Thursday 9 September 2010

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.

Wednesday 8 September 2010

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.