Interesting resources on the American military and aerospace industry influence on project management and PM history .
American Railroads, Gantt and his charts, CPM and PERT, culminating in the Manhattan project, ICBM missile development and the moon mission.
https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-management-evolution-research-directions-8348
Emotional intelligence, another name for respect for people, is gaining popularity.
An excellent introductory video
I like to download videos of lectures to listen to. Here are some finds on project failure
The whole course, targeted towards video game development, has excellent resources on agile and is highly recommended https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/comparative-media-studies-writing/cms-611j-creating-video-games-fall-2014/
A NASA report on the Apollo mission.
“The Apollo [project] decision was […]an anomaly in the national decision-making process”
Again, mandate as base premise for projects. Political will and resource allocation are key.
A link to access latest by date open publications on the subject of project management click here
Some interesting general papers:
Software Sustainability: A Systematic Literature Review and Comprehensive Analysis, A. Imran, T. Kosar. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.06109.pdf
A detailed and inclusive study covering both the technical and non-technical challenges and approaches of software sustainability. A systematic and comprehensive literature review was conducted based on 107 relevant studies that were selected using the Evidence Based Software Engineering (EBSE) technique.
Click to access 1910.06109.pdf
Choosing agile or plan-driven enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations — A study on 21 implementations from 20 companies
Click to access 1906.05220.pdf
Agile Process Consultation — An Applied Psychology Approach to Agility
The core ideas of Agile Process Consultation are that a client initiating a change toward more agility often does not know what is wrong and the consultant needs to diagnose the problem jointly with the client. It is also assumed that the agile consultant cannot know the organizational culture of the client’s organization, which means that the client needs to be making the decisions based on the suggestions provided by the consultant. Since agile project management is spreading across the enterprise and outside of software development, we need situational approaches instead of prescribing low-level practices.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.06284
Group Maturity and Agility, Are They Connected? – A Survey Study
This study was conducted with 45 employees and their twelve managers
The selected Agility measurement was correlated to a Group Development measurement and showed significant convergent validity, i.e., a more mature team is also a more agile team. This means that the agile methods probably would benefit from taking group development into account when its practices are being introduced.
I am attending a Swedish innovation conference and spoke today with an entrepreneur working with textile. She did not perceive lack of stock compensation for employees as a limiting factor in her branch. The chief of the textile-centric incubator that she belongs to had never heard that complaint either.
However, this is a complaint one hears all too often from Spotify employees. And before them, Skype.
This bloomberg article ( behind a paywall ) gives the following examples
“A few years ago the Dutch capped bonuses for bankers, money managers, and other financial professionals at 20% of their base salaries. Entrepreneurs must navigate onerous tax rates and restrictions that often make equity sharing and options more trouble than they’re worth. When employees in Germany exercise options, they have to pay income tax on the difference between the fair market value and the strike price, and that rate runs from 14% to 47.5%. They also have to pay a 25% capital-gains tax on additional profits when they sell their shares.
In contrast, American employees typically pay a 0% to 20% rate on capital gains when options are redeemed, though they may have to pay additional levies when they’re exercised, depending on the timing and the type of equity incentive program. Germany and 14 other countries, including Sweden and the Netherlands, are more burdensome than the U.S. regarding options, according to a 2018 study by Index Ventures, a venture capital firm in London and Silicon Valley. ”
In my opinion, if Sweden wants someone to risk career safety and forego salary compensation upfront, they should be compensated for their risk in the case they create wealth. Sweden’s economic model is based on continuous growth. Does mean you have to give the actual growers motivation to risk.
Or are talented engineers dreaming of leaving Europe because they don’t get no respect, compared to their American peers?
Interesting discussion on hacker news
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21134956
“Being an excellent engineer, the backbone of all good tech companies, is rarely recognized, poorly compensated, and engenders much less social status than if you were on the US west coast. Ironically, even though there are many highly talented engineers in Europe, European executives and investors frequently hold American engineers working in Europe in much higher regard and treat them differently than engineers from their own countries. I’ve seen it many times.
This is not an environment that incentivizes the world-class native engineering talent that exists in Europe to perform up to their abilities in a high-risk startup. Good engineers correctly view themselves as being undervalued, so there is no point in taking the risk. Nothing will change until Europe places more value — economic, social, and cultural — on being an exceptional engineer instead of treating them as a modern day factory worker subservient to the managerial class. This is not something you can easily change with government initiatives. “
a problems-solving approach, TRIZ, started in the Soviet Union [1], is gaining traction at corporations, including Samsung. It is still not widely known in the west, but has apparently led to over 50 patent filings by Samsung and a mandatory 2 week training course for all engineers [2].
The acronym, translated from Russian, stands for The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving.
The core of the method is addressing contradictions arising from inherent properties in a product, service or process. For example, increased delivery time when improving quality. The TRIZ diagram on wikipedia (huge image) is a fascinating schematic
Applying the principle of Assymetry, changing the mechanics, to the following problem: Inexperienced developers are cheap, but unreliable, experienced developers are reliable but expensive, would offer the following solution: Have one experienced developer lead a team of juniors. A known simple solution that does however illustrate the application of TRIZ.
If we take a broader view, a framework is better than no framework. This system is broad enough to allow for creative approach and allows for collaborative processes with self-inspection and iteration, i.e. a valid approach to complexity.
Sources:
[1] Integrating TRIZ in Project Management Processes: An ARIZ Contribution https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2015.12.381
[2] What Makes Samsung Such An Innovative Company? https://www.forbes.com/sites/haydnshaughnessy/2013/03/07/why-is-samsung-such-an-innovative-company/
Getting certified as product owner or scrum master with Scrum.org on your first attempt.
I recently got re-certified. For work purposes. The required Scrum documents are not wordy, but content rich. You need to know them well. Scrum Master 1 and Product Owner 1 overlap, so studying material is about 75% similar.
Review the learning paths at scrum.org
https://www.scrum.org/professional-scrum-master-i-certification
and https://www.scrum.org/professional-scrum-product-owner-i-certification
1)Read and learn
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
2)Write out flash-cards based on the material. I prefer by hand, uses muscle memory. Glossary, manifesto, etc. Plan to make hundreds of cards.
3)Take practice tests at scrum.org till You score 100%
Review other reports on passing the exam.
Last, remember that only individuals and organizations that You do not want to work for care about your certifications and not what You can deliver. So in the worst case scenario, use that pretty piece of paper to get the first step to find a position where working software beats documentation, including certification.
Some resources on PMI validity plus comparison of different frameworks.
https://www.cio.com.au/article/402347/pmbok_vs_prince2_vs_agile_project_management/
No unified model in project management
Why the PMBOK is not a methodology
Autonomous 