Sounds like a simple question to answer doesn’t it? For some, it is simply a matter of whether or not they can go into a convenience store and not swipe a piece of gum or a candy bar. Trustworthiness goes far beyond of being mature enough not to steal.

Trustworthiness is sometimes called by other names, but it really boils down to one word as the root: TRUST.

Trust encompasses reliability, accountability, integrity, and others. Basically, what it boils down to is:

• Are you going to do what you said you are going to do?
• Did you do what you told me you did?
• Are you reporting accurate numbers?
• Are you doing what you’re supposed to be doing?
• Are you the same person outside of the office as you are at the office?
• Do you own up to your own mistakes?
• Do you correct those mistakes?
• Do you show up to work on-time or early?
• Do you expect the same for yourself as you do for your team?
• Do you bill your clients accurately?

So, I ask you again, are YOU trustworthy? It isn’t too late to make a change and correct anything you are doing wrong. Fix it now and become the leader you and others want you to be. You will be amazed at the change in your team’s attitudes!

I’m proud of you for making a difference!!!

Please take a moment to answer the poll below. Pick what you look for most when selecting a new leader and comment with any discussion.

The problem comes in when this individual had a conversation with management about some needs and individual consideration. During the conversation, she was continually denied simple requests that were not out of the ordinary. When inquiries were made after explaining the value she provides, it was stated “it doesn’t matter if you’ve been there 1 year or 9.”

Damaging words!

The truth is, it DOES matter. Losing this employee would cause a backlog in development. Not just a backlog of a single person, but it would take two to three people to develop as much as this employee does. The experience and knowledge she has is not interchangeable with just anyone, let alone a new person or someone here for only a year.

This kind of statement WILL destroy workplace morale. This employee then came out, continued her work as normal, but subsequent conversations quickly turned to that statement. Now many employees have heard it, including veterans of 20 plus years. It is no longer a single employee that feels an “inch tall” but an entire department. With current lay-offs, it has everyone looking over their shoulder, including top performing veterans that should have nothing to worry about.

Words like this kill relationships with top employees. These relationships are hard to build up to begin with and are even harder to rebuild once they’ve been told they do not matter. The truth is, they DO matter and so does the experience they bring in. Take care of your top performers and build up your sub-par performers. Who cares if they’ve had a rough year (medical, death in family, or even other personal matter). Be compassionate at the very least. Take care of them and they will take care of you. Don’t let that experience walk out the door over careless words.

Invest in your relationships.

OOPS

I wish I hadn’t done that! I was almost ashamed of what I saw. Three versions of angry birds, farkle, paper toss, air hockey, and others.

Having these games on my phone themselves do not indicate any real harm. In fact, they can be a good reset for your brain from time to time. What I realized, however, was the amount of time my copies of these apps represented. Time wasted losing brain cells when I should have been writing you.

I do not actually know how much time I’ve lost. What I do know, however, is that I will be deleting anything that might cause me to waste that time again.

What is eating your productive time?

Accountability is a word that a great number of people tend to overlook, especially those in leadership positions. This “issue”, however, is wide-spread to all ranks. I belive leaders should be held to a higher standard so, I want to write about it here, in that context. What does it mean to be accountable?

ac·count·a·ble [uh-koun-tuh-buhl]
adjective
1. subject to the obligation to report, explain, or justify something; responsible; answerable.

Wow, that is a strong definition. It uses words like “obligation” and “justify”. My favorites, however are “responsible” and most of all “answerable”. As a leader, I have to answer to every decision that I make. That is important to remember when making financial decisions or even when reporting project statuses to the project sponsors. All too often, we hear of leaders that seem to defy accountability. Millions of dollars are lost, mis-appropriated, stolen, or even mis-reported. Some are honest mistakes, some are not so honest. Regardless of the origin, you as a leader, are responsible.

Since accountability is such an important subject; I will be writing more about it soon. Tell me what you think about accountability. What failures or successes have you seen?

31%

This number is staggeringly low. There is a real opportunity here for leaders and managers to make up some ground here, AND a chance to make up with our teams!

Herb Kelleher believed that if you kept your employees happy, they would keep your customers happy, which would in turn, make your shareholders happy. It appears that Southwest Airlines is doing pretty well so I say his model works. So why is it that very few companies realize that this is the best way to go? Employee satisfaction is a term that seems to be overlooked. It is seen as an expensive, non-productive, waste of money. In fact, it is not necessarily expensive, non-productive, NOR waste of money.

Did you know that an employee wants to feel like they are doing a good job? Sure, some have flaws, but every employee has a strength. Why not capitalize on that strength and let them capitalize on it too? Take a little time to tell them when they do well. I have noticed that a 5-10 minute, positive conversation with an employee can boost their productivity by 10-15% almost immediately. In fact, I have also noticed that weaknesses get better at the same time because the employee puts more emphasis on their overall quality of work and work habits.

Sure, there are other things that employers can do to keep their employees happy which do cost money that can have a serious positive impact on productivity but these things are not really necessary. Reinforce positive traits and behaviors and you will be pleased with the results.

A pat on the back costs absolutely nothing. What have you got to lose?

In my opinion, it is much better to have a strong general leader from outside the industry rather than have a weak leader with industry experience.

Why?

Project management is project management, regardless of the type of industry that you are going into. There may be a few learning curves early on when creating cost models and other proposals, but those are learned quickly. True leadership, however, is not learned as easily.

I have seen many examples of poor industry leaders destroying projects or departments. At the same time, however, I have seen strong leaders lead projects to great success while knowing very little about the product or industry itself.

What do you think?

Who do you think of?

There are different types of communications from the face-to-face verbal communications, to non-verbal facial expressions, to email and even project websites such as SharePoint.

What I think of is communicating with project sponsors and other stakeholders. What information do they need in order to carry on with their own daily functions? Of course, there is different communication for different types of stakeholders. For example, a project sponsor probably does not want to hear about a specific task that you are assigning another team member, nor should they. At the same time, it isn’t appropriate to submit a full financial breakdown intended for the sponsor to the whole team.

You have to come up with a communications plan. This important document in the overall project management plan is key to determining the amount of communications as well as the content and schedule of the communications that you will send each stakeholder.

Communication is vital to the success of your project. Creating a communication plan is vital to the success of your communications. Without the plan, important updates and other information can get missed or worse, ignored.

I look at my goal setting as I would my employees:

• Relevant
• Attainable
• Measurable
• Controllable (this one is big)

This gets a way from the typical “S.M.A.R.T.” goal setting principles (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) just a bit but has the same basic principle without the cool acronym. I want to make sure that every goal I set follows these four principles, not only for me, but for my employees for the upcoming year. What do they mean?

Relevant: From a managerial standpoint it must fit with the over-all goals of the department, division, and company as a whole. From a personal standpoint, it has to be pertinent to what I’m doing or what I want to accomplish. “Make a one foot diameter rubber-band ball” is not relevant to other, somewhat life altering, goals that I may have, unless I’m shooting for a personal record.

Attainable: Is this goal something that can actually be done in the timeframe given? “Become a rocket scientist” is not an attainable goal for most people in one year’s time. “Learn Java”, however, is.

Measurable: One thing you have to keep in mind is whether or not you can actually track your progress on accomplishing the goal.

Controllable: This is one I’ve heard a lot about lately in setting up tasks for me and my employees alike. I look at my goal and determine if it is something that can be controlled. For example, “get 100 followers” is not something I can control. Sure, I can try to analyze the topics that get more hits than others, but in the end, you have control over that better than I do.

All in all, goal setting really is a big deal, unless you do not want to accomplish anything. It sets the tone for your year and gives you something to work for. If you fail, try again. Be sure to challenge yourself so you can grow.

I hope your new year is happy an prosperous. Happy goal setting!!

So, keep that in mind when doing your calculations.

I want to first introduce to you my favorite calculations – The Performance Indices, CPI and SPI. CPI, or Cost Performance Index, is a quick look at how your project is measuring up from a cost perspective. Meaning, how much have you spent to earn what you’ve earned. It is presented as a number that should hover around 1.0. A 1.0 CPI is a “perfect” cost index. Anything above 1.0 is good or under budget. Anything below 1.0 is bad, or over budget. And of course, a 1.0 is exactly on budget. The SPI: Schedule Performace Index is exactly the same as the cost index except it deals with time rather than dollars. Again, anything 1.0 or above is good (on or ahead of schedule) and below is bad (behind schedule).

Take a look at the following graphic. What are some things you notice?

One thing, as you can see, the CPI, or cost performance index, is way above 1.0. This is good from a budget standpoint(way under), but the PM (me in this case) chould probably take a look at his estimating techniques. The SPI has a completely different story. For much of this project, the team was behind schedule, sometimes severely. This indicated that the project was way behind schedule and more money should be spent in order to catch up. Looking back on this chart and thinking about the challenges we had, I know exactly what I would do for the next one (and it involved spending more money on specific resources that would allow for the schedule to be even higher.)

How did I get there? Simple . . .
CPI=Earned Value divided by Actual Cost (CPI=EV/AC)
SPI=Earned Value divided by Planed value (SPI=EV/PV)

Do you remember what EV is? That’s right, it is the % complete based on what deliverables have actually been completed. Your planned value, of course, is what your project plan said you were going to have completed (in % Complete) on the date of the report.

You might have noticed the little “c” at the end of CPI and SPI (CPIc – SPIc). This stands for “cumulative” or the current state of the entire projet, not just a single snap shot. The chart above has data points for each week so I could see any trends developing.

That’s it for this post. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. Thanks for reading.

Next up: Variances!