Author Archives: Glenn Briskin

About Glenn Briskin

Glenn is an experienced project manager, consultant, and IT leader consulting independently.

Perfect Presentation

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On Tuesday, I presented on “The Other Side of Risk” to my friends at PMI Olympia – our local chapter of the Project Management Institute.  Lots of familiar faces – well, not lots, but enough – showed up to hear what I had to say.  I told them that a perfect outcome for me would be if they left with some new ideas and I learned something.  So, I think it went perfectly.Presenting

I rambled on a bit trying to cover too much ground.  As I worked on my presentation over the couple of weeks preceding the big night, I kept refining it so it had a clearer theme.  Since it was about “The Other Side of Risk” an obvious theme would be to find opportunities during risk management.  I probably could have filled a comfortable 50 minute presentation with just that topic.  That was part of the presentation, but I seem to always go for more.  I got into different ways to present the idea of perfect outcomes and a perfect journey to get there.  I added ways to understand perfection in a useful way, define perfect outcomes, turn risks into opportunities for perfect outcomes, and define perfect journeys to perfect outcomes so that the scope of the project includes all the stuff you need to do to get to perfect outcomes, not just deliver a product. Continue reading →

Positive Psychology and Perfect Project Outcomes

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Finding the other side of risk – opportunities for perfect outcomes – isn’t done in lieu of finding risks; it’s the complement.  Science tells us that this is true and necessary.happiness

I’m getting ready again to present “The Other Side of Risk.”  Each time I do it’s a journey to a better understanding of what I’m trying to say.  This journey stumbled across the concept of “positive psychology.”  It’s reinforcement for the importance of seeking perfect outcomes and a perfect journey so that our projects leave our organizations better than we found them.

In my presentation, I talk a little about Appreciate Inquiry or AI.  AI is a technique of organizational planning and change that emphasizes finding and building on organizational strengths to promote positive growth.  In AI, the organization enquires into its strengths to: Continue reading →

Talk the Talk to Walk the Talk to Project Success

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Sometimes we are distracted from our goals by the stress of the moment.  Distractions can take our eyes off the outcomes we want from our projects.  After stress, we may take our next step away from stress instead of toward our goal.   Do this enough, and you get lost.  What can we do to keep from losing our way?

pormpuraawI heard an interesting Radio Lab on NPR today about how we find our way.  A brief segment of the show caught my “Other Side of Risk” antenna.  The hosts interviewed Dr. Lera Boroditsky, a professor at Stanford who studies how language shapes thought and behavior.  She described an Australian Aboriginal community, Pormpuraaw, whose language emphasized spatial orientation.  When people in Pormpuraaw greet one another, they say “Where are you going?”  The answer is always something like “North northeast in the middle direction.”  There are about 80 phrases in Pormpuraawan that describe spatial orientation and direction.  Pormpuraawans always pay attention to their spatial orientation and how to get where they want to go.  This seemed unusual, but according to Dr. Boroditsky, about one third of the world’s 7,000 languages are deeply rooted in spatial orientation. English isn’t one of them. Continue reading →

Mosh Pit Portfolio Management

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Should managing a portfolio of projects be like a mosh pit at a heavy metal concert, or like a waltz at the royal ball?  Maybe both.liturgy

This week showed good progress toward setting up portfolio management at my new organization.  But, by Friday afternoon I was really tired.  You know how your thoughts wander a bit when that happens.  Since I’ve been writing this blog, too often thoughts or experiences click on ideas for blog posts.  When we are really into something, our experiences all feed into our own frame of reference.  I was worried that I’m becoming unproductively obsessed.  Fortunately, I found out this week that I’m not unusual.

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Finding Opportunities

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I advocate looking beyond risks to find the opportunities on your projects. Even though I write about it, I’m not always getting there.
This post will help me keep at it. Reposting it today for my readers. Thanks, Dan.

Leadership Freak

Crushed

Opportunity is ugly.

Opportunity is a door that feels like a wall, an open window that feels shut, or a ceiling that feels too low.

Mud disguises, pain exposes, and fear illuminates opportunity.

Distinguish your leadership:

Great leaders face great challenges and solve great problems. Clear the mud. Solve the pain. Face the fear. Rise up and address issues others run from.

Leaders without obstacles are ships without wind.

Run toward rather than away. The giant you slay expands your influence.

Frustration is opportunity.

Enhanced influence and profound results wait beyond frustrations, complications, and disappointments.

Struggle:

Struggle transforms. Success, on the other hand, makes you more of who you were.

Power to seize opportunities comes from understanding and addressing your greatest struggle.

Greatest struggle:

The greatest battles lie within. On the other hand, inner struggle is leadership’s most profound opportunity. All leaders struggle with inner questions like:

  1. Do I…

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Pull is Better Than Push

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I’ve been thinking a lot this week about how organizations change.  The bottom line seems to be that successful change comes from people pulling it in.  You can’t push change in.  Do our projects focus on push or pull?

PullI’m part of planning for a project where thousands of people will have to change how they do their work.  The old system is about 30 years old.  The change will require thousands of people to redo 30 years of process and system connections to unplug the old and plug in the new.  How will they get ready to do this?

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Letting Go of Baggage to Find What Can Go Right on Your Project

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Here’s a reblog of Dan Rockwell’s “Leadership Freak.”

“Creating Glorious Space for Reinvention”

baggage dan rockwell

Dan discusses “Leadership and the Art of Struggle” with its author, Stephen Snyder.  Stephen encourages us to create “glorious space” by letting go of baggage of past failures and successes.  On our projects, past failures may cause us to see only what can go wrong and limit our ability to find what can go right.  Opportunities may be missed.  The same may be true for past successes.  Building only on what worked before may also limit finding opportunities for what can go better this time. 

I think that using a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) approach to risk assessment may put us more in touch with the present and what is possible vs. focusing on the past and what worked or didn’t then.  It’s a good thing to think about. 

The photo is from Dan’s post.

Happy Families, Happy Projects

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For the past several years I’ve encouraged all my clients, and now my co-workers, to adopt agile methods on their projects.  I also encourage it for any work, like software maintenance work, that can be organized as well-defined sets of tasks that are completed in a time period.  In my experience, all work groups that use a good agile methodology as it’s meant to be used end up more productive and happier, too.  My inspiration to write about agile today, though, comes from a different place that further proves what a good practice it is.

A new book by Bruce Feiler, “The Secrets of Happy Families,” encourages families to adopt an Agile Family Strategy.  Bruce got this idea talking with a software engineer in Idaho, David Starr, who moved his family from dysfunctional to functional by bringing home his agile software development practices.  Bruce tried the same agile techniques as well as lots of other good ideas for happy families and also had great success.  Both Bruce and David found that what worked for software developers and their clients worked for families with kids, too.  Agile’s simple consistent practices focused the family members on helping each other, being accountable, planning things to do in realistic chunks and getting them done, and involving everyone in setting rules and making decisions.  Everyone was happier, more productive, and appreciated one another.  This is what we want at home and at work.

agile boardThe first chapter of Bruce’s book is the Agile Family Strategy.  Bruce thoughtfully cited a paper published by David and Eleanor Starr – “Agile Practices for Families” – which I found on the Internet.  I read the preview chapters of Bruce’s book on Amazon and ordered it for my son’s family.  Russ and Kellie do a great job with their three young daughters.  I saw this book as affirming and expanding their family practices.  Being a software development person, I especially liked the Starr’s paper.  It clearly linked agile methods (derived from the Toyota Production System or “lean”) to a realistic set of practices to engage family members in a fun way to make the pressures of everyday life with kids a little less stressful.

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Repost – Making Choices

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Sometimes I have a hard time choosing what to do. Things go better after I choose and move ahead. Dan Rockwell’s post spoke profoundly to me today. It’s not just the message for me personally, but another reaffirmation of my project management philosophy.
When I suggest we find what can go right on a project, in a way I’m saying that we need to put more emphasis on what we want to be when we get done with the project. That comes from two perspectives. First, how the project’s outcomes make our organization’s services and capacity more perfect. Second, how can we make our journey to get there more perfect in its contribution to our growth. Both perspectives are more about, as Dan suggests, choosing who we want to become and how we want to become that way (in keeping with who we are) than what we want to do.
Balancing the focus on completing scope with a focus on completing ourselves is finding what can go right on a project. It’s the other side of risk.
Dan, thanks again for helping me consider more deeply what I’m trying to say.

Leadership Freak

choices

Unable to choose is unable to move. Choices enable movement. Unable to choose is another way of saying stuck. Successful leaders make decisions.

Everyone who’s stuck
lives with choices waiting to be made.

Fear of choosing is fear of losing opportunity.

Fear of missing out is the reason you miss out.

The critical first choice:

The choice that informs all others is who to be not what to do.

First choices enable action.

Choosing what do before deciding who to be means you’ve caved to external pressure.

Answer “what to do questions” by clarifying who you want to be. What to do is an event. Who to be guides the journey.

First choices involve who to be.
Second choices explain what to do.

First choices are relatively easy. But, if you’re not sure who to be, ask, “How do I want to be known?”

Benefit:

Identity off-sets external pressure…

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