I'm excited to announce that Roy Osherove's interview with me is now posted on IT Conversations. Here's the link to the interview. Roy interviewed me about the hiring book, and of course we segued into project management and management issues. Enjoy!
Great IT Conversations. I’ve been a Project Manager for 8 years working on large global IT Infrastructure projects and thought your comments were bang-on. I’m just starting our global Server Consolidation project, which is made up of 17 sub-projects. It was nice to hear someone else talk about the need for Release Criteria, also critical as we have both the internal staff and the consulting company working hand-in-hand.
Your examples about not relying on your Team Leads to get the project schedule communicated was that exact thing that happened to me during our Windows 2000 rollout. And did the rumour mill swirl.
I found your honesty about dealing with people and your worst mistake you made example was enlightening. I know I came very close to saying the same thing during another project a few years back.
Again thanks for the great content and I will now be reading your blog with great interest.
Steve
Enjoyed IT Conversations interview very much also – have done IT PM for 20+ years and enjoyed hearing the many insights based on your years of experience.
I’d like to comment on the issue of multiple jobs / interruptions. Interruptions are bad. On the other hand, interruptions are unavoidable. They come from many sources, not just misguided management. Phone calls, illness, vacations, end of the day, weekends, etc. all serve to interrupt. There is even some evidence to suggest that when we are stuck on a problem, an interruption can be a good thing, an opportunity for the brain to work on the problem in background mode.
So I am wondering – instead of trying to prevent interruptions, should we instead try to understand how to absorb interruptions – to effectively structure our work into small, manageable segments, each with a clearly defined starting point, process, and end result. Any interruption should then at most only affect that small segment. This would force us into a disciplined workstyle that would require frequent, regular downloads of head-knowledge to readable format.
Anyway, thanks again for making your interview public.