Collaborate in '08

Continuing on January's theme of 2008 New Year's resolutions, this week I will be looking at the next resolution on my list which is "Collaborate in '08". The idea of working together, sharing ideas, exploring possibilities and discovering solutions that break the mold.

In my experience as a Project Manager, I have been involved in a lot of brainstorming or affinity sessions and have accumulated a couple of tips and tricks which can make these sessions productive and successful.

Prepare

"By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail." ~ Benjamin Franklin

The key difference between a successful brainstorming session and an unsuccessful one is preparation. The planning for a session starts with bringing together the right combination of people. What I like to do when running a session is to invite at least one representative from each cycle of a project, from sales to design to networking, having a mixture of people from different fields, brings with it a mixture of ideas, perspectives, and ways of thinking. The next step in successful planning, is to set an agenda for your meeting, which accomplishes two things, it helps provide structure to your meeting as well as allow everyone to come prepared and ready to share.

Share

"Our best thoughts come from others." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, a successful brainstorming session is a result of bringing various and uniquely different people together in one room, the difficulty with this however, is making sure that all of those uniquely different voices, get heard. Specifically, this idea of overshadowing, is often seen when the people in the room have different ranks, for example a senior developer and a junior developer, or a graphic designer and a creative director. And so, in order to avoid the domination of voices or ideas, a nice approach is to have everyone write down their ideas on post-it notes (this can either be done prior to the meeting or during the first couple of minutes of the meeting), which allows everyone to freely express themselves without worry of judgment.

Organize

"Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up." ~ A.A. Milne

Now that everyone has written down their individual ideas, the next step is to start organizing and prioritizing. A nice approach to this process of organizing is to have each person present their ideas in front of the entire team and then start placing the ideas into groups. The benefit of using post-it notes for this process, is that as the various members of the session go through their ideas, you can literally pickup and reorganize the ideas into different groups. Once everyone has presented, you will begin to see common themes evolve, with the various ideas acting as tactics to accomplish a larger goal.

The biggest challenge that I faced transitioning from the educational world to the professional one, was the need to rewire myself from being a one woman show to working together as a team. But what I've found over the years, is that it is only through true collaboration and teamwork, that we can reach our utmost potential.

Appreciate in '08

Last week's entry was about starting fresh in 2008, making plans and setting goals. When we got back to work this year, one of my coworkers coined the term "Great in '08", which quickly became our company New Year's resolution. A term to motivate us to move forward bigger and better than last year. As the days went on, we all decided to come up with our own resolutions, which has given me an idea for my January entries. Each week, I will address a new resolution, starting with Appreciate in '08, my own resolution, and moving on from there...

"The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated." ~ William James

I wanted to start the January entries with appreciation as I truly feel that it is a core component of any great success. It is appreciation that can change an okay job into a great career. It's what motivates people to continue going strong, to internalize what they do, and it is what helps them strive for perfection. Keep in mind, that the lack of appreciation can leave people feeling replaceable and worthless, like trained monkeys hired to do a given task and that's it. A feeling that no one should have, and a feeling that I'm sure none of us want to be responsible for giving.

So how do we show appreciation?

In grade school, we had charts with gold stars, at summer camp, there were best camper awards, in sports we have MVPs, so what can we do for business? Lot's of companies have employee of the month programs, where you get a picture put up on a "Wall of Fame" for everyone to admire, or they offer some type of monetary compensation or perk. So is it simply a matter of stickers, charts, and awards? Is that what appreciation is all about? Is that what it comes down to?

While I would never say no to a little bit of extra money, I think appreciation is a lot deeper than that. Appreciation can be as simple as a smile, a pat on the back, an inquiry of your opinion, a vocalization of a job well done. It is that little act of acknowledgment, that what you've just accomplished is something great, that we couldn't have done it without you. Appreciation is a gift, a feeling that you give someone, and when done correctly, it's value can far surpass any award, rather, true appreciation is priceless.

So what's stopping us? If the act of appreciation can be so simple, why does it not occur more often?

I think the biggest stumbling block on the road to appreciation is the lack of education. The lack of understanding of what the people around us do, the role they play, the piece of the puzzle that they fill. Too many of us believe in the Staples(R) Easy Button, where things just happen, seemingly on their own, without any outside involvement. In our ever expanding and rapidly moving lives, we've begun to lose concern for the "how" and tend to be more focused on the end product. I think that this is a particular reality in the world of technology, where there simply isn't enough of an understanding on how things work, or the various pieces that need to come together to deliver a truly great result.

So how do we educate?

Like many of my other blog entries, it all comes down to communication. Talking to your clients, your coworkers, your managers, letting people know what you do and what's involved. As a Project Manager, I often find myself explaining what project management is all about, what I do and why my role is required as part of a project life cycle. What I've discovered, is that when everything goes smoothly the roles that people play are more and more hidden. It's only when things start to fall apart that we begin to look at all of the people involved, so that we can pinpoint where things went wrong. This is a very bad mindset to fall into and it is appreciation that can pull us out.

So we've learnt the importance of appreciation, we've seen how easy it can be accomplished, and we've learnt about the stumbling blocks that tend to interfere. So remember keep your eyes open, look around, there is always someone you can appreciate, you just need to be open to it and know how.

"There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread." ~ Mother Teresa

New Year, New Name!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

As is tradition, with each new year comes our New Year resolutions, our desire to start anew. Looking at 2007 and now 2008, my New Year's resolution is to neither fear nor apologize for who I am, to truly represent myself in all aspects of my life, including my blog.

When I first started my "Tech Talk" blog, my goal was to share interesting information about new advances in technology as they relate to the world of Project Management, but as I read through my entries of 2007, I've come to recognize that what they truly are, is a sharing of the discoveries or hurdles that I encountered in my every day life as a Project Manager.

And so with the New Year, comes a new blog, "Today's Project Manager", is a look at the everyday obstacles and learnings of today's Project Manager.

As for my professional New Year's resolution..."Appreciate in 2008"!