Management, Coaching, Consulting, Project services

I know a lot of theory about time management, techniques, ways of organizing yourself and so. And I am sharing my knowledge with others as well. But the most rewarding part comes from actually applying these techniques myself. For example – using the Pomodoro technique has given me the joy of achieving significant progress in just a small amount of time. Imagine a bright red, glossy tomato-shaped kitchen timer sitting on a clean wooden desk. Its rounded surface gleams under soft daylight, with a small green stem on top, mimicking the look of a real pomodoro. Around its circumference, bold white numbers mark the minutes, with a simple arrow indicator showing the current countdown. The timer’s dial is currently set to 25 minutes, signifying the start of a focused work interval. Nearby, a notebook and pen suggest readiness for productivity, while the timer’s classic wind-up mechanism adds a tactile, satisfying element to the scene – a perfect embodiment of the Pomodoro technique in ...

If you are really curious to know how to move from Chaos to Structure - this is the way. Really amazed to see the number of views for such a basic time management video. Wondering what I could do if I would create even more videos like that? Let a comment on the topic you would like to see featured next.

Our life is inevitably assaulted with urgent, important or both urgent & important requests. Nothing is no longer unimportant, almost nothing can wait until tomorrow, everything has to be done TODAY, NOW, IN THIS SECOND. Like reading this post :-) You just couldn't stop clicking on it. And you did well, as I'm going to share you the secret of sorting out between all these concurrent requests, separating Urgent from Important, putting them in the right order and making everybody happy. And if there are still some guys mumbling, it's just because they did not know the most important thing: what's important FOR YOU. Yes, it all starts with YOUR priorities, with what you want to achieve, and not with what others want from you. But how do you distinguish between the two? You might want to classify as IMPORTANT what helps you reach your own goals , and as URGENT what helps others. IMPORTANT is also something that has to be done at some point in time - maybe not r...

I am still very surprised about the huge amount of focus that is put on general project management skills, and processes, and tools, and the limited attention that people management skills get. What happens when the PM has no people management skills? quite a lot actually: - attracting people to the project becomes very hard, as the line managers say no to letting their people handle other stuff - keeping the people on the project remains as well as challenge - conflicts inside the team grow unseen until they become uncontrollable - project meetings become wars - deadlines slip - people blame each other A climate of distrust is thus created, and instead of a productive environment for already difficult customers, the PM will also have to firefight each and every conflict. As I was mentioning in a prior post, while the PMP certification will not bring as a guarantee that the PM knows how to manage people, it does force every candidate to read through the Human Resource...

Recently I've run into a lot of discussions about how to run a BOT business. Managing a BOT can pose a lot of issues if you don't respect some basic rules that you establish well ahead. Like with any other offshoring model, you need to have some expectations set from it. I am thinking of multiple points to be well defined ahead. I would start by setting an objective about team size to be reached in a period of time, and how you would get there ( recruitment process , selection, ramping up). Next, I would think about the types of projects that could be safely handed over to the BOT team, without putting at risk the high visibility projects. I would also consider having one key person managing the entire BOT, one person that I trust and that could be hired by my company, rather than the service provider. And to make a long story short, here is a very good link that talks about a particular case, really-really interesting: http://www.sourcingmag.com/content/c060320a.asp

Today I would like to discuss about meetings in the work environment. I'm pretty sure that you all have an agenda on your desk or in your computer, filled with lots of meetings every week and month. Are these meetings necessary? All of them? Do you reach your goals with these meetings? Here is one excerpt from a very interesting article: How many meetings did you attend or hold in 2006? Tens? Hundreds? Now, take a minute to consider how many of those meetings were actually turned into positive, productive action that made your business better. These are important questions to ask in a world of ‘fast-food communication’, where ondemand, real-time, dynamic collaboration technologies have quickly turned global business into a single, connected cube farm. Everyone has meetings; it’s up to you to determine whether the information and responsibilities shared in those meetings drives your success, or simply leads to deeper inefficiency. Here is the full article, to which I challenge to di...