David Schmaltz Was a Hit!
January 22nd, 2004 by HalThe Project Leader Studio™ Teleconference Series with Authors launched today. Was this ever a project! And I was on the learning team! I've never done a public event like this before, but I loved it! (I think I'm using too many exclamation points!)
I have to say that David Schmaltz was great. We prepared him with questions for the call, but he free-wheeled throughout the conversation. He's a great speaker and very thoughtful in his responses. On top of that, he decided to share his notes for the call — actually essays — with my readers. Have a look at the David Schmaltz Interview. This is a keeper. If you are interested in a continuing discussion of the topic, then join David's Yahoo! Group Mastering Project Work. It's real fun!
By the way, subscribers to the series also got a summary of his book. Readers are raving about it. Don't miss the next interview and book summary. Sign-up now.
We've got five more authors as provocative as David. Next up is Bob DeKoch, co-author of Embracing Uncertainty: The Essence of Leadership. This is sure to be as controversial as David's blind men. You don't want to miss it. If you are not on the announcement list, then sign-up today by visiting The Project Leader Studio™ Teleconference Series with Authors.
Here's one last thought on the teleconference offered during the session by one of the participants. He was commenting on an organization's desire for consistency in project results.
We need to have inconsistency in our process to achieve consistency in project results.
Try to get that one by your PMO!
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January 23rd, 2004 at 4:58 pm
I agree that many may react strongly to the ‘inconsistency’ comment. A slight shift from inconsistency to customization might make all of the difference in getting the idea across. In this one-to-one marketing world, this isn’t a foreign concept. And, by the way, there are consistent ways to go about the highly customized processes leading to consistent results. But you have to work at a meta level rather than the process level.
January 23rd, 2004 at 5:15 pm
Amy, You hit the nail on the head! Process models need to be tailored for each project. But tailoring or customization doesn’t really mean inconsistency. That term — inconsistency — is harmful and confusing to many, I believe.
January 26th, 2004 at 11:04 pm
Frank, I’d question whether embracing necessary inconsistency is more damaging than the pursuit of consistency. The power of the suggestion, which was made by someone who introduced himself as having 600 PMs working for his organization, is that it is provocative. It wakes up the slumbering questioner inside. He realized that his solution was the real problem.
His dilemma was that he has hundreds of customers, each clamboring for consistency. I suggested that if he spoke with each, he might well find that each has a very different definition of consistency, to which he replied that they were probably more interested in consistent results than in consistent process. He recognized that the relationship between consistent process and consistent results is spurious across different contexts, and that, as Amy notes, consistency takes on a surprising, seemingly paradoxical meaning then.