HANNAH SMITH

Monday, 26 May 2008

I have recently started doing some work with Chooseday. Chooseday is a Bristol based organisation which imagines a different world, a world without cars on Tuesdays. It encourages people to take an alternative form of transport to work on Tuesdays, such as walking, cycling, taking the train or bus or car-sharing over longer distances. And if Tuesdays don't suit then any other day of the week will do!

It's a wonderful idea that really helps people try something new. Its not a lot to ask and people all over the city are up for it. The Chooseday founders, Chris Sutherland and Penny Gane are primarily motivated by mitigating climate change. But people are getting involved for all sorts of reasons: health, lifestyle choices, happiness, pragmatic reasons like lack of parking spaces, speed etc. The message hits home with a whole cross-section of society and people are embracing change.

What I particularly like about Chooseday is that its doing something positive and practical about climate change by helping Bristol reduce its carbon-footprint. In Britain, almost a quarter of annual carbon emissions are from transport, 85% of which is from road traffic. It offers a hand to people and asks in a very direct but non-threatening way to make a change. And its a message that is working its way through organisations in a top-down and bottom-up sort of way. Chooseday works with an organisation's staff and recruits Champions who spread the message to their networks and in their own way. The idea of the Champions takes its roots in the Appreciative Inquiry methodology and creates a self-sustaining movement of change.

I can say I am really pleased to be a part of Chooseday and working to change commuting behaviour in Bristol. Its a small step in the right direction, hopefully collectively Bristol will take a massive leap.

Monday, 31 March 2008

I've just finished reading 'The 7 habits of highly effective people" by Stephen Covey. A good book full of food for thought. It's taken me a long time to read, nearly 2 months. That's been by choice and also at the author's recommendation. The idea being to take your time and really think about what's being said and how it relates to you.

I started off not quite sure what I was going to read. I have to be honest I mistakenly read the title as "The 7 habits of highly efficient people". Effectiveness and efficiency are closely related ideas but not the same and this book helped me clarify the difference. Efficiency suggests doing less to achieve a goal by finder quicker ways to do something. Effectiveness means achieving the best possible outcome for everyone, but that might mean you have to do more to achieve it, not less. Efficiency follows effectiveness.

The habits are:

1. Be proactive
2. Begin with the end in mind
3. Put first things first
4. Think win/win
5. Seek first to understand... then be understood
6. Synergise
7. Sharpen the saw
   

Summed up, the habits mean you look inside yourself for improvement rather than looking for it from others. It suggests if you want someone to behave in a certain way you must change the way you behave towards that person. But not in a superficial kind of way. In an honest, open and limitless way. It talks about human paradigms which are effectively programs for the way you react to situations. That way of visualising human behaviour appealed to me and I think it's probably because of my computer science background.

I would give this book a bug thumbs up! I read it initially thinking of how to apply it to my work and my interactions with clients. I ended up learning that to be truly successful you can't think of your work self and your home self. You can't try and patch up your behaviour at work but not worry about your behaviour at home. You have to tackle the root cause which is you through and through. You have to do the right thing all the time so that it becomes a natural part of you, not just a quick-fix when a specific situation arises. And this equally applies to the behaviour of organisations not just individuals.

If you're looking to open your eyes and learn some home truths, then this book is for you - even if you think you have it right, you will definitely learn something useful!

Labels: change, effectiveness, efficiency, improvement, project management

Monday, 10 March 2008

www.thepocketgeek.com gave me some good entertainment over the weekend. It's a project management flash game where you have to manage a developer to get a project finished by the end of the week. You are given a host of incentives with which to woo your developer, including pizza, coffee, siesta time and other entertainments. Well worth a play with. I particularly enjoyed the affects of giving your developer too much coffee!!

Labels: developers, flash game, project management

Friday, 8 February 2008

At the moment I am reading a book called 'The 7 habits of highly effective people' by Stephen Covey. I am only about a third of the way through and intend to review it when I've finished, so won't go into too much detail about it now. But one section has got me thinking and that is a short section about mission statements.

Mission statements are about defining your goals and what you want when all is said and done. I have always had a mission statement in my head but the book encourages you to write it down on paper. So I did. It took a while to get flowing but once I got going I was surprised at what I started putting down as my goals in life. I came out with 9 goals. The first 3 were easy and the ones that I had always had in my head as my mission statement. The other 6 that came out, whilst equally important to me, were more deeply buried and took more time to articulate. I think it is significant that two thirds of my goals were not obvious to me. Implicitly I know these things are important to me and they have driven my decisions in the past without me knowing it. Now I know what is driving me, I can make decisions more quickly and more confidently.

Enough about me, how does this relate to project management and running a business? Well, organisations and projects need mission statements too. For projects, I'd say that's your project brief and it lays out your overall objectives. I'm always going on about how important it is to have a project brief, and it still surprises me how many project managers don't have them. Projects run within the framework of an organisation that has long-term goals of it own and its important to know these and use them when you need to make decisions about your work. As a project manager it helps to understand the bigger picture and to be able to refer to an organisation's mission statement.

Not only does having such a statement help going into the future, it helps with the present too. Writing it should involve everyone in the organisation and take their perspectives into view. Its a good task to base an Appreciative Inquiry session around. As Stephen Covey says in the book "Without involvement, there is no commitment".

And if you're interested here is what my mission statement came out like. It's work in progress and something I will come back to revise every so often.

1. To have a happy life and live comfortably
2. To contribute to the work slowing climate change and protecting our environment
3. To have a successful career and be respected in my field
4. To have a happy and healthy family who love each other very much
5. To have a life long learning experience
6. To keep my mind open to trying new things and understanding different points of view
7. To have a healthy and strong body
8. To enjoy nature and the great outdoors
9. To experience and share love and positivity with all around me
   

Labels: books, brief, mission statement, project management

Sunday, 3 February 2008

I'm in Canada at the moment, doing a snowboarding season and taking some time out. I'm staying in a small town called Fernie, pop 5000. Canada appealed to me for a great many reasons. The snow is probably the primary one, seeing as I'm a bit of a snowboard fanatic, but also to see what life is actually like in Canada and North America. I'd heard good things about Canada being environmentally switched on and about Canadians being laid back folk who are happy just to be...

Well, I've been here for 2 months now and thought it would be a good opportunity to reflect on what Canada is like and if it has met my expectations. On the whole, I'd say I like Canada, its a country that is remarkably beautiful and knows how to enjoy and protect its nature. They have lots of outdoor activities here and you see people of all ages out and about enjoying exercise and fresh air. In terms of how I live my life, I think the town enables me to live as greenly as I do in Bristol.

My impression is that Canada is way ahead of the UK in terms of recycling. We have a weekly bin collection and a fortnightly recycling collection here in Fernie. They will accept most stuff in the recycling bag, including nearly all types of plastics. They don't collect food waste here, though with the amount of wild animals running around that type of waste wouldn't last 5 secs outside. Canada also charges recycling fees on plastic bottles which you can redeem at the supermarket when you take the bottles back. The amount is added explicitly to your shopping receipt. Its only cents but I have to say for the effort of taking to bottles back vs the money you can reclaim we tend to just put the things in the recycling for collection from our home. I have also seen more evidence of recycling schemes for old white or electrical goods than at home, although I know the WEEE directive does exist in the UK.

I have also seen a higher percentage of recycled materials in clothing here. I guess that's what happens to all the plastics that are recycled. We went into MEC, an outdoor adventure type shop, and their clothes were labelled clearly, above each rack, with the percentage of recycled material. I have never seen that in the UK! Maybe in a small ethical clothing shop but not somewhere so obviously a chain store. I'd love to see more of that in UK, somewhere like Marks and Spencers proudly saying that they are making their clothes from more recycled materials.

Perhaps the biggest eye-opener for me is the cars and public transport. North America is really addicted to oil and motoring but massively turned off from decent cross-country sustainable public transport. Something I already knew before I came here but having been living here for a while I understand why better. The settlements here haven't been around that long. Fernie has only been around for about 100 years and cars have been around just as long. The settlements are developing along side cars and the town planners just assume that everyone will have a car. It just doesn't seem to register that those that don't have a car are seriously at a disadvantage. Things are really spaced out and sprawling. Places likes Bristol and London have been around for hundreds and hundreds of years, way before the invention of cars. They are settlements that have grown up with people that only have one choice to get around and that's by foot. Things in Europe are compact by necessity, here they can sprawl - there's so much land and so few people. For me the sprawl is unattractive and a turn-off. I miss the quirks of Bristol, of living in a compact city that has hundreds of years of history around every corner and looks as though its built to last. We don't seem to build with the long term in mind anymore, in Canada or the UK.

Also, the weather is a massive influence. We don't have a car here and walking around these icy snowing roads is really quite treacherous. The snow and ice is just phenomenal and its doesn't let up for 5 months. And its cold. I am not a car fan to say the least but even I am starting to watch people go past in their trucks with a twinge of jealousy. We just had a cold spell that lasted for a week where temperatures were quite regularly reaching -20 and for a few days hovered around -35 with wind chill. Tragically, the news reported the deaths of several people, young and old who got lost, left their cars and froze to death. Having a car here means you can face the elements more easily and not get shut down by winter.

Its sad to say that given the way North America is evolving I can't see the reliance on cars diminishing too much. I can understand why President Bush is chasing such an aggressive biofuels policy in the US. Cars are a necessity for living here so the obvious way to do something about climate change is to find a better fuel, not a replacement transport system. The lifestyle here means you need some sort of private transport to get around, things are just so spaced out. I'm sure there are some ways the reliance on cars could be dramatically reduced, for example by encouraging car shares. Fernie does have a hitch-hiking system for getting to the resort from the town. The bus is not a very good option here (expensive, slow and runs infrequently) so if you ask a local how to get to the mountain the reply will often be to drive or hitch hike. Its partly the friendliness of Canadians and locals that makes this possible. I'm not sure if it would work in the UK, though perhaps in some of the more rural areas where there is a concentration of snow-lovers it could.

But on the whole I'd say Canada and Fernie has a lot going for it greenwise. It could make some improvements, but then couldn't everywhere? Definitely making cars greener and also moving away from the mindless consumerism, same as at home. But I'd say the average Canadian appreciates the natural world a lot more than us Brits and having the right attitude to our environment is a good start.

Labels: canada, cars, climate change, environment, recycling, snow

Monday, 7 January 2008

If I had to have one mantra as a project manager then this would be it, "Change is the only constant". You will probably recognise it as a famous quote by ancient Greek philosopher, Heraclitus.

When devising any kind of plan it is foolhardy to say the least to expect that all your assumptions will remain the same for the duration of your project. Things will change, and no amount of planning or control will make everything go as you want it. One of the most important skills of a project manager is being able to anticipate and deal with the unexpected.

Monitoring and identifying risks is one such way to keep on top of the ever changing world. By knowing in advance what could go wrong and having back-up plans or contingencies in store you are more likely to succeed. Revisiting your plan and even your brief is another way to spot any nasty surprises. As your project develops you tend to acquire new knowledge that may render previous ideas useless or mean other ideas become viable. You need to remain flexible to deal with new information and make the best of it.

Of course being flexible starts from the beginning, when you write your brief. You do have a careful line to tread between writing a meaningful brief and something totally vague that could be interpreted to suit whatever situation. The secret is to not tie yourself into any particular way of achieving something if you can avoid it. You need to think of the high-level objectives and end goal of what you're trying to make happen. Leave yourself room to maneuver and react to new info and make changes to what you're doing. But do this without jeopardising actually completely a project or being a victim to the 'grass is always greener' mentality. Sometimes you just need to stick to your guns!

Really, what I am trying to say here is don't write your plan once at the beginning and think you've done all the work. Don't stick to it blindly. Things beyond your control will change and if you want to deliver on time and to budget you will need to make some amends somewhere along the line. Planning is a constant process that needs to react to change. Schedule time in your plan to revise what you're doing and have review points. It's quite a natural process to change some of what you're doing as you go along - its not a sign of failure!

One of my favourite blogs at the moment is Tim Berry. He writes from a slightly different angle of planning start-up businesses. But he constantly reiterates the same point, a plan (in his case a business place) is alive, it needs constant attention to keep it going. It's folly to write it for the accountant and then put it on the desk to gather dust. I recommend Tim's blog as a good read - I enjoy the writing style as someone who obviously knows what they are talking about but isn't arrogant or overly-opinionated about it!

Labels: change, planning, project management, tim berry

Tuesday, 4 December 2007

After spending 2 months doing research into what the Environment Agency needed to boost its project management performance, I realised that it wasn't just the project managers that needed help. It was also their bosses, the project executives.

Helping project managers is quite easy, the majority realise they could improve their skills and they are keen to learn. Offers of training are taken up quite readily. Project executives, on the other hand are a very different kettle of fish. The typical profile of a project executive is someone who has been in the post for at least 5 years and is often the head of a small department or at the very least a senior manager. They are regarded as senior people with a lot of expertise and experience. You don't just walk into the post of a project executive. I realised it wasn't going to be easy to teach these old dogs new tricks, so a careful approach was needed. I wanted to challenge these managers into thinking about what they were doing and to see how they could improve. I had been given one and half hours at their monthly meeting and was looking into how I could make the most of such precious time.

The idea of Appreciative Inquiry came up. I was told it was a way to inspire change amongst a large group of people. So I looked into it and liked what I saw. To cut to the chase, I used AI and developed a workshop. I delivered it in 1.5 hours with the help of my boss. Any boy o boy, did it go down well. It achieved everything we hoped for and started off the momentum of change.

So what is AI and how does it work? AI is a different take on problem solving, it focuses on the positives of situations. It asks what is working well, what can we see more of? It doesn't ask people to think about the problems. It is very clever in that throughout an AI session you influence the way people think, by asking them to think about successes and how that made them feel. By tapping into those past emotions and feelings participants find themselves looking at things in different way and finding solutions that didn't present themselves before.

AI comprises of a 4-D structure. The 4 D's are:

• Discovery - what is working well, what is successful?
  
• Dream - how could things be in an ideal world?
  
• Design - what should the future look like?
  
• Destiny - how will you be the change you want to see?
  

A session starts by 'discovering' what is already working. People focus on and share success stories. In this case we asked our participants to think about a time they had seen someone do a good job as a project executive. We gave them the choice of describing themselves or someone else. Everyone had the chance to speak and share something. We asked them to describe how it made them feel when they did something well and you could see smiling faces as they thought about those good times.

We then asked them to think about what their role would look like in an ideal world, without constraints and real-world barriers. This is the 'dream' section. We devised an activity which got them thinking and discussing their ideas. Firstly they worked in pairs, then in groups of four and then we shared the best ideas across the whole room. People were already reevaluating the way they perceived their job and were seeing ways to change.

'Designing' is about reigning in those free thoughts and coming back to reality. How can you make those ideals happen in the real world? Why shouldn't you be able to achieve the ideals? Because the mind is thinking in a different way new ideas come to light. Again we got them doing activities in pairs and shared the best answers around the whole group. We asked them to prioritise their ideals. Which things were the most important to them to change?

The last part is the easy part. All of the session leads towards the 'destiny'. AI creates self-organising innovation rather than some engineered answer. It relies on people to go away and make the changes for themselves in the ways they see fit. This allows everyone to do things in a way which is right for them. Everyone is different and AI makes use of that. It means that at the end of the session we had a loose list of what the priorities were and a lot of very happy looking, enthusiastic project executives who were empowered to go away and make the changes for themselves.

The feedback from the session was fantastic. Our group of executives hadn't experienced a session like this before. We brought in a fresh approach which made their day a change from the norm. Even at a senior level something fresh is welcomed and needed. Consequently, they took our messages on board and identified all the problems with their roles that I had in my initial report. They had worked the answers and solutions out for themselves and had ideas on what to do which were relevant to themselves and their situations. I didn't need to tell them very much at all, my job was just to create the right environment and the thinking space.

The momentum AI creates is somewhat akin to a snowball effect. With change spiraling about all over the place. For me personally, AI is a great discovery. I love the way it taps into a positive psyche and makes change seems natural and also personal. I will certainly experiment with AI in the future when I am running my own projects. I can really see how AI will make all the difference to teams of developers who often need carefully handling. I'll be posting about my experiments with AI in time to come, but in the time being for more info, check out the home of AI, http://appreciativeinquiry.case.edu.

In my mind, AI is the future of bringing about organisational change.

Labels: appreciative inquiry, communication, environment agency, project executive