I’m not here to talk (specifically) about the music.  Nor am I here to talk about what a huge task it is to pull off such an enormous feat of collaboration and coordination.  I’m here to talk about how a Project Manager who grew up on Willie Nelson, AM radio and some PBS gets through 3 days, 3 + venues,  40 musical and spoken word artists, almost 20 films from Criterion, a bonfire, and another music/art event on the other side of town featuring local and not so local artists, like Vernon Reid, as well as a rather juicy Radiohead rumor floating around.

So… when you know you won’t see it all, what do you choose to see and how and why do choose what you choose?

This is a common quandary not just for festival event attendees, but a general life question – why do we do what we do… and specifically to this blog… how can project management help?  I decided to employ an approach I’ve learned through an entrepreneurship class I took at Babson University called CreAction.  Creation + Action.

1) Act Quickly with the Means at Hand

The first thing I did was gather information and research.

So I  waded through the extensive ATP artists mini websites, created my own pandora channel, surfed around musicplasma, and tried to bone up on all this musical culture that was about to happen.  I also employed principle #3) Enroll Others in your creation  through sending  the scheduled musicians list to a few more knowledgeable friends of mine. They responded with their  opinions, which I threw into the mix, creating a mini schedule weighted with reviews/opportunity/my own gut feeling.  (there’s a side rant brewing here about how scheduling in project management is an art and a science)

I digress.

2) Manage Acceptable Loss.

Entrepreneurs do this all the time –  Acceptable Loss isn’t just about Time or Money, it’s also about social capital, opportunity costs, etc, etc.  In this case, the ticket was already paid for, with the event was on a weekend, practically in my backyard.  There wasn’t much to loose… Until Sunday Night.  After 2 amazing days of breathtaking musical experiences (an entire theater singing together, that same venue practically vibrating apart from a noise band)… and more grilled cheese sandwiches than I care to admit to, a rather juicy rumor floated my way over lunch.  I heard  Radiohead was going to play Sunday night.  That the 2 hour time slot given to Public Enemy was just a front.  It was going to be a “secret show’.  yada yada yada.  There were band member sightings, and lots of knowing looks around the table.

So, normally, I’d just stick around and see what happens, but a friend of mine was curating a separate event at a coffee shop across town featuring Vernon Reid from In Living Color.

Choices Choices.

I returned to CreAction principle #1 – Act quickly with the means at hand.   Twitter to the rescue. Scanning multiple hashtags over pizza on the boardwalk (which is kinda like grilled cheese, but different) I noticed lots of ATP rumors floating about.   The weather threatened rain at every turn, and honestly at this point my concert buddy and I only wanted hot chocolate.   Off to Cafe Volan we went, keeping an eye on the smartphone.    After all, armed with CreAction principle #2 – manage acceptable loss (and the cache of a secret radiohead show was pretty cool)… but the knowledge that I would get to experience Vernon’s new work in a space basically about the size of my living room was too much not to turn down.

At the end of the day, there was no secret show.  There was a 30+minute soundcheck by Public Enemy in a very large venue (that I missed) and a very intimate and insightful Vernon Reid performance (that I experienced).

The entire weekend was well worth my time and the ticket price. I met artists (like Shepard Fairey who was in town to create murals for the event), made friends, got to listen to a diverse set of artists – from the brutally loud and cathartic Swans to the also physical and transcendent saxophonist Colin Stetson.

I don’t know what my weekend would have been like without applying CreAction skills and principles, but I’m awfully glad I did.

The state of math and science education in the US is in a decline. Compared to the rest of the world, the US ranks 24th in science and 28th in math. Furthermore, there’s a large gender gap. 16% of college engineering students are female. 10% of professional engineers are women.

I was especially heartened that a family with a young daughter decided to make an outing last night.   The film follows male and female students as they design, build and compete with their robots.  I won’t give it all away because I want you to go see this film!

Daniel Pink , the author of A Whole New Mind, has a new book out called Drive, which reached the national bestseller list in its first month of publication.  If you haven’t heard of him, now is an excellent time to get acquainted.

Dan spoke with William Arruda, Personal Brand Coach and Founder of  Reach Personal Branding about his book, Drive: The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. I decided to take my lunch hour and listen to this very interesting conversation spanning Social Science Research, Real World Workplace Examples and suggestions for increasing personal performance. 

First Dan and William talk about a study conducted by Dan Ariely which evaluates the pay-for-performance or the IF-THEN model.  What’s fascinating is that the pay – for – performance model only works when the tasks at hand are repetitive tasks.  When the study participants are asked to do anything involving cognitive skill, the higher the bonus, the worse the performance.

Which lead to an interesting question – if money isn’t the motivating factor for performance improvements in a creative work society, then what is?   Dan goes on to explain his idea of X and I motivators, eXtrinsic versus Intrinsic.  That when the motivation was Internally motivated, the job satisfaction and job performance went up.  External motivators, like money, only brought the performance to a certain level.  After that it either plateaus or declines.

So, what’s a workplace to do, a place where you go to a job and get paid?  Dan Pink has some suggestions.  1rst he suggests that there’s a distinction between management and leadership.  That management is a vocabulary and a technology/methodology to obtain compliance… which is important in a situation where you need things done in a certain way.  Leadership, however, is the art of engaging others toward a shared goal.  And that engagement is what leads to higher performance.

What’s engagement for an organization?  It’s the magic glue that keeps people together working toward a shared vision.  By providing a sense of purpose, a big picture, people are more likely to understand how what they are doing on a day to day level affects the whole.  Then, through leadership you give people the autonomy and the opportunities for mastery and you have the possibility of increased productivity, engagement, and satisfaction.

Here’s a great example Dan referenced – a Wharton Study where call center agents were given the opportuntity to better understand the significance of their work on the whole.  At the beginning of their shift, they attended lectures about what they were learning (dealing with rejection, public speaking) as well as information about what their work was accomplishing (where the funds they were raising were going) – they “earned more than twice the number of weekly pledges (from an average of 9 to an average of 23) and more than twice the amount of weekly donation money (from an average of $1,288 to an average of $3,130).

That’s pretty amazing.

How are you connected to your world?  Is your job just a paycheck or is it part of something greater?  If you’re stuck at work these days… and under-employment all around us, how are you using Mastery, Purpose and Autonomy to generate greater job satisfaction, performance and engagement to your day to day?

from the website:

“Host Ira Glass introduces the story of the New United Motor Manufacturing Inc., aka NUMMI. In 1984, General Motors and Toyota opened NUMMI as a joint venture. Toyota showed GM the secrets of its production system: how it made cars of much higher quality and much lower cost than GM achieved. But today, GM cars still don’t have the quality of Japanese imports, GM is bankrupt and on March 31, NUMMI will be closed, sending thousands of car workers looking for jobs. In this hour-long story, NPR Automotive Correspondent Frank Langfitt tells the story of NUMMI and why GM – and the rest of the American car business – wasn’t able to learn from it more quickly.”

Worth a Listen.

This very intimate 2 hour workshop was filled with insights and new vocabulary for things I already knew – for example, they contextualize people into  ”dreamer” and “doer”  categories, and talk about the necessary relationship/partnership between the two.  In some of my experience, that’s been delineated as The Business and IT (a very dangerous distinction if you draw it right down the middle)  or The Client and The Consultant (again a slippery slope).  What was new here, was the idea that there are also people who sit in between –  ”incrementalists” – a little bit of both.

A lot like me!

I didn’t like the term, but I appreciated the recognition that sometimes life isn’t always one-or-the-other.

My biggest takeaway from the session is to identify in my project which way I’m leaning, Dreamer or Doer,  and take steps to ensure that I pair with someone or a group who can help keep balance in the project.  The suggestion of creating and leveraging an intentional circle or group to ensure project success was also fantastic.

After all, nothing significant ever gets done alone.  A co-worker of mine had that quote on her wall, and I always loved it’s sentiment.

For more about Scott’s upcoming book, click here.

Knowing that I would have diverted attention from project management, I created my New Years Resolution broadly to focus on my own projects. Specifically in the area of maintaining my PMP, to write once a month on an area of interest to me relating to project management, and to up the ante with  my PDUs . (professional development units, required for maintaining the credential and also often quite interesting)

Now that 2009 is well past, and I am spending a fair amount of time as a Business Analyst/Project Manager, I intent to refocus this blog.   It took me a fair amount of time to write this post regarding resolutions, since, as a project manager, I am not a large fan of the New Years Eve  tradition.  I find that many resolutions are too focused on the immediate and skip the larger picture.  Even if  they adhere to the SMART model (specific-measurable-actionable-results oriented-timely), they are often made hastily, and myopically.  We also tend to make too many resolutions.

In thinking about project management and resolutions, I was reminded of a PMI – NY talk I saw where someone presented on how they tried to leverage their personal life and goals using project management methodology for an entire year, and then presented the findings.  Unsurprisingly, certain areas faired better than others, and one of his largest pieces of feedback to himself was to take on less specific tasks. Not everything in life fits neatly in a Work Breakdown Structure.

The above may be heresy to say as a project manager, but as Lennon was attributed: “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.” (1957 according to wikiquote)

So, for my New Years Project, I’ve realized that I take on more general goal statements, as there’s another quote I really like, by the French Philosopher Geoffrey F. Abert (1079 – 1142) – “The most important thing about goals is having one.”

in 2006, I’d just completed the purchase of my home, so my goal was to welcome others into my space, after bouncing around for so long. I built community, held potlucks, and created a great space for myself and others to come together.

in 2007, I decided “to try new things”, and this included learning how to drive a stick shift, and resulted in a wonderful adventure to Pamplona, Spain, where I learned a lot of things on the go – from how to pack a lot of luggage in a tiny Citroen, to speaking on the fly street  Spanish mixed with French to negotiate tickets to a bull fight.

I liked the goal “of trying new things”  so much that I kept it for 2008, and chose to travel around the country, getting out of the Northeast, learning a lot of local culture and customs, and spending a lot of time in New Orleans, a true melting pot.  A vegetarian for almost 20 years, living in NOLA,  I ended up finding an affinity for really fresh seafood , crab, crawfish, shrimp, something that was completely  new for me.

In 2009 I chose to “pay myself first” and re-focus from the myriad volunteer projects toward my own, including University (the aforementioned mini-MBA), speaking engagements, an article in PMnetwork, and shift toward consulting startups and non-profit organizations for pay instead of sweat equity.

This year, I’m continuing the theme of putting my own projects first, and I’m also choosing to re-focus this blog to feature more of those projects – as opposed to general articles on project management. Looking back on it, I was already writing that way in 2009, but feeling bad about not sticking to my original goal.

This is supposed to be a fun project, so be on the lookout for more regarding how to project manage like a ninja, musings on volunteer management, and other thoughts that come my way.

until the next one,

enjoy!

And there are generally robots and video games.  What’s not to love?

In the aftermath of the Nor’Easter I made it to NYU.  From 3 – 5pm I traipsed through gradually filling  hallways and rooms, playing, being intrigued, amazed and disgusted.

Playful:

sonicPoetry : An electrically amplified typewriter, for composing and performing sonic poetry/prose/etc

http://tamarziv.com/itp/

GraffBot:  This guy wants to draw on the side of a building without putting his life in danger.  The mockup included a joystick, servos, stepdowns.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/graffbot/

His project from this time last year was a rotary phone booth that took a picture every time you picked up and dialed a number. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/fauxtauxs/collections/72157611354575201/)

Intriguing:

Current : A visual representation of what’s trending right now.    I’m a big Edward Tufte fan, and welcome new visual presentations of data.  This version uses the WebSurf from the 90s and takes it to next level.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/current-a-news-project/

TrendLines: leveraging Boxee and available trending twitter/news topics to create video clip play lists.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/trendlines/

Un-Plug:  using a light sensor (light sensors seemed to be big this year) this is a device designed to unplug your powerstrip once you leave a room and turn out the lights.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/unplug/ and http://un-plug.com/

Un-Plug reminded me of SmartOutlets, a piece from 2008 : http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/spring2008/smart-outlets/

This guy re-visioned a powerstrip targeting phantom loads and identifying unneeded usage, killing the power at the outlet source when you removed your keys off the weight sensor-ed hook

Amazing/Beautiful:

Dynamic – Ground: 7 interconnected hexagons that move in a continuous circular movement, driven by one central servo motor, which is activated by a light sensor.  This was a beautiful piece.

http://www.vimeo.com/8304303

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/dynamic-ground/

Disgusting:

Organic Veals:  Meat Puppets. Literally. This woman decided to make marionettes out of veal, and have them slowly animate (with slurping sound effects) on a puppet stage.  What this has to do with actual applied technology I have no idea.  There’s talk in her artist statement about connecting the movement of real people to the movement of the veals. But I never got that from the presentation, and the rest of the website is so heavy in the art speak, I’m sure she’ll do great in Berlin.

http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/organic-veals/

http://momentsound.com/veals/

Other things to note:

Aesthetics: A majority of the show  borrowed heavily from steampunk.   Lots of gears, old frames, grossly over designed enclosures.  Form is winning over function.

Crowdsourcing: Many of the projects were about people interacting with the student’s newly designed platform, and giving information to the platform, as opposed to users getting information.   This shift in thinking – that the network is where you give things, not where you get things is arguably not a new concept, however this show seems to have turned a corner in almost every project category, you were giving, not getting information or experience. There was even a physical computing project, where you interact with it, and it saves the interaction outputs to display at a later time to someone else.  (Gratitude: http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/gratitude/)

Websites: I think I saw one traditional website, maybe there were 5 or six. (the show is massive, no way to take it all in) The one I saw was a crowdsource effort to encourage people to take pictures of their local flora/fauna/etc and catalogue it. (noah- http://www.networkedorganisms.com) It mostly seemed to have pictures of people’s pets.  They do have missions – http://www.networkedorganisms.com/missions – including documenting pigeons and ladybugs.  Again, heavily dependent upon the crowd to take the picture, follow up, filling out information, with very little known sources backup. Just because it’s crowd sourced, doesn’t make it true.   One cool web driven project was http://itp.nyu.edu/shows/winter2009/the-bike-pedaler/ . Bike Peddler, via an alternate interface helps you find a bike on Craigslist that’s close to you.

“Telecommunications”: though ITP stands for the interactive TELECOMMUNICATIONS program, there was very little that actually had to do with using a phone.  There were two projects that focused on mobile solutions for solar/energy – one for aiding entrepreneurs with their energy startup, and the other for rural area maintenance of solar power.  The technology being used wasn’t a particularly innovative approach.

Cost: There’s a lot of money at ITP, and wandering around all the lasercut / cnc milled piece parts, tri-color leds, slick business cards and marketing plans I had to wonder where was the re-use, re-design, recession?

As I stood there, surveying the multitudes, I was asked “ Would you like fries with that ?” – the classic upsell.  ( I flipped burgers in high school and know all the tricks ) Well, I didn’t want any fries, but I did get an insight into a recent conversation with my friend Becky about her involvement with her community out in Des Moines.  She became more active after someone asked her to bring snacks to the next meeting.  Five years later and she’s the head of hospitality for their annual convention.  She was basically upsold into volunteerism.

A report called “Reimagining Service” says that “People volunteer for many reasons, but mostly because they want to make a difference,” and that as leaders, “We must value their time by ensuring it is used to make the greatest difference possible.”

The excerpt by Philanthropy.com goes on to state that organizations too often focus on what the volunteers want to do instead of developing good management systems to mobilize them to solve pressing social problems.

I read all of this with great interest because I often coordinate large volunteer populations.  I find that for events there are two kinds of volunteers, the ones who have helped before the event, say on the planning committees, and then there are those who show up during the event who want to help.

A good example of this may be volunteering at a soup kitchen, or for a beach cleanup, or to build a house.  Here, there’s a plan already in place, and the day-of or ad hoc volunteers are given exact instructions on what to do. The “what to do” is also generally easy to do, and easy to explain, so one volunteer can train another. 

While I disagree that all volunteers should be provided solely with a narrow menu of choice on how to serve an organization, I do believe that knowing your volunteer organization, their goals, and the project’s intent can help to provide a much needed framework for on-boarding volunteers and providing opportunities for growth.

So, what can those managing volunteer populations can learn from the fast food industry? 

The fast food industry in this country can trace its roots back to White Castle in the 20s, and McDonalds in the 40s.  Some basic innovations we now take for granted provide insight into reimaging the volunteer population in your organization.

First, White Castle, demystifying the hamburger. When White Castle was founded the hamburger was not seen as a gourmet item.  It was country fair or carnival food, and often given a bad reputation for being unclean, or the dregs of meat.  White Castle made the kitchen visible to the customer creating a transparency inside the process.

Transparency inside of volunteer organizations is incredibly important, as it provides individuals giving their time to see how they fit into the larger picture.  Sometimes you can see immediate results – from swinging a hammer and building a house, but other times, like stuffing envelopes or creating care packages, it can be a bit harder to understand how this all fits in.   Reporting to the volunteers on the final outcome or next phase of the project is essential in letting them know they’ve made a difference, and that the work provided matters.  Providing transparency into other phases and parts of the project can also provide an opportunity for additional involvement and enrollment.

McDonald’s has many innovations – from envisioning a faster way to serve customers, to the classic “Would you like fries with that?” up-sell.  The history of the upsell is disputed, but what’s important is that there is so much opportunity to easily upsell in the McDonald’s experience.

What this means in practical terms for managing a volunteer population is that, as a leader, you provide the opportunity to immediately participate like serving food as well as a well defined way to take it up a notch – planning menus, developing the kitchen budget, etc.   

In Project Management parlance, there are five process groups/phases of a project – Initiating, Planning, Executing, Controlling and Monitoring, and Closing.   In each of these lies an opportunity for immediate involvement as well as a longer term relationship.

Another study by the National Conference on Citizenship indicates that due to the recession, a large majority of Americans have reduced the amount of time they spend volunteering.

By the contrary McDonalds has demonstrated year-over-year growth, opening 600 stores in 2008.  Admittedly McDonalds achieved its growth through several measures, but it does give a whole new meaning to “would you like fries”.  Slate sums it up nicely in saying that “McDonald’s success can be chalked up to a combination of luck—which is the residue of smart planning—and savvy moves.”

As leaders in our community, we can create our own luck through smart planning and savvy moves.  When embarking on a new project for your organization, check the project goals against the goals of the organization – are they a fit?  If you’re unclear about the connection, think twice before pursuing planning.  In the plan phase, remember we always remember the big tasks. In this phase it’s useful to brainstorm the additional “nice to have” parts of the project, and during project execution you can look toward volunteers who want to take on more.  In monitoring the project or event, be clear on the project and organizational priorities, and don’t let a nice-to-have hijack your resources or take precedence over the project and organizational key goals.   In closing out a project, be sure to recognize the contributions of your volunteers, as well as illustrate how it all fits into the larger picture – the goal of the charity and the next steps possible in the interaction.   

All this can help good organizations be even better, with or without volunteers!  As a volunteer, there are plenty of ways online and off to look for opportunities… a good place to start is http://serve.gov/.

Candy season is starting – from Halloween through Easter it’s pretty much all candy all the time.  To kick off the festivities, and perhaps placate my own personal sweet tooth, this month’s missive comes from the land of Jelly Belly brand jelly beans.

Recently I caught their factory profile on the Travel Channel’s “extreme mega factory” show.  Sandwiched in between features on the Intel clean room and the the Lego – all robot run factory, was a short bit on how jelly beans are made vis a vis the Jelly Belly Plant.

On the Jelly Belly web site they have a nifty web site where you can follow along the life of a bean.

http://www.jellybelly.com/Virtual_Tour/virtual_tour.aspx

Here they have video and text explanations along every step of the way, and a trusty map so that you can follow the beans through the candy plant.

I was surprised that it takes about a week to bring a jelly bean into existence. It makes sense that something that small and tasty would take time. And it requires a repeatable process.

What was most interesting to me was the fact that they build in rest periods for the jelly beans.  That’s right, it takes about 7 days to make a jelly bean and 50% of that time (split in 2 parts) is waiting for the bean to do it’s thing.

Sometimes on projects we complain about the hurry up and wait part of the interaction between stakeholders.  The next time that happens to me, I’m going out for a package of Jelly Belly.