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"PMcrunch" - 5 new articles
- Leadership skills: A Never Ending Quest
- The Key to Performing an Effective Analysis of Alternatives
- Are You āKnowledge Seekingā or āProblem Solvingā - or Both?
- Changing Assumptions
- When Making Choices, Fewer is Better
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We never really arrive at the end of the road in our quest to become leaders. We may achieve [tag-tec]leadership[/tag-tec] status in some way but it is always a moving target. Indeed, I believe it is our own movement on a continuous basis that can enable us to maintain ourselves as a leader. One way that we can do this is by continuously evaluating our own leadership capabilities.
Oftentimes, as[tag-dir]project managers[/tag-dir] and leaders, we are called upon to compare a variety of potential solutions and to either recommend or choose the best one for our situation. There are a variety of ways to do this. It is important for us to recognize that the answer we come up with is very closely related to the questions we ask and how we do the comparison. Many timesāperhaps even most of the timeāwe do this comparisons in a relatively informal way, putting together our own structure. In other cases however, there is a much formalized organizational structure with a formal name such as [/tag-tec]āanalysis of alternativesā[tag-dir] that is performed.
Many professionals are either "knowledge seeking" or "problem solving" - but, to their detriment, not both. You can create a one-two punch for professional effectiveness by combining "knowledge seeking" and "problem solving". Let me show you what I mean by looking at some details of some popular bodies of knowledge today.
When we first build our [tag-tec]project plan[/tag-tec], we need to make many [tag-dir]assumptions. As part of our project plan, we need to document what these assumptions are. We also need to acknowledge the reality that many of those assumptions may not prove out as the project unfolds.
As [tag-tec]project managers[/tag-tec], we are often called upon to present choices to our [tag-dir]stake holders[/tag-dir]We are often called upon to present options for solutions, scenarios, and items for discussions, priorities and more. There is a well proven rule that when it comes to choices, less is better.
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