==> Registration Link (Registration STILL OPEN for tomorrow’s event)

2) Agile NYC

Topic: ”Who Is The User In Your Stories…”

Day/Date/Time: Monday May 7

Presenter:  Jeremy Kriegal

Hosts: Matt Ganis and Jochen (“Joe”) Krebs 

Registration Link

3) PMI NYC

Topic: ”Positioning Yourself For Advancement in a Difficult Job Market”

Presenters: Lloyd L. Feinstein

Day/Date/Time: Monday, May 7, 5:30 PM

Location: Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas (Microsoft, between 51st and 52nd Streets)

==> Registration Link

4) NY SPIN (Software Process Improvement Network)

Topic: ”Beautiful Teams”

Presenters: Andrew Stellman & Jennifer Greene (Co-Authors of Head-First PMP (A Brain-Friendly Guide For Passing The PMP Exam)

Day/Date/Time: Tuesday, May 8, 5:30 – 8:00

Location: Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas (Between 51st and 52nd Streets)

==> Registration Link

 5) PMI NYC Breakfast Round Table (BRT)

Topic: “Deal Yourself A Winning Hand”

(The Top 10 Negotiating Mistakes, and How To Avoid Making Them)

Presenter: Joseph A. Lukas

Day/Date/Time: Wednesday, May 23rd 7:30 – 9:00 AM

Location: Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas (between 51st and 52nd Streets)

==> Registration Link

One of the best leadership books I have ever read is: The Manager’s Book of Decencies: How Small Gestures Build Great Companies, by Steve Harrison (McGraw-Hill), for all project managers, team leaders, and executives.

Steve Harrison is Chairman of Lee, Hecht, Harrison, the premier career management and leadership consulting firm. He is also the former Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer of Adecco Group, the largest HR Solutions Company in the world. As such, he carries around a wealth of personal experience and unique knowledge about companies, management, leadership, morale, and ethics.  And it is impressive how much of this knowledge he was able to share in this excellent book, which is brimming with actionable tips.

The basic premise of the book is that it takes more than rules and laws to build an ethical culture at a company.  ”Decencies” are all kinds of things that managers can do to set examples of good ethics and to foster an environment where ethical behavior is encouraged and rewarded.  And Steve’s book provides a wealth of examples from his own hands-on experience helping many companies in his positions at Adecco and later the company that shares his name: Lee, Hecht, Harrison.

Since reading this book, I recommend it for advanced reading in my PMP Project Management classes.  It’s written for a general audience of managers and leaders, but I recommend it specifically for Project Managers as well.  Many of the ideas will work on the project-level, as well as on a company-level.

Many PMs get their start by one day finding themselves “thrown into” managing projects. A new buzzword for this is “Accidental PM.”  Are you one?  You’re NOT alone!

In my case, I was a technical trainer, who started falling into supporting the I.T. products I was training on.  Then one morning I got a big surprise when I was asked me to take on the IT department’s change management system, which management was having a hard time getting its developers to use.

Despite strong early resistance, the system worked out to be very widely-utilized.  It helped our company by reducing the number of defects, improving traceability to enhancements and bug-fixes, standardizing software versions, and making it much faster and easier to back-out changes when necessary.

LINK to Podcast: In my interview with Cornelius Fichtner, Episode #209: “The Accidental Project Manager” (or “How To Save A Failed Project As Your First Assignment”) I share tips and lessons learned.

LINK to Info about my book: “The Project Management Answer Book” (Management Concepts, 2011)

NOTE - 5 more podcasts I have done with Cornelius Fichtner for The PM-Podcast and The PDU Podcast:

• Episode #168 “The Project Management Answer Book” (interview about my book)
• Episode #169 “Ethics In Project Management” (how to deal with ethical issues PMs all face)
• Episode #176 “One More Question” (interviews with several PMs, including myself, Elizabeth Harrin, Peter Taylor, Steve Kaye, Pam Stanton, Frank Saladis, and Mark Phillips)
• Episode #208 “Are You A PM? Write!” (about how writing and getting published can raise your profile and help your career)
• Month 24 “Why Ethics Are Important For PM Success” (2.25 PDUs)

Note – The above podcasts are all eligible for PDUs.

1) NYC SCRUM Users Group 

Day/Date/Time: Tuesday, April 10th, 6:00 PM

Topic: - Intro to Business Value Engineering 

Speaker:  Joe Little of Kitty Hawk Consulting

Location: EURO RSCG, 350 Hudson Street, 9th Floor

Meeting Leader: Rob Purdie

==> Registration Link

2) PMI NYC ”Agile: Your Tough Questions Answered” 

Presenter: Mark C. Layton, CST, Platinum Edge, Inc.  (recognized globally as Mr. Agile^TM)

Day/Date: Monday, April 9th

Time: 5:30 – 8:00 PM

Location: DownTown Association, 60 Pine Street

==> Registration Link  (then select CALENDAR button)

3) Agile NYC: “5 Year Agile NYC Anniversary Event”

Date: Monday, April 16th

Time: 5:00 – 9:30 PM

Location: Pace University, 3 Spruce Street, Michael Schimmel Hall

AGENDA:

• 5pm to 6pm: Reception Hour with Food, Drinks and Music (DJ Vinyl Richie)
• 6pm to 6.15pm: Welcome (Jochen Krebs)
• 6.15pm to 7.00pm: Jean Tabaka
• 7.00pm to 7.45pm: Ken Schwaber
• 7.45pm to 9.30pm: Reception with Food, Drinks and Music

Topic: Risk: Agile vs. Waterfall Part III

Location: Microsoft (1290 Avenue of the Americas, at 51st Street)

Time: 5:30 – 7:30

Day/Date: TBD

Location: Microsoft, 1290 Avenue of the Americas (between 51st and 52nd Streets)

Presenters: Gene Gendel and Larry Mantrone

==> Registration Link  (then select CALENDAR button)

Photo taken by my wife, Martha Garvey, of me with my book at the BEA 2011, New Title Showcase (Book Expo America)

You might also be interested in:

- My new article: “Top 10 Tips For  Marketing A Book Using Social Media”

- My upcoming PMP classes: “3 classes in NYC, 3 classes in California“

I am scheduled to teach 7 PMP classes in the next few months for Unitek Education in NYC and Fremont California (San Francisco Bay area).

My next 3 PMP classes in California (Fremont, near San Francisco) are:

1. April 16 – 20                   (Monday – Friday, 9:00 – 5:00)

2. August 6 – 10                (Monday – Friday, 9:00 – 5:00)

3. October 1 – 5                  (Monday – Friday, 9:00 – 5:00)

To register,  you can email me directly at Jeff@Jeff-Furman.com.  And any questions, feel free to email or call me at (201) 310-7997.

I look forward to helping you get your CAPM / PMP.

CONTACT:

• Email:     Jeff@Jeff-Furman.com,
• Website:  My Website
• Linkedin: My Linkedin Profile
• Twitter:    @PMAnswerBook, @JeffNYNY

You might also like:

• Article: “Top 10 Tips for Marketing a Book Using Social Media“
• Going for your PMP?  ”The Project Management Answer Book“
• Top 10 Reasons To Take Jeff Furman’s PMP Class

I am scheduled to teach 6 PMP classes in the next few months for Unitek Education in 1) NYC and 2) Fremont California (San Francisco Bay area).

My next 3 PMP classes in Manhattan are:

1. June 11 – 15                      (Monday – Friday, 9:00 – 5:00)

2. August 20 – 24               (Monday – Friday, 9:00 – 5:00)

3. November 26 – 30        (Monday – Friday, 9:00 – 5:00)

To register… Email me directly at Jeff@Jeff-Furman.com.  Any questions, feel free to email or call me at (201) 310-7997.

I look forward to helping you get your PMP / CAPM.

CONTACT:

• Email:     Jeff@Jeff-Furman.com,
• Website:  My Website
• Linkedin: My Linkedin Profile
• Twitter:    @PMAnswerBook, @JeffNYNY

You might also like:

• Article: “Top 10 Tips for Marketing a Book Using Social Media“
• Going for your PMP?  ”The Project Management Answer Book“
• Top 10 Reasons To Take Jeff Furman’s PMP Class

However… an article in the current New Yorker, January 30, 2012, by Jonah Lehrer, entitled: “GROUPTHINK,” has applicability to Project Management teams. Based on an extensive study by Charlan Nemeth, professor of psychology at UCLA in 2003, there are three related ways of group facilitation for idea-generation, and brain-storming comes in second place, ahead of “Free-wheeling,” but behind “debate condition” (details below).

Quite the collaboration: newcomer Stephen Sondheim at 25 years old with super-veterans Jerome Robbins, Leonard Bernstein, and Arthur Laurents.

Central to the article is that: “There is a problem with brainstorming.  It doesn’t work.” The article traces the long history of acceptance as fact that brainstorming is best.  Brain-storming gained great popularity after Alex Osborn (the “O” in advertising giant B.B.D.O.) wrote about it in his best-selling book: “Your Creative Power.”  But per Lehrer’s article and Nemeth’s study, the three methods, in order of proven effectiveness, (#1 worst, #2 middle, #3 best) are as follows:

1. Free-wheeling (no guidelines): people work together and alone without specific rules for how ideas will be generated and collected.

2. Brainstorming: with Osborn’s cardinal rules:

• Censor criticism
• Encourage the most freewheeling associations
• Defer judgment
• Go for quantity

3. Debate Condition: Debating and even criticizing each other’s ideas leads to more and better solutions. A few key quotes from Nemeth’s study and Lehrer’s article:

• “Authentic dissent can be difficult, but it’s always invigorating. It wakes us right up.”
• “Decades of research have shown that brainstorming  groups think of far fewer ideas than the same number of people who work alone and later pool their ideas.
• “Teams given the ‘debate condition’ were the most creative by far. On average they generated nearly 20% more ideas.”
• “And after the teams disbanded… the brainstormers and the people given no guidelines produced an average of three additional ideas; the debaters produced seven.”
• “Criticism allows people to dig below the surface of the imagination and come up with collective ideas that aren’t predictable.”

Theater Version: Erica Racz and Justin Gordon, Pacific Repertory Theater production in 2001

Q Factor – “Nobody creates a Broadway musical by themselves”

The article also references an extremely interesting and extensive study by Brian Uzzi at Northwestern, where he analyzed the results of collaboration in thousands of Broadway Musicals.  He assigned a “Q Factor,” quantifying the degree to which the participants in the creative teams already had worked together prior to the current project.  His research showed that

1. Lowest results: The least successful collaborations were when the team-members had not worked together at all.
2. Middle results: Interestingly, the teams where the members had worked together the most attained medium results. Uzzi: “When the Q was too high, the work also suffered. The artists all thought in similar ways, which crushed innovation.”
3. Best results: “The best Broadway shows were produced by networks with an intermediate level of social intimacy.” Uzzi’s research cited that the most effective collaborations occurred with a mix of many team-members who had worked together, plus new members who would bring fresh perspective and challenge those who had collaborated on past efforts.

An authorized “ABSTRACT” of Lehrer’s article is provided online by The New Yorker Magazine at link: GROUPTHINK.Lehrer.NYorker.Jan302012

You might also like:

• Upcoming Agile Events In 2012 In NYC
• TIP: How to use the SlideShare App in Linkedin (to put presentations up on your profile)
• Article: “Top 10 Tips for Marketing a Book Using Social Media“
• Going for your PMP?  ”The Project Management Answer Book“

STEPS IN LINKEDIN:

Step 1. Edit your Profile

Step 2. Go to APPLICATIONS, and click on “Add An Application”

Step 3. INSTALL the SlideShare app

Step 4. UPLOAD your PowerPoint file

BENEFITS:

• People can instantly see a HANDS-ON glimpse of what you do
• Searchers might find your Slide Share via Google Search, as well as in Linkedin

EXAMPLE:

- To see what this looks like in Linkedin, I put up one of my recent presentations on my profile:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/jefffurmanlinkedin

(You’ll see SlideShare as an APP at the bottom of my profile, and the first screen of the presentation showing)

Note -

1) You can have one presentation at a time up in a basic (free) Linkedin subscription.  But if you want to have more than one up at once on your Linkedin profile, you would need to upgrade your Linkedin membership.

2) Sometimes the default for sharing presentations in Linkedin gets turned off, so it’s always good to verify that the new one is added and showing in Linkedin. If you’ve uploaded a presentation in SlideShare and it’s not showing on your Linkedin profile, just go back in to your Linkedin profile and re-check the option to display SlideShare.

If you liked this tip, see more of my blog-posts:

• Upcoming Agile Events In 2012 In NYC
• Top 14 Reasons I Switched To A Mac (& some Conversion Tips)
• Little-known PMP Tip: If English is not your first language…