All posts by Omry Ravid

03-Planning the work of a team, work plans

Not enough time in the day… or week or year

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A few weeks ago my manager said “I love your inclination to take on a new projects and your willingness to move your schedule around”. I thought that was great… till she continued on to say “what we need to figure out is how I help you get it all done in time”… ending with “once I get something from you I do know it will be good work”.

Yes! You probably noticed that I had just been sandwiched. While I would have have preferred a more direct feedback method, I do agree with her remarks. I need to get better at managing my projects so I can more consistently deliver on time. To be completely transparent, this is not the first, second or 100th time I have heard that. It’s time to do something about it…which based on past efforts isn’t going to be easy.

Now that I’ve identified the issue at hand, I need to go gather data, analyze it and come up with a solution (sound familiar?). I decided to start by speaking with people I had worked with in the past to get more feedback. I’m sorry to say they all said the same un-helpful thing “Omry, that’s just who you are…”, only strengthening my thoughts on how hard making this change is going to be. I continued by comparing my project management style to others doing similar work. I noticed the expected… they all have project lists, they all have clear due dates/schedules set for each project and they all get their projects in on time. I may not be great at it but I do have lists and schedules, I just apparently have trouble sticking to them. I needed to search more and decided to turn to my trusted searching tool “Google”. I searched and searched through what seemed to be hundreds of pages… till I came to a page called “50 Tricks to Get Things Done Faster, Better, and More Easily”. 50 was a bit much, especially for someone who already can’t find time for everything, but a few tricks caught my attention:

 

Ubiquitous Capture: Everything needs to be documented! Whether I have an idea for a project or think of something that needs to get done, it needs to be written down. At first this sounded like a lot of work, but because I can do this on my phone and don’t have to care about grammar, it only takes a few seconds and I can jot things down anywhere I go.

 

80/20 by 50-30-20: This is a combination of two tricks. The first is the realization that 80% of results come from 20% of the work and therefore I should spend my time accordingly. The second is that in my project prioritization I should take my own life/career goals in mind. Spend 50% of time on tasks that will have the largest impact on my career, 30% of time on the tasks that advance my middle term career and 20% on everything else.

 

Do your worst: I shouldn’t expect perfection in every task on the first run. I can always go back to improving it later. Put pen to paper and start a project to see where it goes. The end result will only reveal itself after I have started the process. In simpler words, Stop Procrastinating.

More tricks for getting things done: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/50-tricks-to-get-things-done-faster-better-and-more-easily.html

04-Managing a project team, team dynamics, team roles

How do you Team?

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I personally have found that every project I start I find myself re-integrating with a new team. On one project I may be working with a local group of people I know well and the next day (or even a few minutes later) the team I work with may have oceans between them both geographically and in our experience/knowledge base. I find myself constantly searching for a new role to play on each team. Every time the team changes, new expectations or even demands are imposed upon me.

Being able to succeed in these constant environment changes isn’t easy; it demands that I develop myself to be flexible in the roles I play on each team. I cannot always be the best communicator or the best analyst or the best manager; I may be assigned projects for which I am the least knowledgeable person on the team. Yet, I need to always find a role to play that adds value if I am to be successful.

In Amy C. Edmondson’s blog she describes “The Three Pillars of a Teaming Culture” that fuel successful teams in this rapidly changing environment. She states that we should create a culture of; curiosity towards each team member’s abilities and knowledge, be passionate about the task at hand to motivate cooperation and be empathetic enough to not only hear but rather comprehend other opinions.

These three “pillars” have already helped me re-think the way I approach my constantly changing environment. By listening and engaging more with the people I am working with, we have collectively gained an understanding of where each other’s frustrations and inspiration comes from. We are exponentially increasing the quality of work we do collaboratively and independently, as we are now able to gather thoughts, debate them and decide on a direction more efficiently without hesitation.

Do you think the three pillars can help you get more out of yourself and your team? Are you able to constantly find a way to bring value to a changing environment? Do you feel that working in a team is making you more productive? Do you teach others, learn from others or truly collaborate as a team? How do you team?

More on the 3 pillars:
http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/12/the-three-pillars-of-a-teaming-culture/