeking/setting and the effort required for getting them off the ground. The thing here is if they have more failure, they may give up altogether. So the safest way going forward is to ensure a professional Life Coach is with you to ensure you are at your very best and prepared for moving on with your life and setting and succeeding with new goals. Don't wait 10 years to do it.

    My Thought For Today - 31 August, 2003

    Today is the last day of Winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Tomorrow is the first day of Spring.

    It is wonderful when one has an idea and one puts the work into making it a reality it is a bit like walking the tightrope but with a net underneath you. That net is those people around you that support and love you. It may not be direct support but the fact that they are around helps in the voyage especially where the destination is not known and even the journey mid points are not known with certainty. What about those people who are absolutely alone in the world yet still achieve great things. In other words, is the support scheme around one required or even necessary for great work. I think in a way great work springs from an internal fount that is the sum total of previous experiences and learning, not necessarily a product of whatever is currently happening in your life.

    That is not to say we ditch our support systems when we have it in our head to climb Everest or conquer the deep sea depths or dive to Titanic. No, this is the base we all work from whether it is a current environment or a cumulative total of what we have previously experienced. What I mean is great achievement pushes on beyond this base support and reaches far higher than that is contemplated by staying in the norm, in your comfort zone. That extraordinary support for great work comes from inside and whether a Life Coach helps you tap into that or you do it yourself, that is what is required for inspiring, extraordinary work.

    My Thought For Today - 27 August, 2003

    There is a danger in excelling in a work environment. Whether you are truly excelling or simply have a reputation for excelling, which from the point of view of perception is about the same. What is this danger? Simply that power centers within your organisation will compete for your services and the strongest will win. Not necessarily the one where you'd like to contribute. How does this affect your future performance?

    Where you go or in a physical sense where you are, who you work with/for, how many PCs you have etc. is completely unimportant. What is key to excelling in the work environment is to be able to tap into whatever the most powerful vibe going in the organisation and person(s) acting as conduit for this.

    Not just tap in, but vigorously contribute, push the debate further, higher, better, simpler, more implementable, quicker wins and so on. What does it take to do this? This is not a Corporate Management 101 but after 25 years experience in a corporate setting, I think the key is intellectual bravery and strength.

    Fearlessly contribute, get knocked back, contribute again even stronger this time, get knocked back but not as hard as before, regroup and then contribute a decisive, flawless effort. Get some degree of acceptance (but more importantly) get some street cred that you are a tenacious, hard working, very very smart fighter. It is that reputation only that will see you go further.

    My Thought For Today - 24 August, 2003

    The Medium is the Message is a thought that has been with me since I was first introduced to it by someone who I worked with in 1977. I don't think, well I know, I didn't know what it meant at the time. I have assimilated what I thought it meant over the years but I now think I know what it means.

    It simply has the identical meaning as what I have written previously here about walking the talk and we must become the change we seek. It simply means when we are communicating, the truth will be communicated if we, as the communicators, the mediums for communicating bring a state of truthfulness, of genuineness, of belief in what we are communicating. What we are saying will only hit the mark when it is being fired from a true, genuine, believing open heart. Nothing less as a medium will suffice.

    For Life Coaches this is a big and quite simple ask. Be what you teach, what you preach, what you mean, what you're trying to change. Believe in it and live it. There is no point in preaching Life Coaching precepts and concepts without applying it and living in your personal life. This is the hardest lesson of a Life Coach to live.

    I love reading Machiavelli go head to head with Cicero. I think Machiavelli was extremely cynical about what was required to stay in power. Use love if you can but use power and force when you have to. Nil scruples whatsover. He was also the first writer to treat the Vatican as just another city state clambering, clinging, fighting for secular power. He is great when he says it is better for the populous to fear you, that way they will be too scared to move against you for fear of your swift and deadly retribution.

    But he warns if they hate you, then you're history. Hating means they don't fear you and also they hold you in contempt. There is nothing to stop the populace from moving against you. The previous brake (fear) is no longer there so they're free to make your life hell and they will. In fact, that they hold you in contempt will spur them to remove you swiftly.

    I think a key behavior and habit of all very good coaches is to always be learning yourself and being taught by others. In fact I will go so far as to say in a good Life Coach to client relationship, the client teaches the Life Coach almost as much as the Life Coach teaches the client.

    Most situations in life if you think about it are opportunities to learn or to teach. We each take different roles according to the circumstances.

    A professional coach must always be learning about his craft and the science of coaching such as the theoretical framework, relationship to other counselling sciences, learning from success and failures in sports coaching, reading research and field work studies, in other words the technical side of being a coach.

    This must be balanced by the art of being a coach. Understanding, assimilating and adopting the manner, tone, style and approach of successful coaches is key to your success at influencing people for positive change.

    I think you can learn the former but the latter is about the genuineness and truth of you and your personality and how that comes through.

    My Thought For Today - 15 August, 2003

    Firstly it's the end of the week and it's time for some serious salsa and this guy is in the zone not sure if this name is the best they could come up with for this page but seeing Blades' partner was Willie Colon well colonblades.html sort of makes sense I guess.

    What is the point of achieving, excelling, doing better than you expected of yourself or that anybody else expected of you. The point I want to make is if you are doing something for any other reason but personal satisfaction and the advance of your personal inner success story then it's a waste of time. Doing it for a promotion at work, recognition of some sort at work or at home or in a social setting or church or whatever your social milieu is, for money, for pride, for any reason but that you did it because it was there (apologies to George Mallory) and you could shine at it, then it is an absolute waste of time and even worse than that, it can lead you into a false journey. That false journey forces you to do things or say things to please someone else or to get something from them such as praise or recognition or reward.

    Praise is the enemy of achievement. It stifles risk taking, innovation, it puts an expectation on the part of the deliverer that forces him or her to take into account irrelevant considerations in achieving their goal, dream or aim. In short, it seduces them into accepting less than what they are capable of as being good enough because there is an expectation to bring home something even if it is not what your inner heart treasured. Never settle for this. Indeed go for less and your inbuilt regret engine will work overtime making your life, your very existence a misery.

    Aim for and achieve the best that you can ever be capable of. You deserve nothing less.

    Have a nice week-end from me in Sydney. The next thought of the day will be posted 8pm Sydney time Monday - 18 Aug.

    My Thought For Today - 14 August, 2003

    I am saddened by the use by major multi-nationals and huge corporations of indigenous insignia, myths, cultural signposts, images, symbols and identity.

    The purloining of the "goodness" that has been created over millenia of seminal, primitive, primal and earthly thoughts and belief systems is driven by greed and hence senseless.

    Yes these companies think no more of using these images to promote and enhance their base, prosaic products and services which have absolutely no connection to the underlying life and people forces.

    What can change this? Nothing as I can see as long there is money to be made from major companies' co-existence with a cultural identify.

    The law is useless. Reparations is useless as it doesn't address the real problem of cultural misappropriation and dislocation. Its use demeans and shows the highest level of disrespect for a people and its beliefs.

    It is nothing less than the debasing of an aboriginal culture for the worship of Mammon.

    Do we use the Pope's image to sell after shave? Soap powder? Beds? Cutlery?

    My message to these major companies hijacking those cultural icons is to find your own. Create your own. Don't tap into the nation's consciousness to sell your measly products and services.

    Create your own cultural identity, myth, religion, business lore or whatever it is and use that to sell your goods. Celebrate your own original successes and thoughts and images.

    My approbrium is reserved for those who stand in the way of third parties and proffer to sell these cultural icons (as if they owned them) to those major companies.

    It is a trade in foul goods and should be stopped.

    Chapter X - Life Coaching Excellence

    p>

    General Thoughts

    It might be in the style of a Montaigne or a La Rochefoucauld and he doesn't have the word "fou" in his surname for nothing.

    La Rochefoucauld was a cynical observer of Louis XIV's court, who mostly saw selfishness, hypocrisy, and weakness in general in human behavior.

    Montaigne who said of himself "I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself."

    Pascal also has some interesting thoughts about human nature, religion and human weakness.

    For the moment I am living the following aphorism "We must become the change we want to see" attributed to Gandhi. This has been used ad infinitum by the management consultants and translated to simply "Walk the Talk".

    George Mallory One must conquer, achieve, get to the top; one must know the end to be convinced that one can win the end-to know there's no dream that mustn't be dared.

    Reinhold Messner I did one activity at a time, with all my willpower, all my money and all my time. Complete commitment.

    This is a spot on my web that I am reserving to explore my french/creole background. Not sure at this stage what will go on here or even in what language it will be english or french/creole which makes more sense.

    Life Coaches should Walk the Talk

    I think Life Coaches especially as we seem to do the talk well should be seen to walk the talk. Hence a living embodiment of what they espouse and preach.

    Life Coaches should also have clear set goals (I guess developing the business itself is a main driver) but there should be other measurable aims, goals and achievements.

    A few people that I'm thinking about in terms of goal oriented performance include George Mallory & Andrew Irvine (1924 English Everest Expedition) and WL Gore and Associates, the people who make Goretex.

    A material which might have helped Mallory and Irvine who confronted the mighty mountain with iron will and bodies but little else especially in the way of clothing and other survival gear.

    Exceptional Life Coaches

    Most life situations present an opportunity to learn from even if the person in the thick of things is not actively coaching or mentoring. Actually I think that conscious driven coaching and mentoring is not as successful as those coaches and mentors who do so invisibly. These are the very best coaches, doing it without seeming to do it, the person receiving the coaching has no inkling of being coached.

    It is done by mere suggestion, a soupcon of direction.

    These people are very rare and it can't be learnt no matter what the textbooks tell you. You know it or you don't. You have it or you don't and the funny thing is when you come across one of these people, you don't know what a miracle you've been lucky enough to participate in. Now what qualities do these people have? The person who I'm thinking of who epitomised this was my father.

    Qualities of Exceptional Life Coaches

    He had a coterie of acolytes in the last few years of his life who recognised this in him and followed him. To me he was an enigma, a puzzle a multi layered, multi dimensional, multi directional genie. The qualities I think that bear evidence to this are the following >>>

    An innate hyper sensitivity, in fact an emotional rawness. This allowed my father to detect the most slight or trivial clue as to how a person was feeling, thinking and doing. He was a micro sensitive emotional seismograph is the best way I can put it. In fact he knew what they were thinking before they themselves knew. A remarkable skill but then a remarkable man indeed.

    A very good understanding of human nature having been gained in many early years of hard and difficulty living in abject poverty. But intelligent enough and with the will and self direction to rise above it. He took on board all those lessons learnt and never became embittered.

    An extremely tactful man. This lead you to trust him implicitly. He listened extremely well. A deep understanding, caring listening and when he spoke he was very to the point but with deep roots displaying the care and depth with which he listened and understood. He spoke with dazzling analysis and intelligence.

    Extremely well read, multi lingual and highly intelligent. He was able to synthesize all types of lessons in a coherent world view. I guess the ability to do this goes without saying. He was in most sense a guru. I am not talking about university degrees and college diplomas though he did have those in abundance.

    His knowledge and understanding crossed cultural boundaries and he was equally at home in european (french and english but also spanish), african, creole, chinese and indian cultures and writings and the innate sense of belonging to each that each person from that diaspora feels.

    He genuinely liked people and excelled at impressing them with his innate understanding of people. He enjoyed the skill he had and enjoyed exercising his prodigious intellectual ability.

    His relationship building skills (not that he probably saw it as such) were phenomenal. He made friends and he knew he was making friends but they didn't. For them in a sense it was just life. Life with an exceptional man.

    Even now, 10 years after his death, his acolytes ring up to talk about him and reminisce.

    He was always there for them, physically but most importantly he gave them of his intellectual capital and emotional fund. This was the key to the whole story. Giving of that inner emotional self that triggers the connection, the relationship and everything else that is worthwhile in life.

    He was for those reasons the very best life coach, life teacher, life mentor who I have ever come across.

    Pepe Romero. Another person paying homage to his father.

    Is Life Coach just a title?

    Did he see himself as a Life Coach per se? No I don't think so. Life Coach is a title but describes a relationship and on that basis he was a Life Coach par excellence. He had a philosophy of Life Coaching, he had a devoted coterie of dedicated followers, he befriended them and helped them to achive excellence in their careers and personal life.

    He was the first port of call for his followers when they had career, personal and family problems, when they sought an explanation of the world, when they desired a particular outcome, when they had new friends to introduce, in so many little ways that showed the part he played in their lives. A leadership role which he assumed on their behalf but didn't really need.

    This, therefore, is the standard which we as Life Coaches should aspire to but may never reach.

    Is Life Coaching Just a Conversation Then?

    What exactly is Life Coaching in the practice? I guess like most forms of human communication, it is a conversation or a series of conversations. But what distinguishes this conversation(s) from any other? Well I think it has the following unique characteristics >>>

    Designed to arrive at a quick mutual understanding initially.

    Designed to then deepen this understanding to a mutual respect, liking and friendship.

    Using this deeper understanding, begin to understand the drivers and levers that are the prime factors for this individual to achieve their maximum potential and peak performance.

    The key is then not to manipulate those levers to the individual's benefit but to allow them to do it themselves. Show then those keys to peak performance and get them to focus on the states of mind, behaviors, past history that will guide them to perform to the best of their ability.

    Is there any magic in doing this? My short answer is some but it is as mysterious as chemistry between any two people.

    A lot of it is working together and some of it is hard work to eliminate distractions to achieve the focus required.

    The Deep Mystery of Relationships

    Yet it works - to misquote Galileo "yet it turns"

    I have this understanding of a number of things that not everything is actually explainable by logic, brain chemistry, synapses, historical joins, nature or even nurture, it is a mystery.

    Pascal - "The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing: we know this in countless ways."

    Life Coaching relationships are relationships worked at and which come together after a period of time. But there is an element of connection that makes it all gel.

    I think in some respects the process of how a friendship develops, why it develops in the first place in this instance and not in others, is in some degree explainable but in others not and that is how it should be.

    When one put efforts in a friendship or relationship, then that should pay dividends but not always.

    This applies equally to personal, family, work and any other type of relationship.

    Can personal and relationship coaching help in this instance? Probably. This site offers the view that it can.

    Chapter 3 - Rules and Principles for Managing Out of Control Projects

    This chapter looks at the situation where perhaps the project initiation has not followed the quality and coaching principles espoused by this book or perhaps it has but has not been applied effectively for one reason or another. In any case, the project as we now come to discuss it out of control. What does out of control mean in project terms?

    It can mean any of the following (not all are required and there is no order for this) --->>>

  • There is a reason for the humanist angle I bring to Project Management schedule management and PM generally. Not only have I been a project manager managing major IT projects since 1990 (wonderful chaotic days) but I have also recently at least been going back over some of my projects and the lessons learnt from these. PM can refer to Project Management or Project Manager based on the context.

    My most valuable lesson is from a project that I was given to do about 2 years ago (I no longer work for that company). It had all the classic symptoms of the death march project that I have written elsewhere on this web site about. These were, to recap ->>>

  • You were given a date by which you had to finish your project. The date when your deliverables had to be ready. Being given a deliverable date forces your schedule to make that date. It is the same as giving you no discretion or flexibility on how you're to schedule the deliverable. A schedule with fixed date tasks leading to a punishing critical path, is next to useless, it is a rigid task list and emprisons those who are tasked to work (against) it. You can do no other. It is dangerous and can lead to a very unhealthy project and project team. It is a dangerous and holds you, the PM, hostage to making a probably unrealistic deliverable (in terms of quality and schedule).

  • Whoever negotiated this business agreed to the deliverable end date, setting your fate in stone. They also negotiated what they thought would be a competitive budget (from the point of view of the client) which left no fat or slack for human weakness, foibles, mistakes, accidents, rework, loss of sequencing (when things are done in the wrong order - very common in major projects involving ships and buildings), lack of training due to no training costs factored in, inexperience, people preferring to work in buddies (& cost of buddy not factored in - it should be as training), lack of form due to other issues, sickness of team members (who naturally get sick when they work on a sick insane project). Anybody working on this project is on a death trap which just sucks in more and more time from the sparse resources making them sicker and sicker. Working more hours, harder, smarter is not a solution here and will lead to early burnout of the project team. Good project managers treat their team as better than family. Their team is Number 1 in their lives and they do not want to do anything that will overwork or alienate them.

  • The problem with a fixed price budget is that the things that would normally decide and drive your end date (within the schedule) are fixed. All items which should be variables are no longer allowed to be that but are now fixed constraints (read brick walls and you are rapidly approaching one at 100 mph). These include PM time allocated to your project, project team resources and time, quality expectations of the deliverable and of project management as well (such as sane scheduling, a dimension of quality too) are fixed.

  • For this type of project, the critical path which in theory would be the shortest time thorough the schedule from beginning to end would have no meaning. It is the only path as everything in its way is fixed as it must be if you already have an outcome (schedule end date) in mind. It is no longer a schedule than can recalculate deliverable end date based on resources, budget, quality expectations, equipment delivery date but a brutal, punishing, killing task list which you could give a child to do as there is no thinking to do except if you gave it to a child to do you might be charged with manslaughter. This prescriptive type of project management must be killed off before it kills PMs.

  • What do you now have? You have a fixed deliverable end date but what is worse is that if the budget as allocated to you cannot make that end date, there is absolutely nothing you can do in PM terms to change it. You cannot increase any budget items (to bring the date in). As it stands if the project were to get underway, you would be careering out of control as soon as everybody on the team realised the schedule end date was impossible to be met with the budget as it stood.

  • Firstly, the people who negotiated the contract with the client DON'T CARE one fig. They only want to know why you're saying the schedule (fixed) cannot be met with the (meagre) resources (again fixed) they allocated to you (from the client and which the client paid for).

  • Are you saying they (the Account Executive, sales people really) estimated incorrectly? If you suck in resources from them, they only want to know why you can't manage with what you have been given, are you just a lousy PM then? No pain no gain they say. They don't care.

  • Your local line management DON'T CARE, they don't understand the nexus between impossible deadlines, poor project health, poor project people health and poor quality, rushed deliverables. They are reinforcing these bad work practices (actually these punishing work practices are against standing Occupational Health and Safety guidelines. Karoshi is illegal in some countries).

  • Your family DON'T CARE (stop obsessing with work they say). See the article on karoshi, people overworked and stressed cannot unwind from the deathly spiral.

  • Your partner is worried but really can not help you as the problem is posing serious dangers to your mental, psychological and physical health and well being.

  • If you're a contractor, your agency DON'T CARE. All the agency care about is the revenue you're bringing in, your mental health is a irrelevance.

  • Who can help? and who knows how to help? If your organisation is part of a punishing environment at whatever point in the chain and/or you are personally as a PM suffering from working in an environment which is punishing and killing you, then let me help you. I am both a Life Coach and a specialist in Project Management. I am a PM Practitioner and a PM theorist, especially in the areas of where Life Coaching intersects Project Management such as using sane project management techniques and coaching of your project team resources (and more importantly not burning them out by exposing them to impossible schedules combined with restricted/limited budgets - the deadly combination).

    This thought of the day is humbly dedicated to the team members on the project quoted above who tried to make a difference in that crazy, mad environment. You would have thought none would have tried or much less succeeded. A number tried and one succeeded spectacularly. Unbelievable achievement. Thank you in particular to Patrick (may you fish for as long as you live) and Mark (my healer).

    CURRENT WORKING AREA

    How to manage these out of control projects?

    We are assuming here you are in the middle of something that is too far gone to go back and there is no way for it to go but forward, no matter how painful it is or how difficult it is nor how many occupational health and safety by-laws we breach. Prior to this discussion you would have thrown massive resources at the problem to fix it. But what if the resources aren't available or what if resources by themselves cannot immediately solve your problem because say everybody is waiting for something else to happen and only 50 people in the world can do this and you have 49 of these on the project team. More of the right type of the resources if available may possibly help. You cannot go back but going forward is very painful all round for everybody. You taking time out as the Project Manager is impossible because you are impossibly busy. What to do?

    You must distance yourself from this death spiral otherwise you are going to crash and it's going to be and get very ugly. In some cases, if you retreat you leave the project behind and looking back in hindsight you'd have to say you were glad you escaped with your life if not your sanity. This book is about managing projects using sane project management techniques so the discussion will mostly concentrate on making sure you and the project are tightly coupled but in a sane way. But if it has got so far that you are seriously ill from the project then seek competent specialist medical advice. We do not advocate staying with a death march project if you are seriously ill in the hope that you will turn it around. We are saying that with some sensible approaches and provided you have not reached the position where you are too ill to continue, there is a possibility that you and your death spiral project may get back on track. If you are seriously ill, then I do not suggest you proceed with these steps as you are probably best seeking medical advice before proceeding.

  • The Context of the following discussion.

  • Traditional - The IT Department is Inhouse

    In the traditional scenario, the IT Department is just another business unit in the organisation and services only the other business units with their IT needs. New business for the PMs comes from project initiated within the IT department with or without prompting and support from other departments. Other partments are usually involved as the hold a chunk of the the IT budget applicable to their department and to be spent internally with the internal IT department on IT. Other projects will come directly from the business who because of some business, governmental, marketing, sales, re-organisation impetus, will require a new project to manage, implement and execute the change. I have worked both in a traditional IT environment where all IT is managed by the IT Department, who also supply the PMs. They will interface usually with the business (within the same organisation) to help get project off the ground. There will be designated people in the IT department who's job is to drum up business but there will also business areas who without prompting from the IT area will come up with new business and new projects. So in this case, there is only one organisation and the IT Department will only have the one client, the business units of the organisation. For the equivalent of the Account Executive in an outsourced environment (see below), usually a General Manager (in either the Systems Development or Infrastructure/Operations stream) will be responsible for creating, accepting and working together with the business to develop new products, services and equipment requiring project and a dedicated PM.

  • Non Traditional - The IT Department is Outsourced

    In this scenario, the IT department is now run by another company, separate from the main company (but in some cases there may be some notional holdings in the Outsourcer by the parent company). In most cases, there is no legal entity relationship between the Outsourcer and the company it services save for the contract of service between them. In this environment, very tightly controlled contractually with very tight margins for services and products, the Account Executive is king. It is he who is the interface between the business and his company's lines of business. The Account Executive working for the outsourcer controls the profitability and profit margins of the account. The pressure that these people work under is not to be underestimated but that doesnot excuse them from getting up projects which may appear profitable to the business and the Account have targets, constraints and cost which are impossible to do in the execution. The pressure is on the Account Executive not hold the bottom line at a profitable line, which the contract is designed to do but to increase margins and billings. Only by virtue of new projects and new initiatives, can he do so. But his internal charges (which the lines of business charge him for providing services which he offsets by the amount of money he receives from the client thus creating his own quasi balance sheet) such a high price that he finds he cannot make viable propositions. Or he does. But only by underestimating the amount of internal resources required to implement his project. He does this in the hope that when the lines of business try to charge him for the extra effort (which he knew would be required anyway all along so he is on a poor moral ground here anyway) he will push back. In the sense that he will argue they accepted his estimation if they ever did or they are in the position that they quoted, when there time came, less that what they required. The Account Executive will hang the lines of business by their own poor estimates, reflective of his own murderous estimations.

  • Traditional/Non Traditional - in a Non IT Environment

    An example is a ship builder who employs many in his workforce, including the Project Manager, but there are a large number of suppliers (imagine all the things a ship would need and not one company can ever provide it all) so the main ship builder acts as the project integrator for the client (the ultimate ship owner) but employs in an outsourced fashion lots and lots of third party suppliers. When I refer to this situation to illustrate a point, I will refer to it in mode detail. In this case, the integrator has both an inhouse work force plus a large number of external suppliers who provide both goods and service and labour to the integrator.

    Use the Sane Project Management (SPM) toolset and utilities and methods.

  • Is the proposition that the project is out of control and in a death spiral and trapping everybody in it and about to crash a reality and you have to ask whose reality or a perception and then you have to ask whose perception? This is not a philosophy tract to determine what is the truth and how is it sought nor is it a pure historical exercise about how we interpret the past and determine fact. Rather this is an existing, very recent situation that arisen in which you have skin in the game. Your reputation, your health, your job and maybe even you life is at risk and you need to nail down exactly if the problem is real or imagined by others outside the project.

  • Investigate and determine the facts with the project, with some help if you can find it or with a Life Coach if engaged.

  • Root Cause Analysis. Determine from the information you have at hand where the problem is exactly?

  • Take or make time to discuss the project with your program manager and/or team manager. In truth, they should never have let the project spiral out of control or let you get unhealthy due to the project. They have a legal occupational health and safety responsibility to ensure they do not provide a punishing, unsafe work environment. Working too many long hours is considered an unsafe work environment and is illegal in some countries.

  • Develop a complexity matrix. Multiply the number of suppliers X number of countries X number of time zones X Number of currencies and the large the number the more complex the project.

    Turning around insane projects or project being managed by insane project management techniques.

  • Firstly, how do you know you're project managing an out of control project and need help? There is firstly reality and there is perception. This book is entitled Sane Project Management so the very first thing that should alert you to a problem is your instincts, your gut feel. If that says, I am worried or I am anxious or I am stressed or all three and you can trace that feeling to the project you are currently working on then it is a safe assumption to make that part of the cause of your disquiet has to do with your current project. I am not talking about pathological illness and other serious illnesses that require specialist treatment. Once, you have the impression (or stronger) that your current project is making you ill, then the next port of call must be what is it about this project that is causing you to feel this way. Is it a personality clahs with someone on your project team? or a disagreement with your immediate supervisor/manager, is it some disagreement with your client? Is it the fact that you have discovered something about this project that you're unwilling, unhappy sharing with the client/your supervisor/your project team?

    Or have you already made contact with your supervisor and have got absolutely nowhere? and/or have you discussed this with the client and which has also got you nowhere?

    Somewhere along this continuum there is a problem perceived by you --->>> Let me set the scene where trouble could be brewing --->>>

  • Project Inception/Approval Process (where your budget/schedule/scope may be set/fixed in concrete) ---

  • Project Approval (by business (this probably will make us money) and Account Executive (this is good business for us) ---

  • Approval to commence a quoting period only by project team (quote then wait go ahead and may require another project raised) or approval to commence project proper (quote then go ahead)

  • Project Initiation (your entry point) ---

  • Project Acceptance/Your terms of engagement/Total quote for project ---

  • Agreeing then freezing project plan (scope) ---

  • Providing schedule to client ---

  • Baselining (freezing) schedule ---

  • Commencing work on first deliverables ---

  • Delivery of first deliverable ---

  • Budget reforcasting/lessons learnt from doing first deliverable ---

  • Working on second deliverable ---

  • Delivery of second deliverable ---

  • Working on third deliverable ---

  • Delivery of third deliverable ---

  • Working on fourth deliverable ---

  • Delivery of fourth deliverable ---

  • Working on fifth/sixth/seventh etc deliverable ---

  • Delivery of fifth/sixth/seventh etc deliverable ---

  • Working on final deliverable ---

  • Delivery of final deliverable ---

  • Commencing project closure ---

  • Continuing project closure ---

  • Finishing project closure ---

  • End of your involvement ---

  • Project Inception/Approval Process (where your budget/schedule/scope may be set/fixed in concrete) ---

    Background

    Before you come on board, a lot of work may have been done to get this project off the ground, some of this work may have been accurate at the time but a lot of it is based on conjecture, guesswork and supposition. Why? Because at this stage of the project only the sales people (in an outsourced environment) and/or the business (in a non outsourced environment) are involved. They do not yet know (no one knows accurately yet) what the project will actually cost and what the project will return in benefits (they may never know the latter accurately). The sums of money involved is estimating is negligible and is most probably absorbed by the business and probably also by the outsourcer.

    Typically, you will become involved once the business has done some work in getting the project off the ground and agreed some funding to at least do enough work to determine whether this is feasible or not. This work done by the business will be amortized and will not form part of the budget for the project going forward. It is just a cost of doing business for them. If it is an outsourced environment, then the people interfacing with the business who do this work (or help the business with it), then absorb this cost as well. It is their cost of doing business. Does the outsourcer generally recoup that cost along the way? Probably this cost is built in to the charges for project management, in the markup for goods & equipment and other services generally. If the client requires X of something, then the outsourcer will charge them a retail price plus markup and generally buy the goods at a wholesale price. The difference is their margin. In actual fact, the outsourcer only makes their money once the services or goods provided come onstream and they can charge the client a monthly cost of number of devices x 250,000 or whatever number of those their is in the company. It doesn't seek to make as much money from one-off projects as it could as it figures it will make it in the long run during the life (long hopefully) of the service/product/goods. It is this small amount of work upfront that is key to whether the project is one which will cause you problems or one which will be relatively trouble free. There is no such project that is totally trouble free. Because this work is usually unfunded and carried by the jack of all trades either someone in the business or the account executive who both think they are project managers. They are not but for the sake of this exercise they will put themselves in the shoes of the project manager and make calculations about project costs v project benefits. Only if they have this in mind, can going on at all makes sense. This business case work will be make or break for the project. My view is that project management input is essential to this project. In some organisation PMs are involved but in others only the sales people and/or business are involved. Because it is unfunded, only the marginally experienced or skilled are doing this work. If the business case is to to build X requires Y dollars and will return Z dollars over 3 years then if down stream in the project proper, the estimating coems up with Y + 500,000 dollars then it makes the rest of the business case look pretty sick. The principle is that only a project manager can give you an accurate high level figure for whether the project should go on or not. But they are not usually involved. The project manager is only involved once the project is given the go ahead and he is told as part of his project to come up upfront with the total cost of the project or sometimes he is told to estimate how many days he will need to come up with the upfront cost of the project. As a PM, you may be involved in this conceptual phase but more typically you will be handed the project once a small amount of work has been done that proves (take with a grain of salt) the benefits of the project. During the period, when you're not involved the business (and the Accoutn Executive might help or even initiate this project) might do a cost/benefit analysis, work out the internal rate of return (IRR), work out net present value (NPV), work out return on investment (ROI) and any other measure thought effectual in proving to the business that this is a worthwhile project. In order to make this project work, they may have had to adjust the numbers, especially the budget to make these thresholds. You will also find, if we're looking for symptoms of sick projects, then at this stage during the concept phase, additional constraints may have been put in place to make those thresholds such as a particular end date, a particular type of solution (watch out these salesmen are not only project managers but they run the full gamut of part-time architects, designers, engineers, builders, implementors the lot so make sure when the project comes down from one of them, you don't also inherit a fixed constraint which is there to make the numbers work. A fixed constraint at the conceptual phase can become a noose around your neck at any stage down the line as it reduces your flexibility to react. It reduces any opportunity to recalculate the deliverable end date or recalculate costs based on price changes. In a sense it is sort of understandable that the person making the sale acts likes like a mini everything to be able to calculate total project costs and also needs to act as a mini business tycoon to work out all the possible monetary and intangible benefits. But make sure, when you get the project from them they allow you to use your skill and discretion is costing the project fully. Any miscalculation at this stage (and it is understandable if there is a major error made) will magnify itself a thousand times as it comes down the project chain.

    Your problems in the project may have been created within this phase (even though it only manifests in its terrifying mode once the project is underway) if any of the following is true ---

  • There was little or no involvement of a PM (any PM) in the phase. Account Executives who think they are pseudo project managers and technical architects all in one does not count and is actually worse and embeds incorrect assumptions, either inadvertently or what is infinitely worse bid knowing the resources will be insufficient to complete the project as promised, to surface down the track when a real PM is in charge. Account Executives know the margins, profitability profile and the various levers to push to increase profitability. They do not know project management, they don't need to. They shouldn't presume to. All estimates for PM time, for resources, for equipment/services, suppliers is to come from a practicing PM in that environment. Someone who may have had to work 24 hours straight in the past in order to get a product or service or equipment or vehicle out of the door and into service. They are best at estimating how long a particular thing may take. Don't get me wrong I have met an Account Executive who was a genius and almost instinctively know how to do both. But he was a freak and most Account Executives should stick to their knitting and butt out of PM. Sure making the Account or the business pay reasonable prices, still have a decent margin and make a profit (as most of the guys run a profit centre) is tough, very tough. But that is no excuse for landing the PM with a hot potato from the word go. If from an accounting viewpoint the business works but from the PM viewpoint (hence why you need an independent PM here to give his view) it doesn't then walk away from it or as the Account Executives do destroy the PM, the lines of business making it work. They (the Account Executives) will be seen as heroes and the workers who made it happen just the unfortunate fallen on the battle field but plenty more of where that came from.

  • There was little or no involvement of the PM who is taking over this project from the Account Executives and/or the business directly and/or IT (if it is an IT type project) in the phase. The problem here is the ones who made the promises to the client do the talking but even though they may be held accountable, they themselves do not have to make the project work. It is the PM who has to walk the talk of the Account Executives and others who did all they could at the time to get the business. This then causes a terrible bind for the PM, he has to make the project work and he has the Account Executive hounding him to make it work but he doesn't necessarily have all the resources he requires to make the project work the way it was envisaged. For way, read cost promises, schedule promises, quality promises, relationship promises. All these promises made at the time the business was won and in the enphoria of the win is forgotten comes home to roost in the lap of the poor PM.

  • The was little or no involvement of the lines of business (in outsourcing terms) or of the IT department (in not and outsourced environment and an IT project) or whatever industry they may be in, whatever division actually does the work (if building a ship, then the ship builders, carpenters, engineers, machanics, technicians). In all PM bids for work, the Accoutn Executive or internal business person must involve the doers, the ones who will expend the sweat doing the work. In some cases, the management of these people and groups may be involved in the bid for the work if it is a large enough chunk of work but that is not enough. The person making the bid must not only involve the management of the workers (this sometimes happens) but must also involve the workers and even their unions if it is such a massive piece of work that major job restructuring or changing work practices will be required. New infrastructure may be required to handle the extra effort.

  • There was little or no involvement of the project group, to help in estimating, in this phase.

  • There was no involvement by the business and/or the Account Executive of the project group to ensure this project was properly resourced upon approval to proceed past this phase.

  • In order for the business to approve the project, a deadline date was agreed to. That is deliverable end dates have been set by the Account Executive in agreement with the business or in a non-outsourced environment then IT had promised the business they could/would deliver by such and such a date. This date is passed on and inherited by the project manager. The problem here is that this inherited date becomes a fixed milestone and instead of the project deliverables deciding if this milestones can be met, it is impossibly held hostage by that fixed date and cannot do its rightful work. This is because any date that the schedule comes up with that isn't the fixed milestone date is totally unacceptable to the Account Team or the IT Department. But the problem for you as the PM is that there is absolutely nothing you can do as far as the schedule is concerned to fix it. Your schedule in truth has now become a fixed task list. All tasks and dates are totally constrained to meet a must finish on date agreed for you by the Account Team or the IT Department.

  • In order to win the business the Account Team promised the client to deliver the project by a certain sum, representing the total cost of the project to the business. In a non-outsourced environment for Account Team read IT department and for client, read the business. This total cost of project is inherited by the project manager. A project that is hand on containing a fixed cost does not actually allow the PM to go to his suppliers (internal and/or external), lines of business to get an accurate quote. THis is because whatever quote he gets makes not one iota of difference as he must get the project under a certain sum. How does he still make the budget and deliver the project? It is well nigh impossible for him to do so but he tries therein lies the key to his problems. In order the meet the budget, he reduces some things which he convinces himself he overestimated or only had there for contingency. Little appreciating that they are there as a safety net (in truth to save his life as the appropriate time).

  • In the project team environment, there is more emphasis on doing the work in the shortest possible time rather than an emphasis on doing the work in a quality way. Working with an eye on the bottom line, accelerating when one is tired, working long hours or at 2am in the morning tends to be very inefficient but most importantly it burns out the project team.

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