On the Critical Path

Delighted by an Auto Body Shop

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Ron Munroe

A pleasant surprise at an auto body shop? No, I wouldn’t have guessed that either. Usually it means a serious and possibly expensive repair is needed, and it can be daunting.

For a few months, my car had been growing rust blisters in the right front fender. I lamented fixing it because I was told the body panel would likely need to be replaced rather than patched. Sounded expensive. Periodically I’d check how much the rust patch had grown and it was getting noticeably bigger and more quickly. Finally, one morning before heading off for work, I poked at the paint bubble to see what would happen. My finger busted the bubble and went right through the fender. Great; now I had a two-inch hole in my car; I could ignore this no longer.

I researched nearby body shops, including a cost-effective one used by my dealership. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on this so decided to visit two. The first was a general purpose auto service shop that used to be an Oldsmobile dealership. I parked out front and tried to find someone who could look at my fender and give me an estimate. Well, it wasn’t quite that simple.

The first person I talked to told me to park my car around the other side of the building, walk into the door on that side and check in at that counter. (Apparently I needed to position my car in a more convenient place. Moving my car would shorten the walk by a minute. Annoying, but I followed instructions.) I walked into that other door.

Ten minutes later, a person at the counter freed up, acknowledged me, took my name, and invited me to wait in the next room; someone would be assigned to me. I waited for about 10 minutes for the assigned person. We walked out to my car. He took a look at the rust hole, and felt around it. I asked if patching was possible. He gave me an explanation that amounted to “no”. Then we walked back to the waiting area, and he asked me to wait for him to prepare an official estimate. I settled in again in the waiting area.

Ten minutes later, he returned with a neatly typed proposal, with his business card affixed. It offered a few bullets of work items and a $971 bottom line. I asked how long he’d need my car, expecting 3 days. He said he’d need it 5 days. Five days? I asked if there’s any way to make that shorter. Nope, he said. I thanked him and left.

I was bummed; this was turning into a more painful and costly ordeal than I expected. But now I just wanted to get this chapter behind me.

So I looked up the directions to the place suggested by my dealership. It was a couple towns away in what turned out to be a warehouse. As a front door was not apparent, I walked toward the nearest driveway. A door next to a garage was unmarked, but looked like a good target. So I entered and looked for humanity.

Off to the right of the entryway was a desk, a chair and a person who saw me, walked over and offered his hand. I explained my purpose. With few words, he led me back outside and I pointed out my car. He looked at my fender for about 30 seconds, placed a call on his cell phone and three minutes later, he said it would cost $500. I asked how long he’d need the car. He said two days. I was really surprised – his price was about half that of the first shop, he’d do it in less than half the time, and I learned this five minutes after stepping onto his property. (By contrast, the other shop had drained about 45 minutes from my life.) I accepted.

To top it off, they started the work two days later, it was ready when promised, and the result looked great to my eyes. Yes, I really was delighted.

Looking back, it seemed that the first shop organized their work to make each step easier, but at the cost of more waiting time. The second shop took a direct path to the step I valued – getting an estimate. The second came off as the more professional, efficient operation.

Posted in Motivation, Productivity | 2 Comments

A 10-Year Old’s Experience Running for Office

Posted on November 4, 2016 by admin

Everyone who is happy with at least one of the presidential candidates, please raise your hand. . . Hmmm. I thought so. Most people seem to be settling or maybe not voting, or perhaps writing in a protest vote. Statistically, the taller candidate wins. On average, the winner has been approximately one inch taller than the loser. BTW, Trump stands at 6’3” while Hillary is 5’5”. Are we really so empty-headed that we subconsciously choose the taller candidate?

I only ran for office twice in my life – 4^th grade and 5^th grade back in the mid-1960’s. To give you an idea of how things were back then – girls had to wear skirts or dresses, i.e. no slacks permitted unless it was gym class day. The most troubling part was that at good old Bowers Schools, only boys could run for president and treasurer; girls were only permitted to run for vice president and secretary.

My friends enthusiastically nominated me to run for vice president. I wish that I could remember what my campaign was based on. What did I value? What did I promise? Longer recess? Wearing slacks every day in winter months to get the girl’s vote? Less homework? Getting to chew gum on Fridays? Even if I did get elected, would Miss Flaherty, the principal, pass my initiatives? The fact is, I am quite certain that it was a popularity contest. Nothing more. Nothing less. And yes, I was the tallest girl and I won.

This is the first presidential election that I can recall where there is so little substance. Can we all agree that the candidates have foolishly spent too much time on na na na Na NA diatribes and not enough time on what and how they are going to do to get the job done?

There have been rumors of corruption – Hillary receiving debate questions ahead of time. I thought back to 4^th grade. Was there corruption then? If you asked me back in 1964, I would have responded with an emphatic “no” – absolutely not. It wasn’t until years later that one of my classmates told me about something fishy that went on back then. We had a competition where we tracked 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd highest grades. We had one girl, Nancy Beth, who was brilliant, but at the same time, a bit awkward and nerdy. She usually came in first and I followed her closely in second place. But then something happened. I inched up in the standings and surpassed her. We had a practice where the teacher entrusted us to correct each other’s papers and apparently the kids wanted me to beat Nancy Beth so they would change my answers.

So there you have it. I ran a campaign without substance, I won because I was tall, and there was corruption by my supporters. God save us!

Posted in Accomplishments | 2 Comments

The Neuroscience of Mind-Wandering

Posted on October 21, 2016 by David Pesta

Brain Researchers Say It’s Good to Zone Out

Have you ever found yourself driving on the highway for a long stretch of time, like say on a long trip, and just zone out? This happens to me all the time. I start off hyper-vigilant, paying attention to every little thing. But after a while I get in a groove and my thoughts drift off to other matters. Non-driving matters. I might ponder some task at work I could have done better, or where to go on my next vacation, or what happens if Brady ever retires.

Twenty or thirty minutes pass and I’m crossing a state border with no clue how I got there. Somehow I’ve drifted off into the netherworld of my own weirdo thoughts and yet still safely piloted a large metal object a pretty far distance at a pretty fast speed. How is this even possible?

Researchers in the field of neuroscience are, thankfully, looking into it. At a conference recently I learned that serious scientific research is underway on the seemingly unserious topic of mind-wandering. It is a fascinating field because it’s something that happens to all of us. Who among us has gone to a meeting or a required training and paid complete 100% attention the whole time? Few if any I would guess. We all experience this phenomenon, whether we call it mind-wandering, daydreaming, zoning out, etc. But because it is seen as a weakness in our culture, a failure of attention, it was not studied as a brain function until recently.

Yet for every moment where a man-child frets over the Patriots roster while driving, there can be the “eureka” moments where Einstein invents the Theory of Relativity while zoning out at his desk job in the Swiss Patent Office. Brilliant insights that come “out of the blue” are also functions of mind-wandering, and are certainly worthy of scientific study.

One the leading experts in this field is Dr. Kalina Christoff of the University of British Columbia. Her studies show that a mind-wandering brain is not undisciplined or somehow flawed. In fact, the neural activity observed during episodes of mind-wandering is more complex than expected, demonstrating an elaborate dexterity in human brains. Christoff states “the mind may be most active when it is freely wandering outside the confines of particular tasks or goals”.

At this point, I must concede that most of the science discussed by Christoff and other experts in this field is a way over my head. But I will try to describe in ordinary layperson’s terms what I’ve gleaned so far from the abstracts and summaries of articles I have read (tried to read, daydreamed while reading).

First, neuroscientists studying mind-wandering needed to define some basic terms. They have devised a commonly accepted framework that describes various types of mental attention. One parameter is the origin or motivation for a thought to occur. These origins are divided into 2 categories:

Perceptually guided thought – generated by external sensory events and circumstances
Self-generated thought – generated internally, spontaneously, without external motivation

The core of what these neurologists study is self-generated thought. But not all self-generated thought is considered to be mind-wandering. Thoughts are further defined by a second parameter: task-orientation, or what you are in the middle of doing when the thought occurs.

Thoughts are therefore classified in this framework as 1 of 4 types. In the chart below, I’ve used my highway driving scenario as an example:

Thought Classification Framework

This is a fascinating way to think about our minds and what they are doing at any given moment. Here we see that the wandering mind is not simply the task-focused mind “turned off”. There are 2 other in-between states, distraction and task meta-analysis. True mind-wandering only takes place when a self-generated thought, unrelated to task at hand, pops into your head.

Prof. Christoff and her colleagues study brain activity in each of these 4 scenarios. And they are learning what makes the mind-wandering phenomenon unique. Although research is ongoing, they do have an understanding of how I can envision my hypothetical Bali vacation for 20 straight minutes and not crash the car.

Brain activity happens not in any 1 isolated region of the brain, but across neural networks connecting several parts. The 2 key networks involved in mind-wandering research are:

Executive network – active when the brain is engaged in problem solving or decision-making
Default network – active when your brain is at rest, it maintains basic functions like breathing

Before anyone studied this topic in detail, neuroscientists had assumed the executive network was flipped on during task performance and then flipped off during mind-wandering. At that point the default network would turn on, run the show, and off you go to Bali. But the revolutionary discovery made by Christoff and others is that both networks are actively engaged during periods of mind-wandering.

This dynamic presents a complex picture of what mind-wandering means to our lives. We are not just zoning out. We are simultaneously leaving the sensory input of the present moment, but still somehow engaged with it (not crashing the car). And while all that is happening, a more elusive, abstract form of thought generation is taking place. This is Einstein in the Swiss Patent Office, Archimedes in the bathtub, and less dramatically, me in my car dreaming of Bali. Visions are conjured, problems are solved, all without the external world demanding it of us. Researchers see this mode of thought as an important source of creativity and innovation.

For me, the results of this research have many key implications. Understanding that a wandering mind can be a positive and not a negative force is a real breakthrough. As a trainer I have seen many students with that look in their eye that says they have checked out. Rather than viewing their zoned out space face as a failing on my part or their part, I now see it as an opportunity. There is a mind ready for creative endeavors, ready for creative challenges.

Additionally, I see these insights speaking to those of us who work with computers and IT systems. There can be a tendency to view our own brains as hard drives, to equate our human output with systems efficiency. But the research into mind-wandering clearly shows that the generation of our own thoughts is vastly more complex than we could imagine. We must take care to avoid a binary outlook on our own task performance. Who knows what great solution or innovation you might think of, if only you allow your mind the chance to wander.

Posted in Learning, Productivity, Time Management, Training, Uncategorized, Work Life Balance | Comments Off

Will humankind be the cause of its own destruction?

Posted on September 30, 2016 by Michael Madden

Lately I’ve been giving more thought to the likelihood that humankind might be on a mission of self-destruction. The genetic mutation of foods, fish, and animals; aerial spraying of dangerous chemicals that have killed billions of honey bees; artificial super intelligence; deliberate engineering of a pandemic flu; and global warming are some acts that come to mind.

In recent weeks we have all heard of the dangers of the Zika virus. This virus has been around since the 1950s in Africa and Asia and more recently in the U.S. The news media spread fear into people of the dangers of this virus and in particular to pregnant women. The response was aerial bombardment, spraying of cities and towns all across the southeastern U.S. In a blog post I read, the author referenced a study that found the following: “The researchers specifically evaluated risk of autism in relation to exposure to pyrethroids, yes, the same pesticide now being used to carpet bomb Zika-carrying mosquitoes. The study shows that exposure of mothers to pyrethroids during the third trimester of pregnancy was associated with an 87% increased risk of autism for their child. – See more at: http://www.drperlmutter.com/pesticide-zika-carrying-mosquitos-lesser-two-evils/#sthash.FPgFHJKM.dpuf

Something that is near and dear to me is the effect that this nonsensical spraying is having on honey bees. Bees help pollinate 1 in every 3 foods that we consume. Some of the foods we would lose if bees go extinct include apples, onions, strawberries, pears, avocados, celery, coffee, lemons, limes, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, etc. The list is long yet nothing is seemingly being done to prevent the decline of honey bees. In a recent Zika spraying incident in South Carolina, millions of bees died as a result. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/09/01/like-its-been-nuked-millions-of-bees-dead-after-south-carolina-sprays-for-zika-mosquitoes/

Global warming is another huge issue that even some leading government figures deny. This summer was the driest ever recorded in the Boston area and August was the warmest month in Boston’s recorded history. Where I live on the North Shore, I experienced several farms leaving acres of corn to rot in the fields rather than water them. It was more expensive to water the corn than it would have been had they continued to do so and sell their crop. One local farm, Appleton Farms in Hamilton/Ipswich, had to ask their CSA (community supported agriculture) members not to come to the farm for their weekly pick up because their crops were dying in the fields. Additionally, Appleton Farms are planning on digging a deeper well for irrigation purposes as they project that these hot summers are just the beginning of global warming. Driving along Route 128 in Waltham last week, I observed the reservoir was very low and I could see islands in the reservoir that were never visible before. My hometown has had a mandatory water ban for several months.

All of these things are having a combined effect on our environment, our way of life, and ultimately our health. At times it is hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but I am hopeful that one will appear. A growing awareness of all this foolishness appears to be rising and more people are demanding change. One must hope this change comes sooner rather than later.

Posted in Learning, Risk Management | Comments Off

The Best Part of Autumn

Posted on September 14, 2016 by Deb Cote

September always seems like a fresh start, more so than January. Students are heading back to school. The leaves are beginning to change color, fall, and start a new life cycle. Partners and DFCI begin their new fiscal year. But for me, perhaps the biggest sense of autumn renewal is… new shows on fall TV!

I do love a good drama, sitcom, and even some reality shows. As I was creating my spreadsheet of new fall shows (did I just say that out loud?), I wondered what, if any, parallels I could draw between some TV shows and project management.

Scandal – Fixer Olivia Pope is the ULTIMATE project manager. I’m glad we don’t have to solve the problems she has to clean up, but she’s called in, assesses the situation, assigns roles, communicates throughout, considers risks every which way from Sunday, manages issues as they inevitably arise, and boom the situation is resolved and she’s at home in her white comfy clothes with a glass of red wine.

Chicago Fire – The workers in Firehouse 51 take teamwork to heart. They run into burning buildings after each other, for each other, despite each other. They follow Chief Boden because he’s their commander but also because they trust him. And when they get together as a team for a community cause, it can be a tearjerker.

Mr. Robot – Elliot’s got his issues, but we could really use him on our IS security projects.

Lost – Best project show ever. Dharma Initiative = Stretch assignment. Jack = Superstar PM. Kate = Fills in for PM when needed. Ben = Wants to be the PM. Hurley = Faithful core team member. Locke = Team’s problem solver. Sawyer = Wants off the team island. The Tailies = Additional resources. The Others = Uncooperative vendor. The Smoke Monster = Constant issue. Winner of a PIE Emmy Award.

How to Get Away with Murder – This show pretty much exemplifies the antithesis of the Project Manager Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct required by PMPs.

Charlie’s Angels. Charlie = Best. Sponsor. Ever.

Shark Tank – Is this what it feels like to request money at a DFCI Capital Management Committee meeting?

60 Minutes – Most accurate schedule. Always airs. Starts late when football or golf runs late. But always runs for 60 minutes. Never 30 minutes. Never 90 minutes. Always 60 minutes.

All HGTV house renovation shows – I want them to be real. I really do. At least they have the formula down: scope / budget / schedule. But they really need a better change control process.

Law and Order, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Trial by Jury, Law & Order: LA – When you’ve got too much law and order for one show, you’ve got to spread it out in multiple series, like phases to projects. Epic: IS Victims Unit, anyone?

Survivor – How much better would our projects go if team members had to face a tribal council at the end of every week?

What shows are on your DVR?

Posted in Knowledge Areas, Learning, Team | Tagged project management, sponsor, teams | 5 Comments

How Training Design and Development Can Be a Piece of Cake

Posted on September 6, 2016 by Vanessa Aller

When we think of training, we think of someone, usually a subject matter expert, teaching us “the learners” how to learn a task or develop a skill. But, how does the whole teaching and learning process start? Let’s begin by looking at the model most instructional designers use when designing and developing training programs.

The ADDIE Model

We use the ADDIE model¹ which is comprised of five phases: analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. The idea is to complete each phase before moving to the next. This model was developed for the U.S. Army in the 1970 by Florida State University’s Center for Educational Technology. The model was later adapted to be used by all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces. It also evolved into other models to be used in the private sector. The primary one I learned during my graduate studies in Instructional Design at the University of Massachusetts Boston, was called the “Dick and Carey Instructional Model ².” There are other training models out there, but they all derived from ADDIE, so let’s focus on that one.

Let’s use the analogy of baking a cake to help illustrate this model:

How does this instructional design model relate to baking a cake?

The table below will help illustrate the process:

Model Stages	Instructional Design	Cake Baking
Identify the goals	Analyze: What are the instructional goals? What do the learners need to be able to do at the end of the training course?	Do we need a dessert? What kind of dessert? Do we have the right tools to bake the cake?
Identify your audience	Analyze: What courses have the learners previously completed? Do they already have experience with the subject? What are their attitudes towards the subject?	Does everyone eat cake? Does anyone have a flavor preference? Do people have allergies? Will they be using utensils or their hands to eat it?
Identify the modality for delivery	Design: What objectives do the learners need to achieve? Should the instructor lecture, show a video, or create group discussion?	Can we bake a 3-tier cake? Do we have enough frosting? Will it fit in the oven? Do we have the right container? Can we deliver it to the venue?
Develop parameters for success	Develop assessment instruments: What activities and assessments will measure the learning objectives?	How will we know if people enjoyed the cake? Do we inspect leftovers for signals of satisfaction?
Create course content	Develop and select instructional materials: What articles and/or case studies can you use? Do you need to create PowerPoint slides? Can you reuse existing videos?	Do we have all the ingredients and utensils we need? Are the mixer and oven working well? Can we buy pre-made frosting?
Delivery	Implement: Conduct the training class.	After baking, serve the cake.
Assess and revise	Evaluate: What course content and activities were well-received, or not? How well did the learners complete assignments/tests? What are the results of student course evaluations?	Did everyone eat the cake? Did anyone get sick from eating the cake? How quickly was it consumed? How many pieces were left?

Will we bake our cake and eat it, too? When designing and developing training programs, we ask ourselves: Would we enjoy sitting through the training we created? We all know what it’s like to have to endure poorly-designed learning programs. Using an instructional design model will help avoid any mistakes.

What do you think? Did the cake analogy make sense? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

References

¹ ADDIE Model from the Training Industry. http://www.trainingindustry.com/wiki/entries/addie-model.aspx. 2015.

² Walter Dick, Lou Carey, and James O. Carey. The Systematic Design of Instruction. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Pearson, 2009.

Posted in Training | 3 Comments

There’s No Crying in Project Management

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Sandra Cadogan-Beebe

Many of us have seen the movie A League of Their Own, where Tom Hanks plays the usually inebriated and always disinterested coach Jimmy Dugan of the WWII-era Rockford Peaches women’s baseball team. At one point during a league game, outfielder Evelyn starts crying after Jimmy yells at her for over-throwing the cut-off infielder, accusing her of squandering the team’s lead. He is exasperated and exclaims, “Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying in baseball!”

Columbia Pictures Corporation (1992)

There’s {usually} no crying in Project Management, either.

To be honest, I did cry once. Not too, too long ago but not at Dana-Farber, either. I won’t go into the details. I’m still pretty sure those NYS Hospice nurses didn’t really mean it and I only cried for a minute. Okay, for ten minutes. Tops. In the parking lot, on the phone with another hospice nurse. My wife, in fact. She managed to fit in over the breathless whimpers, “Are you crying? Are you crying? There’s no crying in Project Management!” So there you have it.

Last Thursday afternoon it could have happened again, this time on what is usually a fairly routine conference call about a highly visible and key IS project. Something went wrong, a complete blindside.

Lawrence Taylor breaches quarterback Joe Theismann’s blindside on Monday Night Football, with devastating results. ABC Network (1985)

Blindsides are situations that project management professionals and their project teams spend countless hours and so much brain power and energy planning for, looking out for, anticipating, crafting management and mitigation strategies against. We don’t like them. Blindsides are kryptonite; they ruin your day. They might even make you cry.

I could’ve used a Michael Oher this last Thursday.

To me, the good news is that, should the tears have welled up, I was on a conference call, not face-to face. Phew. But a miracle happened. There was nary a tear to be found, not even a glimmer of a tear. When I picked my jaw up and asked some clarifying questions of the non-DFCI project stakeholder who delivered the blindside, I felt a strange calm drape over me. I knew hours of damage control work would immediately ensue (23 actual hours and counting, in fact) and that the weekend would be negatively impacted. Rather than feeling defeat I knew that quick, decisive communication and a damage mitigation plan would be the best path forward.

Twentieth Century Fox (2006)

Yes, I did my best on-the-phone and out-of-sight The Devil Wears Prada “furled eyebrows, lips pursed in disgust” impersonation but I {mostly} moved on, pulled together our project team and other key stakeholders, put together a quick communication plan and communication mailing, and…gasp, moved on. Yes, very displeased and of course looking back for a hint of “How could we have seen this coming?” I don’t think we could have, but project managers always try.

That’s the thing about good project management and leadership in unexpected and stressful situations. It’s not easy, but it’s vital to remain calm and in control, for the benefit of one’s own well-being and for the benefit of others also impacted. Unexpected problems, especially big problems impacting dozens to hundreds of DFCI resources, can come on like a tornado. It’s hard to consider or admit, but some things are simply out of our control. Rather than get caught up in the wind-driven swirling shrapnel, I think we’ve done pretty well working through this current problem by trying to stay in the calm flow of the eye of the storm. We’ve made some immediate-need progress against this challenge and we will have to figure out some longer-term solutions and processes.

At least {this time} there was no crying in project management.

Posted in Accomplishments, Communication, Knowledge Areas, Learning, Lessons Learned, Planning, Team, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The Reality of the Triple Constraint

Posted on July 29, 2016 by Sandie Kimball

Does this conversation sound familiar?

The second and third frames are the exact words sent to me by a team member last week. It’s great to see team members coming up with new ways to explain a sometimes frustrating reality of every project: the triple constraint. Every project faces the limits of scope, time, and cost. The project manager needs to remind the team and stakeholders of every project about this, often several times throughout the project. “You can have it good, you can have it fast, or you can have it cheap. Pick two.” By “good”, we mean not necessarily good as in quality, but good as in comprehensive.

The team working on one of my projects is smart, hard-working, enthusiastic, and committed to quality. We have been allotted some money to complete the project, which takes care of the budget part. However, what started as a relatively simple objective has turned into a quest for perfection. In order to do it perfectly, we would need to continue for many months, with many stops and starts. No one has that kind of time— that is, the schedule part. So in order to finish before the end of the century, we have decided to rein in the scope by cutting out some steps for future projects.

The result of the project will be not cheap, but relatively inexpensive. And in order to finish on time, the outcome will be very good—just not perfect. And that’s OK, as Voltaire reminded us when he said: “The perfect is the enemy of the good.”

The best news in all this is that the team “gets it”. Managing the triple constraint is indeed a team effort!

Posted in Knowledge Areas, Team, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Relay Race or Just Another Project?

Posted on July 15, 2016 by Cathleen Hartnett

What happens when you put 12 friends in two vans for 36 hours? Did I mention these friends will collectively run roughly 200 miles over the 36 hours? In my opinion, you have the time of your life. Others may think differently, but this past May, I ran my second relay and it was so much fun.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, a relay race generally consists of a team of 12 runners, split into two vans of six. Over the course of about 36 hours, each runner takes turns running three legs of varying distances. Each runner heads toward a transition area where they hand off a baton to the next runner and meet their van to continue to the next transition. This continues for 36 legs and roughly 200 miles. The whole team will meet up at the final transition and cross the finish line as a team.

After all miles were run and all the carbs had been eaten, I started reflecting on my time in the van with five of my favorite running buds. I began thinking how much a relay race is similar to project management. When planning the race weekend for your team, you tend to follow the five phases of project management: Initiation, Planning and Design, Execution, Monitoring and Controlling, and Closing.

Initiation

In my opinion, initiation may be the toughest part of the project, er, relay. In this phase, the project manager, or team leader, reaches out to her running friends, trying to convince them to sign up for the relay. While keeping in mind the requirements of the race (e.g., minimum pace, required number of runners), the team leader also puts together a preliminary schedule as well as estimated costs per runner. This tends to happen months before the next phase.

Planning and Design

The team leader can really put her project management skills to work by developing the weekend schedule, putting together a timeline based on each runner’s estimated running pace, renting the vans, as well as obtaining the final okay from her running friends who have agreed to run months ago, but may have forgotten they committed to run. This process is similar to the Planning and Design phase in that the team leader is securing her resources adequately while estimating the work needed to manage the team.

Executing

Execution of the relay is essentially when the first runner crosses the start line and the race begins for your team. Coordination between the vans starts after ensuring the first runner has started, and the two vans can go ahead toward the next transition area to meet the runner. These actions are similar to the Execution phase as the team leader is managing the project deliverables as well as resources.

Monitoring and Controlling

Throughout the relay, your van is in constant communication with the other van to verify if their paces are still on track. If a runner is ahead or behind schedule, the team leader needs to adjust the schedule accordingly to ensure each runner is met on time at the next transition. The transitions are similar to milestones in that they need to be met at a certain time in order for the relay to continue smoothly. This coordination is similar to the Monitoring and Controlling phase because the team leader continues to provide support to the team, while measuring the ongoing project activities and identifying corrective actions as needed.

Closing

The finish! The relay has been successfully executed when all runners complete their legs and the team crosses the finish line together. All running has been completed and your relay is officially done. Similar to the Closing phase of a project, the team members reflect on their experiences and think about how they can use them toward future projects.

Now that I’ve completed my second relay, I think I am getting the hang of how it works – there’s so much coordination and planning involved, and I may volunteer to be the team leader next time so I can help improve my project management skills. Who knows? I may even be able to convince some of my colleagues who are certified project managers to come and join me!

13239167_10208262842981671_6020822956347989694_n

Posted in Communication, Planning, Uncategorized | Comments Off

Mail on the Beach?

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Meagan Turner

If you’re anything like me, you love and look forward to the summer weather. I enjoy the adventures that happen during the summer months, the beach trips, mountain hikes, spontaneous nighttime walks for ice cream. I always tease my family that we live in the wrong region and want more of these warm days/nights. What’s better than summer? Summer vacations!

Recently, I was at the beach and happened to notice most of the people around my blanket were all using their phones in some capacity. Some were streaming music to a Bluetooth speaker, texting friends, inevitably on some form of social media, or potentially checking email. I’ve witnessed similar scenes at the tops of mountains, restaurants, etc. I have also been found guilty in those same situations.

Getting a break from the office is necessary for that work/life balance that we all try to achieve. Technology can make it more difficult to achieve that balance. Everything that we’re aiming to take a break from is so easily accessible from a small, tempting, addicting device. So, do you really fully disconnect on your vacations?

Prior to leaving the office for a much needed and anticipated vacation, I set an out of office message on my email. The details are always when I’ll be away and whom to contact if something cannot wait for me to return. However, I am the guilty party that checks that “unattended” email multiple times during that vacation. I flag the ones I want to respond to first when I return or forward along to a colleague if they can easily help. I don’t like coming into the office after a break to hundreds of emails. However, I’m also breaking up my leisure time with work. One could argue that I didn’t really get a break from the office if I was checking in over the vacation (or weekend). I have a friend that actually removes the work email setup from her phone during her vacations and sets it back up upon her return. This creates enough of a barrier that she won’t go through the trouble to set up the connection just to check email.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I love and appreciate technology. I think it does make life easier and more convenient. It’s my pocket computer, GPS, camera, and phone. I also realize that I need balance and that is a daily challenge. To start, the next time I go to the beach, I’ll leave my phone in the car.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment