November 11th, 2009 by steph
When I set up Magic Milestones I never imagined for one moment that our team would consist entirely of Women.
There are 8 of us at the moment and we are all female.
Don’t get me wrong we ARE DIVERSE! Just not when it comes to the m/f split.
However, there are some major benefits for our clients in this state of affairs, which don’t go unnoticed…
1. In a very male dominated IT environment it helps to have a few females sprinkled about the place in order to keep the sport talk to a minimum if nothing else.
2. Geek women can talk tech whilst also being able to engage in “fluffy” conversational topics including (but not limited to) fashion, interior decor, cats, snowboarding? Etc…
3. Despite the bad press that female dominated work-forces get, women can actually work together pretty damn well when they put their mind to it!
However, it is potentially getting silly now… so chaps please feel free to send your CVs to enquiries@magicmilestones.biz and we promise to break the mold for the right person.
Come on… how scary can working alongside 8 female project managers possibly be?
Posted in Team | 1 Comment »
October 16th, 2009 by cindyedmonds
Someone tipped me off last year to a really useful technique. It may be one of those things that the rest of the world was aware of and I have been under a rock and missed it but in case there are some fellow rock-dwellers reading this blog I’m going to share the epiphany here. I’ve been working on a new business proposition over the past couple of weeks where it has been incredibly useful to apply this technique: Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats.
The premise is that we all have a natural or preferred thinking style. For example, my thinking style is quite critical and ‘nit-picking’ whereas one of my colleagues is more optimistic and grandiose. When considering new business investments we need to apply both styles of thinking (and more) to the proposition to ensure we cover all bases. I’m sure everyone has worked with someone who you dread having a meeting with because they’re so negative or obstructive? I’m not saying I work with anyone like that right now but I have in the past and as a Project Manager it is imperative that I get the outcomes that I need from meetings and the Six Thinking Hats is a great enabler for this. (I have copied the following definitions from wikipedia)
- Neutrality (White) - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
- Feeling (Red) - instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)
- Negative judgement (Black) - logic applied to identifying flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch
- Positive Judgement (Yellow) - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony
- Creative thinking (Green) - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes
- Process control (Blue) - thinking about thinking
Six Hats Thinking means that in meetings, for example, the team considers the issues while imaginatively or figuratively wearing each of the Six Hats in turn. Some people stay quiet during Green Hat as they can’t think that way and then jump in with enthusiasm during Black Hat. Genius!
Which Hat are you?
Tags: Meetings, Six Thinking Hats
Posted in Project Management, Strategy, Team, Tips, Uncategorized, leadership | 2 Comments »
October 6th, 2009 by cindyedmonds
There is an exciting shift in the Project Management world from focussing on teams to moving our attention to the Enterprise. I am very excited about this because over time as a Project Manager you realise that you can arm yourself with skills, knowledge, certification and techniques and you can lead your teams and equip them with knowledge and freedom to work in a focussed and directed way and still hit obstacles that invariably lead back to the organisation. Both Prince2 and Agile practitioners are starting to think about how to address the organisational issues and how to scale methodologies to the enterprise.
Last week at Valtech’s Agile Edge conference Al Goerner gave a terrific key note session on Adapting Agile to the Enterprise. In explaining the maturing of Agile practice he outlined the two generations of Agile:
1st Generation - Agile for the team
- Emphasising the Human Factors in development
- Emphasising Empowerment-to-a-goal
- A Gaggle of Gurus
- Naive Agile and Faux Agile
2nd Generation - Agile for the Enterprise
- Emphasising Risk Management
- Emphasising Backlog Management
- Emphasising Visibility and Accountability
- Emphasising the Whole Solution Value Stream
The 2nd Generation of Agile practices really resonates with me and I’m sure resonates with any Project Manager who has worked in large organisations. How many of us have wrangled with the 1st Generation ‘Gaggle of Gurus’? 
I certainly have!
Managing risk and providing visibility and accountability is so important in the enterprise and I’m completely inspired by Al Goerner’s presentation on exactly these issues. His most important point was that Agile doesn’t mean not focussing on these things and it doesn’t mean not producing documentation and certain other claims made by the 1st Generation-ers. The key thing is to only do things that have a point, that will be read, and not just as a formality or because they’re ‘required’.
Beam me up Scotty!
Tags: 1st Generation, 2nd Generation, Agile, Enterprise, Risk Management
Posted in Agile, Events, Project Management, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
September 30th, 2009 by admin
Agile practitioners are thinking about Agile in the Enterprise and Prince2 practitioners are doing the same. On September 30th I attended Project Challenge and heard Donnie MacNicol from Team Animation delivering a fantastic presentation on work he has done in collaboration with Andy Murray called ‘Beyond Prince2′. They have defined components for project success, which are:
Perspectives
- Individual
- Project Team
- Organisation
Competencies
- Technical
- Behavioural
- Contextual
They assessed Prince2 in each of these components. For example, from the individal perspective, how does Prince2 address Technical competency? How does it address Behavioural competency? Contextual? etc.
What they found was that Prince2 addresses the Technical competencies for the Individual and the Team very well. Ie., we all focus on ‘doing projects right’. The areas that are not addressed very well by Prince2 are the Behavioral Competence in the Organisation, and Contextual Competence in the Organisation. To elaborate, MacNicol and Murray identify the symptoms where the there are ‘issues’ in Contextual Competence in the Organisation.
- Sector focus is incorrect
- No higher level support
- Fighting against the organisation to deliver the project
Sound familiar? They also suggest some solutions which sound pretty sound. Let me know if you want me to share them! (A bit of a test to see if anyone is out there…:-))
So, just as Agile practitioners are considering how to scale from the Team and Individual to the Enterprise, so are the Prince2 practitioners. As someone who uses both methodologies I find this very exciting as we are all now on the cusp of Second Generation of Project Management which is still a new profession, relatively speaking.
They also included a thought-provoking quote and I’ll reproduce it here for you to consider:
‘For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong’ H. L Mencken
Tags: Agile, News, Project Management
Posted in Awards | 1 Comment »
September 30th, 2009 by admin
Someone tipped me off last year to a really useful technique. It may be one of those things that the rest of the world was aware of and I have been under a rock and missed it but in case there are some fellow rock-dwellers reading this blog I’m going to share the epiphany here. I’ve been working on a new business proposition over the past couple of weeks where it has been incredibly useful to apply this technique: Edward De Bono’s Six Thinking Hats.
The premise is that we all have a natural or preferred thinking style. For example, my thinking style is quite critical and ‘nit-picking’ whereas one of my colleagues is more optimistic and grandiose. When considering new business investments we need to apply both styles of thinking (and more) to the proposition to ensure we cover all bases. I’m sure everyone has worked with someone who you dread having a meeting with because they’re so negative or obstructive? I’m not saying I work with anyone like that right now but I have in the past and as a Project Manager it is imperative that I get the outcomes that I need from meetings and the Six Thinking Hats is a great enabler for this. (I have copied the following definitions from wikipedia)
- Neutrality (White) - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
- Feeling (Red) - instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling (but not any justification)
- Negative judgement (Black) - logic applied to identifying flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch
- Positive Judgement (Yellow) - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony
- Creative thinking (Green) - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes
- Process control (Blue) - thinking about thinking
Six Hats Thinking means that in meetings, for example, the team considers the issues while imaginatively or figuratively wearing each of the Six Hats in turn. Some people stay quiet during Green Hat as they can’t think that way and then jump in with enthusiasm during Black Hat. Genius!
Which Hat are you?
Tags: Agile, Entrepreneur, News, Team, Work /Life Balance
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
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