The "three questions"

Francis Hartman (2000) said that in order to assess the customer's expectations, you should ask the customer three questions:

1) On the last day of the project, what will the project team hand over to Operations?
2) How will project success be judged?
3) Who has an opinion on questions 2&3?

If you think about it, this is genius.

Mentoring

What makes people think that they don't need advice from others or close their mind to an alternate viewpoint?

I think it's fear.

For years I closed up to the idea of asking questions of other people or asking for help. Suddenly I realised that admitting you don't know everything can actually more of a strength than a weakness.

It makes you more approachable and human.

I had my first meeting with my mentor today. I asked to be mentored and within 10 minutes, I knew it was going to be worthwhile for me.

It was great to get an outsider's perspective on things. To let them ask you what you are doing and how you are doing it and let them really test your understanding of your own project. If you can answer all the questions, you really know what's going on, and you've covered most of the bases.

Juggling Sand

Hi there, and welcome to "Juggling Sand"

I have been toying with the name for some time now. When I originally moved into project management, it felt like "juggling sand" - something that it was impossible to do without failure.

Further in, i've changed my mind but I love the name too much to discard it!

So, what is this blog for? Well, the simple answer is that I'll be using it to document my learning and use of project techniques over time. I also want to use it to document my "lessons learned" and what I've learned from project experiences.

I am a professional project manager, not only working on projects but also reading up on techniques, frameworks such as PRINCE2 and guidance such as APM's PMBoK.

Hope you find this of use!