GoLive - the dread

No matter how much you test, prepare, pray, etc. - there is always an associated dread of going live with a project. Add to that the level of the release (a small internal release or a major web site release), prior history, etc......when things go great, all you want is a beer - when things go less then great more then a few beers.......and when things go real bad, whisky, pick-them-up put them back in your pants and get into the fix-it mode......this time it's just a beer (and some sleep)

PMO Structure - Military Style

(click on image for larger view)
First attempt at structuring a PMO based on US Army General Staff configuration........interesting possibilities.....based on a 'thought' from a prior blog: http://itprojectguide.blogspot.com/2007/07/military-structure.html

Entropy

Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder by David Weinberger

Just start reading another book (what else is new - one day I'll finish one) by David Weinberger (another hero). A few pages in to it and he's discussing how everything moves to some order - the opposite of entropy. IF this is the case....and things do move to their natural order - and we constantly try to rearrange for whatever reason - are we the ones putting things out of order? Let's think about the chicken and egg thing (sort of which comes first) - the order is:

• chickens in a cope laying eggs
• eggs gathered into a basket
• the baskets sent to some processing plant
• eggs separated and processed (I'd rather not think of it - but probably something on the nasty level of hot dog processing)
• eggs gathered and packaged and packaged again (big boxes
• eggs boxes put together on bigger trucks
• boxes removed from trucks, moved into a store and broken back down for the shelves (watch the expiration date)
• we buy - package up with other food stuffs take home and separate again into the refrigerator (hopefully not many broken ones)
• we remove from the carton of 12 and cook.......

Most of what we are doing it packing and unpacking - gathering and disbursing.....not just eggs but in the case of PM information.......moving information into and out of it's natural order (what ever that might be).......if that is the case, would it make sense to understand the natural order of information and try to align to it as much as possible to reduce the packing/unpacking and reduce the effort of 'fighting' to put the info (or eggs) into some order it's not naturally meant to be? How much 'packing' up is required to transport the info to where ever in order to unpack and distribute.....??????

Another one about PowerPoint

Yes - PowerPoint is evil:
http://www.davidairey.com/how-not-to-use-powerpoint

Ed Yourdon Blog on a PeopleWare seminar

http://www.yourdonreport.com/index.php/2007/05/29/icse-peopleware-panel-session/
What an educational read......the names of the people alone make me say WOW!

Must see YouTube

I'm not a big Michael Moore fan....but he's ABSOLUTELY RIGHT about the media.....where have they been, were is the independence of their reporting?

Military Structure?

I'm in the process of rereading a book about WWI and was focusing on the general staff structure that Black Jack Pershing put together:

Modern United States military usage

Professional development: specialized staff training for lower, mid-level and senior officers is made available and necessary for both future assignments and promotion. The concept behind the duality of an officer's role in field/staff assignments is to provide field experience that can be later used at staff level. The following are designations used in the United States Armed Forces:

1 is for Administration/Personnel.
2 is for Security/Intelligence.
3 is for Operations/Training.
4 is for Supply/Logistics.
5 is for Public Affairs (Division and above).
6 is for Communications, and Information Systems (Corps and above).
7 is for Joint Operations (Corps and above).

(from wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_staff#Modern_United_States_military_usage)

Would it make sense to have PMO follow this same structure???

Vacation

Nothing like a good vacation to clear the mind and set the priorities.

In the good ole' days (from what I'm told) people were forced to take vacation (office workers - I think coal miner bosses didn't really push this) - the reasoning, I think, was to ensure that the person wasn't 'liberating' funds. I think the same 'force' should be used today, if 'thinking' workers are being paid to think - they should be given time to re-energize. Perhaps like physical training, every 8-12 weeks of work requires a week of rest.