Archive for the 'training' Category

I spent the last week in Bellingham, WA in a training program. I am now a TWI Institute Qualified Trainer for the Job Instruction (JI) program. This is the same program Toyota uses to teach their team leaders and supervisors how to train their staff. I am quite pleased with the training. The TWI Institute is doing a good job replicating the TWI Service's training program. We used the same basic materials, although the guide was well-annotated and included very useful references for trainers.

You might be wondering, "Why did you get qualified to deliver the training?" In June I participated in the course to become a Job Instructor. Since then, I've had the opportunity to develop some training and to see how much more effective our staff has been delivering training TWI-style. Further, Jeffrey Liker's latest book, Toyota Talent, shows how important a reliable method is to the functioning of the workforce and the satisfaction of the employees.

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We've all heard about kaizen. It's a practice for individuals, teams, and across process. People seem to take to it quite well in the factory and process environments. That's not the case in the project setting. At the TWI Summit, I was introduced to the Job Methods (JM) improvement approach. JM teaches how to see waste. JI in combination with JM teaches people the skills of improving.

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Have you tried drinking from a fire hose? I did last week at the TWI Summit. It was the largest meeting of TWI proponents in over 50 years. Next year will be bigger. How do I know? They've reserved more rooms and moved to a larger venue at Disney World. But the real reason it will be bigger has to do with a happy accident. But before I share that I'll give you a taste of the summit. It started with a few answers to some tough questions.

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Short answer: Don't try! That's the advice anyway from the people at The Four Seasons hotel chain. Instead, they hire for attitude. US News goes on to report in Four Seasons Service Is Unstinting, "…then train them thoroughly and treat them with the same respect (management) expects them to show hotel guests." When scanning resumes and interviewing candidates the question they try to answer is, "Are you an innately happy person?" They understand how to teach people to be a bellman or a deskclerk, but "If your momma didn't teach you to be nice, then (they) can't either."

What would be the equivalent attitudes for people who work on projects?

Vince Lombardi was wrong when he said, "Winners never quit and quitters never win." Do I have your attention? That's how Seth Godin opened his presentation this morning in Philadelphia. It's the first stop on his book tour to promote The Dip. I've been asked many times, "Why does a project management guy write about a marketing guy." Seth is not just a marketing guy. He's strung together one best-selling book on marketing one-after-another. Seth describes himself as a guy committed to spreading the best ideas. His book Purple Cow on doing work that stands out is great advice for individuals and teams.

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Currently, people seem to not be ready to participate in lean construction environments. Catolica University, Santiago, Chile has a Center of Excellence in Production Management (GEPUC) that is researching and developing a competency profile that supports the adoption and expansion of lean construction in companies and industry.

Qualifying People to Work in Lean Construction

Ignacio Pavez and Luis Alarcon

This is an important paper. The authors have researched the skills necessary to perform well in project management roles. They found that people are not generally prepared in school for the roles they play in industry. Current industry is fragmented in the approaches to managing projects. Adopting lean approaches exaggerates the situation. Project manager-leaders have a new responsibility to bring about a change in standard practices while acquiring new skills for themselves.

"Lean requires a social competence to develop relationships among team members."

They have defined a structure for a lean construction professional profile (LCPP) that could serve as a basis for developing assessments and providing training opportunities. They are continuing in their process of surveying "lean construction experts" to develop the criteria further.

My company does a lot of training to introduce lean project delivery approaches to client teams. We use a coaching approach rather than a front-of-the-room teaching approach. David Maister's, author of numerous books, latest article caught my attention, Why (Most) Training Is Useless. He makes the case that the way people attempt training is useless. He encourages people to think about training the way we think about athletic training. A trainer works with you as you workout. Attention is given to performing something new and performing better.

David is provocative.

"Becoming good at dealing with people (inside or outside the organization) is not accomplished by taking a college course in psychology, sociology, anthropology, or any other '-ology' where people sit around and intellectualize about "human resources" or "market segmentation" but never have to actually deal with a real, live human being."

And, he is quite practical. David offers these questions to guide thinking on training:

• What behaviors by top management need to change to convince people that the new behaviors are really required, not just encouraged? If the behavior is going to be optional, then so should the training be.
• What measurements need to change?
• What has to happen before the training sessions occur in order to bring about the change?
• What has to be in place the very day they finish?

David goes on,

"The best training is usually done by the firm’s own practitioners…Outsiders should be used only to help develop programs and "train-the-trainers.""

David has strong opinions. There's value in that. If you are considering any serious training, then at least consider his opinions.

And if you like David Maister's view, then you might also like David's manifesto published at ChangeThis Strategy and the Fat Smoker.

Business 2.0 is one of my favorite magazines. They have a way of breaking great stories and introducing topics from new perspectives. In June this year their cover story was The CEO's Secret Handbook. They broke the story of a CEO's advice to managers in his firm. Everywhere I looked someone else picked up the story. There were so many stories I decided not to write about it. I took another look. The advice works for project managers and leaders just as it does for division managers.

Read the rest of the story Bill Swanson's 25 Unwritten Rules of Management.

This is the seventh consecutive year the Lean Construction Institute has convened a meeting of its members to give them an opportunity to share what they have been learning adopting lean approaches to delivering their projects. The Congress Agenda continues to expand with this year two days of practitioner presentations sandwiched between an Introduction to Lean Construction and a plenary session to explore some challenging issues in open meeting. The 7th Annual LCI Congress is at the Cathedral Hill Hotel in San Francisco. I hope to see you there September 21 - 24, 2005.

Develop yourself as a leader in Walla Walla:

"We designed BeyondLeadership to help individuals discover how to teach themselves what they need to become the leader they aspire to be. Rather than learning to follow others' models of leadership, participants investigate their own behavior patterns. By discovering how they succeed and fail in their own situations, they begin to learn the lessons that grow into the ability to more consciously employ their skills, especially in those moments when different choices are needed."

Join David Schmaltz and Amy Schwab at their residential leadership development program for project leaders. These two people will push you, nurture you, and keep you just at the edge of discomfort…just the place you need to be for a great learning experience. Check it out!

I feel stupid. Really stupid! How many times will it take before I learn the lesson that "90% of the population are honorary show-me Missourians?" as Tom Peters says in This I Believe TIB #20: He who makes the Quickest & Coolest Prototypes Reigns! I thought I learned that lesson…a long time ago. But my recent efforts to introduce design professionals (architects and engineers) to a different way of doing projects was met with great resistance.

Many people in the architecture and construction industry are exploring their discontent with the results of their projects. Greg Howell and I have been working quite successfully with project teams and companies introducing a different way to deliver projects. We decided that it was time to work intensively with a group of architects and engineers to explore two things as learning and innovation in action:

1. How much value can be created from adopting lean project practices in the A&E work settings?
2. What will it take to be successful in adopting a different approach in those settings?

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John Musser, Columbia University, recently told me about his project management website. The site is titled Software Project Management, but it's so much more.

The site is all the course work, class notes, recommended texts, etc. for John's class on Software Project Management. He also includes references to other useful materials. After you bookmark this site, take some time to explore what John has catalogued. And if you think he's missed something, then drop him a note with your suggestion.

Projects@Work - No-How: Can You Manage by PMBoK?: "A checklist of standards does not a methodology make. You need to go beyond what should be done on your project and figure out how it should be done."

This is a good article by Mark E. Mullaly, PMP on PMI, PMBoK®, and project management.

The Lean Construction Institute is conducting a workshop Implementing the Last Planner System™ in Atlanta on December 4 & 5. The workshop answers the question, "How do I make lean construction work for my company?" These workshops are not just for construction professionals. Lean project approaches have been adopted in defense contracting, software development, and engineering. This program is a follow-on to LCI's Introduction to Lean Construction. Check it out.

I have a busy week or two coming up. I start the 2nd group in the Project Leader Studio on Tuesday. Greg Howell and I have created a leadership program for project managers. We did this in response to requests from our clients. We have been working with executives on leadership for quite some time. We kept hearing the same thing from them, something like…"Wish I knew this when I was running projects." Or, "Too bad you can't teach this to our project managers."

So eventually we got the message. We designed a program that acknowledges the circumstances of project managers. They are interrupted constantly. We do our work with them primarily over the phone. Really! Take a look at the Project Leader Studio program description.

There's a good chance we are delaying the start by one week to accommodate 5 people from one company. That creates an opportunity for others. We still have room for a few more people. If you write Greg Howell he will send you a link to a document describing why he and I are doing this program.

In the meantime, I'm taking a road trip with my oldest son. (Why not? It's been 5 months since the road trip with my youngest son.) He's headed to Steamboat Springs, CO for the winter. If you want to speak with me about our project leader development program, Greg will know how to reach me.

Thought you would enjoy You Can't Be Serious?! by William Knight.

The perfect situation is for the project to fail, for nobody to be able to pinpoint why and for you to be certain of a long-term position without changing projects too often or climbing the management hierarchy too quickly.

Knight offers his top ten list of how to bring a project to failure without getting the blame. This tongue-in-cheek advice is really a commentary on the trivialization of project management. Be careful…you just might find one of your tried and true antics practices portrayed.

BTW, if you've been wondering what I've been doing and why I haven't been writing,
then take a look at my latest project leader.halmacomber.com.

David Schmaltz and Amy Schwab happened to be in Chicago at the same time Greg Howell and I were there to conduct our Project Leader Studio™ Intensive. We had planned to join them for dinner, but President Bush decided to visit Chicago delaying David's and Amy's arrival at O'Hare. Greg and I had planned an evening bonus session for the program participants. Instead, we asked David and Amy if they would like to speak with our group.

You might remember David Schmaltz's name. He is the author of The Blind Men and the Elephant: Mastering Project Work. I wrote about the book in my postings For PMs Who Might Someday Have to Deal with Human Beings and then again There Can Be No Such Thing as a Project. David takes a provocative stance in his book. He claims a major source of problems on our projects is directly related to the quality of the conversations we have among project participants. Specifically, he calls on the leaders of projects to produce a convergence of interests among all participants throughout the duration of the project.

It was 8:00 PM when David and Amy joined the group, way too late for a lecture. Instead, they did one of their simulations. They call it Back to the Future. The simulation involved walking backwards on a mission to recover an object. The exercise was designed to interrupt our acceptance of planning as looking into the future. The simulation was a success and the conversation that continued late into the night was quite the bonus.

David and Amy do their own workshops on project management. Visit them at Project Community. And for the really curious (or brave) among you, spend some time with David's and Amy's Deep Thoughts.

Thank you David and thank you Amy for spending that time with us!