Sunday 30 September 2007

What is a Project for you?

reading through PMBOK (For those Managers who are new to PMI ;) it is the Project Management Body of Knowledge), This definition hit my mind :

"A project is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or
result."
Well when the PMI defined this they definitely had more to say ... but while I would like to elaborate on this definition leaving aside the technical definitions of the project... It would be good to know what does a Project mean to you?

As per PMI it means that a Task that has some definite begining and some definite end which is derived from the output of the task compels to form a Project... Now lest go beyond these lines and understand what else does a Project contains when it is defined.....

A Project is definitely a task that involves one or more full time and/or part time resources.

WHat more can you think of?

Saturday 22 September 2007

Friday 21 September 2007

In Search of Authenticity

So finally the quest for Authenticity begins....I had a call and an invitation to the Lead India Group discussion for their initiative effort to find a better leader from the mass. Ofcourse I am excited to be there and see how the process is going to take place and how the leader would be found simply becuase my definition of leadership in the past few days had been shattered completely.

To me leadership had always been a strong character who had a drive and passion to achieve something with the help of the vision that was shared and action that involves making the hands dirty and all of this without expecting that the fame and money will come to you. While I still believe that all of the above with several other things can make a Strong leader I am still in a dilemma over the authenticity of those leaders who are away from these things in reality however pretend to be great leaders...

So how will we authenticate the best and not consider the toxic leaders ... who just want to go high with a COMPLETE SELFISH ATTITUDE and are no where close to the fact that leadership is generating success and not acquiring it?

There are ways to do this specially... and in the past I have done this and I for sure have removed several people from my "Ideal Leaders" list..

1. Do they have a vision that has meaning?
Many leaders specially the hybrid leaders talk about the vision that is more of theory and stolen ideas... These type of leaders always create a vision that is not showing enough visibility to anyone including the visionary himself. The easiest way to track is see if the vision is ready to be shared...

2. Do they build Trust or enforce it?
A Variety of commodity leaders try to enforce trust by faulty promises , mis use of authorities and by touching the soft corners at personal levels to build trust... well these things are good as far as sales are considered but not leadership... A leader builds trust based on what he lets his Team do by letting them do what and how they want to do it.... trust is built in the formal case it is enforced belief.... for instance XXX is the best person in this office doesnt build trust but a fear.... leaders believe in trust yet dont like people to be afraid of them...

3. Do they empower?
Well empowering is been mis-understood by many, several occasions I have seen leaders under the name of empwoering really want to keep control and direct what one should do and in what way... empowering needs trust not only from the leader but also from the person who is getting empowered..... The least of the belief I ahve seen is empowering is misunderstood to be an opportunity... a leader who sells empowering with opportunity is a salesman and not a leader.... empowerment requires compassion, sensitivity psychological insight, trustworthiness, consideration, and the ability to teach, evaluate and coach.

I wont talk more of the important tasks of Authentic leader here like Management, Vision, Trust, Action, Politics and feedback.... I will leave you to define on each front how would you like to find the authenticity making use of the expected characteristics of the Ideal leader....

several other factors and characteristics of the leaders can be used to trace the authenticity... but before you look for authenticity of a leader be sure that you are looking at the right guy...

In search of authenticity you would really like to evolve yourself whether you need to be a leader yourself or follow the right leader.... and If I am not mistaking the worlds greatest sinners were also leaders.... its upto us to decide whether they are commodity leaders or reality leaders...

Wednesday 12 September 2007

Am I Happy?

Somebody asked me today "Why do you whistle at work?" and I really had to question myself on why.... gathering the answers I realised that its the Happiness that makes me
1. Whistle around
2. Roam around the office
3. Kick ass myself to do more or less work
4. Worry only when required
5. Keep Smiling

Yes the answer is Happiness ... the same thing that we derive from each atom or molecule we use or utilise at work. Going back to my work on Work is better than sex and the subsequent extracts that I wrote in their adds to my happiness..

a. The place we spend maximum of our time is not home and if you are not happy at the place where you are for the maximum time means that you are not happy at all

b. Enjoying work at work is as easy as working for what you ahve been always working for and trying to work it out in the best possible way

c. A notrious kid is the happiest person in the classroom...and if the classroom is full of notorious students its fun to be there.... how can you be enjoying sitting with 50 heads of which 49 look at you only when they have to abuse you or in better words how can you enjoy food in a restaurant when you see everyone except you making a puke face at the plates.

Coming back to the point the workplace appears better no matter what is going on only if you enjoy doing what you are doing though it is something that you do not want to do... learning to control on how not be sad and if you are too optimistic like anyone I admire.... learning to be Happy.

So let me leave you thinking on
1. Do you really enjoy what you do?
2. Do you appreciate your own work?
3. Do you think you are working with happiest people?
4. Do you think you enjoy STress busting even if its not of your interest?
5. Do you think you add value to what you do?
6. Do you think you can go beyond what you do?
7. Do you think aspirations are meant to be dreamt, reality is to face what you are doing?

Well try answering this and you come to know if you are Happy or not.... And do remember dont be Toxic or put your fuzzy logic in here.... cause if you are not happy you are NOT Happy the fact that you are not happy can add to make you happy about been unhappy.

Tuesday 11 September 2007

Hush the Technology

The WebOS market is growing stronger inspite of the recent Office 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 announcement done recently... while the world still wants to move and think about the semantic worls... Ajax is driving the second gear with the complete Web OS solution....

Have a look at www.ajaxwindows.com

Wednesday 5 September 2007

Thanks to ALL My Teachers

For Teaching me how to be:
Honest, Loyal, Hardworking, Effective, Effecient and above all How to be a Good Human.

Thanks to Shahnaz Miss - Jr and Sr. Kintergarden and 2nd Grade Teacher
Thanks to Aruna Miss my 3rd grade Teacher who taught me that fight is not the solution to problems.
Thanks to Nafisa Miss my 4th grade teacher who taught me not to be arrogant.
Thanks to Ajitha Miss my 5th grade teacher who taught me that Patience can lead me to success
Thanks to Bhaskaran Miss my 6th grade teacher who taught me to be awake when listening to something important.
Thanks to Shamshad Miss 7th for teaching me aggression
Thanks to Naidu Miss 8th grade for teaching me that the first priority should always be your responsibilities
Thanks to Ghatge Sir 9th and 10th grade teacher to make me realise the importance of money
Thanks to Gaikwad Madam my Jr. College accounts teacher who taught me the importance of been true.
Thanks to Ravinder Madam my Computer trainer who taught me how not to judge someone by what someone does.
Thanks to Abida my wife to teach me that loyalty and trust keep the bonds stronger.
Thanks to Mark to teach me what Management means.
Thanks to Every Single Teacher I have dealt with to teach me to what I am today....

A very Happy Teachers Day to everyone...

Regards
Sameer

Saturday 1 September 2007

Rewards : Do they Motivate? - II

In my earlier post regarding Do rewards Motivate? and to my promise in the same post to tell you what would be an Ideal Reward like..... I felt the need to explain the differentiation between rewardful and rewardless motivations... To what I feel and I can easily describe why rewards were ever introduced is to create a passion in the people to do things better to have optimum or more than optimum results and to think beyond the boundaries that they work under.... I am not sure if I can call it extrinsic Motivation..... but the reason I feel I can call them extrinsic motivation is the fact that the motivation is in form of some or the other sort of rewards... this somehow clearly mean to me that the moment rewards are off the motivation can go for a toss... surprising no? The other fact about the extrinsic motivations is that it comes with a cost which obviously not so very easy to be managed by startups and smaller organisations who have to work over limited costs until they grow bigger. One of the blog post I read from a startup CEO was "How to Cut down Costs" and if of course talked about costs related to non business activities.

So lets leave what we don't have to opt for... I am sure all of you would be wanting to know the other side of motivation that does not ask for tangible rewards. But like any other product sale this type of motivation needs COMPLETE support from the individuals... Yes we are talking about the intrinsic motivations... the same that lead the leaders of countries , CEO's, Business Managers and many others to create a path to success by way of fantabolous innovations and aspirations... Yes creating a passion and intrinsic motivation can be the Ideal Reward.... The reward that can help someone achieve goals not only in line to organisation goals but beyond that.

So Whats the tangibility of this Ideal Reward?
Who Gives this Award?
How can it motivate those who look money as rewards?
What type of Employers can reward them?
Is it only verbal and nothing tangible?
and of course hell lot of questions that I see driving 90 miles an hour in your heads...

So to begin with the promotion to be intrinsic motivated is not at all tangible... you wont get any motivation in a handy form... however intrinsic motivation will lead you work towards something that you have always wanted to do...

When we started TechShepherds Software that was the Idea... and the way the motivation went to the associates was through a share in the profits of the organisations directly... how fun it was when I really saw everyone working as if it was their own company... of course challenges came for every hard or strategic decisions we made or the approach we took... and that's how the empowering for most worked.... to that matter 5 out of the 13 run their own setups big or small and I am sure they follow the same approach towards success now... Yes create a motivation that makes everyone feel been a part of it and just not closer.

Who can reward here or who creates this passion within?
Yes its the leadership that works in front or behind the scene here.. remember The Commodity Leaders have no role to play here, specially because the commodity leaders want to Empower Themselves to achieve success...

How can it motivate those who look for Tangible gifts?
So the answer here goes for 2 layers of people... this cannot be implanted in them who:

1. Think that the Employees/ Resources are a liability.
2. Think that money and designation is the only way to grow.

Is it only Verbal?
Yes it comes in different forms and different stages... Which I would really like to share....

What are the Stages of this reward or how this motivation works and helps?
1. Create a feel of responsibility and intrinsic interests in the goals the organisation is working for... (remember this is not easy and needs lot of understanding of the resources you work with). A typical phscycological study of human behaviours might be required. Also remember that the leaders have to show a vision of the organisation and not self....

2. Understand the Objectives and Goals from the Team and individuals, its very important to do that... for instance if someone has core interests in making movies he might not be a good developer but he definitely can be a good Product Analyst or a Web Designer. It might not be easy to understand this too... You wont find many people who can tell you what they want to do in their life.... but all will conclude to earn money and retire ;)

3. Identify the rockers and the boulders.... both of these types cannot be motivated so do not waste your time creating intrinsic strategies on them...

4. Throw responsibilities but do not control. Passion at work is affected badly when responsibilities handled by the associates are been directly and minutely controlled by someone. The effect it has is the Member who has intrinsic interests have a feel of failure and thus been controlled. This can also make the intrinsic motivated run on a different side.

5. Let the motivation be transferred.... and let the authorities , visibility and responsibilities rotated... this helps the teams and the players to be very effective to work towards a goal.

6. Let them have their shares....
Its very important that the players with intrinsic motivations get their share of success in whatever form it comes... this also means that the leaders have to let these players accelerate well and at times well enough to overtake the leaders themselves... Solidatory success needs to be lonely settled with them... one of the good qualities of players that are intrinsically motivated is that they thrive for the next thing and want to move fast... the speed of the organisation and individual goals should be able to match this... else its too late.


7. Praise and Curse
Doesnt go in the same words though... make sure that the innovations from every player is praised and whenever required failures are cursed so that the feel of failure lead them to success... its very important to de-motivate the players so that they understand what , when , how , where and which is important for their lives. Make use of talented hunour to give the message out. Use quality humour to praise and show whats wrong, Be direct and clear when required, Be hard and firm when necessary and be Soft and calm when must. All of these help the person to identify himself and find a way to move in the direction of desires and aspiritions.

Well there are many more thingsz that you can definitely do.... unfortunately I think its enough at this moment if this post works as a motivation for you to motivate others to do miracles...

Remember Our Teachers and Mentors have made us, and we have to take their seat to be equally effecient and effective for others...


Regards
Sameer Shaikh
http://pm-better-than-sex.blogspot.com