Beaufortes

LiquidPlanner: Move over Microsoft Project?

I’ve been holding off writing a review of LiquidPlanner, a project management tool that is destined for greatness.  The reason is that, although they had already implemented a paradigm shifting solution, it had a flaw that I just couldn’t get past:  No dependencies between tasks.

I’ve been saying for years that project planning and management tools needed a top-down rethink, and the LiquidPlanner team has done just that.  The rest of their solution addresses my wish list very well, but, when I came to creating a plan, I couldn’t do it with just priorities; no matter how hard I tried, dependencies between different people’s tasks seemed necessary.  So I had a teleconference with them a month ago (mostly to find out where I was wrong – they seemed to be so innovative), and discovered that they were ‘coming soon’.  In fairness, their tool is still in ‘beta’.

So I’m delighted that, today, I received a notification that they have been implemented, and I now think that it’s probably the best tool out there!  Now that dependencies are implemented, I’m going to use the tool ‘in anger’ and see how it performs – I’ll post a review when I can make an authoritative comment.

Let me know what you think!

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Project+management+tool, LiquidPlanner

Shift Happens - revisited, with sources

My last blog post was a video titled “Shift Happens”, and I asked for feedback about the sources –  many thanks to everybody for their responses.  It turns out that the video was updated in June 07 (see below), and comes from a group of US based educators, Kark Fisch and Scott McLeod.  I’ve attached their list of sources below.  There’s also a wiki where you can join the debate at Shift Happens. 

 

Slide	Source
In the next 8 seconds 34 babies . . .	Web search on population, then did the math.
Name this country . . .	Angus King Presentation - http://web.mac.com/northeastleadership/iWeb/Angus_King/Podcast/A19C541A-7E2C-4BB3-A581-63EA068369CE.html
2006 College Graduates, college graduates in India that speak English.	Geoffrey Calvin, Fortune Magazine, July 25,2005 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/07/25/8266603/index.htm
China #1 English Speaking Country	Somebody at the Milken Conference – reported at http://weblogg-ed.com/2006/more-musings-from-milken/
U.S. Department of Labor Statistics	Originally from Ian Jukes - http://web.mac.com/iajukes/iWeb/thecommittedsardine/Handouts_files/fgtgtg.pdf Also: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/nlsoy.pdf and ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/news.release/History/tenure.09212004.news
College Majors	New College Majors: U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration. http://www.doleta.gov/BRG/Indprof/biotech_profile.cfm (New media: washingtonpost.com, February 23, 2005)
10,000 hours of video games	Interactive Videogames, Mediascope, June 1996.
10,000 hours on phones, 20,000 hours of TV, 250,000 emails/IMs	Mark Prensky, Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, 2001.
U.S. 4-year-olds	Kaiser Family Foundation Report, 2003, http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/uploaded_files/102803_kff_kids_press.pdf
Years to Market Audience	http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/briefing/technology/tech.pdf
Number of Internet Devices	http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/
Text Messages	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_message_service
1 of 8 Couples Met Online	Fortune Magazine 8-7-2006 - http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/07/8382578/index.htm Quotes Diana Farrell, head of the McKinsey Global Institute
eBay Revenue	http://finance.google.com/finance?q=EBAY&client=news
Google Searches	Web search (of course!) - http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156461
MySpace	http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=myspace.com
YouTube	http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=youtube.com
Words in English Language	Originally from Ian Jukes - http://web.mac.com/iajukes/iWeb/thecommittedsardine/Handouts_files/fgtgtg.pdf   Lots on the web, many indicating more than 540,000 – including Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language
3,000 Books	Originally from Ian Jukes - http://web.mac.com/iajukes/iWeb/thecommittedsardine/Handouts_files/fgtgtg.pdf   Lots on the web including http://www.princetoninfo.com/200405/40512c03.html
Technical Info Doubling	Ian Jukes - http://web.mac.com/iajukes/iWeb/thecommittedsardine/Handouts_files/fgtgtg.pdf Cites George Gilder - http://www.amazon.com/Telecosm-World-After-Bandwidth-Abundance/dp/0743205472/sr=1-2/qid=1172692403/ref=sr_1_2/002-0116902-0249611?ie=UTF8&s=bookshttp://www.amazon.com/Telecosm-World-After-Bandwidth-Abundance/dp/0743205472/sr=1-2/qid=1172692403/ref=sr_1_2/002-0116902-0249611?ie=UTF8&s=books
Fiber Optics	Ian Jukes - http://web.mac.com/iajukes/iWeb/thecommittedsardine/Handouts_files/fgtgtg.pdf   Some from George Gilder, some from Ray Kurzweil, some from ?
Children in Developing Countries	http://www.laptop.org/
OLPC	http://www.laptop.org/
Computers and Humans	Ray Kurzweil book - The Singularity is Near - http://singularity.com/ Also http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html?printable=1
Students Collaborating	Specifically references the Horizon 2007 Project - http://horizonproject.wikispaces.com/ but of course there are many examples of this.
Over 5 Millions Conversations	See this post - http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/03/over-two-million-served.html - for an earlier count, then revisited some of those sites for updated counts.

— Philip Greenwood

 

Tags: Strategic+Information

Shift Happens

I don’t know the source of this information, but it’s plausible and thought provoking…if you know where it came from, please leave a comment!

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Strategic+Information

Are you looking for an inspiring project?

Let’s say you’re a great Project Leader…you know how to do it!  You grok it!  And you’re asking yourself the question: “What shall I do next?”

You know it’s going to be big and you know it’s going to be important because it’s GOT to be inspiring. It’s got to be something that is worth you and your team spending your most precious and irreplaceable resource on (time)…

Well here a couple of sources of inspiration for you:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

http://www.geni.org/

The Catherine Jones Foundation – A small project with huge Implications.

Do something meaningful to you, today! 

— Philip Greenwood

P.S. This IS my meaningful project.

Tags: Projects

SmartDraw and Project Management

Recently the kind people at SmartDraw asked me whether I’d like to review their software – and since it’s one of the things we do here, the answer is “yes please”.  I haven’t done it yet, but their tool looks to have elements that support project managers and project leaders in producing compelling communications – core stuff!  I’ll be posting my thoughts on it here shortly.

They also informed me of a tips page on their website that you might be interested in:

10 Project Management Tips from SmartDraw

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: SmartDraw

Have you read it?

Have you read “7 Secrets of Project Leadership” yet?  It’s free, and you can get it at www.realprojectleadership.com !

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: 7+secrets, Project+Leadership

Falling (back) in Love with the Future

I don’t know when I lost it, but I think I lost my way.  Somehow I lost my love of the future.  I became content to just be neophilic – to love the new.  If I was to put a date on it, I would say that some time in 2001, I stopped thinking about wonderful, possible, futures.

I was reading this free e-book: Life…what a concept!!!  Here’s the recipe:  Get a group of big-brained scientists who work at the leading edge of their diverse but related fields, put them on a farm retreat for a couple of days, give them license to speculate about the future, and publish the conversation.  It’s fascinating (and sometimes challenging) reading, and as I was reading it I realised I’d found my optimism again...welcome, old friend.

It’s published by Edge, and there’s much more on thier site to stimulate the grey matter.  Enjoy!

— Philip Greenwood

 

 

Tags: Life, Optimism, Future

Complexity Blindness

Is the idea of using different strategies for different levels of complexity new to you?  On reflection, I've had remarkably few conversations with clients about complexity-based approaches to projects over the last 20 years. The idea itself is not new.  I've come to the conclusion that there is a widespread phenomenon we might call "simplicity bias" - the desire to see a situation as simpler than it is.  I'd like to suggest some evidence for this assertion:

• The use of simplifying metaphors
• The use of simplifying assumptions
• The simplification of news stories by journalists (the Monomyth again)
• The need to simplify messages for senior executives to win their confidence (they are surely able to deal with complicated messages to have risen to that position!)
• The insistence on applying Best Practises despite their widespread failure
• The insistence of placing the blame on an individual when disasters happen, rather than recognising the systemic causes.

(I admit that you could, alternatively, level the accusation that consultants have "complexity bias" - the desire to make a situation appear more complex than it is, but since I am also arguing that experts are not better at changing organisational systems when they are complex and chaotic, where is the pay-off?)

If we habitually understate complexity, then we must be overstating the effectiveness of competence and expertise.  We must be overstating our ability to plan project activities.  We must also be taking a much bigger risk with large development projects than we might anticipate.  This is the illusion of control.

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Project, Leadership, Black, Book, Complexity, Chaotic

Time for a revolution in the music industry

A while back I introduced Flo Radio to you as a technique for producing environmental sound to enhance team productivity.  The idea was to use Pandora’s streaming radio site, which allows you to set up “stations” that learn from the listeners preferences. 

Being based in the UK, this morning I received an email from Tim Westergren of Pandora stating that they were about to start blocking transmission to us:

“It continues to astound me and the rest of the team here that the industry is not working more constructively to support the growth of services that introduce listeners to new music and that are totally supportive of paying fair royalties to the creators of music. I don't often say such things, but the course being charted by the labels and publishers and their representative organizations is nothing short of disastrous for artists whom they purport to represent - and by that I mean both well known and indie artists. The only consequence of failing to support companies like Pandora that are attempting to build a sustainable radio business for the future will be the continued explosion of piracy, the continued constriction of opportunities for working musicians, and a worsening drought of new music for fans. As a former working musician myself, I find it very troubling.

“We have been told to sign these totally unworkable license rates or switch off, non-negotiable...so that is what we are doing. Streaming illegally is just not in our DNA, and we have to take the threats of legal action seriously. Lest you think this is solely an international problem, you should know that we are also fighting for our survival here in the US, in the face of a crushing increase in web radio royalty rates, which if left unchanged, would mean the end of Pandora.

“We know what an epicenter of musical creativity and fan support the UK has always been, which makes the prospect of not being able to launch there and having to block our first listeners all the more upsetting for us.”

My opinion:  The music industry, in fact the whole entertainment industry, is like a deer frozen in the headlights of an on-coming truck.  They will shortly become road-kill unless they think through the implications of commodity-priced high-bandwidth communications, pervasive computing, and the virtualisation of content.

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Flo, Radio

Project Management & Leadership Search Engine

A while back we put quite a lot of effort into this custom Google search engine, and while the traffic has been steadily increasing, it can still be improved...the more people use it, the better feedback we get, the better we can make it!

The link for the search engine home page is here:

http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=011867071513363012666%3Atbng4tlbkso

The code for adding the search box to your web page is at:

http://gmodules.com/ig/creator?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2Fcoop/api/011867071513363012666/cse/tbng4tlbkso/gadget

If there are topics under-represented, or sites that you feel should be included, please leave a message in the comments.

— Philip Greenwood

Tags: Google, Custom, Search, Engine