My Medium Content
Thanks for stopping by! The content here is going to be in a little flux for a while because I’m moving items and shifting some of my media creation over to Medium as a way to leverage the power of the publishing platform. I’ll still post a unique blog here and on LinkedIn from time to time, but my main focus will be on that site.
Get in touch!
pmann@educationalthinking.com
(717) 400-6266 (voicemail)
Harrisburg, PA
CP2077: THE COST OF POORLY MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
Cyberpunk 2077 (CP2077) by CD Projekt Red Studio in Poland (CDPR, Stock: OTGLF) may be the most successful project failure in software development in history. On the one hand, it is unambiguously successful. The record sales figures for the first ten days following the December 10, 2020 release exceed 13 million copies (≈$780M) even after the raft of highly publicized, no-questions-asked refunds due to bugs and playability issues. On the other hand, the project is a failure for investors because its record sales fell short of analyst expectations of 16.4 million copies (≈$984M). For consumers, it failed because of eight months of delays followed by a delivery that lacked anticipated features. It did not perform as expected – being virtually unplayable on some legacy consoles – resulting in responses such as Sony removing the title from its PlayStation online store for all of its platforms.
MANAGING PROJECTS AND MANAGING CHANGE: THE SOLUTION TO PM VS. OCM
Putting arguments, assertions, and turf defense to the side, PM and OCM are only distinct when neither considers the whole purpose and process of the change. To truly succeed, every project must include the technical and functional requirements, and facilitate the accomplishment of both. When done properly, correctly verified technical requirements and correctly validated functional requirements results in a successful and successfully adopted project.
Are You Compartmentalizing Your Culture?
Organizational culture is often an aspirational quality that leaders plan to work on when they have time, attention, resources, or whatever. Culture becomes, at some point, a repository of the hopes and dreams of a high-functioning and internally consistent workforce that lives in its own little compartment of reality, separated from the operational and personnel practices that could make it a reality.
Make Help More -- Helpful!
If someone cares enough to notice that you need help, whether via a consultant or not, it is a better option to consider that, 1) someone cares enough to notice the need, and 2) there is an opportunity to find and fix a blind spot in your perspective. Someone like me isn’t there to force a change or otherwise stick our noses into your business; we’re there because someone feels things need to adjust but aren’t going to get better on their own.
Playing Succession Too Close
One of the overriding themes of the last few years has been how to build one's bench -- how to identify and select high-potential employees (HiPos) and would-be employees to proactively enhance the team. Within this idea includes both building skills and knowledge capabilities, as well as grooming HiPos for eventual advancement into leadership as part of a long term succession pipeline. While this article relates to all of these factors, it's main focus is on the succession component and the problems that occur when we forget to tell our HiPos that they are HiPos, and what that means.
Planning to Action in 5 Easy Steps
Why then, do leaders vault over analysis and duck planning, and jump right into implementation when things really have to go right? The only thing I can think of is that there is a belief that analysis and planning have to be overly complex to work, but that's just not true.
Directions or Options
You see, while we were both hungry and are heading to get something to eat – that is, our goal is the same – our roles and responsibilities were very different. For her, the emphasis is on being the supporting partner who is flexible with how we achieve our shared goal. In her mind, providing the maximum number of agreeable options without making the final decision is the best way she can meet the obligations of her role.
Take a Hint from Gamers: Learn the Outcomes of Metrics and Systems
That is, we attempt to measure things at a high level that are changed at a very low level — measuring something with many contributing factors, but attributing it to only one or a few — and this tendency extends to our employee engagement efforts. However, if we took a simple hint from the world of gaming, we would quickly find that our fixation on measurement in the way that we do now only succeeds in encouraging undesirable behaviors.