Everyday Project Management

Let someone know you admire, just why you admire and appreciate them.   It’s very easy to do actually.  Start small and get the ball rolling.  By the end of the day you’ll have a whole snowman of admiration and appreciation built for those important people in your life.   And it just feels good, it expands your heart, and puts a spring in your step.   I started this by listing all the reasons why I love and appreciate our students.  For some very odd reason I was spending too much time focusing on those students who challenge me the most as a teacher.   Not sure why this is, as my students are very good people (even the challenging ones) and when I focus on their good points, this is what brings the joy to my heart of teaching.   So I thought I would shift my focus to the good of all my students.   And then it just expanded.   And once again, I am very happy and fulfilled doing my life work - teaching people how to achieve their goals fast with accelerated project management.

We call our students “Cheetah”s” and I am dedicating this day to our Cheetah’s and my team of “Cheetah’s” who help me teach project management around the world.   Here are the top ten reasons I just love our students:

1. They all want to succeed in a big way in their careers.

2. They firmly believe Cheetah Learning can help them do this (yes we believe in them too).

3. Many have a very good sense of humor and are great to have in our lives.

4. They are willing to work very diligently to achieve their goals fast.

5. They tell lots and lots of people about their experiences with us.

6. They are very respectful of us a company and individuals and recognize and appreciate we are respectful of them as capable learners as well.

7.  The majority are polite and professional.

8. Most are honest, ethical and like to play by the rules which makes it easy for us to work with them throughout the process of improving their PM skills.

9. The ones who challenge us remind us of why we bring so much value to this field.

10. They are able to tap into their innate genius in our programs and make a big difference in their worlds.

And then I extended this to my team of Cheetahs who help me run Cheetah Learning around the world:

Jean Steinmetz – the go for it gal. Whenever we need to change the way we are working, jean is the first one we change as she is able to morph and change so fast – she is a real cheetah.

Barb Mclintick – was our best student so we hired her. She has created so many fantastic courses it will now be very difficult for anyone to out barb, barb.

Rita Soto – this woman gets more work done than anyone I have ever met on the planet – I’m not sure how I ran the company before she came along. She frees me up to do what I do best – creating new courses.

Kent Dobbins – The funny thing about Kent, if I ever stopped running Cheetah,  Kent would be busier than he is now – he handles all my “not” cheetah projects. There are a lot of those.

Dave Maule – his sense of humor even with extremely challenging situations is so much fun to be around. The harder his job gets, the more he laughs.

Monica Dana – it’s a very good thing she likes to drive as we have her going all over the country doing the cheetah thing with our cheetah booth.

Elissa – trust is what comes to mind when I think of Elissa – she keeps so many balls in the air scheduling and contracting our venues. She is exceptionally organized.

Kristen – reminds me of the energizer bunny with a day timer. She sets up these systems and then keeps them running and running and running – being one of the youngest members of our team, she keeps the rest of us sticking to our commitments and staying coordinated.

All our trainers – some of these folks have been teaching for us for 8 years.

Vikram Bala – I love the way he took on the mantle of the one day class and created a version for India. His take on our approach for the unique needs of India still warms my heart today.

Kelly Baumer, I still remember how psyched she was when she passed the PMP exam in 2001. She has been such a vivacious part of our team since then, the students are so lucky to have her.

Kim Miller – I’ve known in my early dot.com days in the mid-90’s in Seattle. She has stuck with me through all types of crazy renditions of teaching for cheetah.

Norma Ribach is the sweetest woman on the planet and deeply cares about our students. Every time I talk with her about how she has helped this or that student achieve what they thought was impossible, it’s hard not to get all choked up.

Ray Strano – I knew he was destined to be a cheetah when he was the first person I ever saw do the sun salutation, including getting on the floor to do the stretching by the lockers at the prometric testing center. Rays students totally love him too.

Michael Swanson has the perfect balance of stern and loose that keeps his students happy and motivated to do the work they need to do to pass their exams.

Jeff Allen is not just a fantastic and caring teacher, he is also a very astute business man and continues to be of value consul to our students long after they leave the classroom.

Our marketing team is a pretty amazing group of people as well. I love the way we groove with each other to create some truly inspired campaigns.

Judy O’Brien leaves me rolling on the floor at all odd hours of the day and night. She has truly embellished our flex time work environment.  She is our main copy editor for our ad campaigns and does an exceptional job of crafting our newsletter every month.  Oh this reminds me, I still need to review the Dec. Newsletter for her.

Carey Earle is the earle girl extradonaire – it seems that there is one of us writing, whether I start the know how network columns or she starts it – it appears that we are always thinking along the same lines of the content, even without a conversation.

Walter just blows me away with his pluck – that guy dreams up more creative ways to connect with people than anyone I have ever met.

Marlene’s tenacity to get us exposure amazes me on a daily basis. She keeps going after promotional opportunities long after most folks would quit.

Sharene’s ability to take an abstract concept and put it into an image – that signifies class, intelligence, sophistication, and humor – it amazes me how she conveys so much with her work.

Dave LaBroad’s ability with keeping us coming up on top with the search engines and his ability at staying abreast of all the latest and greatest ways at keeping people aware of what we’re up to via the internet keeps me on my toes.

Shari Mahon must have gotten two sets of talents on this planet – tech savvy AND psychotherapy – I have seen her do amazing things with programmers and with technically phobic people alike. Plus she works with me at all hours of the day and night creating updates to our system and creates crazy last minute marketing campaigns that we pull off at Cheetah speed.

And next is our team of licensees who make the Cheetah courses available worldwide.

Peter McBride has worked with me since Jan. 2002 and was my first international licensee for our PMP program.   He soon expanded from Canada to Europe, the Mid-East, and Africa.    Peter has an endless amount of faith and trust in our system.  He took the risk and taught our first PMP class in Dubai for latest new PMP exam on the week the exam changed from the 3rd to the 4th edition.   That is confidence in us.  Peter leads a team of four inspiring teachers that travel the globe for Cheetah Learning.   These people spend more time in the air than I do.   Thank YOU.

Roberto Toledo took up the mantle for Cheetah Learning for the spanish speaking parts of the world.   He has his own PM courses he teaches as well, and translates Cheetah’s courses into spanish and delivers them throughout Latin and South America.   What I love about him is how he puts that uniquely latin spin on the work that comes out of my brain.   While I don’t completely understand what he is saying, when I’ve taught with him in Mexico City, it was obvious his students were thoroughly grasping our accelerated learning and PM concepts.

Diane Bussy in New Zealand spreads Cheetah cheer all over the South Pacific and into Asia.   Her go for it kiwi spin on the Cheetah programs is invigorating and I’ve learned quite a bit as I’ve watched her develop markets in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong.   This week,  her assistant Jacqui pulled a group of US Army officers from South Korea over to Hawaii for training.  How she pulled that off is amazing - for everyone involved.

If you’d like to get into the spirit of mutual admiration day, AND take some awesome Cheetah Learning courses, for FREE visit our landing page for Mutual Admiration Day.

My lovely little cheetah like cat - Bob used up the last of his nine lives today.   The fact that he lived this long is rather amazing considering his mother ate all his litter mates and he was rescued in the nick of time.   As Bob grew, he lived an eternal life as a kitten.   We learned over time why the Mama cat probably ate the litter mates - Bob was a few cards shy of a full deck.   He never quite grasped the litter box - thinking the front paws in the pan was good enough.   He used up many of his live’s taunting the resident eagles as he  lolled outside the front door rolling around on the front step appearing to just say - lets see if you can swoop down and get me.

Yes it is a miracle Bob lived three years.   We’re not quite sure what took him to the final resting place - the vet thinks it was anti-freeze.   We aren’t in the habit of leaving anti-freeze out inside the house so I’m not sure how that could have happened.   And as far as we know, Bob had no enemies.

Our deepest condolences are to his playmate Spot (another Ocicat) who was an absolute pest without Bob - the reason we adopted Bob in the first place.   I’ll miss him too - he and I spent hours studying the printer spitting out various drafts of my writings.   I think Bob brought down the IQ of everyone in the house - this was not a bad thing.

In my Project Turnaround class, I have the students map out their money pond - that is how cash flows in and out of their life.  They look at the pond as it is and as they would like it to be.  They look at how the money going out of their pond feeds the money coming back into their pond.   It’s a very eye opening exercise

I was reading how bartering is becoming an even bigger deal these days because cash (as in easy credit) is harder to come by.  And looking at my own situation, I have plenty of ways to use the cash coming into my life, and far more projects in the works than I have cash coming in (which actually is very business as usual for me and I suspect most other people on the planet).    All cash is is a means of transacting trade - yet so much time and effort is spent in the accumulation and disbursement of cash (the “flow” thing).   But when you consider all the ways you could trade for goods and services, you start to realize that “cash” is just one way of achieving your goals.   I’ve realized over the past month, that I have another commodity to trade with people for services - my beef.   I still have to figure out how to trade my beef for goods - service people are so much more accommodating.   But cash still reigns supreme - for right now.

About ten years back, I took a leap and got rid of all my credit cards.   I realized they were a crutch in my life that I just did not want holding me back any longer.  I learned that to really succeed, you needed to create relationships with people - not with faceless financial institutions that dont’ give a rip about you.   And that credit cards created a false sense of prosperity - they actually blocked the flow of money from other sources into my pond.   Time and time again, I have had people in my business push me to get a line of credit for the business.  It just didn’t feel right to me - I run and grow my business on sales generated by creating value for others, not on credit.

What I’m seeing now is more and more business owners learning these hard lessons.  I was in a store yesterday that supplies flooring products to the construction trades.   A carpet installer was in there to pick up the carpet for his latest job.  The manager would not release the product until it was paid for.  The guy wanted “terms.”  She said - no way - the last guy I extended terms to in July, still hasn’t paid me.  It’s becoming a pay as you go world and cash is king.

The parting words Professor Crane from Harvard left us with at that three year Harvard program I went through several years back  was - “don’t run out of cash.”    And he was right - regardless of what project it is I’m pursuing, at the end of the day, really it is the only thing that will keep my projects moving forward.

Cash flow is an everyday thing.  You can’t leave it lying around.  The stock brokers will lose it, the IRS will take it,  some nut job will come along and sue you to get it,  a bank will “hold” it for whatever their crazy reasons are at the time,  you’ll be the unwitting victim of some type of insurance scam that you got into to “protect” the cash.   The forces of nature seem to conspire against leaving cash lying around - it has to flow.

And it’s been like this for all of time - here are five ancient prosperity symbols that stimulate cash flow.  Focusing on these, having them around you, are supposed to stimulate cash flow.  My thoughts on this is that they remind you to pay attention to cash flow and that which you focus on becomes real.   But hey, do whatever works - sit on seaweed, light a green candle, put a prosperity corner in the back left corner of your house, cast a prosperity spell at the waning of the new moon, or do what I do to stimulate cash flow - figure out how to create value for other people providing things that will help them create more value.    While I don’t teach the voodoo of cash flow, I do cover more of this topic in my Project Turnaround class. If you want more cash flowing into your life,  check it out.

The dog epitomizes my state of being this morning.   I could understand this feeling if I had been drinking. However, I have been extremely allergic to alcohol for almost four years now so I have no idea how I could have the Monday Morning flu.   I think it’s standard post project blues - we worked like crazy to get the house ready for Thanksgiving, had a heck of a party with guests here until late Saturday.   Now we’re working on getting the rest of the house finished for a huge birthday party on February 6th.   We’re up to two working toilets in the house, two more to go.  Trim is going in today.   Tile work should be done in another two weeks.  Since we have not found a home entertanment specialist willing to work for beef yet,  I am exhibiting the Peter Principle and have been promoted to entertainment system designer.   The interior designers are all coming over Friday for an Italian cooking lesson and to give me ideas on furniture (I don’t have that female gene - it was replaced with the engineering, PM gene).  Time to snap myself out of it, take the little pooch for a walk, and get back to work!!!

It all started out like your normal thanksgiving by installing a toilet in the master bathroom (see previous posts about hosting thanksgiving in the house currently undergoing a major remodel).   Having taken possession of my Turduckin created and shipped by my favorite specialty foods grocer Bob Kane in Simsbury, CT on Wednesday, game was on for the Thanksgiving gravy.   A turduckn is a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey - between each layer, Bob packs a surprise of cornbread, cranberry stuffing.  For an easier and tastier gravy, I used an oven roasting bag coated with a mix of a half cup of fresh milled hardy white wheat berries, a half tsp of finally diced fresh rosemary and a half tsp of fresh ground pepper.   I placed the turduckin in the bag,  dotted it with 1/4 cup of diced salted butter, sealed up the bag and cooked it in a 325 oven until the meat thermometer registered 165 F.     While the turduckin was roasting, I simmered turkey giblets (neck and accessories but not the liver) with all the leaves from one celery stalk, a tbs of whole peppercorns, and 1 tsp of salt in a 2 quart sauce pan.   (I got the turkey giblets from the back up turkey I was cooking in the event I bombed the turduckin as I have in years past - I am a good project manager after all and had a risk management plan - this also served to help with the gravy making).

When the Turduckin reached the magic number of 165 F internally (which was an hour after the turkey was done),  I let it sit for about fifteen minutes, then had the toilet installer, Kent,  help by lifting up the turduckin bag and all.   I cut a hole in the bottom of the bag and drained the liquid out of the bag into my simmering turkey giblet stock.   (Special note - Kent washed up after he installed the toilet).

Now came the real love.   I made a rue of the fresh milled hard white wheat berry flour and 1/4 cup of butter (I did not whip the butter from cream milked from my own cow - I had a lot on my plate being thanksgiving and all).  I gradually added in liquid from the pan dripping giblet stock mixture - one half cup at a time - whisking it into a smooth gravy.   I have no idea how long it took to make the gravy - all the guests were on the third bottle of wine and no one seemed to notice.

The grand finale of the dinner culminated two weeks of frantic remodeling work - everything went off exquisitely.   Family friend Elizabeth made the journey over the mountains from the bay area to make her legendery corn bread stuffing.    My daughter flew in from college to strut her stuff with mashed potatoes, whipping them into velvety submission.   Other great friends ditched their traditions to come share in the maiden meal in the part of my house that was finally done - the kitchen.

We wrapped up the food fest with my well rehearsed pumpkin pie.   Since we had sampled one of them the night before, I was out purchasing more pumpkin pie fixens to create two more early Thanksgiving day.   It was a bit tough locating more sugar pumpkins at that late an hour, so I substituted some bizarre orange squash - no one noticed.

While everything was fantastic - I am awarding the gravy first place.   Since I was the only judge,  and didn’t solicit others votes, you’ll have to take my word for it.

At my Italy cooking class, I learned far more than just cooking.   I was in class with 22 other Americans - we spanned in age from 30 to 70.   About 1/3 of us had some type of PDA - be it an Iphone or a blackberry.   The rest had regular cell phones.   Some people were openly technologically phobic making jokes about how they would rather get s$** faced than do facebook.   It was clear that the folks without the PDA’s were not quite sure just why they would want one -  some people were openly hostile about the technology saying they have envisioned running over their spouses blackberries.

It got me thinking about my own technological phobias - the X-Box.   To my kids, I am like the 1950’s housewife who never wanted to learn how to drive when it comes to the X-Box and the WII.   Actually anything related to home entertainment - I am a total techno tard.

I got reminded of this when studying home entertainment systems related to my Thanksgiving day bash.   Okay so who has to figure out their home entertainment system, pick out a trim package for their house remodel project,  revise tile and carpet decisions just to put a turkey on the table?    If you’re a Project Management crack pot who installed an artificial deadline to complete a long lingering project, this is what you do in the spirit of the holidays.   And I don’t think I’m the only nut job on the planet that has used some arbitrary deadline to finish up some type of home improvement project - look at all the crazy stuff people do to get their house ready for the “baby.”   I mean that little blob of loveliness is not going to notice that ducky boarder in their nursery for quite some time when it would rather be sleeping with Mom and Dad anyhow.

So I digress, but the X-Box had kicked my technological prowess to the curb - NO MORE.   Yes last night, I conquered my fear of the X-Box.  Pink controller in hand, I managed to set up my X-Box to watch Netflix on the TV.   I had purchased my first X-Box two years ago - just to prove to the kids that no, Mom was not a total techno tard.   I even got my own pink controller and learned how to play golf on the thing (which I found extremely boring - I would much rather be out playing the real thing).   But for some reason that little black box sitting next to my TV just really confused the living heck out of me - what was the total craze over this device?   Last night though,  I learned that the X-Box could download Netflix when I was studying home entertainment systems for the Thanksgiving day bash.   WOW.

NOW - I have to do more remodeling of my remodel - it seems that NONE of the people working on my house over the past two years realized that it was important to have an Ethernet cable in the Entertainment center.   I guess they were all techno tards as well.   They certainly were all over 30.   This also points out the importance of having a multi-generational team involved in the project.   Had any of the contractors had younger folks on their team, I’m sure I would’ve had an Ethernet plug put into the entertainment center - they are damn near everywhere else in the house - including under the kitchen counter (but that was by special request for people wanting a faster internet connection working in the kitchen).   Okay okay, yes that would be me.

Anyhow, as I get older, digital hearing aids optimized to my hearing loss - no I don’t worry so much about failing eyesight as I get concerned about falling behind on the technological band wagon.   And what I know about learning - the more you learn, the more you are capable of learning.  So bring it on - X-Box and Google wave - I’m not going to age my way out of the game.   I say this as I get ready to launch my first Iphone App (more to come on that - it’s in the final stages of testing…..)   When I’m 80 - in addition to finally making the A level on the community tennis team, I plan on being one of the oldest people creating an application for whatever is the latest buzz at the time.    NO WAY am I going to out age the technology.

The First Place award in our Dare to Share Competition goes to - Sheryl Germann!

We’d like to give a BIG Cheetah thanks to our first-place prizewinner out of 31 contestants who participated in our Dare to Share story contest. She is someone who truly deserves the grand prize of Cheetah’s 60 PDU online Establishing a PMO course. Sheryl has used the riches that PM has brought to her personal and professional life to help others through volunteering.

She is a very busy person. Raising two kids and working full time as a PM for a large telecommunications provider, she still finds time to take on 3 volunteer positions: President of the Community Association, manager of her son’s hockey team, and she’s involved in Parent Council. Sheryl attributes her ability to juggle these responsibilities successfully to her excellent time-management skills, organization, planning, documentation, commitment, and follow through, as well as her most important attribute — PASSION for helping others and bettering herself.

Thank you, Sheryl, for sharing your talents and time to better your community.

We have finally found a way to use up 3000 pounds of beef - trade it for labor on finishing up a house project in Nevada.    Just how did I end up with 3000 pounds of beef?   Combine one inexperienced cow handler with an over zealous, non USDA butcher and you end up with 4 or 5 cattle turned into prime beef faster than you can say - medium rare.   Yes this is the danger of running a business in a boss free zone - when you have people who genuinely need a boss, but don’t have one.     We loaded up the local food bank with more beef than they can go through.   But we still have a VERY LARGE freezer full of beef.   The unique solution has appeared - thanks to Craig’s List.   We saw a tile worker advertising that he would work for trade.   He only wanted to trade “durable” goods, but we have found plenty of other trades people quite happy to work for beef.    Everyone wins in this situation - well maybe not everyone if you consider the cow.

Picture to the left are our Mama’s on their new ranch near Minden, NV.  Those are the Sierra Nevada mountains in the background.  Lake Tahoe is just on the other side as is Heavenly ski resort.   You can see these beautiful animals right on route 395 heading into Carson City, NV.   Yes, I watched a lot of Ponderosa as a kid - it looked like a very fun place to live.   We also now have chickens and are looking at getting a couple of weaner pigs.   Some people approach mid-life by getting fast cars and motorcycles, seeing as I did that a while ago, I thought I’d go green acres.

We found this fantastic ranch that had been severely neglected - purchased by an investor hoping to convert it into building lots.   The area is very big on land preservation and is fairly over built as it is.   So, we lucked out and got an 88 acre new home for the herd for a very good price.   We have some work to do on the fields, and we’re learning a lot.   We have discovered that we can grow our own wheat on the land (see blog post several down on my wheat milling experiments).

Today is “Dare to Share” day at Cheetah Learning. When looking at sharing your time and talents, we contemplated all the reasons that stop us from sharing with others. Sometimes it’s fear of the unknown - like in how much of my time is this going to take, do I have the skills to really help out in this situation, am I opening myself up to liabilities that I am not prepared to cover? When you become conscious of the reasons why you don’t want to share, you can create strategies to reduce your risks so you can share your time and talent with others in a way that helps everyone. Lets look at how you can best share your time and talents with others so it enhances everyone’s life:

1. Your time (well and other people’s time as well). For any project, be it one that is voluntary or one for which you are getting paid, it literally pays to do a project agreement. As part of the Project Agreement you identify how much each party can contribute to doing the project. You can get a free project agreement template on the Cheetah Learning Free PM Tools Download. And committing to how much time you can spend on any one project can be as simple as stating up front how much time you can commit to helping them. For example, I perpetually get asked to “look at someone’s computer.” Now I am NOT a computer tech support person, but yes I do know a lot about computers. When I get asked to look at someone’s computer - I now say - if I can’t get it fixed in 15 minutes, it is most likely beyond my capabilities. I can take a quick look at it, but I might not be able to help you.

2. Your talent (and other people’s talent) - For many professionals who have consumer oriented skills, you are probably used to others asking you for free advice, help on their projects etc. It is a VERY GOOD idea if you have a policy up front on how you are going to share your talent with others in a non-paying way. For example, a friend of my daughters is very good at fixing Subaru’s. So good that now he actually gets paid to do it. However, he gets requests all the time from people who don’t have the money to fix their Subaru’s to fix their cars for free. You can set a friends and family rate and parameters on how you are going to share your talents with folks who might expect you to do the service for free. Sometimes, you’re trying to get experience in a new field so you volunteer your time to learn new skills. Make sure you are upfront with people on your capabilities so you don’t over promise and under deliver.

3. Your risk - this is a look before you leap situation. Helping people by loaning them equipment or loaning them your time and talent does create risk for all parties. I had to create a standard hold harmless contract with my neighbors who were asking me to borrow this or that piece of equipment and the expectation that it was returned to me in good working order. When doing scholarship programs, we have a third party administer them to reduce our risks. Consider the risks that could happen from your sharing efforts and make sure you work to reduce both the chance of those risks occurring and the impact if they do occur.

If by your very nature you are a generous person and would like to stay that way, do some upfront work on the impact of your generosity and you’ll create a much better life for yourself and others. To learn more you can:

A. Listen to my “Dare to Share” podcast.
B. Download our Free Project Agreement template.
C Share a story of how you have helped others and earn a free 5 PDU course on building your Project Management Strengths. Your story will be entered into our competition to win our 60 PDU online Establishing a PMO course.
D. Participate in our survey of how you share with others and get 50% off our most popular 40 PDU online course Project Turnaround.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers - he points out the key to success for any professional is spending at least ten thousand hours honing their craft.   Many people feel success is about “luck.”   Now this is a “feeling” - not a thought, not backed up by anything concrete.   Success is far and away about dedication and this “drive to completion” that successful people have is an embedded part of who they are.   The question that Malcolm Gladwell poses - is this level of dedication something that each of us can attain, or do we have some factors of “luck” that create a better situation for one person than another?

In Kyle’s situation - Kyle and his family created their own luck.   Kyle is the star basketball player for this small town, Haines, Alaska - being named the statewide MVP his sophomore year by bringing in the only state championship title in basketball the town has ever had.  In Gladwell’s Outlier’s book, he points out that most athletes are born in January. Kyle’s birthday is in November. He wasn’t born into a famous athletic family, didn’t live in a school district that was known for it’s sports prowess, didn’t have any of the precursors to “success” outlined in Gladwell’s book. Kyle’s “luck” is from consistent hard work and a drive to succeed that is palpable throughout his life (he is the Valedictorian of his high school class as well). Kyle just signed on with the division 2 basketball program at University of Alaska, Anchorage.  In 2008, UAA was ranked #4 in Division 2, had a winning season of 18 wins and 6 losses and made it to the final four of the NCAA tournament. Another good score for Kyle Fossman.

As Gladwell points out in his book Outliers, for young people to be successful in sports, they have to get more time on the court.   Kyle’s family went to extraordinary measures to insure that happened.   They spent thousands of hours coaching his high school team, found all types of opportunities for him around the country to play in leagues during the off season.  And all summer long, you can see Kyle running “Cemetary Hill” near his home in Haines, wearing a weight harness so he gets a more rigorous workout.   When 75% of the population from age 17 - 24 is unfit for military service, this shows a dedication that not many young people will undertake these days.

My deepest congratulations to the Fossman family and to Kyle - this success is not about luck.  It’s a testament to their hard work, dedication, and drive to completion.