Aprenda Earned Value em 10 minutos!!!

É claro que não é possível aprender Earned Value em apenas dez minutos, mas esse vídeo dá um excelente overview sobre o tema. Vale a pena!!!

Quando o cliente é seu chefe

Grupos internos, que podem ser tão sujeitos aos debilitantes efeitos da pressão por resultados quanto equipes que trabalham com clientes externos, também podem sair ganhando ao colocar stakeholders no barco. Já se o cliente da equipe for seu chefe, é preciso pensar de um jeito um pouco distinto sobre a natureza dessa participação. Se procurar o chefe com muita frequência, o risco é ser visto como alguém "necessitado", o que incitaria a microgestão. Para não dar essa impressão, seria bom definir expressamente as expectativas desde o início.

Um alto pesquisador de uma fabricante de bens de consumo sugere a seguinte abordagem, bem sábia: diga ao chefe "Você disse que esse projeto é vital para você, para nós e para a organização. Nossa equipe quer ter certeza de que está levando em conta todos os matizes, o que significa que vamos precisar ouvir com frequência sua opinião. Que tal agendarmos sessões regulares de resolução de problemas para ficarmos bem alinhados?"

Essa tática tem vários méritos:

• Integra o contato frequente com o chefe ao plano do projeto, impedindo que a equipe perca de vista suas necessidades

• Evitar criar a impressão de que os membros da equipe só procurar o chefe quando não conseguem achar uma solução

• Posiciona o tempo juntos como um exercício em resolução conjunta de problemas, o que deixa claro que o chefe divide a responsabilidade pelo sucesso do projeto. Isso, por sua vez, reduz a pressão sobre a equipe, que já não se sente trabalhando num vácuo, temendo o dia em que seu trabalho será julgado.

Fonte: Artigo publicado na Harvard Business Review Brasil, edição Abril 2012, pág. 49 

SMART Project Management - Business Process Flow

A visualização no blog não é das melhores, mas vale a pena salvar a imagem no seu computador e estudar esse fluxo a fundo.

Fonte: http://stevepye.me/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/SMART-Lite-Process.jpg

Assess People Skills in Project Managers

The best project leaders don’t just manage projects. They manage people, too. So how can companies spot candidates with the necessary soft skills?

Project professionals cannot live on tactical competencies alone. But sound people skills aren’t as easy to spot in a candidate as the ability to deliver a project on budget. So what can organizations do to ensure the applicant has what it takes?

For starters, hiring managers must understand the value of people skills, says Ginger Levin, DPA, PMP, PgMP, OPM3® certified professional, a project management consultant and educator based in Lighthouse Point, Florida, USA.

“Ninety percent of a project manager’s time is spent communicating with stakeholders. He or she is the leader on the project and coordinates work performed by project team members, the technical experts,” says Dr. Levin, also author of Interpersonal Skills for Portfolio, Program and Project Managers.

Deborah H. Herting, PMP, a Doylestown, Pennsylvania, USA-based author of The Power of Interpersonal Skills in Project Management, says organizations should look for candidates with the ability to:

• Communicate project goals cross functionally and with all levels of the organization.
• Unite project stakeholders through collaboration and teamwork.
• Gain project buy-in with active listening and relationship-building.

Identifying people skills in project professionals isn’t difficult — you just have to know what to look for.

On a résumé, for example, look for candidates with elected leadership positions, public speaking awards, community service, participation in team sports, and sales and/or management experience, suggests John Paul Engel, a Sioux City, Iowa, USA-based author of Project Be the Change: Career & Academic Advice from Highly Successful People. These experiences indicate interpersonal skills such as communication, leadership, empathy and teamwork, he says.

Once a candidate has advanced to the interview stage, use the “STAR” method to establish patterns of behavior that demonstrate people skills, suggests Gillian Ormston, an executive coach at Intelligent Awakenings, a project management coaching firm in Luton, England.

Ask open-ended questions that encourage candidates to describe real-life “situations,” including the “tasks” they were working toward, what “actions” they took to achieve it and what the “results” were.

“Through using some targeted questions, interviewers can understand a candidate’s pattern of behavior and gain a clear feel for their people skills,” Ms. Ormston says.

Stephen Balzac, president of 7 Steps Ahead, a management consulting firm in Stow, Massachusetts, USA says the following questions are good examples of questions that will show evidence of people skills in action:

• When your team had a difficult decision to make, what did you do to help the team reach consensus?
• When someone on your project team made a mistake, what did you tell your own manager?
• When someone on your team pointed out that you were wrong, how did you respond?

Pay attention to whether the candidate speaks inclusively about how he worked with his team, or whether he was always in conflict with the team, says Mr. Balzac.

Answers that show the candidate’s ability to persuade others rather than compel or intimidate them demonstrate positive communication. And responses that show a willingness to focus on understanding why a problem occurred and how to fix it, rather than finding someone to blame, indicate good leadership.

Candidates who ask engaging questions about the company and position, turning the “interview” into more of a “dialogue,” demonstrate strong listening skills, adds Dr. Levin.

And sometimes, actions speak louder than words — especially in an interview. Look for candidates who smile, maintain eye contact and sit on the edge of their seat. All of these non-verbal cues indicate a high level of interpersonal engagement, says Mr. Engel.

At the end of the day, a well-rounded project manager is the best project manager, so use these tips to find one with both technical and personal prowess.

Fonte: publicado no site do PMI: http://www.pmi.org/Professional-Development/Career-Central/Assess-People-Skills-in-Project-Managers.aspx

Feedback é um meio de promover relacionamentos

Por Vicky Bloch:

Tenho visto um grande esforço das corporações em tentar "educar" seus líderes para dar - e receber - feedback adequadamente. Já está mais do que comprovado que promover um retorno constante às pessoas da equipe em relação a seu desempenho, conduta ou a alguma atividade executada é fundamental para reorientar ou estimular comportamentos futuros mais adequados às necessidades da organização.

Mas também observo muitas empresas errando na hora de abordar o feedback com as lideranças. Algumas estão apenas surfando na onda do modismo, sem se preocupar genuinamente com os resultados. Outras, por falta de conhecimento ou experiência dos gestores de RH, estão buscando alternativas erradas.

Recebo constantemente convites para participar de workshops de feedbacks nas empresas. O que eu tento explicar a quem me procura dessa forma é que dar treinamento pura e simplesmente não resolve o problema. Notei que muitas organizações achavam que estavam fazendo a sua parte oferecendo cursos aos gestores. Porém, não se trata de uma questão mecânica ou técnica, mas sim de relacionamento, cultura e atitude.

As pessoas esperam avidamente por serem avaliadas para se sentirem seguras em relação aos próximos passos. É uma questão humana. Elas querem conversar sobre a relação, se aprumar, saber se estão crescendo e se estão atendendo ao que a empresa espera delas - mesmo que algumas ainda tenham dificuldades em receber críticas.

A necessidade de feedback é como se fosse um grito pelo relacionamento. O cenário é novo e, talvez por isso, ainda haja tantos tropeços.

As gerações passadas simplesmente não estavam acostumadas a dar ou receber feedbacks. A postura no ambiente corporativo era a de obedecer a hierarquia e pronto. Mas hoje a situação é bem diferente, seja dentro ou fora do trabalho. Por isso, mais do que estabelecer um processo formal de feedback, as empresas precisam estar atentas sobre como estão promovendo o relacionamento entre seus funcionários em todos os níveis. Devem ter consciência de que as pessoas pedem e esperam receber um retorno sobre suas atitudes, comportamentos e entregas.

Justamente por isso, o feedback - palavra em inglês cuja tradução literal é "retroalimentação" - se tornou um ponto importante para as empresas no que diz respeito à capacidade de reter e atrair pessoas. Quando o funcionário é realmente ouvido e acredita que a empresa está sendo transparente, mesmo quando recebe uma crítica construtiva, ele se sente respeitado e valorizado. E isso não tem preço.

Pouco adianta promover campanhas de feedback formal uma ou duas vezes ao ano se o processo não faz parte da cultura organizacional. Infelizmente, isso ainda acontece em um número muito grande de empresas, apesar de todas elas terem um discurso bem afinado da porta para fora.

A comunicação interna tem que ser sempre clara e sincera. Determinadas questões técnicas ou comportamentais precisam ser pontuadas na hora, e não seis meses depois, quando a empresa agendar o feedback formal. Se o gestor aprende a avaliar os membros de sua equipe entendendo também as suas expectativas, ele tem condições de administrar muito melhor o seu negócio. Já o funcionário pode aprender e corrigir rapidamente a rota quando for preciso.

Sim, a formalização é importante. Registrar o feedback significa assumir um compromisso claro entre as partes. Ajuda os gestores de RH a entender melhor o ambiente e a registrar grandes movimentos. O olhar mais distante também contribui para amarrar de forma mais precisa os objetivos e a traçar rumos estratégicos. Mas o feedback não pode ser artificial.

Geralmente, profissionais que têm interesse pelo indivíduo desempenham melhor feedbacks, porque naturalmente prestam atenção no comportamento humano e nos relacionamentos. O desafio maior se dá com pessoas autocentradas, com certo grau de arrogância, que se criaram sem limites e sem respeito pelo outro. Ou para quem o fenômeno humano não tem interesse - o que é legítimo, inclusive. Lamento apenas que, quem age dessa forma, perde a possibilidade de estabelecer relações de maior profundidade na vida.

À medida que um profissional exercita com mais clareza essa conversa sobre as relações, ele acaba estendendo uma abertura também para outras esferas, como a própria família. Todos só têm a ganhar.

Artigo publicado no site do Valor Econômico: http://www.valor.com.br/carreira/2631070/feedback-e-um-meio-de-promover-relacionamentos

Sobre a autora: Vicky Bloch é professora da FGV, do MBA de recursos humanos da FIA e fundadora da Vicky Bloch Associados

Increase Your Team's Motivation Five-Fold

Escrito por Scott Keller

In a famous experiment, researchers ran a lottery with a twist. Half the participants were randomly assigned a lottery number. The remaining half were given a blank piece of paper and a pen and asked to write down any number they would like as their lottery number. Just before drawing the winning number, the researchers offered to buy back the tickets. The question researchers wanted to answer is, "How much more do you have to pay someone who 'wrote their own number' versus someone who was handed a number randomly?" The rational answer would be that there is no difference (given that a lottery is pure chance and therefore every ticket number, chosen or assigned, should have the same value). A more savvy answer would be that you would have to pay less for the tickets where the participant chose the number, given the possibility of duplicate numbers in the population who wrote their own number. The real answer? No matter what location or demographic the experiment has taken place in, researchers have always found that they have to pay at least five times more to those who wrote their own number.

This result reveals an inconvenient truth about human nature: When we choose for ourselves, we are far more committed to the outcome — by a factor of five to one.

Conventional approaches to change management underestimate this impact. The rational thinker sees it as a waste of time to let others self-discover what he or she already knows — why not just tell them and be done with it? Unfortunately this approach steals from others the energy needed to drive change that comes through a sense of ownership of "the answer."

Consider another practical example: One retail bank's personal financial services (PFS) CEO employed a fairly literal interpretation of the above finding when he wrote his change story in full prose, in a way that he found meaningful. He then shared it with his team, getting feedback on what resonated and what needed further clarification. Then, he asked each of his team members to "write their own lottery ticket:" What was the change story for them, in their business, that supported the bigger PFS-wide change story? His team members wrote their own change stories, again in full prose, and shared it with their teams. Their teams gave feedback and then wrote their own story for their area/department, and so the process continued all the way to the frontline. It took twice as long as the traditional roadshow approach, but for a five-fold return on commitment to the program, it was the right investment to make.

Sam Palmisano, former CEO of IBM, in spearheading a change effort to move IBM toward a values-based management system, enabled thousands of employees to "write their own lottery ticket" regarding IBM's values. During a three-day, online discussion forum (dubbed ValuesJam), more than 50,000 employees were empowered — literally — to rewrite IBM's century-old values.

Other applications need not be so literal. At a global consumer goods company, the CEO brought together his top 300 for three two-day "real work" sessions over the course of three months, where they created the story together. Again, this required a significant investment of time, but having the top 300 five-times more committed to the way forward was considered well worth the investment. The story was then rolled out across the organization via one- or two-day sessions in which small working groups explored the implications for their particular parts of the business.

At a minimum, we advocate that leaders leverage the "lottery ticket" insight by augmenting their telling of the story with asking about the story. Consider David Farr, CEO of Emerson Electric, who is noted for asking virtually everyone he encounters in his organization four questions related to his company's story: 1.) How do you make a difference? (testing for alignment on the company's direction); 2.) What improvement idea are you working on? (emphasizing continuous improvement); 3.) When did you last get coaching from your boss? (emphasizing the importance of employee development); and 4.) Who is the enemy? (emphasizing the importance of "One Emerson"/no silos, i.e., he wanted to emphasize that the "right" answer was the competition and not some other department).

On a final note, many executives are surprised not only by the ownership and drive for implementation that comes from high-involvement approaches, but also by the improved quality of the answers that emerge. In speaking to HBR in November 2008, John Chambers, chairman and CEO of networking specialist Cisco Systems, described his experience in this regard, "It was hard for me at first to learn to be collaborative. The minute I'd get into a meeting, I'd listen for about 10 minutes while the team discussed a problem. I knew what the answer was, and eventually I'd say, 'All right, here's what we're going to do.' But when I learned to let go and give the team the time to come to the right conclusion, I found they made just as good decisions, or even better — and just as important, they were even more invested in the decision and thus executed with greater speed and commitment."

What it comes down to, of course, is that when people make their own decisions, they are more dedicated to everything that follows. If your team wants what you want them to want, you are five times more likely to get it.

Fonte: Blog da Harvard Business Review - http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/04/increase_your_teams_motivation.html

O que é um Gerente de Projeto?

Um projeto é desenvolvido pelo profissional denominado ”gerente de Projeto”. Este profissional raramente participa das atividades diretas do projeto que produzem os resultados. Sua função é “gerenciar” o progresso do empreendimento e através das variáveis (qualidade, custo, prazo e escopo) verificar seus desvios. Desta forma, seu objetivo geral é proporcionar que as falhas inerentes aos processos sejam minimizadas. 

Um gerente de projeto tem que determinar e executar as necessidades do cliente, baseado nos seus próprios conhecimentos. A habilidade de adaptar-se aos diversos procedimentos pode lhe proporcionar um melhor gerenciamento das variáveis e desta forma uma maior satisfação do cliente. 

Em campo, um gerente de projeto bem sucedido deve poder imaginar o projeto inteiro do seu começo ao seu término e desta forma assegurar que esta visão seja realizada. Qualquer tipo de produto ou serviço -- edifícios, veículos, eletrônica, software de computador, serviços financeiros, etc. -- pode ter sua execução supervisionada por um gerente de projeto e suas operações por um gerente de produto.

Provérbios sobre Gerenciamento de Projetos - XIII

"Para tocar o seu projeto, conheça bem: o organograma, o mandograma, o orfacograma, o mafiograma, e fundamentalmente, o secretariograma."

Não se faz um gerente de projetos na faculdade

Escrito por Luana Morellato

A área de computação é muito vasta e complexa. Por isso, ao longo dos anos surgiram formações acadêmicas mais específicas, diferente dos tradicionais cursos de graduação em Ciência e Engenharia da Computação - além de especializações focadas em otimização e gerenciamento de projetos. E isso traz grandes vantagens, tanto para quem está estudando para entrar no ramo, quanto para o mercado, que necessita de profissionais qualificados nos diferentes setores que a informática abrange.

Sou professora universitária na área de Sistemas de Informação e conversando com um aluno, ele me disse que não queria programar. Seu objetivo ao fazer o curso era trabalhar com gerenciamento. Fiquei intrigada e decidi conversar com outros professores, até mesmo de outras instituições, para saber se essa opinião era pontual. E, pelo menos em uma pequena amostragem - considerando a cidade onde vivo, percebi que grande parte dos estudantes acreditam que irão trabalhar como gerente de projetos no primeiro emprego.

Acredito fortemente que gerenciar projetos é uma tarefa que inclui, sim, estudos e formação acadêmica na área, mas um fator determinante é a experiência real. Gerenciar é planejar,  re-planejar, ajustar, corrigir, trabalhar com prazos e tomar decisões. Indo além, é lidar com pessoas, gerenciá-las, resolver imprevistos, atrasos, trabalhar sob pressão, em equipe, liderar. Um conjunto imenso de fatores que vão infinitamente além de descrever diagramas UML, fazer entrevistas com clientes, ou chamar a atenção de um funcionário. As experiências reais que você viveu são necessárias. Me arrisco a dizer que o seu lado "humano" é, muitas vezes, mais decisivo que o lado “exatas/ computacional” para ser um bom profissional de gerenciamento.

Ainda na mesma linha de pensamento, pessoas formadas há pouco tempo em cursos tecnológicos de computação buscam, logo depois de formados, uma pós graduação/ especialização na área de gerência. Não que isso seja ruim, ou errado, mas ao entrevistar alguém com essa formação, sem nenhuma experiência de mercado, provavelmente o salário dele e a função serão compatíveis com o curso que ele fez anteriormente e não com o mais avançado.

Não posso afirmar se o que foi relatado aqui é uma realidade geral, ou algo específico. Acredito que a área de computação é muito mais aberta e democrática que as demais. Portanto, não é necessariamente com curso superior X ou especialização Y que o profissional garantirá um bom emprego, um bom salário e o crescimento na profissão. É claro que formação é importante, mas não é somente ela que transformará uma pessoa em gerente – até onde sei, faculdade para isso não existe.

Muitas horas de trabalho, esforço e aprendizado no dia-a-dia vão fornecer ensinamentos fundamentais para ser um bom profissional de informática, seja trabalhando com programação, análise, suporte, gerência de projetos ou qualquer outra função existente.

Fonte: Artigo publicado no site iMasters: http://imasters.com.br/artigo/23080/carreira/nao-se-faz-um-gerente-de-projetos-na-faculdade

Understanding the Greatest Challenge for Managers

Escrito por Curt Finch.

The current state of the global economy has created new challenges for companies all over the world.  This has led to executive decisions being made out of panic, such as firing quality employees and slashing important programs.  Regardless of their efforts, many companies have seen plummeting revenue streams, sometimes being forced out of business altogether.

It may surprise you, but I actually believe that the greatest challenge in this economy is avoiding the mistake of blaming everything on the economy.  It is easy for managers and executives to wring their hands and say, “This is the worst economy we have had in 80 years, and that is why my company has all of these problems.”  To a certain extent, they are right.  Yet that type of thinking does not lead to solutions.

What if the economy never improves very much? Take Japan for example: they have been stuck with an anemic economy for decades now. Of course I know the tsunami didn’t help much either. Yet within that environment, some Japanese companies have excelled while others have withered or accepted the status quo.

Is the sale of Apple products like the iPad or the iPhone 4G suffering from the economy?  Considering the fact that people will wait in line for 12 hours to get them, I imagine not.  People will wait in line that long to buy something that they really want.

So how can you offer something that people will want regardless of the economy?  The first step is to wake up and realize that things will never improve for your company until you do something to make it happen.  You can figure out how to improve your products or find new markets – maybe even create new markets – where you can outthink, outsell and outperform your competitors.  Is there a problem in your industry that everyone recognizes but no one is fixing?  Fix it!

Once you have convinced yourself that new opportunities in a recession are possible, you just have to convince everyone else with whom you work.

And that is the real challenge of this economy.

About Curt Finch

Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx. Founded in 1996, Journyx automates payroll, billing and cost accounting while easing management of employee time and expenses, and provides confidence that all resources are utilized correctly and completely. Curt earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Virginia Tech.  As a software programmer fixing bugs for IBM in the early ‘90’s, Curt found that tracking the time it took to fix each bug revealed the per-bug profitability. Curt knew that this concept of using time-tracking data to determine project profitability was a winning idea and something that companies were not doing – yet… Curt created the world's first web-based timesheet application and the foundation for the current Journyx product offerings in 1997. Learn more about Curt at http://journyx.com/company/curtfinch.

Avoiding Project Management Pitfalls

Está em inglês, mas eu recomendo. Dicas simples de como se livrar de armadilhas comuns em Projetos.

4 Valuable Skills to Break Into Project Management

Considering a career in project management? Find out if you have what it takes to excel in this growing profession.

As companies look for that elusive competitive edge, they’re hot on the trail of candidates with project management expertise. This year, 44 percent of the 353 IT executives in a Computerworld survey said they plan to hire candidates with project management skills.

So what do you need to succeed in this growing profession? Here are four skills that will help get you started:

1. Business acumen

Why you need it: “In most organizations, a key difference between new and senior project management is not age. It’s what we call the ‘boardroom presence’ — the ability to communicate with the executives in an effective way,” says Marc Mutsaers, PMP, senior project manager, Equens, a payment processing firm in Utrecht, Netherlands. “This skill is required to run complex, high-impact or high-risk projects.”

How to hone: Along with taking business courses, put yourself in situations that demand immediate and decisive actions to achieve the organization’s business goals, Mr. Mutsaers says.

2. Project management basics

Why you need it: It sounds obvious, but going in with a working knowledge of some project management fundamentals may give you an edge. Although no organization expects the “newbie” to know everything about project management, you must be well versed in the more common tactics, tools and terminology.

How to hone: Find a mentor — someone working in the profession that you can observe or interact with, suggests Saad Ansari, PMP, senior consultant, CGI Group Inc., a systems integration, IT and business process services firm in Markham, Ontario, Canada.

“This allows you to observe project management in action and to get familiarized with the profession,” he says.

Along with gaining formal project management education and finding a mentor, Mr. Ansari recommends getting involved in forums such as PMI’s communities of practice or tapping into local PMI chapter resources, he says.

3. Emotional intelligence

Why you need it: “Successful project managers are leaders and managers at the same time,” says Mario Henrique Trentim, PMI-RMP, PMP, manager, project management office, Institute of Aeronautics and Space, São José dos Campos, São Paulo, Brazil. “They know how to cast a vision and engage stakeholders, and they also know how to get the job done through their teams.”

How to hone: Keep a journal of your daily emotions and reactions, suggests Mr. Trentim. Then gather feedback from friends or colleagues. Analyze your journal and your responses to learn how you respond to situations.

4. Assertiveness

Why you need it: You must be able to foster a healthy exchange of ideas with a variety of people — each of whom may come on to the project with their own motives, says Mr. Trentim. You must be able to articulate your needs in a firm, but diplomatic and reasonable manner.

How to hone: Learn to identify the roles of a project team member or project manager versus those of a stakeholder or sponsor. If you know who is responsible for what decisions, you’ll have a better idea of when you can comply with requests and when to push back.

Armed with these four skills, potential project professionals may just uncover a new career path.

Fonte: http://www.pmi.org/en/Professional-Development/Career-Central/4-Valuable-Skills-to-Break-Into-Project-Management.aspx

10 Super Dicas para ser um Gerente Melhor

Por Marcos Alencar

1. Selecione melhor as pessoas

Como gerente, você é tão bom tanto quanto as pessoas que formam a sua equipe. As suas chances de ser bem-sucedido como gerente aumentam incrivelmente quando você seleciona as melhores pessoas desde o início.

2. Motive as pessoas

A motivação do chefe tem um reflexo imediato no humor dos seus funcionários. Seja uma pessoa 150% motivada e observe o que acontece com aqueles que o cercam.

3. Construa uma Equipe

Ter as melhores pessoas e ter as pessoas motivadas não é o suficiente para ser bem-sucedido no trabalho. As pessoas precisam trabalhar juntas como uma equipe para alcançar o objetivo do grupo.

4. Seja um Líder, não um Gerente

As melhores pessoas, motivadas e trabalhando em equipe não são nada sem direção. Para onde você vai levar os seus funcionários?

5. Melhore a Comunicação

Comunicação é talvez a mais importante habilidade que um gerente deve ter. Todas as outras habilidades dependem da capacidade de comunicação do gerente. Você não consegue motivar as pessoas se elas não souberem o que você está falando. Se você não nasceu comunicador, não se preocupe, habilidades de comunicação podem ser melhoradas através da prática.

6. Gerencie melhor o dinheiro

Para crescer, a empresa tem que ganhar dinheiro, ou seja, é preciso gastar muito menos do que se ganha.

7. Gerencie melhor o seu tempo

A única coisa que talvez você tenha menos do que dinheiro é tempo para fazer as coisas. Gerenciar melhor o seu tempo é gerenciar melhor a sua energia. Cancele compromissos que não levam o lugar algum, diminua a sua participação em reuniões sem propósito, delegue tarefas. Concentre a sua energia somente naquilo que realmente vai ajudá-lo a crescer. Quanto mais energia você tiver, mais rápido você vai fazer as coisas.

8. Melhore como pessoa

Não se esqueça de você. Identifique as áreas onde você precisa de ajuda e peça ajuda.

9. Pratique a liderança ética

As pessoas vão seguir apenas aqueles que possuem o dom da palavra, da energia, da Ética e da Integridade. Não seja uma pessoa na segunda-feira e outra completamente diferente na quarta-feira. Não mude de opinião tão facilmente, seja consistente e freqüente em suas ações.

10. Descanse

Se você não descansar, você será menos efetivo como gerente. Você será menos tolerante, menos paciente. Você precisa de tempo para descansar e recarregar as baterias.

Sobre o autor: 

Marcos Alencar: gerente de Marketing e Comunicação do Sebrae em Alagoas, com formação em Relações Públicas, pela UFAL (1992) e mestrado em Comunicação, pela UFRJ (2001). É mantenedor do Blog: http://comunicacaoempreendedora.com.br/

Scrum Advice: Creating The First Product Backlog

By Bruce McGraw

Scrum methodology is gaining recognition as an effective way to manage development projects. So, I thought it might be a good time to talk about some of the main elements of the Scrum framework for the PMs and managers out there. A good place to start is with the “Product Backlog” – which for the novice could be equated loosely to the functional requirements list.

The Scrum product backlog delineates the functions required to provide the outcome desired by the product owner. According to Ken Schwaber in “Agile Software Development with Scrum”, the backlog includes a list of all the functionality, features and technology needed to complete a development project.

Although the product backlog sounds like the requirements document used in traditional waterfall software development methodology, it is not. Don McGreal, VP of Training at Improving Enterprises, LLC and my Scrum trainer, describes what happened in his experience to requirements documents under traditional software development methodologies, “Never did we ever build what we first came up with in the requirements phase.” In the project close out to assess how well the system met the specified requirements, we didn’t. We would ask, ‘what went wrong’ and there was a blame game or a lot of excuses about unplanned for events. The managers would then decide that the solution for next time was to make the requirements more detailed – more time should be spent upfront on creating the complete requirements.

However, spending more time trying to create a perfect requirements document at the beginning of a project is doomed to failure. Admit it, says Don (and I agree completely), before anything is built, “users, customers, even experienced practitioners cannot specify everything that should be built.” Instead of spending weeks, months or even years creating a comprehensive requirements document in the beginning, Scrum practices acknowledge that requirements will change during development and recommends creating only an initial list of things the product or system needs to do.

The first product backlog is based on a vision, business analysis and even marketing promises. The initial list gets the team started working on functionality quickly. During the development, the requirements listed in the prioritized product backlog — which is updated before each sprint — will evolve into what can and should be done using empirical data gained by writing and testing code.

Creating the product backlog is the responsibility of the product owner. He or she may create a high level description of the end product’s capability as a vision statement or concept of operations. The product owner may get inspiration from user stories of what they do currently and what would make their tasks easier. There is a real art to collecting useful user stories. I suggest:

• Having many conversations with potential users. Carry a set of index cards to the meeting. On each card there is a sentence that begins, “As a _________________, I need to do _______________.” This simple format device gives the product owner a concise statement of a requirement.
• Holding a brainstorming session with a small group of users and facilitating discussion about what they need to do their jobs. Having several people talking together creates an environment where one person’s comment will stimulate the thinking of others.
• Working with customers, create a scenario that walks a user through an entire series of steps needed to achieve a successful interaction with the system. Each step in the scenario can be an item in the initial product backlog. Add scenarios for many types of user’s needs.
• Meeting with the development team to review the vision and initial product backlog. Add items to the backlog to accommodate identified needs for further research or infrastructure requirements needed to get started.

From these activities, the product manager builds the prioritized initial product backlog. The product manager gives the team a presentation of the product vision and the product backlog list. The team and the Scrum master meet to plan the first sprint, which may achieve completing the highest priority task or may break that high priority task into several sprint tasks.

Remember that Scrum’s power comes from iteratively evaluating product backlog priorities and tasks. As Project Managers we have been doing this for years in order to make sure the project goals are still valid.  Over time new tasks are added to the backlog. Each sprint planning meeting accepts the highest priority tasks that can be completed during the next sprint.  At the end of a sprint, the team delivers the demonstrable functionality of the backlog task, revisits how the deliverable fits within the product vision and identifies the next priority tasks from the product backlog.

The above ideas are methods I have found successful to create the initial product backlog. If you have techniques you find particularly useful to begin the Scrum backlog generation, please share.

Fonte: Artigo publicado em 24 de Fevereiro de 2012 no blog "Fear no Project - A Project Management Blog" - http://fearnoproject.com/2012/02/24/scrum-advice-creating-the-first-product-backlog/

Dilbert - Para descontrair...

PMI São Paulo promove Jornada Agile em Abril

Caros leitores,

O PMI São Paulo promove em Abril a Jornada Agile com treinamentos e um workshop sobre o tema.

Vejam a programação:

Workshop Introdução a Gestão de Projetos Agile: Nesse workshop de 8 horas, o aluno será introduzido aos princípios da gestão de projetos utilizando a abordagem Agile. Serão fornecidas visões gerais de algumas das principais metodologias ágeis, como Extreme Programming (XP) e Scrum. O curso terá um forte foco no papel do Gerente de Projetos Agile bem como nas questões envolvidas na adoção e aplicação de uma metodologia Agile em uma organização e serão fornecidas dicas e sugestões para quem pretende fazer a certificação PMI-ACP (PMI Agile Certified Practitioner) recentemente lançada pelo PMI.

Pontos Abordados neste Workshop:

• Introdução ao Desenvolvimento Agile de Software
• Metodologias Agile
  • Extreme Program (XP)
  • Scrum
  • Lean Software Development
  • Kanban
  • Feature Driven Development (FDD)
  • Adaptive Software Development (ASD)
  • Agile Unified Process (AUP)
  • Essential Unified Process (EssUP)
  • Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) 
  • Crystal
• Agile e CMMI v1.3
• Questões envolvidas na escolha da melhor abordagem Agile
• Próximos Passos para Implantação de Agile
• A Certificação PMI-ACP

Curso Preparatório para Certificação em Gestão de Projetos Agile PMI-ACP: Esse curso de 16 horas visa preparar os alunos para o exame PMI-ACP (PMI Agile Certified Practitioner) explorando as metodologias, práticas, técnicas e ferramentas adotadas por profissionais Agile. O curso inclui melhores práticas e estudos de casos que explicam como as metodologias Agile são implementadas no mundo real de forma a preparar o aluno para as questoes situacionais do exame PMI além ensinar como conduzir equipes e projetos Agile com sucesso. 

Alguns tópicos abordados no curso:

• Introdução ao SCRUM, Kanban e Lean.
• Gerencia de Projetos Agile
• Agile Program Management
• Agile Portfolio Management
• Princípios de Engenharia Agile
• Agile Risk Management
• Cadeia de Valores e Estimativas
• Motivação de Equipes Agile
• Agile Radiators
• Agile em grandes corporações
• Planejamento Adaptativo
• Melhoria Continua (produtos, processos e pessoas)
• Escalamento para grandes projetos

O curso preparatório para a certificação PMI-ACP inclui:

• 2 dias de treinamento em sala de aula (16 PDU’s)
• 3 meses de acesso a ferramenta e-learning de simulação da prova (*)
• Suporte ao processo de aplicação ao exame PMI-ACP
• Ferramentas e templates Agile

Para maiores informações e inscrições, visite o site do PMI São Paulo: www.pmisp.org.br

Sucesso!!!

Volunteer with PMI

Caros leitores,

Vocês sabiam que o PMI tem um portal global para incentivar o trabalho voluntário no instituto em todo o mundo? O portal traz diversas oportunidades em vários países e em muitas delas você pode se candidatar e contribuir virtualmente.

O portal é o VRMS - Volunteer Relationship Management System. Visitem o site http://www.pmi.org/Get-Involved/Volunteer-Opportunities.aspx e vejam as oportunidades disponíveis.

Sucesso!!!

PMI lança incentivo com impacto direto nas taxas de renovação de anuidade

A partir de abril de 2012 o PMI oferece um desconto no valor da renovação. Esse benefício, que representa 50% de desconto no valor pago, é válido com exclusividade para alguns países e o Brasil é um deles.

Você pagará US$ 65.00 para renovar sua associação ao PMI e mais US$ 20.00 para opção ao capítulo São Paulo.

A taxa do nosso capítulo São Paulo para estudantes é ZERO.

O preço padrão do PMI hoje é de US$ 129.00 para filiação e US$ 119.00 para renovações. Estudantes: filiação US 40.00 e renovação US$ 30.00.

Este benefício tem como objetivo manter os associados conectados ao PMI. O retorno sobre o investimento na associação é muito grande e pode ser obtido de diversas formas. O PMI vem trabalhando há mais de 40 anos para trazer valor para a comunidade de gerenciamento de projetos.

Nesse primeiro ano, considerado um incentivo piloto, as taxas da primeira associação permanecem inalteradas, isto é, o desconto é concedido somente na renovação. A única restrição existente com relação a essa nova modalidade é o recebimento apenas digital das publicações do PMI, as quais todos os associados tem direito.  Para receber as versões impressas (PM Network, PMI Today e outras) o associado deve optar pela renovação tradicional. Entretanto, ter acesso eletrônico e ilimitado é um grande negócio. Além de ecologicamente correto.

Se você ainda tem dúvidas sobre como funciona o programa, acesse o FAQ na página do PMI em:http://www.pmi.org/GLOBALS/Economic-Exception-FAQs.aspx, e veja como obter mais esse relevante benefício!

Fazendo a sua associação ao PMI, você pode optar por ser membro de um capítulo local, se envolver e desfrutar de vários benefícios.

Fonte: Site do PMI São Paulo: http://www.pmisp.org.br/noticias/pmi-lan%C3%A7-incentivo-com-impacto-direto-nas-taxas-de-renova%C3%A7%C3%A3o-de-anuidade

How to Be Creative: The Science of Genius

Caros leitores,

Compartilho com vocês um excelente artigo que li hoje no Mashable sobre criatividade. Recomendo a leitura!

Bob Dylan. Ludwig van Beethoven. William Shakespeare. Steve Jobs. These are historical figures of staggering creative genius that we often think of as freaks of nature. That their creative talent is a God-given gift, or some biological mutation that only affects a handful of special people. But new research is beginning to shed light on the science behind creativity and imagination. As it turns out, anyone can be creative.

“Creativity shouldn’t be seen as something otherworldly. It shouldn’t be thought of as a process reserved for artists and inventors and other ‘creative types.’ The human mind, after all, has the creative impulse built into its operating system, hard-wired into its most essential programming code,” writes Jonah Lehrer in his new book Imagine.

In his book, Lehrer examines the inner workings of what we call imagination. He looks at the neuroscience behind sudden insights, how the brain solves different kinds of problems and which personal traits help foster creativity. He also shares how external forces factor into the creative process, how to design a workspace to enhance your chances of having an epiphany, why creativity tends to bubble up in certain places and how we can encourage our collective imaginations.

Above all, though, the message of Lehrer’s book is that creativity is not a super power. Anyone can be creative — it just takes hard work. “We should aspire to excessive genius,” says Lehrer, who took some time from his book tour to sit down with Mashable and answer a few questions about the mysteries of how we imagine.

Can creativity really be taught?

For sure. Creativity is not some gift of the gods. While there are going to be inevitable differences in raw talent — human performance is a bell curve — that doesn’t mean we can’t all learn to become more creative. The imagination can be improved.

Yo-Yo Ma says his ideal state of creativity is “controlled craziness.” How can we learn to harness that?

What Yo-Yo Ma is referring to is the kind of creativity that occurs when we let ourselves go, allowing the mind to invent without worrying about what it’s inventing. Such creative freedom has inspired some of the most famous works of modern culture, from John Coltrane’s saxophone solos to Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings. It’s Miles Davis playing his trumpet in Kind of Blue — most of the album was recorded on the very first take — and Lenny Bruce inventing jokes at Carnegie Hall. It’s also the kind of creativity that little kids constantly rely on, largely because they have no choice. Because parts of the brain associated with impulse control remain underdeveloped, they are unable to censor their imagination, to hold back their expression. This helps explain the truth in that great Picasso quote: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

“It turns out that that we can recover the creativity we’ve lost with time. We just have to pretend we’re a little kid.”

And yet, there’s some good evidence that we can recover the creativity we’ve lost with time, that we can learn to think again with the “controlled craziness” celebrated by Ma. Take this clever experiment, led by the psychologist Michael Robinson. He randomly assigned a few hundred undergraduates to two different groups. The first group was given the following instructions: “You are 7 years old, and school is canceled. You have the entire day to yourself. What would you do? Where would you go? Who would you see?” The second group was given the exact same instructions, except the first sentence was deleted. As a result, these students didn’t imagine themselves as seven year olds. After writing for ten minutes, the subjects were then given various tests of creativity, such as trying to invent alternative uses for an old car tire, or listing all the things you could do with a brick. Interestingly, the students who imagined themselves as young kids scored far higher on the creative tasks, coming up with twice as many ideas as the control group. It turns out that that we can recover the creativity we’ve lost with time. We just have to pretend we’re a little kid.

I often feel like I have great ideas while taking a shower or just after waking up, which is normal, according to your research — we’re more receptive to insights when relaxed. But I have a terrible time remembering any of those great ideas. Do you have any tips for retaining those insights? How do we stay aware enough to remember what we come up with while daydreaming?

I have the same problem! I wish there was a simple fix. But the unfortunate answer is that we need to practice. Productive daydreaming is an important skill, which is why people who daydream more (and can maintain awareness within the daydream) score much higher on tests of creativity. If it were up to me, we’d teach kids how to effectively mind-wander in school.

How do you encourage fruitful collaboration in the workplace? When teams get too close they become too comfortable, and that stifles innovation, but when they’re too far apart they don’t work well together. How do you find the sweet spot?

“The next time you’re assembling a creative team, be sure to seek out the fresh voice.”

Look for your Stephen Sondheim. Let me explain.

Brian Uzzi is a marvelous sociologist at Northwestern. He undertook an epic study of Broadway musicals, analyzing the collaborations behind thousands of productions. As you point out, he found that plays produced when people knew each other too well were more likely to fail at the box office and be panned by critics. But the same thing was true of teams that didn’t know each other at all and hadn’t formed crosscutting connections within the larger Broadway community. Instead, Uzzi found that there was a very narrow sweet spot of collaboration and that musicals within this sweet spot were three times more likely to succeed. (Three times!)

Uzzi’s favorite example of “intermediate Q” [Q is a designation for the density of connections among collaborators] is West Side Story, one of the most successful Broadway musicals ever. In 1957, the play was seen as a radical departure from Broadway conventions, both for its focus on social problems and for its extended dance scenes. The concept was dreamed up by Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, and Arthur Laurents. They were all Broadway legends, which might make West Side Story look like a show with high Q. But the project also benefited from a crucial injection of unknown talent, as the established artists realized that they needed a fresh lyrical voice. After an extensive search, they chose a twenty-five-year-old lyricist who had never worked on a Broadway musical before. His name was Stephen Sondheim.

So the next time you’re assembling a creative team, be sure to seek out the fresh voice. Get a Sondheim in the room.

Why doesn’t brainstorming work? What should we do instead?

I think the failure of brainstorming is inseparable from its allure, which is that it makes us feel good about ourselves. A group of people are put together in a room and told to free-associate, with no criticism allowed. (The assumption is that the imagination is meek and shy — if it’s worried about being criticized, it will clam up.) Before long, the whiteboard is filled with ideas. Everybody has contributed; nobody has been criticized. Alas, the evidence suggests that the overwhelming majority of these free-associations are superficial and that most brainstorming sessions actually inhibit the productivity of the group. We become less than the sum of our parts.

However, in recent years, scientists have shown that group collaborations benefit from debate and dissent; it is the human friction that makes the sparks. (There’s a reason why Steve Jobs always insisted that new ideas required “brutal honesty.”) In fact, some studies suggest that encouraging debate and dissent can lead to a 40% increase in useful new ideas from the group.

Why does failure seem to be such an important part of innovation?

Because innovation is hard. If it were easy to invent an idea, that idea would already exist. Creative success is not about the avoidance of failure. It’s about failing as fast as possible, going through endless iterations until the idea is perfect.

What about Silicon Valley’s creativity and innovation allowed it to overtake Route 128 as the tech center of America in the latter half of the last decade?

It’s a really interesting comparison, because if you time travel back to the 1960s, you never would have guessed that Silicon Valley would become the tech center of the world. (It was still mostly walnut and apricot farms.) Those Boston suburbs, meanwhile, were dense with engineering talent and technology firms. By 1970, the area bounded by Route 128 included six of the ten largest technology firms in the world, such as Digital Computer and Raytheon. The “Massachusetts Miracle” was underway.

So what happened? The downfall of the Boston tech sector was caused by the very same features that, at least initially, seemed like such advantages. As Annalee Saxenian notes in her extremely insightful book Regional Advantage, the Route 128 area had been defined for decades by the presence of a few large firms. (At one point, Digital Equipment alone employed more than 120,000 people.) These companies were so large, in fact, that they were mostly self-sufficient. Digital Equipment didn’t just make minicomputers — it also made the microchips in its computers, and designed the software that ran on those microchips. (Gordon Bell, the vice-president in charge of research at Digital, described the company as “a large entity that operates as an island in the regional economy.”)

As a result, the Boston firms took secrecy very seriously — a scientist at Digital wasn’t allowed to talk about his work with a scientist at Wang, or to share notes with someone at Lotus. These companies strictly enforced non-disclosure agreements so that former employees couldn’t work for competitors and prohibited their scientists from publishing peer-reviewed articles. This meant that, at Route 128 companies, information tended to flow vertically, as ideas and innovations were transferred within the firms.

While this vertical system made it easier for Route 128 companies to protect their intellectual property, it also made them far less innovative. This is because the creativity of an urban area depends upon its ability to encourage the free-flow of information — we need that knowledge spillover — as all those people in the same zip code exchange ideas and work together. But this didn’t happen around Route 128. Although the Boston area had a density of talent, the talent couldn’t interact — each firm was a private island. The end result was a stifling of innovation.

The vertical culture of the Boston tech sector existed in stark contrast to the horizontal interactions of Silicon Valley. Because the California firms were small and fledgling, they often had to collaborate on projects and share engineers. This led to the formation of cross-cutting relationships, so that it wasn’t uncommon for a scientist at Cisco to be friends with someone at Oracle, or for a co-founder of Intel to offer management advice to a young executive at Apple. Furthermore, these networks often led to high employee turnover, as people jumped from project to project. In the 1980s, the average tenure at a Silicon Valley company was less than two years. (It also helped that non-compete clauses were almost never enforced in California, thus freeing engineers and executives to quickly reenter the job market and work for competitors.) This meant that the industrial system of the San Jose area wasn’t organized around individual firms. Instead, the region was defined by its professional networks, by groups of engineers trading knowledge with each other. And that’s when new knowledge is made.

You talk a lot about the benefits of cultural mixing — how good ideas multiply when they’re allowed to move freely and new perspectives are introduced. What legislative changes would encourage more of this?

More immigrants! The numbers speak for themselves. According to the latest figures from the U.S. Patent Office, immigrants invent patents at double the rate of non-immigrants, which is why a 1% increase in immigrants with college degrees leads to a 15% rise in patent production. (In recent years, immigrant inventors have contributed to more than a quarter of all U.S. global patent applications.) These new citizens also start companies at an accelerated pace, co-founding 52% of Silicon Valley firms since 1995.

Many of the anecdotes in Imagine have a disconcerting common theme of drugs or mental illness. Are creative people all doomed to be addicts or mad men?

I don’t think so. (Yo Yo Ma, for instance, is a very nice guy.) But I do think the prevalence of such stories reminds us that creativity is damn difficult, which is why those in the creativity business are always looking for every possible edge. That’s why many great writers experimented with amphetamines and why performers have always searched for compounds that let them get out of their head, silencing that voice that kills their spontaneity. In the end, of course, these chemical shortcuts rarely work out — there’s nothing creative about addiction. And that’s why I remained convinced that the best creativity booster is self-knowledge. Once we know how the imagination works, we can make it work better.

Fonte: http://mashable.com/2012/04/02/creativity-jonah-lehrer-imagine/.