I heard from some friend who owns a retail clothing store that the hardest thing is you have to buy things for your store that you don't like. That sounds weird, but you never walk through a stored and love everything. As a buyer, you would have to buy some crap you don't like, and then see what sells.
The same goes for managers. I have never run into a manager who is universally loved by everyone. Sometimes, a manager connects with many of her people, but someone usually doesn't like the manager. That's just the way it is. If you are a manager, don't expect everyone to like you. Don't try. Its liberating!
If you are running a consulting organization, by the same token, you may need to hire people who you don't like. That person who is annoying to you is going to appeal to people you don't appeal to.
I don't know, its just a theory, but it makes sense.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
PMO value proposition
I'm going to make a case for project management delivering revenue with my latest project. I have done a lot of analysis on task sequencing, dependencies, etc, and a lot of work needs to be lined up to hit the project deadline. That work probably would not have been appropriately lined up without a project manager drilling in. I am going to claim that the project would have missed its date by 1 month - the PMO can then claim 1m in revenue that will be accrued that would not have been without PMO involvement.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
This week in review
I started the week with the steering team meeting. At that meeting, one key issue was resolved - the most impacted group will run the vendor selection process. This is a good outcome, and one I orchestrated by getting all the right people to talk it through. The ST meeting went like butter, as a result.
Except one key decision was not made, and I'm having a hard time getting people to even pick a deadline for this decision. The key decisionmaker skipped the meeting, and as a result we didn't come to conclusion on this outstanding issue that has been bubbling around for about 4 months. C'mon, let's pull the trigger folks. I have laid out everything dependent on this decision, so I'm hoping this will get the ball rolling more quickly. Its interesting - the decision is being methodically considered, as if time were no object. Keep this in mind in the future. We'd rather take our time making a decision than to have to live with a bad one.
In the meantime, vendor selection marches forward.
Except one key decision was not made, and I'm having a hard time getting people to even pick a deadline for this decision. The key decisionmaker skipped the meeting, and as a result we didn't come to conclusion on this outstanding issue that has been bubbling around for about 4 months. C'mon, let's pull the trigger folks. I have laid out everything dependent on this decision, so I'm hoping this will get the ball rolling more quickly. Its interesting - the decision is being methodically considered, as if time were no object. Keep this in mind in the future. We'd rather take our time making a decision than to have to live with a bad one.
In the meantime, vendor selection marches forward.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
MS Project
Don't forget that sitting down with microsoft project to line up all the tasks is even more useful than sitting down to create a status report. It forces you to focus on thinking about all the work that needs to be done, how it is inter-related, and lining it all up. While sitting down to create your project plan, you thought of about 4 different things you needed to come to closure on.
This is actually incredibly fun. You are now in a position to ask people to explain things to you, and they really kind of have to do it. Tina explained hub and spoke to you today, and Carolyn O from legal will explain how the new corporate legal structure managing the 2a-7 like fund will be managed.
This is actually incredibly fun. You are now in a position to ask people to explain things to you, and they really kind of have to do it. Tina explained hub and spoke to you today, and Carolyn O from legal will explain how the new corporate legal structure managing the 2a-7 like fund will be managed.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Product management
I have taken on a new project that is a great opportunity and very intimidating. The opportunity is to launch a new product for the firm, generating about $1m per month. Intimidating because I have so little experience in the field, and am working with nearly every executive in the firm.
So here is the situation: the firm launches products all the time, and they never go smoothly. There are many departments involved, but nobody has holistic ownership of the results. So the portfolio managers typically run the launches, but they don't organize the launch team or coordinate the tasks. The finish line then is a fire drill, to the point where our clients have seen some ugliness. This time, the PM department wants it to go better, and I am managing the launch.
This product launch started about 4 months ago with a new PM getting the ball rolling. Our first task was to get smart enough about how to trade the product, to inventory our experience, and to explore how to structure the product from a legal perspective. The finish line was board approval of the concept. From start to milestone took about 2.5 months, mostly portfolio manager time.
Next, we decided we needed to hire a new portfolio manager who had experience with this type of product. We posted the position in mid Jan and will probably have someone on staff by mid March.
Right now, the main tasks are answering outstanding questions - what kind of legal entity (ie a new company) will be the most tax advantageous, should the fund be registered or unregistered, which partner firm should manage fund accounting and transfer agency functions.
Some of my big obstacles are related to managing across functions. The PM group just wants to do their part, and they don't expect to have much discussion across departments. Though they are sponsoring the project, they only feel ownership of their part. I am fully responsible for anything that needs to happen across functions, but I don't understand those touchpoints yet.
Somewhat of an aside, fund ops seems to generally get steamrolled on these types of projects. My fund ops team members have raised several valid issues - are our other mutual funds going to directly invest in the mmf, or will they just invest in a single omnibus account? They never seem to get answered, and impact the amount of work fund ops need to do, though I'm sure the date won't change.
My big lesson learned today was, don't cave on the things you know the best. I was pressured to sign up to a date of May 1, and I should have made the case that, given our limited understanding of how much work needs to be done, let's pad a bit. We have a project that is going through its 3rd schedule delay in 9 months, and everyone on the steering team knows about. What an easy case to make for padding the date! I wimped out. Honestly, it was like the 3rd email I had exchanged with my sponsor, and I just didn't feel like exchanging another email. Lame excuse. Anyway, I'm going to start standing up to these people.
Next step, lessons learned. One of the big reasons I'm on the case is the last product launch went particularly badly. So I'm going to dig up the dirt on what has gone poorly in the past so I can avoid those mistakes.
That's it for now - I'll try to keep this up for future reference.
So here is the situation: the firm launches products all the time, and they never go smoothly. There are many departments involved, but nobody has holistic ownership of the results. So the portfolio managers typically run the launches, but they don't organize the launch team or coordinate the tasks. The finish line then is a fire drill, to the point where our clients have seen some ugliness. This time, the PM department wants it to go better, and I am managing the launch.
This product launch started about 4 months ago with a new PM getting the ball rolling. Our first task was to get smart enough about how to trade the product, to inventory our experience, and to explore how to structure the product from a legal perspective. The finish line was board approval of the concept. From start to milestone took about 2.5 months, mostly portfolio manager time.
Next, we decided we needed to hire a new portfolio manager who had experience with this type of product. We posted the position in mid Jan and will probably have someone on staff by mid March.
Right now, the main tasks are answering outstanding questions - what kind of legal entity (ie a new company) will be the most tax advantageous, should the fund be registered or unregistered, which partner firm should manage fund accounting and transfer agency functions.
Some of my big obstacles are related to managing across functions. The PM group just wants to do their part, and they don't expect to have much discussion across departments. Though they are sponsoring the project, they only feel ownership of their part. I am fully responsible for anything that needs to happen across functions, but I don't understand those touchpoints yet.
Somewhat of an aside, fund ops seems to generally get steamrolled on these types of projects. My fund ops team members have raised several valid issues - are our other mutual funds going to directly invest in the mmf, or will they just invest in a single omnibus account? They never seem to get answered, and impact the amount of work fund ops need to do, though I'm sure the date won't change.
My big lesson learned today was, don't cave on the things you know the best. I was pressured to sign up to a date of May 1, and I should have made the case that, given our limited understanding of how much work needs to be done, let's pad a bit. We have a project that is going through its 3rd schedule delay in 9 months, and everyone on the steering team knows about. What an easy case to make for padding the date! I wimped out. Honestly, it was like the 3rd email I had exchanged with my sponsor, and I just didn't feel like exchanging another email. Lame excuse. Anyway, I'm going to start standing up to these people.
Next step, lessons learned. One of the big reasons I'm on the case is the last product launch went particularly badly. So I'm going to dig up the dirt on what has gone poorly in the past so I can avoid those mistakes.
That's it for now - I'll try to keep this up for future reference.
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