The Art of War (Recommended Translations)

Later today I'll be giving my Personal Agility Canvas presentation for the PMI Agile Community of Practice. In this webinar (like the one I did recently on Redefining your PMO to Support Agile) I'll be referencing Sun Tzu's The Art of War. There are literally hundreds of translations of this classic text. IMHO, the best way to really understand the ideas and tools introduced in the book is to read a number of different translations. After the last session I had a number of requests for which versions of the book I recommend for those who are new to it, so I though I would post them here to save some time.

The Art of War (Pocket Edition) - Thomas Cleary
This is a great starting point. Cleary offers a simple translation that is easy to get through if this is your first time with the text or if you've had trouble with it in the past. He has larger versions that go into more detail and offer more commentary, but this is still my favorite - plus, it's smaller than an iPhone and you can carry it with you everywhere.

The Art of Strategy - R.L. Wing
R.L. Wing introduces each chapter with an explanation that looks at the meaning behind the text on three different levels : Conflict with the Self, Conflict with the Environment and Conflict with Others. For me, this helped open up the way I interpret and use the tools that are presented throughout the text.

Sun Tzu's The Art of War Plus It's Amazing Secrets - Gary Gagliardi
Gary Gagliardi's way of diagramming the tools and explaining how they fit into interaction with others is brilliant and his explanation of the Five Measures is what helped me understand how to apply it in everyday life. I would not start with this one, but if you have a decent grasp of the ideas, this is a must for understanding how to apply The Art of War.

What happened to October?

October got away from me. There were grand plans for blog posts and podcasts.

It’s good to plan things out. That’s how you know what isn’t going to happen.

At the beginning of this month I had the pleasure of speaking at the Digital PM Summit 2014. It was an inspiring two days that left me feeling more excited about the work I do than I have in a long time.

If you weren’t able to attend, you can check out the presentations here: http://dpm2014.com/speaker-slides/

I was at the conference to give a talk called Personal Kanban - Less Guilt, More Finishing. The presentation was based on my Personal Kanban experiments. The experiment was a success, but not the success I was aiming for.

I wanted to be good at Personal Kanban. What I ended up being was someone with a much deeper understanding of how completely of the rails his approach to work is. But, they say knowing you have a problem is the first step. 

In my classes I always say that learning about project management is something you can’t undo. It is etched onto your soul. I could no easier stop being a guy who grew up in an Irish Catholic home in Philly than I could stop seeing everything I do as a project with a measure of success and a WBS. (It just takes a few seconds for the Agile mods to kick in and turn it into a backlog now.)

And now, I’m finding that practicing Personal Kanban is changing the way I look at work on as deep a level as project management did. What I am learning is that no matter how I try to get better at it, I’m still not getting to a point where I’d feel okay saying I’m good at it. What is happening though is that I'm discovering that being good at it is not the point. In fact, getting the items into the Done column isn’t really the point for me right now either. The point is learning more about how and why I am working, and using that information to make conscious, responsible decisions about what to change and what experiments to run.

My favorite moment at the Digital PM Symposium was when Mike Monteiro gave his presentation on “What Your Client’s Don’t Know and Why It’s Your Fault”. Mike is a compelling speaker and even though he comes from a design background, his message is just as applicable for those of us who manage projects. We need to be aware of what we are doing, make conscious decisions and take ownership of the impact. I’ve run across a number of project management professionals over the past few months who have expressed frustration about all that is dumped on them and all the roadblocks placed in their path and (insert your excuses here). We all have this… me too. I think it is normal and completely okay to have moments where we each play the role of victim and have our little “woe is me” party. (Because let’s face it, no one is ever going to do that for a PM.) But when that part is over, we need to shake it off and dig in. So, when I say that I'm still not good at Personal Kanban, the important thing is to realize why I work the way I do and to be conscious and mindful about what choices I am making. If you are a PM Managing projects, when someone asks you to do something that is impossible, you've got a choice to make. Whether you say yes, or no, the two screenshots  below from Mike’s presentation apply.

...and I’ve got them tacked up on the wall next to my desk to remind me every day.

Agilistocrats Episode 002

Click here to go straight to the podcast

In this episode of The Agilistocrats, Richard Cheng from Excella Consulting, Dhaval Panchal from Agile 42 and I (Dave Prior from BigVisible) discuss some of the common misconceptions people coming from a traditional (waterfall) background have when they come into Agile Training classes.
Knowledge workers coming from a waterfall backgound, especially those of us who have put in the time and effort to get a certification like PMP, face very specific challenges in learning how to let go of how we were taught to work. We may not believe that the traditional model works, (according to The Standish Group, IT Projects only succeed between 30%-40% of the time) but that does not necessarily mean we are ready to embrace an intrnalize an Agile way of looking at work. During the podcast we spend time sharing the different things each of us does in class to try and help folks let go of the concrete liferaft.

If you have suggestions for topics, or questions, please send them agilistocrats@gmail.com
Click here to listen to the podcast

Summary of Personal Kanban Posts - for DPM 2014

I'll be giving a presentation on Peronal Kanban at the Digital PM Summit 2014 this week, so I figured it would be a good idea to index some of my posts on the topic...

Posts on My Personal Kanban Experiment

DrunkenPM Meets Personal Kanban

Personal Kanban Week 1 - This Dysfunction Goes to 11

Personal Kanban Week 2 - Up Jumped The Devil

Girl Scout Kanban

Personal Kanban Week 3 - Off the Rails...

Personal Kanban Week 5 - Working On Mysteries Without Any Clues

Personal Kanban Week 6 - What if you mix the mayonaisse in the can, with the tunafish?

Personal Kanban Week 7 - Kanbanfor1

Personal Kanban Week 9 - Productivity Hangover

Personal Kanban Week 10-12 - The Heart of Darkness

Personal Kanban Week 13-16 - Zen and the Art of Personal Kanban Maintenance

Personal Kanban - Track Your Happiness

Track Your Happiness  - What Makes You Happy?

Personal Kanban Lessons Learned

Personal Kanban App Review Update

Interviews

Jim Benson - March 2013

Dan Markovitz - April 2013

Personal Kanban - On the Couch with Scott Belware and Ray Lewallen - July 2013

Johanna Rothman August 2013

Jim Benson - April 2014
Marcell Scachetti - July 2013
Don Kim - June 2013

Recommended Reading

Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry 

A Factory of One by Dan Markovitz

Why Limit WIP - by Jim Benson

Why Plans Fail - by Jim Benson

Personal Agility Canvas Webinars at BigVisible

I recently recorded some Personal Agility Canvas webinars for BigVisible:

Personal Agility Canvas
Five Measures Canvas

Downloadable versions of tabloid sized PDFs of the canvas tools are available with each.

Should Project Managers Be Trained in Social Engineering? (with Rachel Gertz from LouderThanTen)

Click here to go straight to the podcast

In celebration of the fact that the 2014 Digital PM Summit is less than a week away... some DrunkenPM / LouderThanTen podcasty mashup goodness... Rachel Gertz and I discussing the question of whether or not project managers should go through social engineering training to better enable them to understand more of what people are sharing with them and also to help them be better able to tailor how they are messaging the information they are sharing.


Click here for the podcast

If you will be in Austin for the conference next week, Rachel is co-presenting with Carson Pierce on Monday, October 6 at 2 PM. Her session is called PM First Aid: Bring Your Projects Back From The Dead and my session on Personal Kanban will be on Tuesday at 11 AM.

The Aikido book referenced in the podcast is Aikido: Principles of Kata and Randori by Nick Lowry. You can pick it up here.

Chris Matts on Real Options and Commitment - the Graphic Novel About Managing Project Risk

Click here to go straight to the interview on Projects at Work

Chris Matts is an Agile though leader and coach based in the UK. He’s also co-author (along with Olav Maassen and Chris Geary) of ”Commitment: A Novel About Managing Project Risk”. What makes the book so unique is that it is a graphic novel. The purpose of the story is to help the reader gain a deeper understanding of how to make truly informed (right) decisions based on a deeper understanding of the issues they are facing. 

Real Options is the central them presented in the book. This is a process that has been borrowed from the financial sector and applied to the decision making process that is part of managing project work.  The Real Options approach helps provide clarity around when decisions need to be made, rather than just focusing on how they are made. It begins with three key ideas:

1. Options have value
2. Options Expire
3. Never commit early unless you know why

For more about Real Options, go here

One of the unique things Chris brings as an Agile coach is his background in investment banking. The application of tools and techniques from this area can provide a gateway or bridge into Agile for those coming from a similar work history. (Much the same way that looking at how Earned Value can be applied in Agile can help provide traditional PMs with a reference point.)

Chris is currently focusing his coaching efforts on how Agile works in the enterprise. If you’d like to learn more about the work he is doing, check out the podcast here.

You can follow Chris on twitter.
You can check out his blog here.
You can connect to Chris on LinkedIn here.

DPM Radio Interview

< Begin Shameless Plug...
The 2014 Digital PM Summit IS ONLY TWO WEEKS AWAY! Sign up at http://www.dpm2014.com/ and you'll spend two day in the company of a few hundred project managers and digital media professionals who are part of a growing community of passionate, committed, creative people who are incredibly energizing to be around.
...end shameless plug>

If you'd like more detail on why this conference is so inspiring, check out the Digital PM Radio interview I did.  It was a little weird to be the one being interviewed for a change, but I had a great time. Carl Smith a great interviewer.

The Agilistocrats 001

Click here to go straight to the podcast

Richard Cheng from Excella Consulting, Dhaval Panchal from Agile 42 and I (Dave Prior from BigVisible Solutions) have started a new series of podcasts focusing on new topics and current trends in Agile. In this podcast we got together to talk about some of the key topics from the Agile 2014 Conference and the current push for Agile in the Enterprise.

This is our first recording and we're looking for feedback (and a better name). Give a listen and let us know what you think.

We'd also like some ideas for new topics to focus on in our next recording. So if you have ideas or questions, please send 'em to agilistocrats@gmail.com.

Social Engineering for Project Managers and Agilists

Earlier this week we posted a podcast interview between myself and amazing Rachel Gertz from Louder than Ten. Once of the topics we talked about was the idea of providing training in Social Engineer for PMs and Team Leads. For me, this is one of those topics I found my way to on my own, but really wish I had learned more about it earlier in my career. For many PMs, Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence is a gateway towards the work of people like Dr. Paul Ekman. Once you begin learning how to be aware of and understand the unintentional information being communicated the natural next steps are to figure out what to do with that information and how to make sure the information you put out is what you want it to be. And this is where you’ve crossed over into Social Engineering.
Social Engineering is kind of a touchy subject with some folks. It tends to evoke an almost reflexive response that stems from the idea that a social engineer is an evil person who is out to do us harm. (Think Kevin Mitnick as portrayed in Takedown or Roy from The Grifters.) While there are plenty of people out there in all areas of life that are trying to grift or con their way into out lives and wallets. I would like to offer a different view.
We’re all social engineers.
And if you work in technology, leading projects or teams, you’ve probably already been exposed to things like Emotional Intelligence, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Non-Violent Communication, Situational Leadership (just to name a few). Developing your abilities in social engineering is a way to enhance or compliment your abilities in each of those areas.
Whether we are interacting with co-workers, our spouse, our children, the airline rep at the customer service counter in an airport full of angry travelers, we’re all trying to get something.

• I want my daughter to remember to stop leaving dirty dishes in the living room.
• I need the developers to start commenting their code.
• I want to get bumped up in the standby list.
• I want to take my wife to dinner at the Indian place instead of the noodle shop.

These are all simple things we face every day. Wanting them is neither good, not bad. Whether it is done with conscious intent, we are all trying to bend situations in a way that results in an outcome we desire.
If you are a project manager you probably spend a lot of your time trying to find ways to get people to do things you want them to do, or work the way you want them to work.
If you are a Scrum Master or an Agile Coach, you spend a good part of your day trying to figure out how to get people to want what you want them to want.
Some folks are naturally gifted with this. Some, not so much. The good news is that there are ways to develop your abilities in this area. The challenging part is that building your skills here is going to require learning a bit about a number of topics and finding ways to practice at using them. Developing your knowledge and abilities in this area will help you in two very specific ways:
1. It will enable you to become more mindful of the unintentional or non-verbal communication that is taking place when you interact with or observe others
2. It can enable you to become better at modifying your own verbal and non-verbal output in a way that will sway an interaction more towards your desired outcome.
If the success of the projects we work on hinges on communication (PMBOK 5th Edition Appendix X3.4), then our ability to understand what is being communicated and to manage what we communicate, is our greatest asset. Deepening your understanding of things like micro-expressions, changes in body language, conversational techniques for building rapport can only strengthen your ability to communicate. It helps you unpack the messages sent by others and can help you wrap up the messages you are sending with conscious intent. While it is unlikely you’ll end up like Sherlock or the guy in Lie to Me, simply becoming more mindful of these concepts will give you an edge and help you in your work with teams and individuals. The first step is educating yourself (some great starter resources are listed below). The second step is finding places to actually practice (in a non-career limiting, non-marriage limiting environment). The practice part can be tough - especially when you are just starting, but you’ll want to build skill and confidence before your start trying to use some of your new tools at work.
I spoke about this idea with a colleague at the Agile conference this summer and he expressed great concern that it would teach people to message information in a way that is less honest. That is certainly possible. My hope would be that developing knowledge and skill in these areas, if applied correctly, could help us to understand messages of others more clearly and to be more mindful of the noise we introd
uce into our own signals as we communicate with others.

Here are two books I’ve read recently that I recommend as a great starting place if you are interested in learning more about Social Engineering.

Unmasking the Social Engineer- Christopher Hadnagy (pictured above)
It’s Not All About “Me” - The Top Ten Techniques for Building Rapport with Anyone - Robin Dreeke
Christoper Hadnagy also has a website full of great resources at social-engineer.org