As projects teams have become more dispersed around the world during the last two decades, the multigenerational project team inadvertently came into existence. Since then, I've dealt with diversity, virtual teams and multicultural issues.
As a project manager of multigenerational teams, my main objective is to figure out how to reconcile generational differences. These differences occur in everything from values and characteristics to priorities and motivation to feelings toward technology and management styles.
In order to more effectively manage multigenerational project teams, I not only need to focus on a team member's visible characteristic actions and behaviors, I have to find out more about his or her generation's beliefs and attitudes. From here, I can tailor my management style.
Take the Silent Generation, for example. Members of this generation were born pre-World War II. In the United States, this generation grew up in a time of economic turmoil and world conflicts. They set their values on discipline, respect and self-sacrifice.
For me, it's very important to understand that discipline, loyalty and working within the system are among the values that members of the Silent Generation will bring to my project team. I have to appreciate that those members have a vast knowledge to share and high standards on work ethic.
In communicating with members of the Silent Generation, I've found that face-to-face meetings are more effective than using e-mail or conference calls when discussing project matters.
Team members who belong to the Silent Generation have a clear understanding of authority, regardless of how old the project managers they work for are. This, along with respect for authority, was prevalent in their early years as they grew up in homes where the mother typically stayed at home and the father went to work.
Members of the Silent Generation bring experience and balance to the project team environment. Their views are based more on common sense than on technology -- as is the case with some in younger generations.
Article by Conrado Morlan, PMP, PgMP for Voices on Project Management.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Steve Jobs Was a Great Project Manager
Now let’s look at Apple – take 2. When Jobs came back to Apple in 1997, some important traits had changed for the better. And some had been good all along.
Decisive
In general, Jobs was a decisive leader. There are examples when he wasn’t sure which direction to go in, but for the most part he always had a strong feeling about a particular direction he wanted the company to go.
When he made up his mind, that was all she wrote in most cases. Even better, in these years he showed signs of actually changing his mind. With the Apple stores he had been set to organize them by product, and Ron Johnson told him they should be organized around the different types of uses instead.. 6 months after he had been working on iterating a prototype store, all organized around products. Jobs was irate and going into a meeting told Johnson to shut his mouth and not mention it to anyone. Then in the meeting he surprised Ron by saying “Ron thinks we’ve got it all wrong. He thinks it should be organized not around products, but around what people do. And you know, he’s right.”
He didn’t waffle, he changed his mind decisively and immediately set the team out to execute on it. You’ll also notice Jobs giving more credit to people other than himself like this, starting in the late 90′s with his return to Apple. I like it.
Visionary and Charismatic
These traits are impossible for anyone to deny Jobs, throughout his career. He was able to imagine a radical new future state over and over. Even more important, he had the charisma and salesmanship to convince everyone else to follow his vision.
As project managers the better we are at this, the more effective we’ll be in leading our teams to success.
Focus
A common thread you’ll notice throughout Jobs’ career is focus, almost to a fault. Sometimes this resulted in micro-management on tiny aspects of a product most people consider trivial and unimportant. But every detail was important to Jobs.
His product launches were a result of meticulous attention to detail, ensuring everything was just right. Apple products were and are the same, setting the company and not just it’s products, but the ‘Apple Experience’ apart from the rest.
Collaborative, Integrated Process
Jobs looked at products as something to be developed in an integrated fashion. After he came back to Apple, he tried to eliminate the ‘throw it over the wall’ and ‘that other department’ mentality by including all groups in discussions around new products.
He also ensured that key new hires met with key players from all departments, not just those they would be working in. This further ensured new employees had a sense for the whole and not just their own little silo in the company.
Most of all, he understood that the full value stream of a product is what matters, not individual steps. From designing the optimal customer experience at Apple stores and the packaging of all Apple products to the inclusion of marketing, sales, manufacturing, hardware and software development people in every step of the product life cycle — he saw the importance of that full value stream.
See other related posts by Josh at:
Steve-jobs-was-a-great-project-manager/
Decisive
In general, Jobs was a decisive leader. There are examples when he wasn’t sure which direction to go in, but for the most part he always had a strong feeling about a particular direction he wanted the company to go.
When he made up his mind, that was all she wrote in most cases. Even better, in these years he showed signs of actually changing his mind. With the Apple stores he had been set to organize them by product, and Ron Johnson told him they should be organized around the different types of uses instead.. 6 months after he had been working on iterating a prototype store, all organized around products. Jobs was irate and going into a meeting told Johnson to shut his mouth and not mention it to anyone. Then in the meeting he surprised Ron by saying “Ron thinks we’ve got it all wrong. He thinks it should be organized not around products, but around what people do. And you know, he’s right.”
He didn’t waffle, he changed his mind decisively and immediately set the team out to execute on it. You’ll also notice Jobs giving more credit to people other than himself like this, starting in the late 90′s with his return to Apple. I like it.
Visionary and Charismatic
These traits are impossible for anyone to deny Jobs, throughout his career. He was able to imagine a radical new future state over and over. Even more important, he had the charisma and salesmanship to convince everyone else to follow his vision.
As project managers the better we are at this, the more effective we’ll be in leading our teams to success.
Focus
A common thread you’ll notice throughout Jobs’ career is focus, almost to a fault. Sometimes this resulted in micro-management on tiny aspects of a product most people consider trivial and unimportant. But every detail was important to Jobs.
His product launches were a result of meticulous attention to detail, ensuring everything was just right. Apple products were and are the same, setting the company and not just it’s products, but the ‘Apple Experience’ apart from the rest.
Collaborative, Integrated Process
Jobs looked at products as something to be developed in an integrated fashion. After he came back to Apple, he tried to eliminate the ‘throw it over the wall’ and ‘that other department’ mentality by including all groups in discussions around new products.
He also ensured that key new hires met with key players from all departments, not just those they would be working in. This further ensured new employees had a sense for the whole and not just their own little silo in the company.
Most of all, he understood that the full value stream of a product is what matters, not individual steps. From designing the optimal customer experience at Apple stores and the packaging of all Apple products to the inclusion of marketing, sales, manufacturing, hardware and software development people in every step of the product life cycle — he saw the importance of that full value stream.
See other related posts by Josh at:
Steve-jobs-was-a-great-project-manager/
Friday, February 17, 2012
5 Ways to Find the Perfect Candidate through Social Media
What people don't realize is that the separations of these sites are becoming blurred because hiring managers are looking at the entire candidate, and not just what's on a resume.
Here's a trend I'm seeing that can help hiring managers (and maybe jobseekers) to find the prefect candidates through social media.
1. Having a Profile Picture: One of the biggest mistakes people make is not having a professional profile picture on their social networking accounts. Most would argue, "why is that necessary when it's the experiences that matter?" Although that may be true, we are visual beings and unconsciously relate more to visuals than non-visuals.
2. 500+ Connections on LinkedIn: Having that amount of connections dilutes the purpose of a professional networking account like LinkedIn. It gives off the signal that you will connect with anyone that wants to connect with you. Many hiring manager use LinkedIn to find potential candidates and have a red flag when they see more connections than the person can possibly know.
3. Facebook FanPage: With unemployment still high in the U.S., more and more people are coming up with creative ways to professionally stand out. People have created very well thought out and nicely designed Facebook Fan Pages as marketing material to help sell their skillsets. If you do a search on Facebook, you'll find great examples of Fan Pages.
4. #HireFriday Twitter Thread: I came across Margo Rose, an HR consultant, about a year ago on twitter. She had organized a twitter thread called #HireFriday where jobseekers post their skillsets and recruiters or others would actively make introductions to hiring managers with open positions. It's grown from it's inception and you can find out more on her blog http://hirefriday.com/blog
5. Online Resumes on About.me: This site is slowly becoming a popular way to point people to an online profile that consolidates all your social networking sites. It's meant to brand all perspectives of a person into one place. It's mainly used as a virtual business card and in some cases, resumes.
About the author:
Bernardo Tirado is an industrial psychologist and project management executive with extensive experience in building global shared services and developing new business capabilities.
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