Interviewing for a new job? here is a tip!

If you are looking for a new job, or know someone who is, or if you want to understand your own company, here is a quick tip to set yourself apart.

I have seen reports that say as many as 15% more firms last year instituted formal ethics policies. My guess is that after the next round of business corruption reports and investment failures that the number of firms with open ethics policies will be increasing.

Would you want to do business with an investment firm that did not have a transparent honesty policy? Be on the look out for advertising from firms about how they are dealing with the meltdown and how their ethics policies have improved performance for clients.

So, when you go for your next interview, make sure you have fully checked out the firm that is recruiting you. Study their policy. If they don’t have a written ethics policy, either pass or find out why? I once hired a major construction firm for a project. I was shocked to learn they had no formal safety manual. When I challenged them, they pointed out that safety wasn’t second in their firm, it was first, and that safety was embedded in every policy manual, including ones on the desk of typists for proper posture and chair selection. I guessed they had directions on how to avoid paper cuts, they were that serious about safety.

The take away, know your companies ethics policies and abide by them. If you are looking for a new position check the written policy of the prospective firm. Ask pointed questions of the interviewer, such as: “Can you provide me with an example of where your written ethics policy was crucial in protecting an employee and/or a client from harm.” This might surprise the interviewer and set you apart as a serious person worth a second look.

If they seem clueless then  you can suspect the policy is a sham. if they are proud of their firm they will know at least where to look to find the written policy.

If you don’t agree with what they have written pass. If you get the job, live by the policy, in spite of what you might think you see from others around you. If the policy is a sham, get a new job.

Suck it up and take the blame!

As a project manager, rarely does everything go your way. Mistakes by the team happen and they are often seen from outside by supervisors and clients.

When I was younger, and on the south side of wisdom, I would get upset when mistakes were made and things didn’t go my way. I rarely got angry with a person. At least I was that wise. However; I would show my displeasure with the outcome or the product. My team members learned to sense when things were not going well. They were certain that when things were not going well that the focus would be on fixing the problem not casting blame or doling out punishments or worse yet corporate purge.

When things went wrong, I would suck it up, take the blame, and move on. When I reported problems to clients, I always had recovery or mitigation plans ready. After awhile my clients and bosses rarely asked for the details of the plan, they knew that the fix was was already in the works. I found, that every time I took the blame, my stature in the eyes of my client and/or my boss went up. They knew I was a stand up guy, and wouldn't waste effort on things not related to the project moving forward.

Hey, I wasn’t averse to providing career guidance and or an opportunity for an individual to excel with our competitors, but I felt that retaining the new knowledge gained by the error often outweighed the cost of the error. One approach that served me well in “fixing” problem employees was to recognize that there were no “bad employees”, just mistakes in hiring, training, assignment or supervision, and those mistakes always led back to me.

Once I discovered that there were no “bad employees’, I learned to reassign work towards the individuals strength. They could regain team trust by performing at a high level in their skill mastery area. They would get back on the horse that threw them, so to speak. Sometimes, as an added benefit to me,  the individual would get angry and leave; saving me the public humiliation of firing someone who I had hired, trained, or assigned and who I had certainly supervised.

The take away:

• There are no “bad employees”, just hiring, training, assignment or supervision errors.
• Suck it and take the blame, it can raises your status in an organization.

PS. As I recounted in a previous blog. I once had the opportunity to take the blame for others, and was promoted on the spot to a direct report to the CEO of a company with 2000 employees. I was newly hired to fix a project (I spent a decade in project turnarounds). The guilty team members were all assembled, expecting a few executions. The CEO walked in and said “Who’s in charge of this mess/”. I said “I am but I have a plan to fix it.” He looked at me and said: “Good, then you have my support and please let me know directly what you need from the corporation to fix the problem.” and he left the room. It took about one minute for the team to recognize who was now in charge and that I had saved at least some of them from a trip to the pink slip office.

PPS. If your company has public executions of mistake makers. I suggest that they are not a “learning company” and you should seek a new employer.

The Project Management Circus Parade.

Information is key to orderly and enjoyable project management. Information is one of the necessary resources for efficient and effective project management.

Dr. Rogers' Rule 5: Project Communication is an active, two-way process, not a one-way street

Dr. Rogers' Rule 8: Have Fun!

Information coming down “Communication Street” often looks just like a circus parade. Lots of elephants, jugglers, and clowns obscuring the tractors, trailers, and cages overlaid with a cacophony of sounds and smells. Communication Street should be like a mythical wide boulevard with shading elms and sidewalk shops and cafes; a perfect Paris or New York thoroughfare. A two way street, broad enough to allow the parade of information to make a straight run from one end to the other even with the overload of busy cross traffic, parade watchers, souvenir hawkers, and pot holes, a typical project endures.

Like a major city artery “Communication Street” needs to provide for the boutiques, cafes and shops (your matrix providers of services) that line the sidewalks. Your allied team members need to pick up the information they need to stay in business without interfering with the project parade and without the parade overwhelming their main business enterprises.


“Communication Street” also needs to allow two way traffic during the parade. The entire project team needs to know what’s happening up and down the parade route so that they can react to the lions escape. The sidewalk cafes need to stay open during the parade to provide a place where one can rest a minute and pick up or drop off information.


Effective and efficient communication of information is essential to project success. Top project managers are like “Circus Ring Leaders”. They know how to lead the parade down Communication Street, ignoring the jugglers, clowns, and elephants while picking up and dropping off information at the cafes and making it all the way to the Circus Grounds.

Already behind as the new year starts? Crash the schedule!

As usual, the new year brings new expectations for productivity increases, quicker and smarter project delivery and as always some new twist coming out of no-where.

This posting will review the fundamentals of crashing a schedule. Whether you find yourself behind schedule with clients breathing down your neck, or you want to look for ways to move your project ahead of schedule, there are certain fundamentals to consider.

It has been my experience that even good project managers make mistakes because they fail to master the fundamentals. It is always a good idea to review fundamentals.

If you plan to shorten a schedule by crashing, take these basic steps.

1. Look at the critical path activities. (Assumes the good practice of creating a CPM schedule before starting a project.)
2. Review longish activities in the near future that have small associated costs and make a list of the targeted activities. (You might have to use Pareto analysis to fill the list, but that's a good thing).
3. From your list, pick the longest task with the smallest cost. (Low hanging fruit.)
4. Analyze what resources would need to be added or compressed to shorten the activity. Never overlook new technologies or new ways of doing the same thing. I once was able to crash a schedule simply by de-cluttering the workspace of tools. (The idea came from junior team members.)
5. Analyze any "added" cost of the added resources.
6. Simulate "what-if" to the critical path if you shorten the chosen activity. You might just create a new critical path that does not significantly shorten your schedule.
7. Analyze the cost benefit, or non-monetary cost benefit and make a decision, yes or no.
8. Repeat activities 3 to 7 until you have looked at a variety of options and new schedules.
9. Bring the team together to discuss the options and decide on a course of action. The team will probably have some good ideas and maybe see opportunities or pitfalls that you have overlooked.

When the decision, which activities to crash, has been made, ensure that it is communicated widely and that you have buy-in from anyone who can help or hurt actualization.

Pay promptly for the change.

Communicate success or failure. Failure should be rewarded at least by acknowledging the effort and diligence of the team.

Start looking for opportunities again.