coaching and training, recruting strategies

related to .net projects. posts on coaching, training and recruting for asp.net teams. generally, program management related tasks.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Risks Management
the case: Working on two different projects and availability (personal experience)

in this experience, I want to highlight the following:
1. what are the performance limits of a resource.
2. working on two projects is almost never a win win situation (except...)
3. useless negative pressure on team members

recently, I have been working on a project (asp.net web application), which is pretty strategic (from a client's point of a view, as well as my company's point of view).

in the final month of version 1.0 of the project, on of our resources gets taken fully by another project, and then it is up to me to replace him in a 5 days training session on asp.net. It was urgent, client was in need, no way to let it go.

So, I accepted to go on for the training, since there weren't enough resources to do so. the 5 days went well, the client was satisfied, yet, i stopped working on the other project, in which i am doing program management, and development.

during the 5 days, the other resource with me on the project, could not get on the same mood as our product manager, which himself was under a lot of stress, which slowed down the project.

when I got back from the training, only about 40% of the tasks were done, and the project was getting into its final stages for version 1.0 .

Performance Limits:
Now, as i am back, my mental state is not the same as when i trained for the 5 days, plus tired of the travel involved, so it took me about 3 to 4 days to recover from it. I only performed a little during those 3 to 4 days. only in the 4th day, I find myself able to do more work.

working on two projects is almost never a win win situation:
the training took from me a lot of energy, which took me time to take it and give it back again on the other project, which has nothing to do with training.
exception: if two teams are working on two projects seperately (many conditions apply to the success of the two proejcts).

useless negative pressure on team members:
during the 3 to 4 days, my product manager, as well as general manager, were worried about my slow performance, and starting thinking I was just doing some complex programming, instead of going simple about development. This actually stresses me out, and worries me since it leads to critics of the quality of our application.
the least thing to do in this sitation is to motivate, and be positive, instead of pressuring, and looking for the problem where it's not.

In conclusion:

A human resource, is indeed human, prone to comit errors, limited in performance, and not easy to keep in good mood for a long time. so instead of adding on to the stress, during difficult times, it is better to be patient until things come back to normal. if not, the something is really wrong, which demands immediate actions.
with my modest experience, I just try to express myself, in the team management field, through analysing my own experiences, and discussing them with others, before right it on this blog.

Regards to all blog readers,