 I ask this a little tongue-in-cheek, but seriously, if you're an independent consultant and you're just doing heads-down work, what's your favorite location? I have the home office, I've worked from Starbucks, Arby's, McDonald's, pizza places, sitting areas in major Las Vegas hotels during conferences and conventions, airports, and just about any other place you can imagine.
I'd have to say that my most productive spot is Starbucks. It probably beats my home office because I don't do it that often and the change of venue is extremely refreshing for me. Even just leaving the home office from time to time and working out in the front courtyard changes my productivity level.
Of course, if you have to conduct a conference call with a client, then the home office likely wins - it does for me at least. Walking around outside with a bluetooth headset on is fine for quick calls, but wind, noise and other issues can come up. There's nothing like going into the office and shutting the door - it gives me the ability to focus 100% on what I'm discussing with the client.
If you're an independent consultant, where's your favorite venue away from your home office?
This article appears on the Project Management Tips site here.This is a topic I have been thinking about for awhile. I'm an independent consultant so theoretically, I could manage projects and consult from anywhere. Being near a major airport is somewhat necessary. I'm in Las Vegas, so the airport thing is covered. In fact, it's hard to find a locale with cheaper airfare options than Las Vegas. The Local MarketOne problem with consulting in Las Vegas is the local economy. Unemployment is high, businesses are disappearing, and those clients that used to have money to spend are trying to do everything themselves or putting off some needed work. It's that where everywhere, I realize, but it's fairly pronounced in Las Vegas. Casinos always have some money to spend, but they're not often the ones that seek out consulting services. So, your local market becomes a concern no matter what, unless your plate is already full with clients in other locations. Then, it's just a matter of staying close to an airport you utilize regularly. If my wife had her preference, I'd probably be consulting from Maui. We use to live in Iowa and she told me that was as far north as she wanted live. And we'd generally like to remain in the US, so that limits me to the southern states, but we'd probably go wherever for the right situation. Likewise, I'd stop consulting for the right situation, too. Just today I was on a call with an organization in New York. What I didn't immediately realize was that the job would actually be in New York, not remote with travel. New York is not in our relocation plans right now so that one wasn't going to work. Warm Weather!I'm with my wife - if I have a choice - which I currently do, warm weather is the way to go. I lived in Iowa for 40 years. Enough snow and rain to last a couple of lifetimes. I love the weather in Las Vegas - even when the temperature reaches 110-115˚ in July and August since it's only for two months. Once you're set up with a remote office, flexible software like Seavus' Project Viewer or similar tool - either desktop or web-based, and a cell plan that covers everything, you can truly go just about anywhere if you can survive the moving process! The only weather that both my wife and I like better right now is the San Diego or Orange County climate (we're Disney fans and have small children). Anyone in San Diego or Los Angeles in need of an experienced Project Manager/IT Consultant/Business Strategistic with an entrepreneurial flair? What's Your Ideal Locale?It's your turn to chime in now. What's your ideal work location? Right where you are? If so, tell me why. If not, where would you like to call your business home if you had your choice of anywhere...and why? What's stopping you? Let me know....send a comment to this article. Thanks!
I originally wrote this article for the Projects @ Work website. To view the original article, go here.You’re a successful project manager or have a strong desire to become one (why else would you be visiting this site). Therefore you fully understand that no two projects are the same and no two customers are the same. If you have considerable PM experience, then you learned long ago that it takes far more than consistent paperwork to make a demanding customer happy. You certainly have to do the basics…. Communicate well, deliver timely reports and updated schedules, track issues, and manage the budget, but if you’re not a people person then somewhere along the way you’re likely to lose a customer…or at least make them unhappy or uncomfortable. Three Needy Clients Not all customers need coddling and constant stroking, but there are some out there that do. Unfortunately, many times those just happen to be the largest customers. In my recent career, I’ve had three customers on large software implementations who demanded most of my time and energy while I was running their projects (I was not the PM on the customer side – I was on the vendor side). Each of those projects was going well and I was communicating everything to them on a regular basis. Weekly I was: - Delivering a revised project schedule (more often if changes necessitated it)
- Delivering a detailed weekly status report
- Delivering detailed budget and financial forecast information for the project
- Delivering revised issues and risks lists
- Conducting formal weekly status meetings that included my entire team and whoever the customer wanted to bring with them
However, they never seemed to be truly happy. One felt that too much was being asked of them and they weren’t getting enough out of my team. The exploration process of further defining detailed requirements and performing what we called ‘gap analysis’ was dragging on. It turned out this was because Sales had failed to explain many upfront details with the customer resulting in expectations that were out of whack with reality. We spent much of the exploration phase and the beginning of the design phase working on resetting those expectations and gathering the ‘real’ requirements. Another customer was certain they had all business processes well laid out in advance to ensure a smooth 90-day implementation. They had repeatedly told us during our detailed kickoff session how minimal their changes would be to the out-of-the-box functionality that a 90-day implementation was definitely possible – and I believed them. Due to poorly defined business processes and poorly documented requirements, it became obvious that was not the case and 90 days later I was onsite with my team working through issues and trying to get the project back on track. It would be yet another 90 days and about $50k before anything was implemented. The final case involved a small government agency that was actually run by a husband and wife team – probably the quirkiest customer I’ve ever worked with. You loved them one minute and were very frustrated the next. They were constantly afraid to spend money on the budget that was laid out for the project so work was frequently halted…meaning all forward progress would halt as well and it’s difficult to continue to keep the project team together when the project stops and starts. Summary How do you get around these issues? The answer is you really don’t. You can’t eliminate them, that’s for sure. You can do things to try to avoid them like focus on the key project manager tasks I’ve listed above. Performing those tasks well will instill customer confidence, ensure that all resources on both teams have as much information as possible to do their jobs and know where things stand, and will help ensure that the scope of the project is managed well resulting in a tighter ship in terms of project timeline and budget. As PMs, we didn’t get in to this line of work for the easy projects and the easy customers. Those are boring. We like challenges – and that means challenging resources to manage, challenging projects and technology to implement, and yes…challenging and quirky customers to manage. Juggling customer satisfaction, delivery team happiness and focus, and delivery of a solid workable solution that is on-time and on-budget is our main focus and it’s what project management is all about.
You’re a small company with a new product that you know is going to turn the industry on it’s ear. Everyone will want to use your product and you’ll be rich overnight…if you can just get the word out fast and effectively. Well, you have it half right. Get the word out effectively, but the fast part may not be necessary or even a good idea. Two negatives are associated with that: - You never want to grow your business too fast- Getting the word out too quickly could cause a major stir and rapid adaptation of your product before you’re ready and able to support that large of a customer base So, how do you do it…how do you get the word out effectively and efficiently and grow your customer base for it in an appropriate fashion so that you’re not overloaded? There are three key ways to do this…. 1. Offer an incentive to early adopters or beta testers. If you’re confident about your product and it’s potential impact and if you already have a good customer base, then offer this new product to them for free for a period of time and allow them to help you work through some of the kinks. You’re essentially getting extended testing for free – as long as the issues that come up aren’t so big that they kill the product and damage your customer following. And if it’s your first product, you can do the same thing, but you won’t have your current customer base to draw on – you’ll have to find those customers/testers. Mainly by shopping for them from competitors…it will be harder, but you’ll find them. 2. Do the press releases and whatever news or magazine print you can garner. Offer the info to any reasonable print publication you can. Who you contact about this will depend heavily upon what industry you’re in….but if you’re in the tech industry the amount of publications and press release sites out there are more than enough to help you effectively get the word out. 3. Offer guest articles to websites and blogs…post, post, post. You can create a buzz for your product just by writing your own article in your own words and offering it as a free guest post to any relevant site that will have you…and there are literally hundreds of sites that will allow this. Start doing this well in advance – perhaps even writing follow-up progress report articles on the product as your release approaches. Create anticipation in your potential user community. And, don’t forget to post about it on Twitter….often.I originally authored this article for Real Deal Technologies here.
Wireless communication standards quietly changed around two years ago. That’s when the draft standard for 802.11n became available allowing device makers to use it until the standard was released in 2009. That standard – the full-fledged 802.11n – was released in September 2009.
It was such a non-event because the draft standard really worked from the beginning with no real issues and great backwards compatibility. Now that the standard has been fully ratified, what does that mean for companies that are still lagging a generation or two behind in their wireless communication setup?
While 802.11n is a lot faster than previous standards—it will transmit data at speeds of up to 160M bps over short distances—it offers other improvements, as well. These include a better method of encoding packets, making delivery more reliable; support for QOS (quality of service); and support for MIMO (multiple input, multiple output), which allows the radios in wireless devices to use multiple antennas to improve reception. Last but certainly not least, 802.11n devices operate on both the 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands. And when using dual-band N access points this means is that B and G devices on your N network won’t slow things down…its win-win. There’s no risk - everything will just work better as portions of your net- work move to 802.11n.
So, is it time to upgrade? Other than cost, there’s very little to worry about…so the answer is basically YES. Here are six things to consider when looking to upgrade your wireless networking to 802.11n:
· You can just replace your existing access points with new ones when you upgrade your Wi-Fi. However, if you do so, you’re probably wasting money, since you almost certainly won’t need as many of them.
· Even your old 802.11g clients will work fine, and their connections will be stable over longer ranges.
· You have two frequency bands available for 802.11n: 2.4GHz and 5GHz. When possible, use the 5GHz range because there’s less interference on it, but the 2.4GHz and the 5GHz ranges are nearly the same.
· When possible, use dual-band access points. You’ll gain significant flexibility and a lot more capacity.
· 802.11n supports things that older versions of Wi-Fi didn’t, including HDTV and streaming multimedia. However, you’ll get more benefit if you focus on capacity and reliability.
· It’s perfectly safe to buy Wi-Fi products that say they meet the “Draft N” standard because those were certified along with the newer products that don’t have the word “draft” in them. However, steer clear of “pre-N” gear—it’s not certified and may not work with current wireless products.
I originally authored this article for the Real Deal Technologies website.
The International CES - the world's largest consumer technology tradeshow. And this year I'm going. We'll, I guess it's next year, but it's only 104 days away according to the CES website.
Today my press pass/badge arrived along with all the free passes for lunches and events. Living in Las Vegas as an IT consultant and author has it's perks at times - getting free passes to technology conferences as a press rep has been a nice perk so far in 2010. So far I've been able to attend about $10k - $12k worth of conferences for free and I've gained lots of knowledge, article material, and freebies in the process. My two 2-yr-olds love the light-up bouncy balls or anything that flashes for that matter!
The conference really begins for the press on 1/4 with CES Unveiled. Media, analysts and bloggers can get a pre-show look at who will be making news headlines at CES Unveiled. We get a sneak peek at International CES product debuts and the Innovations Design and Engineering Showcase honorees — before the show officially opens.
On 1/5 is CES Press Day. According to the CES website, Press Day is a MUST attend for CES media as major corporate, product and news announcements will be made. Press Day wraps up just in time for the preshow CES keynote address.
I'm not sure how much I'll be able to attend, but I'm getting my press bag and taking in as much as possible. Check back here in January for more information on CES as the show unfolds.
What does it take to setup project management for a startup? That all depends on the startup, the size of the startup, and possibly even the industry. I’d like to say that PM is the same across industries, organizations, and organization size, but it’s not. I’d like to say that PM practices need to be the same across all organizations regardless of their undertakings and project sizes, but that’s not necessarily the case. Flex with the NeedI subscribe to the concept that PM practices are basically the same, but need to be ‘flexed’ to fit the organization, the need, the size of the project, etc. But it still needs to happen. Given that – assuming we agree on that for the moment – then what about the startup? Does it need project management to see it through it’s first few customers or it’s first few internal revisions of it’s product offering? Is it really necessary if the startup only has, say, 12 employees? Yes! The principles – the true needs of the organization to get a handle on what’s happening with the work they are doing – are still there. The need to satisfy an external customer or produce a solid product so that there will still be paying customers out there waiting is still there. The need to adequately manage the cost/budget, the resources, and the timeframe that is required to get the work done is still there. And if that need is there, so is the need to report on those items – whether that’s a formal reporting to an external entity or a more informal reporting to a small team internally….the need for tracking and accountability is there. Poor Practice begets Poor PracticeIt will always be there. And if it is ignored, it will always cause problems. As I’ve said before, you can sometimes get lucky and skate through on a very small undertaking or project. But that can’t last and as your organization grows so do your projects and your customers and your staff size. Those practices that got you to where you are will likely continue to be followed. Poor practices and loose tracking early on will lead to poor practices and loose tracking later on and when your organization, projects and customers are large enough…and that won’t take long…then you’ll begin to experience the major issues that accompany disorganized project management and accountability. Do it Right EarlyWhat I’m trying to say – and what I’ve worked hard to instill in the startups that I’ve worked with - is this….do it right NOW, and it will always be right. Good practice will lead to growth, growth to profitability, profitability to more growth, more customers and more satisfaction for customers and your staff. Avoid the frustrations that many startups go through by ignoring this concept in their early stages. I’ve mentioned this before…one startup called me in to help them through the process of bringing their first three customers ‘live’ with their product offering. They lacked any true project management oversight and the customers had lost all confidence as the revised go-live dates kept coming and going with no end in sight. It wasn’t until I got them to step back, setup proper processes and tracking, and got the customers’ buy-in to the new processes that we were able to get those customers live and eventually push the startup organization over the line to profitability. Do it right early, setup processes that can grow with the organization, and many of those frustrations that arise trying to manage critical projects for a new startup will simply not occur. I originally authored this article for the PM Tips website - the original post can be viewed here.
The August project management survey has been up for some time and has had good response - but we need as many responses as possible. I'll leave the survey up through Monday, 8/30, but please take the five minutes or less that it will take for you to complete already done so. The more responses I get, the better and more meaningful the data will be. The survey is available at: http://www.bradegeland.com/august-2010-survey.htmlAnd don't forget to check PM Tips at http://www.pmtips.net/ on or after 8/31/10 for an analysis article and as always you can check http://www.bradegeland.com/past-survey-results.html for the detailed results of this and all past surveys. Thank you!
Remember when business cards were just your information - really just your name, position, company, phone number, and fax? Remember. Eventually email addresses and web URLs were added, but still, that's about it.
Those days have changed - at least for me. I've discovered Moo business cards. You can check them out at www.moo.com or, preferrably by clicking on the link on the right side of this page. If you do that, I think I get a kick back ... I'm not sure ...but either way you'll be happy, I promise.
What makes this cards different is hard to explain but when you see them and handle them you'll know. They're easy to create from the Moo.com website and one option lets you upload up to 50 different pictures to put on the back of your 50 business cards. Obviously they're great business cards for small businesses with multiple products to show off or for individual professionals such as photographers with a portfolio to display.
I've become fairly addicted and have ordered multiple varieties - check them out at www.moo.com or again, you can just click the Moo advertisement on the right. Thanks.
Ok, the book is underway - see proposed cover above. But what was going to be one book is now two.
The first is tentatively entitled "RealPM: A Hybrid PM Methodology for Real Life IT Project Management." This book will be intended as a step-by-step project management life cycle practice, or adoptable project management methodology, if you will. Great for the consulting PM, the small startup organization, or the large IT shop that has yet to reach the point of repeatable, sound IT project management practices. My processes can be easily adopted to fit your non-IT project management needs as well.
The book will be available as a PDF book available for purchase through PayPal. Look for more information here and in the 'Books' section of my website and also on Twitter @begeland.
The second book, which I hope to have completed later in 2010 will be an all-encompassing project management book as opposed to a step-by-step process/methodology. Both have their place, but I want to get this first one out initially.
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