I'm doing quite a bit of reading and research as I'm writing my book. Over the weekend I was reading about philosophical hermeneutics, the study of how we understand what is written, stated, or performed. I'm sharing a quote today from Hans-Georg Gadamer:

"(H)istory does not belong to us; but we belong to it."¹

One implication is that we have no chance of understanding what others mean in their writing and speaking without first coming to appreciate our own historical way we arrived here today.

All projects have a predisposition for misunderstanding.

What does this have to do with projects? In all but straight-forward acts of coordination, we are more likely to misunderstand and be misunderstood than not. When we share opinions on what is good and bad, where there's opportunity and risk, what options for action are opened or closed, and what is possible and not possible, we are speaking (or listening) from a perspective of historical pre-judging. For instance, what has been good for me before shapes how I listen when others speak. Read the rest of this entry ¶

1. Gadamer, Hans-Georg, Truth and Method, p 276, 1989. [ ⇑ back ]

I can't read enough about Toyota. I first started in 1988 with one of the only books available at the time, A Study of the Toyota Production System from an Industrial Engineering Approach, by Shigeo Shingo. It was an impossible read. The translation wasn't good. Later, Andrew Dillon did another translation. The current version of that book is quite readable. Since then, Productivity Press published over 300 books on Japanese approaches to managing production, design, and the enterprise. One of the newest is Inside the Mind of Toyota, by Satoshi Hino, translated again by Andrew Dillon, with a foreword by Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way.

I've just opened the book — only skimming through it — but I was struck with the following passage from the Translator's Foreword. Dillon identifies three important lessons in Hino's text:

• Theory and principles matter.
• Documentation is critical.
• An organization's success is intimately linked to how its leaders think about work, people, and society.

This is not an ordinary book. It is a book written with a purpose. According to Dillon, that purpose is to learn enough about what is behind Toyota's success and then surpass them.

I get on an 6-hour flight today. I'll let you know more about the book on the other end.

Been stuck lately. I'm working on a book, but can't seem to make the progress I want to make. So on a whim I pulled out three trusty resources: UNSTUCK, by Keith Yamshita & Sandra Spataro, The Project 50, by Tom Peters, and One Hat at a Time momentum cards. I can't say any of them helped. I need a plan. A plan I can work with. I may also need some coaching.

For now, I've selected a hat that I've propped up on my desk. It's a beanie. The kind with a propeller on top. On the back of the card it reads:

The weekend is ahead. Let's see if the beanie helps. And maybe I just need to go to bed!

Each year Fortune repeats a survey of America's Most Admired Companies. For the first time ever a foreign company made it into the top ten — all the way to number 2. That firm is Toyota. (GE is number one.) You're probably not surprised given all the attention Toyota has been getting in the press, particularly in comparison to GM and Ford. But what surprised me was the story Alex Taylor III told. It is the story of innovation, big bold objectives, and projects.

Great project leadership makes Toyota's new product development so successful

The Birth of the Prius chronicles a 10-year effort instigated by the most senior people at Toyota to reinvent the automobile. The story reveals Toyota's set-backs, missteps, and embarrassments. But we know how this story ends. Hybrid engine technology works. And it's commercially viable. It currently costs about $3000 more than conventional technology, but Toyota is working on closing that gap.

How did they deliver the first Prius in 24 months? And how did they do the next version in another 24 months? It takes a little reading between the lines and some knowledge about what else has been written on the Prius¹. In short, it is great project leadership that makes Toyota's new product development so successful. These are some of the ingredients of that leadership:

• Big bold objectives
• Attention to produce and hold alignment to those objectives
• Carefully selecting the key people for the project
• On-going care and review of the project by the most-senior executives
• Freedom for the team to do the project as they see fit
• No blame environment that encourages learning and innovation

Toyota excels at delivering projects

Toyota hasn't stopped with the Prius. There are hybrid versions of the Camry, Highlander, Lexus GS450, and more are on the way. Ford licenses the technology from Toyota. Each time Toyota brings the technology to another car it does so as a project. A project that wows the market. A Camry that gets 40 miles per gallon and a Lexus that goes from zero to 60 in 5.8 seconds with mileage in the high 20s.

But what has this cost Toyota? No more than any other new car developed…about $1 billion. That includes all the money spent on developing the technology.

Toyota is not just the best automotive company in the world, nor just the best manufacturer. Toyota excels at delivering projects — big, bold projects. That will be far more difficult to emulate.

1. The Toyota Way, by Jeffrey K. Liker, Ch. 6 The Toyota Way in Action: New Century, New Fuel, New Design Process — Prius [ ⇑ back ]

In the last two weeks, three people have recommended Scott Berkun's The Art of Project Management to me. (They hadn't seen my posting the Art of Scott Berkun.) While I was impressed with the book when I read it last summer, I hadn't picked it up since. Now I have. I'm even more impressed.

Two years ago, Boston University said that the PMBoK® only represents 1/3 of what a project manager needs to know to succeed, Project Management: Art and Science. The art of project management is generally not taught and not well-described. 18 months later Scott's book filled that gap. The Art of Project Management is a handbook for developing yourself as a project leader. Notice my shift in terms from manager to leader. I'm taking my cue from comments Scott made in an online forum¹, "It's what I wish someone had told me when I started leading projects." Of course there are management tasks on projects, but what people need most from us is leadership. Here are five chapter titles to give you a sense of what he means by leadership: Read the rest of this entry ¶

1. BlogCritics Review [ ⇑ back ]

I received a thoughtful email from a reader over the weekend. (Thanks Doug!) It reminded me of a set of introductory resources I have on this site. From the navigation bar you can access guides (lenses) on Project Leadership, kaizen for Projects, and IGLC Papers Reviewed on RPM. Each lens was designed as a starting point on the topic written from the RPM perspective. You'll find references to articles, postings from RPM, some of the best books on the topic, and a few surprises.

The lenses are not designed to be complete. I've changed each a number of times since they were first posted. Today I've posted a new lens for the Language-Action Perspective on Projects. This one will take quite a bit of updating. Keep checking back.

Let me know if there is a lens you want me to create.

Bob Weinstein has good advice for new project managers. In his article for Gantthead this week, Rookie Rules, Bob starts with four mistakes rookies make:

1. Bad attitude.
2. Make drastic changes without considering possible repercussions.
3. Initiate new projects without getting support from subordinates, peers and stakeholders.
4. Make snap decisions.

Bob follows these four mistakes with "eight tips that can almost guarantee your success on the job." He starts with Be Humble. That's great advice for all of us. Read Rookie Rules for the other seven.

Too many projects are late or over budget, or both. In the March 2006 issue of Customer Relationship Management magazine Jim Dickie reports in It May Cost More Than You Think that about 33% of all CRM implementations take at least twice as long as the CRM vendors told their clients.¹ In addition, 41% reported that they exceeded their budgets for implementation. This is no surprise to anyone following CRM implementations. Far too many have been dismal failures. So how can this be?

In the same March issue, Natalie Petouhoff, Ph.D., attributes CRM failures to our brains, Read the rest of this entry ¶

1. Based on CRM's 12th annual Sales Effectiveness Survey with responses from over 775 companies. [ ⇑ back ]