The dust has finally settled with my debacle with the boss man. I am out. Well not really as I am still helping in the operational side. But it's all for the best. My detractors have been taken out of the project and a new team is in place. I am now helping the new team though in a diminished role. Good for me as I can focus on the projects within my domain. But as I am still involved by a thread so to speak and I can still be called to help out in the project if things do not turn out well. In summary, the result after the dust has settled: my detractors are out, I am still in though barely and I can focus on my 'real' projects. More importantly, I am not held fully responsible for the issues (although I should be) as there is now a recognition I believe that internal politics was the real cause of the debacle.
But despite the final settling of accounts, a larger concern looms in the horizon. The company has finally moved forward toward 'co-sourcing' our jobs. Well, not exactly, as more like a relocation towards the countries were business resides in. The role of a regional head office, away from business is not realistic. So the likely options are: transfer to China or Thailand, move to another department, get absorbed by the outsource company (based in India) or leave the company with a (hopefully) generous package while looking for a new job. Our fate will be known by end-March when personnel will meet each of us to discuss the future. So the end of life as we know it for the past 6 years is likely to end soon. Possible by the end of 2008 as the final cogs are put into place.
I have a feeling that it's time to move on. I have spent a lot of time already in the office and recent events like the debacle with the boss man has tired me out. It has removed whatever excitement and foolish naivete that I still had. In fact, even my horoscope seems to portend my future. The prediction for the year of the rat for my specific birth year tells of a change of house and /or change of job. There is a prediction of big changes. In some cases, it predicts a change for the good. But let us see and wait for the play. Some accounts have said to wait patiently and see how the event reveal themselves. Very well. We will know soon. In the meantime, I have been trying to 'sharpen the saw' following S.Covey's works. I just read his latest book, 'The 8th Habit' and it is a good road map for the future. S.Covey works like 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' have been helpful to me in certain periods of my life. Now my future seems to be proceeding like in the past.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Re-framing Past Experiences
Past obstacles and failures need to be re-assessed to get a healthy perspective of the past. Most of the time, past failures result in depression and the blues. But after looking back at the events with a more detached and experienced eye, I think the real lessons can be learned. Most projects end with a lessons learned session but this can still be too close to the actual events which make a more objective assessment difficult.
I previously was engaged in a difficult project about 4 years ago where an application was developed in a rapid and pressurized environment. I had a do the specification in a piece by piece fashion which was not the norm in our organization. Traditionally, the complete functional specification are made following a structured water-fall methodology. But the circumstances did not allow for this type of slow, structured process. So we went a head and did the project and we were heavily criticized. My assessment was not good and I suffered a bit from this experience although the application was delivered though a bit delayed.
In fact, the type of methodology is now called agile development where iterative processes are advocated instead of slow and traditional structured method. So we went through the project following an agile method following our intuition and self-organizing ourselves in this fashion to respond to the environment. Hence, we can say that we were following the methodology of the future though we and the organization did not realize at that point in time. It was a messy project but the team in fact, re-engineered an old application developed in an obsolete language and moved it into a web-based, intranet application.
I think this illustrates the importance of re-framing past experiences especially so-called failures because new developments and experiences will help us assess what really happened by using one's present knowledge and ability. Outsourcing the boss man's data warehouse as another example, is a world wide trend to foster global collaboration with external suppliers. Previously, I had thought that it was a personal failure in my part. Of course, as project manager I do share the blame but I have recovered by moving the development from the in-house team towards a more experienced and skilled outsourcing company. It was really the wave of the future experienced close hand.
Re-framing past experiencing may seem like the usual spin to improve one's reputation but, then again, one is entitled to one's viewpoint. We all have a right to express what we feel like the true course of events -> our own spin so to speak. But the pain and suffering has already occurred and this exercise is more like a recovery operation where one takes time to understand the past events and move forward with a better understanding of the past and make us a better person that is able to handle future assignments. Reading the latest literature like 'Wikinomics' also helps in understanding the future to know more of the past.
I previously was engaged in a difficult project about 4 years ago where an application was developed in a rapid and pressurized environment. I had a do the specification in a piece by piece fashion which was not the norm in our organization. Traditionally, the complete functional specification are made following a structured water-fall methodology. But the circumstances did not allow for this type of slow, structured process. So we went a head and did the project and we were heavily criticized. My assessment was not good and I suffered a bit from this experience although the application was delivered though a bit delayed.
In fact, the type of methodology is now called agile development where iterative processes are advocated instead of slow and traditional structured method. So we went through the project following an agile method following our intuition and self-organizing ourselves in this fashion to respond to the environment. Hence, we can say that we were following the methodology of the future though we and the organization did not realize at that point in time. It was a messy project but the team in fact, re-engineered an old application developed in an obsolete language and moved it into a web-based, intranet application.
I think this illustrates the importance of re-framing past experiences especially so-called failures because new developments and experiences will help us assess what really happened by using one's present knowledge and ability. Outsourcing the boss man's data warehouse as another example, is a world wide trend to foster global collaboration with external suppliers. Previously, I had thought that it was a personal failure in my part. Of course, as project manager I do share the blame but I have recovered by moving the development from the in-house team towards a more experienced and skilled outsourcing company. It was really the wave of the future experienced close hand.
Re-framing past experiencing may seem like the usual spin to improve one's reputation but, then again, one is entitled to one's viewpoint. We all have a right to express what we feel like the true course of events -> our own spin so to speak. But the pain and suffering has already occurred and this exercise is more like a recovery operation where one takes time to understand the past events and move forward with a better understanding of the past and make us a better person that is able to handle future assignments. Reading the latest literature like 'Wikinomics' also helps in understanding the future to know more of the past.
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