Bi-Monthly Project Management Seminars

Presentation given to the Project Management Institute Japan International Committee on the business case for Project Management Seminars in English.

Introduction

The Project Management Institute Japan currently has about 3,000 members. Actually, Japan has 28,000 PMI members.  Globally, PMI has almost .5 million members. The PMIJ-International Committee exists to support PMIJ in International project management.  Of the 28,000 PMI members residing in Japan 800 are non-Japanese. We are not communicating with this existing group of Project Managers. Who are they? What do they need? We, The Project Management Japan International Committee do not know!

Why I joined PMIJ-International Committee.

I joined the PMIJ International Committee for personal reasons. One is to socialize, and communicate with other interested in similar things. I also love Japanese Business concepts and can improve my performance as a project manager.

Current Support in Japan for non-Japanese PMI members.

Currently, there is ZERO English Language communication or Support for the non-Japanese Speaking, reading community of Project Managers. There is no bridge to communicate with the 800 non-Japanese Project Mangers performing project Management in Japan.

Benefits to a community of International Project Managers.

If we can engage the 800 Project Managers living in Japan, we can create a community. A community of Project Managers in Japan will strengthen PMIJ. The more support we can provide for our Organization the more support we can get in the International Committee. As a strong community we can help each other. We can make more meaningful connections around the globe. We can solve professional problems better. We can improve as individuals.

Why are here in the International Committee?

Japanese philosophy of Takara Bune involves many different gods  all in the same boat. We are all in the same boat and by working together and helping each other we can have wisdom, happiness, long life and wealth.

Global Projects add complexity.

Culture gaps are difficult to detect. When you think about it, how can we step outside of the mindset that we learned from our family, teachers and friends. The insidious nature of Language shaping our thoughts is a barrier setting expectations.

Cultural Ambiguity

For example if we think about the future. The core of Projects. How people construct the future actually depends on culture. For example my western upbringing and English Mother tongue, predispose me to construct future references using the future tense. For example

It will take two weeks.

Sounds pretty positive perhaps 95%. The same construct in Japanese literally is

Two weeks is.

The interesting thing is in Japanese there is no need to modify the verb to discuss the future, it is the same tense. Perhaps, if you are a westerner it might sound very strange. That is a cultural gap. Is it a big deal? The answer is yes. The present tense in English means 100%  one plus one is two. The is in that statement means equals.

Documenting the requirements on global projects we need to close the culture gap. Interestingly, the NASA Systems Engineering Manual explicitly recognizes the vague qualities of English and states. On Page 131 Requirements Validation-

Are Requirements Written Correctly: identify and correct requirements `shall` statement format errors and editorial errors.

The NASA rule book  instructs their project managers to format the requirement.

It shall take two weeks.

Team Charter

Good projects managers will use a kind of rule book or a team charter to manage these kind of expectations. Facilitating this can be fun on a multicultural team. Having an understanding of what exactly does; plan to, expect to, hope to, like to, want to…. mean for a team in the beginning of a project will prevent misunderstandings from happening on global projects. A very nice discussion presents this argument on LinkedIn http://bit.ly/1cKcb2 have to be a group member of Global Project Managers. You can also enjoy a video from a Japanese and Saudi Arabian PMP perspective below.

Cultural Environment of Japanese Project Management from Robert Higgins on Vimeo.

Image via Wikipedia

“Tzu-lu  said ‘ If the Lord of Wei entrusts the government to you, what will you do first?’ ‘Correct names, surely!’,  Confucius (551-479) BC.

Project Management is a global language. PMI and many Organizations have been promoting Project Management as an efficient way to close the Communication Gap.  August 2009 PMBOK Cafe held workshops in which Project Management was discussed in detail by more than 20 Project Management Professionals from diverse industries and more than 5 countries.  These people have extensive experience in conducting projects in Cultures out side of their Native Culture.

One of the overriding themes that has emerged is the reduction of the Culture Gap.  The Culture Gap are ideas that are difficult to express across cultures.  When you are working across cultures their is a greater Risk of Ambiguity.  Case in point our Current 2009 World Bank President Robert Zoleick Stakeholder. As recently as 2006 during  High Level government meetings between China and USA were stalled on the word Stakeholder.  The finest translators in the world had issues with what does “Stakeholder” mean.

The practical methods to overcome this are email, messaging, voice, video and face to face travel.  Finding the correct people who have the critical; language, cultural and technical skills is the first step.  The Second step is Spending time to elaborate requirements is the best practice for management to mitigate this Risk of Ambiguity.

Project Management has been influenced by countless people and cultures.  Japanese business Philosophy of Kaizen 改善 or continuous improvement have been synonymous with Project Management. Which was in turn influenced by Henry Ford.  The Agile Manifesto is a child of this concept. I acknowledge that Agile concepts are a refinement to Project Management. The problem is Slang or Jargon that  is meant to be something that keeps groups together and keeps people out.

One of the issues with the  Agile Methodologies are the growing trend of labeling Project Management as “Traditional”.   Traditional Project Management is most likely rarely practiced anymore.  Traditional Project Management is something from the 60′s.  For example the Apollo Program that successfully in less than a decade from initiation, safely flew 2 men to the surface of the moon and returned them to Earth.  Fulfilling those requirements is a text book example of Traditional Project Management.  The Apollo Program and the Project Managers who crafted the tools by combining humanities best practices are the true owners of arguably mankind’s greatest achievement.

People can call it Modern or PM 2.0 or any numerous labels. The bottom line is call it what it is, Project Management. Veteran Project Managers such as  Glen Alleman of Herding Cats.  are unconvinced that there has been a radical revolution that warrants relabeling the vocabulary of Project Management.

Global Projects require us to communicate across cultures. We need to drop the posturing;  jargon and lingo and communicate in the clearest most easily translated  way possible. Believe me if you walk into a team members office in Shanghai and tell them we are not performing Project Management anymore we are  Scrumming, you will be viewed with some apprehension. Why, because Global Project Management has been practiced in Asia for thousands of years and the concepts in the Project Management Book of Knowledge are translated and being implemented globally. Having the PMBOK as a baseline is a first step in planning a Global Project.

Using the Project Management Book of Knowledge is an inclusive tool. With a Global Standard that has been translated into many of the languages around the world we can reduce the Cultural Ambiguity that is present on Global Projects. Working on a project in China, make sure that your Chinese team members have a copy, same in Japanese, same in Arabic, same in Spanish.  Teams of global volunteers have been working to Create a way to Manage Projects across cultures. Having a common set of names, that can be used across cultures is a giant step to governing your project and reducing risks of cultural misunderstandings.

PMBOK Cafe has a few spots open for the Global Risk workshop and the Marketing School of Project Management. The Three previous Cafes have had Participants from 6 different countries. The majority of the Participants have had extensive Experience working overseas.

Participants earn 12 PDU’s in Conjunction with PMI-Japan. PDU’s are Professional Development Units for the Global Standard Project Management Professional Certification or PMP. The PMP certification has become a common filter for Human Resource managers in accepting applications for Project Management positions around the world.

PMBOK Cafe is focused on creating an atmosphere for people to discuss their experience in the frame work of Scope Management. The Collect Requirements during Scope Management is the critical start to defining Project Success. The Workshop closely follows the PMBOK or Project Management Book of Knowledge Collect Requirements framework. Participants document their work, and contribute to the Global Knowledge of Project Management.

Learn about how Project Management Professionals perform world class project Management globally and earn Professional Development Units or PDU’s in Tokyo Japan.

Next Workshops are in Tokyo September 26th –27th and October 3rd –4th. There are only a few spots left. Register here to earn PDU’s in English in Tokyo Japan.

How can we use Twitter in Project Management?

First what is Twitter? It is “an application that allows users to send brief text updates of up to 140 characters”. So let’s step back and look at the first question and replace twitter for communicate. How to communicate in Project Management? We all know the answer is Planning.

Twitter same as unsecured email is a valid risk.

We have all accepted the risk that email is unsecure, and we all send confidential, potentially damaging artifacts through email every day. Should we consider Social Media; not limited to blogging, Facebook, Linked-in, YouTube and yes even email as security events and make it clear from the beginning in our planning documents? How can we use Social Media on our projects?

There must be some people, who have successfully used twitter in managing projects. For example President Barrack Obamas election campaign was a project. How did he use twitter for managing his campaign project?

We should say what twitter isn’t. Twitter isn’t a blog. Twitter facilitates conversation, but it is horrible at retaining data. We should realize everything we twit is at once permanent and temporary at the same time. Robert Scoble correctly points out the significant historical twitter streams are “missing”. Perhaps, we can use it as a kind of performance review, or if we need more anonymous security we can use Rypple. Crowd sourcing using twitter? There are much better platforms already established for that, for example Amazons Mechanical Turk.

What is twitter good at?

Working the Social:

It is part of an information eco system. It is a conversation starter. It is a way to post links to relevant items. It is a small but vitally important link to communicate with incredible people all around the globe as equals. Twitter strips away race, gender, power, control and allows you to interact based on the quality of your character. But at the same time it seems like there is a risk. It definitely breaks the first rule we ever learned outside of the house which is don’t talk to strangers.

Robert Scobles uses it as an intelligent discussion platform, and embrace it as part of a larger ecosystem.

Which brings us to FriendFeed a Collaborative Business Tool. Can the Global Community of Project Managers use it as a way to create a new PM Culture? As of July 5 2009 there are currently only 11 people in the FriendFeed Project Management Room. Can we create something that is open and intelligently discusses important issues?

Twitter that forces people to pithily communicate. People are projects. Communication is how we perform project management. Twitter is a simple tool for communication and improving your social network, and for influencing people. Recent detailed technical studies June 2008 Project Management Journal “Measuring performance of Knowledge-Intensive work-groups through Social Networks” concludes that “Social Network Structure and Position are important Factors to consider for Individual Performance.” And “Structural Diversity played a new and important role for performance.” If you have a good character, if you can communicate to an intelligent community base of diverse professionals you can seek some advice and learn novel methods to manage your people and projects better. You can ignore Twitter and Social networking, but that would be risky in today’s world.

Sign up on FriendFeed and let’s discuss it here. How can we use Twitter for Project Management?

Global Project Management Culture has been well documented as a complex system.  The wicked problem of global transfer of knowledge in project based organizations has been documented in this excellent paper. Knowledge Transfer in Project-Based Organizations: An Organizational Culture Perspective. Mian M. Ajmal, Kaj U. Koskinen. Project Management Journal, Vol. 39, No. 1, 7-15 2008.  The Authors Ajmal and Kokinen describe that the biggest problem is not tech but culture.  They cite a study that says 80% of the problem of transferring knowledge is cultural.  There is a perception among people that holding information is more important than sharing.    Perhaps, the most famous example of this is Leibniz and Newton calculus controversy.  Newton did not publish his knowledge for 20 years, and it was only under the threat that Leibniz was in the midst of publishing his work that he finally did.

Why do we want to share knowledge?  That is an excellent question, and my only answer is the lessons learned from Newton his analogy is “I am only standing on the shoulders of Giants.”  Newton Recognizes that it is only by sharing that we can grow.  A giant for me is Alexander Budzier, his sharing of his notes for his doctoral thesis is an inspiration for me.  Please visit this giant here.  http://blog.budzier.com/ I would highly recommend bookmarking his blog in your google reader.

So back to the wicked problem we are facing.  Which is the merging of various project management cultures to facilitate the transfer and most importantly utilization of knowledge.  Ajmal and Kokinen cite the best way to increase our success is to Recognize that culture is a living Social System, We must assess this culture and recognize the function of our organizations culture. You can look at the xmind map and you can easily see the obstacles to knowledge culture.

Lets focus on the 12 characteristic obstacles.  Knowledge is messy, self organizing, seeks groups of people, travels on language, carelessness, shape of experiments, does not grow forever, social phenomena, organically, multi-modal, requires flow which to me means velocity.  So that is our wicked problem.  The requirements to solve the problem according to Ajamal and Koskinen are multidimensional means of facilitating input, effective ways of sorting useful from useless and developing an organizational culture.  The best solution would be for us to work together “generative knowledge creation occurs only when people are striving to accomplish something that matters deep to them.”  You need to commit to a shared vision of generating and sharing knowledge.  In my previous post we invoked the metaphor of The PMBOK Code the Path of Technology and the need for a baseline and how to munge the data, sort what is important and the request for us to work together. 

This post is to postulate that we can use the existing technology specifically friend feed as a way to collaborate as an open community.

This is not a call to all gravitate to one system, it is contrariwise.  It is a call to all pursue maximum complexity in terms of individual blogs, groups, networks and ways of communicating mind maps, images, videos.  It is the Multi-Dimensional requirement of facilitating input.  Create an open Project to use Yahoo Pipes in collaboration to open up the velocity while at the same time sorting what is useless.  But this will only happen if we Create Culture and Organize and it will only Happen if we Question the Norms.

Thank you for your time!

Today, we are undergoing extreme data overload. There are additional layers of complexity in technology. Complexity in Projects that span decades, time zones, languages, cultures in addition to the technology. The base I am most familiar with is The PMBOK. In 2009 we are in the Fourth Edition of The PMBOK. Where are we in terms of Knowledge and the Book?

Mayan Yin Yang

I would argue that we are in the right place in time.

The PMBOK Code some would argue is preparing people the wrong way. There is some tension in the Global Project Management Community. Some argue that standards, controls, and hard systems are the wrong tools for today. The Pirates Code as set forth by Morgan and Bartholomew can be a metaphor for our dilemma.

Elizabeth Swann

wait, you have to take me to shore, according to the code of the Order of the Brethren

Captain Barbosa

first, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement, so it must do nothing, and secondly you must be a pirate for the Pirate’s Code to apply and you’re not, and thirdly the code is more of what you call guidelines than actual rules, welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner

From Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

We can preserve the solid foundation of The PMBOK Guide and Develop New Frameworks at the same time. The books and organizations need to have a baseline, we have to have a control point with which to measure change. But this is not a book this is interactive social media, you are participating as a reader. What we need you to do to bring your humanity to the argument you have to tag the chaos. If you just want to read and perhaps leave a comment you don’t need to go any farther. But if you want to participate in the Revolution, Get yourself a nice cold drink and get ready to Login and Password.

In this next major revolution you are either a reader or a writer. I do not count casual comments in someone else blog as being a writer. We have to make you a writer. Luckily it is free and easy. Get yourself a nice cold drink and get ready to Login and Password.

I use Firefox as the primary work horse, I also extensively use opera, chrome, safari and iexplorer. They are cool and being web savy means that it is ok to divide your life into different applications. You can have multiple gmail accounts open in different browsers is one reason I use it. So get yourself I nice fresh gmail account, it is best to have your personal name on it. Make a photo of yourself. Now join the ecosystem.

Once you establish your accounts, You will have a powerful tool kit to collect, filter and create. Since we are focused on progressing  the Global Project Management Body of Knowledge. Where to start? Why we start with the Google of course.

Log into Google Reader. How does it work? One Way is to Copy and paste this Url into the add subscription window. You just made added a feed that will update for you. Next click on Share with note.

Now you are actually creating content. You can share this content with people.  This is part of Read/Write Culture.

Now, to Alltop this Alltop Project Management Link here, link it to your Google Reader.  Alltop is a kind of most linked blogs.  Many of the popular blogs are focusing on Fundamentals of Project Management.

Next, please go to  Yahoo pipes, I have been using this Pipe here. This will be one of our first tasks. We are going to need to make some beautiful pipes as a community. Now, since you are logged into your google account, you can easily subscribe to your Google Reader using a button on the page and presto it goes into your Google Reader.

Getting, a little more deeper are we? It gets better. Make sure you are logged into Google and next go to your Feedly home page. Now it should be starting to fill up and clean out.  Feedly, is very powerful.  It is compares and organizes your feeds what is also being linked to in other Social Networks For example Google Reader, Delicious, Twitter and Others.  The most popular items as commented on by actual readers is pushed up.

I hope you enjoy your ability to munge (Filter Peta bytes of Data) and incredible amount of rich information.

But if you remember we have a problem. The problem is our projects our facing intense complexity. Even though we are from all around the world separated by time, language and culture we still need to find a way to work together. The Japanese say it is ten times easier to criticize than to create a solution.

When you learn something share it. Write it down and publish your blog, take a picture make a video. Post it on twitter, our Yahoo pipe should pick it up, we can push the best content up in Friend Feed, and as a community we can improve.

By Using Yahoo pipes we can work together to study the data coming in. We can have it machine translated from many languages in real time. We can Study some wicked problem in detail, post it for peer review, we can change, we can learn. The tacit knowledge that emerges from this open mega project will be translated into actions. These actions will be evaluated for soundness and eventually they will be brought into the baseline. The PMBOK Code the path of technology.

I owe deep acknowledgment to Robert Scoble, Lawerence Lessig and many others that I have discovered over the last year.

Updated July 7, 2008.

FriendFeed offers Real Time Search, Filesharing, and Threaded Discussions.  The API is open and it may be integrated into many other powerful ways.  Imagine your favorite group in LinkedIn, but it is open search able, scalable, linkable recyclable with all of your other social networking that is open in one place.

I recommend you install the “Share of FreindFeed tool bar link”.  When you find an article that is interesting for discussion you can use the Bookmark link to select text, images and post a comment.  That comment can post in various groups, and also to Twitter in one stroke.

It provides a platform to have threaded open discussions.

Free of Advertising, free of banner ads.

Perfect for the creation of new Knowledge.  Leveraging Distributed Collaborative Communication.

The combination of social networking is very powerful.

I reserve some rights to clean this up, this post is a little messy…..

The PMBOK Guide Fourth Edition has been revised.  This is an important milestone for Project Managers around the globe.  As a Standard the PMBOK is indispensable because of its translation, wide spread global acceptance and the critical importance of providing people with a reference with which to communicate.  I always carry the localized translations when I am working on a project in China, Japan or Asia.  Having a common set of tools is the first step in a successful communication loop. Once again the PMBOK is changing.  There have been many great blog posts, conferences and lectures about the changes.  There is one change that  is critical.  The major change is the deletion of a “Create a Preliminary Scope Statement”.  This was found in the Initiate phase in the Third Edition.  Why has the global community decided to delete this?  Is this a good idea?

I think so.  There was ambiguity and confusion between 2 scope statement documents.  The Initiation  is the start it is the beginning.  Creating the Preliminary Scope Statement was Planning.  Now it is very clear.  Scope is Planning.  There is one more change that is equally critically important.  Now the first area in Planning is Collect Requirements.  This has been clarified to focus on the stakeholders.

People are what make projects work, and the lessons learned from the project management literature have shown that setting common expectations is critical. For example “Project Success: A Cultural Framework” PMI Journal Vol. 35, No1, 30-45, ISSN 8756-9728/03 Stress creating a “Project Management Subculture”.  This is the culture of common language, collaborative teams and competent project managers.  There is a wide selection of literature which talks about the complexity of communicating across time, place and culture.

PMBOK Fourth Edition has placed more emphasis on people.  People provide the requirements.  The process of discovering those requirements are soft skills.  PMBOK Fourth Edition 5.1 Collect requirements guide emphasizes creativity, collaboration and documentation.  In fact these same soft skills are repeated in managing Risk, Quality and other areas.  These skills are focused on people and creating Culture.  Project Culture is about change.  We all know that fundamental change is difficult to achieve.  Taking the time to use the PMBOK Guide to collect requirements is essential.  Fundamentally, speed and agility may not be the essence when you consider that creating Culture takes time.  Good Project Management is taking the time to communicate with each other about the Requirements beyond micro messages, and stand up meetings.

What do you think?  Does the Fourth Edition clarify Scope Management and place more emphasis on People?