Skip to content

{ Category Archives } business

PM Hell

Every once in a while, I run up against a project manager on a client project who seems to be there just to make my life hell. Usually I just let this roll off me since it’s only a temporary condition — that’s part of why I work as an independent, after all — but sometimes I just have to rant.

To begin with, I usually work on the design side of things, from functional requirements through technical design, and I leave the project management to the trained professionals: not only do I not like doing project management, I’m not very good at it. I think that many companies do a great disservice by "promoting" technical people to project managers by allowing that to be the only pathway for their advancement, rather than creating senior technical positions with the same prestige and pay. What happens in the current model, since so many developers have moved into project management roles, is that the term "project manager" has come to mean someone who also does some amount of the business requirements or design work on a project as well as managing it.

This is just plain wrong.

First of all, if someone is tasked with managing the project, let them manage the project without burdening them with other roles that might be in conflict with their primary role. Second, if someone has been in project management for a while, their technical skills are probably a bit rusty, and you could end up with poor results. Furthermore, many people in project management don’t even have a technical background, but are expected to take on technical project work because of the assumption that they used to be a developer; this is almost always not going to work out well.

The worst case that I experienced was when an ex-COBOL programmer was assigned by his large management consulting employer as a project manager on an implementation project, but he was obviously frustrated by that position and wanting to do technical design. I was the lead architect on the job, but he argued with pretty much every point in the design, even though he had no understanding of the technical development environment, and little understanding of the specific products that we were using (products on which I was very experienced). We spent a lot of time arguing over things, only to end up back where I started in the first place. Since I was a subcontractor to his company, he lobbied to have my contract terminated (which was within their rights, with the appropriate amount of notice) and I breathed a sigh of relief over not having to deal with him any more, as well as not having to go to a very cold part of the country in February. The end result: the architecture and design were redone by the project manager with some input from a couple of the developers who weren’t familiar with the BPMS; the system was installed more than a year late, went way over budget, and didn’t meet the customer requirements. After turfing out the big consulting firm, the customer called me back to see if I could help fix the mess. I laughed all the way to a different customer in a warmer climate.

A more recent PM from hell wanted to completely control my access to the customer. As an independent contractor rather than permanent staff, she may have felt threatened by my existence, and obviously felt she could do my job just as well as I could — without any apparent skills or experience at it. Since I often work offsite and she worked onsite, she was able to convince the customer to funnel every piece of email and documentation that I needed through her, rather than just having the customer copy her on communications to me. There were obviously a lot of conversations (via email) going on that I was not privy to, and which would have made my job easier, but the PM decided to filter the information that went to me. At one point, she even said that she was doing this in order to "watch my back" for me (presumably so that she knew exactly where to stick the knife). At one point I needed a detailed database schema, and the PM replied that what she had was too detailed for me; I suggested that I could make that decision, and to just send it on, but instead, she had someone in the internal IT group run a not-detailed-enough report for me. When I asked for more information, the PM said "This is what we decided was best to send to you." Every interaction that I had with this PM was the same frustrating, teeth-pulling exercise. Although I did a good job for the customer, it could have been better if I’d had wider access to people and information.

I have a huge amount of respect for skilled project managers, but let’s get a few things straight:

  1. I don’t want your job, so don’t feel threatened. I like my job just fine, or I wouldn’t be on the project in the first place.
  2. I don’t care if you want my job, the customer hired me to do it, not you. Do your own damned job.
  3. Don’t create barriers between me and the sources of information that I need in order to do my job, or you will negatively impact the end product and the customer satisfaction.
2007 12 13 rant Comments (2)

Some things never change…

I missed the CASCON conference this year, but just found some notes from last year’s conference, which included a session on barriers to women in technology/business. In addition to some dismal numbers on the percentage of women on corporate boards (14.7% in the US, 11.2% in Canada), I jotted down a brilliant quote from the speaker:

When a man fails, no one ever wonders if it was because he is a man.

Not sure if this was hers originally or if she’s quoting someone else, but it’s brilliant nonetheless.

I also noted a source for stats on women receiving degrees in Computer Science, which shows not exactly stellar numbers: women took 15% of the undergraduate degrees in 2004/5, 25% of the Masters’ degrees, and 15% of the Ph.D.’s.

A speaker from the University of Waterloo (where I graduated Engineering) stated that we have to be honest when speaking with girls considering going into computer science, and tell them that they may be the only girl in their high school or even university computer science class: I was shocked that this is still the case.

2007 11 04 women Comments (0)

Online retailing to drop? I don’t think so

From an article today on Money Morning:

More than a decade after Internet pioneer Amazon.com burst upon the scene and revolutionized online retailing, experts are projecting that Internet-based shopping is destined to fall out of favor.

In the next five to 10 years, those who are already comfortable shopping online are likely to grow even more so. But the bulk of the folks who haven’t already made purchases will likely be staying on the sidelines, experts told The Associated Press.

Although I agree that store-based retail will outstrip online retailing for a long time to come, I just can’t see an actual decline in online retail sales, for several reasons:

  1. Although the boomers are starting to retire and will have more time to spend on shopping in person, they’re fairly tech-savvy and will likely keep shopping online for the convenience. That portion of the market will likely stay stable, or drop slightly as their income drops on retirement.
  2. The younger generations — X, Y, whatever — are increasing their earning power and therefore their disposable income, and they’re definitely shopping online. This part of the market will continue to grow.
  3. Some large number of ”the bulk of the folks who haven’t already made purchases” are in the 65+ age range, and will die off. Although this doesn’t increase the amount of online shopping (except maybe for their grandkids with the inheritance), it does pull down that part of the curve when you’re looking at the number of people who have never shopped online.
  4. More stores are offering online shopping. For those of us with a preference for online to in-store shopping, that means that more of our disposable income will go to online shopping as it becomes available.
  5. Small businesses are increasingly shopping online to save time and money: I buy office supplies, computers, office furniture and anything else that I can find for my business online.
2007 09 06 technology Comments (0)

Camping for beginners

Talking about *camps and unconferences on my business blog is starting to have some effect: yesterday, I received the following email thread that had gone between two conference organizers in my industry:

You mentioned a technique for facilitating a discussion and I think you called it CAMP? I did a brief search on the web but didn’t find it. Did I remember the acronym correctly? Would you point me to a website for more information? I want to investigate techniques for getting the audience more engaged.

The recipient had passed it on to me, and I responded with some information on Open Space to get them started.

It may come to nothing (especially when they realize that they can’t charge as much for this sort of format), but any interest in unconference formats by conference organizers has to be a good thing for the participants.

2007 08 01 technology Comments (0)

Striving for guru status

One of my favourites from Jessica Hagy’s daily scribbles on index cards:

2007 05 12 Comments (0)

Google spamming me in real life

Proof that Google AdSense sells their member mailing listWhen I receive postal mail at the PO box address for my wine club, I know that something is weird — the PO box is only emptied every few days by another one of the (volunteer) board members, and I only see him every couple of weeks, so anything that I want to receive in a timely manner, I provide my own address instead.

One exception that I made was when I signed up for Google AdSense for the club’s website, since I wanted the (few and far-between) cheques to go to the official mailing address for the club. As far as I know, that’s the only time that I’ve ever used that address; no one else would have my name and that address associated.

Imagine my surprise when, at our last board meeting, I was handed an envelope of obvious postal spam addressed to me at the wine club PO box address, advertising a seminar on more effective ways to make money from Google AdSense, among other online revenue sources. This was really smarmy-looking, very reminiscent of real estate seminars, where they trap you in a room for 90 minutes by promising you a meal at the end, and obviously looking to sell some sort of package or consulting as part of the deal.

The thing that really surprised me, however, is that Google — the company that claims to “do no evil” — would sell their AdSense customer database without permission. What’s not evil about that?

Update: A couple of people have linked to this post or my original photo, and reading the comments on their posts is fascinating — some people would much rather believe that an individual (me) is a liar than that a corporation (Google) would divulge name and address information.

2007 04 15 technology Comments (0)

How much does your data cost?

If you’re like me, and have a data plan for your Blackberry with one of Canada’s mobile carriers, you feel massively ripped off every month when you get your bill, especially if you roamed outside Canada or went over your monthly data limit.

Tom Purves has plotted out just how bad this situation is in Canada, where 500MB/month of mobile data will cost you a whopping $1,600 from Rogers (my carrier), compared with as little as $58 in the US, or even $74 in Rwanda. He suggests that you talk to your MP to see what they’re doing about this huge barrier to technology competitiveness in Canada. While you’re at it, Digg Tom’s post so that it gets even more exposure.

2007 04 09 canada
toronto Comments (1)

How I use LinkedIn

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of LinkedIn. On occasion, people ask why and how I use it, so I started to jot down some notes about and ended up with what you see below. However, it really only takes a couple of minutes every few days — less time that it takes to read this post.

Why: it brings business/job opportunities

As an independent analyst/consultant, LinkedIn acts as a part of my marketing efforts. I’ve had people contact me on several occasions and tell me that they found me through LinkedIn, although they didn’t use LinkedIn to contact me: they looked at my website or blog and used the direct email contact information there. In other words, if you’re an independent or in a small company, you should be using LinkedIn.

I’ve also received invitations to interview for employment positions through LinkedIn, although I’m not really looking for full-time employment right now. Many recruiters use LinkedIn extensively for locating candidates, so if you’re looking for a job, you should also be using LinkedIn.

How: connect to everyone who you meet, and make sure that your profile is up to date and complete

First and foremost, every time that I meet someone, I search for them in LinkedIn and add them if I find them. The best way to do this is by their email address, because if you have their email address, then you can send them a direct invitation to be in your network even if you aren’t otherwise connected to them. To add someone by email:

  • From the My Contacts tab, click “Other Contacts”.
  • Click “Add more contacts” (near the top right).
  • Click “Enter Contacts Manually”.
  • Enter one or more email addresses in the entry field, each on their own line, and click “Search”.
  • In the resulting list, you’ll be able to see which of the email addresses correspond to an existing LinkedIn user (they have the LinkedIn icon to the left of the name).
  • Uncheck all the ones in the list that aren’t already LinkedIn users, or that you don’t want to invite right now. I have a general rule that I no longer send invitations to people who aren’t already on LinkedIn, since it’s not my job to proselytize on behalf of LinkedIn, and I usually just end up removing them after a year when I’m still their only contact.
  • Scroll down and write the message that will go to all the check names, and send it. All of the names that you didn’t send to will be retained in your Other Contacts list and can be invited or deleted later.

On a regular basis, I do a sweep of my contacts in Outlook (my primary contact database) to see if I’ve invited everyone on LinkedIn. I export all of my email addresses since my last sweep, and paste them into LinkedIn using the method described above. When I first got started, I pasted in my entire address list of 1,500 email addresses, which worked fine. Note that this doesn’t send to all of them unless you send the invitation on the following page, it just creates them in your Other Contacts list where you can pick and choose which ones that you want to invite at any given time. The list is smart enough to filter out the ones that are already on your LinkedIn contacts list, and those that you’ve already send invitations to but haven’t received a response yet.

Every time that a contact accepts my invitation, I look at their profile and at their connections (I consider people who don’t share their connections to be poor LinkedIn citizens: this is all about social networking, and you can’t network with someone if you don’t have an idea of their network.) If there’s something particularly interesting in their profile, I email them about it right away. If there’s a contact of theirs that I’d like to be connected with, I request an introduction through LinkedIn. If we have a contact in comment — which shows at the top under Shared Connections — I might send off a note to either the person who just accepted my invitation or the person who we share a connection with to let them know that we know someone in common. I know that they could see this themselves, but I assume that not everyone is checking this when they add someone to their contacts.

Every day or two, or if I’m on there because I’m sending or accepting invitations to connect, I check the Network Updates section of my LinkedIn home page: this shows all of my new connections plus a list of my existing connections who have added new connections. I always click through to the latter and see who they’ve added, and follow up with them if it’s someone who I’d like to get connected with or if it’s someone that I already know. You can also go to the My Contacts list to do this: people with new connections have their connections link to the left of their name encircled in orange.

Also on the home page is a list of people who have just joined LinkedIn and have something in common with you: either they worked at one of the same companies that you have in your profile, or went to one of the same schools. You can click through on these to see if there’s anyone that you know, and connect with them directly.

This last point also shows why it’s absolutely critical that your profile is not just up to date, but complete, with all of your past jobs and schools on it so that people can find you easily by that association. Many people just put their current job on LinkedIn when they first sign up, intending to go back and fill in the rest later, then never do — and wonder why no one ever finds them on there. One thing that has resulted in a lot of new connections for me is my practice of publishing each customer contract as a separate “job”, although they’re clearly shown as contract positions and many only last a few months. Since it’s obvious from my current position listing that I’m an independent contractor, this makes a lot of sense, and has the value of easily allowing people who I might have worked with at those companies find me.

When you have your profile created as you want, make sure that you have a public profile that can be seen by people who are not on LinkedIn, too, like mine here.

Less frequently, I also take a browse through all of my LinkedIn connections to see if it prompts me to call or email anyone to keep in touch — sort of a long-term tickler list. In many cases, I’ve started some new project or had an idea recently, and as I look through my connections it jogs my memory about who might be interested in getting involved in whatever new thing that I’m working on. I never do this with my Outlook contacts, which is much too big and contains personal as well as business contacts: LinkedIn is a short list of people who I might want to do something business-related with.

2007 03 14 technology Comments (3)

Removing contacts in LinkedIn

I use LinkedIn a lot, and find it of great benefit: I’ve had people contact me through LinkedIn about working with them, and I’ve used it to find people for the same reason. I have about 350 contacts, which gives me a network of over 1.5M people who I can search for and contact directly. As with most people, I use LinkedIn as a purely business network (although I do link to a few friends on it), not as a social network. It’s like Facebook for people with jobs.

One huge problem with LinkedIn was that you couldn’t remove any of your contacts yourself, you had to email to LinkedIn customer service and have them do it for you. In discussion about this very issue last night, Mark told me that there is now a way to remove contacts: go to the My Contacts page, then scroll down to the bottom right and there’s a link to remove contacts.

This morning, I did some pruning. First, a guy who I didn’t really know but we had both worked as contractors for the same company, who later spammed me with a MLM scheme — gone. Then, everyone who had been a contact for more than a year but still only had one contact (me): these are obviously people who heard about LinkedIn from me, said “oh yeah, I’ll try it”, then never went beyond accepting my initial invitation to join. Sorry, people, but you add no value to my network, and there’s no sign that you’re ever going to start.

Next, I’ll be going after the people with a very low number of contacts who haven’t updated their profile even though I know that they have moved jobs, especially those that still have their primary email address as that at their former employer: not only is their information stale, but with an incorrect email address, they’re unreachable through LinkedIn as well.

2007 03 13 technology Comments (7)

A webinar on how to give a webinar

I attend a lot of webinars (short for “web seminar”) since it’s a great way to get information on a product, or just hear a talk on a particular subject without leaving my desk. I also speak on a number of webinars, mostly those hosted by the integration portal that hosts my business blog.

However, this one struck me as being just a bit too self-referential: a webinar on how to give effective webinars.

2006 10 30 technology Comments (0)