Clarity when projecting….

10 Nov 2011

I have just read an article by Mike Gerholdt who authors a blog called ‘Button Click Admin’ which is in itself a good balanced read.

I particularly like Mike’s strap line “for those of us stuck between the Uber Coders & User who cant log in”. I guess that gives the essence of what Mike does and his blog is a valuable insight (ButtonClickAdmin.com).

The article he posted which caught my eye was about Project Management skills and how you could learn a lot from very popular US Chef Robert Irvine (Restaurant Impossible).

His assertion, which I fully agree with, was that there are some key attributes of successful people and regardless of which walk of life they have accomplished great things, the mechanisms that they use are quite often transferable.

Eyes Wide Open

Keeping your eyes wide open both literally and metaphorically is a good stance to take with any project. Equally I would add is the need to keep your EARS wide open also. The key here is to ditch your preconceptions and work with what you can actually see.

Clear Goals

I guess we all know this to be true, set clear goals and make your expectations and objectives know. This includes being very clear of the touch points and how we will gauge progress and success.

High Expectations

This is something that is very close to my heart, expect the very best from the people you work with, this is both respectful and allows your colleagues to shine. It is something we try and instill here at OpenCRM on a daily basis. At the core of this belief is that by giving people this level of respect, allowing them to be very honest with you, everyone cuts to the chase and when appropriate people can always be honest with you in return.

Make the tough decisions that no one else will

Again something close to my heart. Indecision is the killer of any project. Being able to make the difficult decisions or at the least floating the opinion to broach subjects that others might find taboo is what makes a great project leader. The important thing is to get the project moving again.

Everybody STOP!

This is a great tool to have in your armoury, just get everyone to stop and assess where the project is. As Mike observes, “When was the last time that you got everyone to stop” and I have to admit – agreed – not something you might do on an ad hoc basis and probably one of the most powerful review tools available to us.

Mike seems like a good guy, it’s a shame he is an avid salesforce.com admin but I can’t hold that against him (honest!) as I respect the tone and content of his comments. We deal with large numbers of Projects that all need Managing and these pointers can form a valuable part of the fabric of what we do.