The Opsimath

It's Wolverhampton

"Ladies and gentlemen please try and contain your excitement as we will shortly be arriving in Wolverhampton."
Train announcer (very possibly a West Brom fan) announcing the train's impending arrival at Wolverhampton.

I'll have a glass of that

It could be worse

This is motivating...

 

Documentation - get it right

On our MSP and PRINCE2 courses we often have discussions about the level of documentation needed to run a project successfully.

This is a serious matter - too little documentation and we have little control over the project; too much documentation and we are weighed down by bureaucracy, or worse as this recent story illustrates. 

A Mexican illegal immigrant was stopped as he entered the UK when a search of his luggage uncovered a good luck card for his "new life in the UK".

The man, arriving at Manchester Airport from Los Angeles, claimed he was on a brief visit to a friend who was opening a restaurant in England's North West.

But he admitted planning to work illegally after border officers found the card and pages of Mexican recipes.

The 40-year-old chef was then removed from the country, a day after landing in the UK.

Documentation - get it right!

Is this the end for the PC?

Who moved my soap?

For anyone who has to do any business travelling, a little tale:

This is some correspondence which actually occurred between a London hotel's staff and one of its guests.

Dear Maid,

Please do not leave any more of those little bars of soap in my bathroom since I have brought my own bath-sized Dial. Please remove the six unopened little bars from the shelf under the medicine chest and another three in the shower soap dish. They are in my way. Thank you, S. Berman

Dear Room 238,

I am not your regular maid. She will be back tomorrow, Thursday, from her day off. I took the 3 hotel soaps out of the shower soap dish as you requested. The 6 bars on your shelf I took out of your way and put on top of your Kleenex dispenser in case you should change your mind. This leaves only the 3 bars I left today which my instructions from the management is to leave 3 soaps daily. I hope this is satisfactory. Kathy, Relief Maid

Dear Maid -- I hope you are my regular maid.

Apparently Kathy did not tell you about my note to her concerning the little bars of soap. When I got back to my room this evening I found you had added 3 little Camays to the shelf under my medicine cabinet. I am going to be here in the hotel for two weeks and have brought my own bath-size Dial so I won't need those 6 little Camays which are on the shelf. They are in my way when shaving, brushing teeth, etc. Please remove them. S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

My day off was last Wed. so the relief maid left 3 hotel soaps which we are instructed by the management. I took the 6 soaps which were in your way on the shelf and put them in the soap dish where your Dial was. I put the Dial in the medicine cabinet for your convenience. I didn't remove the 3 complimentary soaps which are always placed inside the medicine cabinet for all new check-ins and which you did not object to when you checked in last Monday. Please let me know if I can of further assistance. Your regular maid, Dotty

Dear Mr. Berman,

The assistant manager, Mr. Kensedder, informed me this A.M. that you called him last evening and said you were unhappy with your maid service. I have assigned a new girl to your room. I hope you will accept my apologies for any past inconvenience. If you have any future complaints please contact me so I can give it my personal attention. Call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you. Elaine Carmen, Housekeeper

Dear Miss Carmen,

It is impossible to contact you by phone since I leave the hotel for business at 745 AM and don't get back before 530 or 6PM. That's the reason I called Mr. Kensedder last night. You were already off duty. I only asked Mr. Kensedder if he could do anything about those little bars of soap. The new maid you assigned me must have thought I was a new check-in today, since she left another 3 bars of hotel soap in my medicine cabinet along with her regular delivery of 3 bars on the bath-room shelf. In just 5 days here I have accumulated 24 little bars of soap. Why are you doing this to me? S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

Your maid, Kathy, has been instructed to stop delivering soap to your room and remove the extra soaps. If I can be of further assistance, please call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you, Elaine Carmen,
Housekeeper

Dear Mr. Kensedder,

My bath-size Dial is missing. Every bar of soap was taken from my room including my own bath-size Dial. I came in late last night and had to call the bellhop to bring me 4 little Cashmere Bouquets. S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

I have informed our housekeeper, Elaine Carmen, of your soap problem. I cannot understand why there was no soap in your room since our maids are instructed to leave 3 bars of soap each time they service a room. The situation will be rectified immediately. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience. Martin L. Kensedder Assistant Manager

Dear Mrs. Carmen,

Who the hell left 54 little bars of Camay in my room? I came in last night and found 54 little bars of soap. I don't want 54 little bars of Camay. I want my one damn bar of bath-size Dial. Do you realize I have 54 bars of soap in here. All I want is my bath size Dial. Please give me back my bath-size Dial. S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

You complained of too much soap in your room so I had them removed. Then you complained to Mr. Kensedder that all your soap was missing so I personally returned them. The 24 Camays which had been taken and the 3 Camays you are supposed to receive daily (sic). I don't know anything about the 4 Cashmere Bouquets. Obviously your maid, Kathy, did not know I had returned your soaps so she also brought 24 Camays plus the 3 daily Camays. I don't know where you got the idea this hotel issues bath-size Dial. I was able to locate some bath-size Ivory which I left in your room. Elaine Carmen Housekeeper

Dear Mrs. Carmen,

Just a short note to bring you up-to-date on my latest soap inventory. As of today I possess:

• On shelf under medicine cabinet - 18 Camay in 4 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
• On Kleenex dispenser - 11 Camay in 2 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 3.
• On bedroom dresser - 1 stack of 3 Cashmere Bouquet, 1 stack of 4 hotel-size Ivory, and 8 Camay in 2 stacks of 4.
• Inside medicine cabinet - 14 Camay in 3 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
• In shower soap dish - 6 Camay, very moist.
• On northeast corner of tub - 1 Cashmere Bouquet, slightly used.
• On northwest corner of tub - 6 Camays in 2 stacks of 3.

Please ask Kathy when she services my room to make sure the stacks are neatly piled and dusted. Also, please advise her that stacks of more than 4 have a tendency to tip. May I suggest that my bedroom window sill is not in use and will make an excellent spot for future soap deliveries. One more item, I have purchased another bar of bath-sized Dial which I am keeping in the hotel vault in order to avoid further misunderstandings. S. Berman

Performance Art: The T-Mobile dance

If only all train journeys started like this...

Fog on the brain

 

Heard on a recent edition of 'The Weakest Link'

Question: What is the name of the band from the 1970s that took their name from an island off the North eastern coast of England?

Answer: Gerry and the Pacemakers?

Failure Guaranteed

In an article by Michael Greer, he lists the ten top ways to guarantee failure on a project:

Don’t bother prioritising your organisation's overall project load. After all, if there’s a free-for-all approach then the projects that survive will be those that were destined to survive. In the meantime, senior management need not trouble themselves aligning projects with strategic goals or facing the logical imperative that people simply cannot have 12 number one priorities!

Encourage sponsors and key stakeholders to take a passive role on the project team. Let them assert their authority to reject deliverables at random, without participating in defining project outcomes in a high-resolution fashion.

Set up ongoing committees focusing on management process (such as TQM groups, etc.) and make project team members participate in frequent meetings and write lots of reports… preferably when critical project deadlines are coming due.

Interrupt team members relentlessly … preferably during their time off. Find all sorts of trivial issues that "need to be addressed," then keep their beepers and cell phones ringing and bury them in emails to keep them off balance.

Create a culture in which project managers are expected to “roll over” and take it when substantive new deliverables are added halfway through the project. (After all, they should be prepared to be “flexible.”)

Half way through the project, when most of the deliverables have begun to take shape, add a whole bunch of previously unnamed stakeholders and ask them for their opinions about the project and its deliverables.

Encourage the sponsor to approve deliverables informally (with nods, smiles, and verbal praise); never force sponsors to stand behind their approvals with a formal sign-off.

Make sure project managers have lots of responsibilities and deadlines, but no authority whatsoever to acquire or remove people from the project; to get enough money, materials, or facilities

Describe project deliverables in the vaguest possible terms so sponsors and reviewers have plenty of leeway to reinvent the project outputs repeatedly as the project unfolds.

Get projects up and running as quickly as possible – don’t worry about documenting agreements in a formal project charter, clearly describing team roles/responsibilities, or doing a thorough work breakdown analysis. After all, we know what we’re doing and we trust each other. So let’s get to it!

Marks out of ten?

The Wisdom of Wally, Beethoven, and the Principle of Product-Based Planning

In today's on-line Dilbert cartoon (31 August 2008) www.dilbert.com the character Wally once again expresses his immense wisdom - this time on why we should focus on achievements rather than on the time spent in getting to those achievements.

It reminded me of a 'project proverb' that I sometimes use when describing product-based planning, "It’s not the hours that count – it’s what you do in those hours."

Planning that only includes activity-based thinking is bound to develop the attitude that we see from Wally's manager, "it's only four o'clock..."  Without the discipline that product-based thinking brings to planning we will be simply busy fools. Thinking products first is a principle of PRINCE2, and one of the most highly-regarded aspects of the method, and is also recognised as a vital aspect of success by others.

Steven Covey tells us that highly effective people 'begin with the end in mind'. Wally agrees.

(See the cartoon to see where Beethoven fits in)