EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #9

Reflect on a successful experience you had managing someone else? What made this successful? What could you have done differently?

In my career, my roles didn't require me to manage another person.  I managed projects and made sure that each person involved with the project was on task and provided a status update of activities that were occurring per the milestones.  The key thing that was successful was that I made sure that a project charter (plan) was provided to each of the key stakeholders to help provide the strategic plans for the project from day 0 to completion.  In other words, the communication had to be clear and concise when I had to work with Vice-Presidents and General Managers who were sponsoring my projects.  

The only thing that I would have done differently is difficult to think about.  The reason why this is the case is that I had to make sure that I was on point because I was a key orchestrator of the project.  If I didn't know the resources, scope, or the time it was going to take, I would be out of the project.  So, I never wanted my sponsors and key stakeholders to not know what was going on.  Furthermore, I would provide enough feedback from my immediate teams to allow various points of view to be provided to show a more collaborative effort.  Again, I was not perfect but, I did strive for excellence in all that I did as a project manager.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #8

Reflect on a great manager- what made he/she great? What does this tell you about yourself?

One of the best managers that I can recall working for was John LaTour.  John was a straight-up, no-nonsense manager that was about empowering his team members to do there best in all they can do.

What made John great?

1. John supported me for advancing in the company and he allowed me to take any class to help my professional development.

2. John put his trust in me to make key decisions that were best for the team and not just for my own merit.

3. John would express his expectations up front so, there were no surprises that would blindside you when it came to review time or during 1-on-1 meetings to discuss performance.

4. Lastly, John was a true and genuine person who would look out for his team members when an issue would affect his team.

It made it really easy to work for John since he allowed me "free reign" to do what needed to be done to be successful and to allow our team to be great, too.  Again, John understood that he was successful when his team was successful.  Great managers are made when they allow their team to be great and not restricted "in a box."

At Microsoft, I had a pleasure to work for/with some of the brightest people in the world.  I have seen some great management and some challenging management that allowed me to focus on what great, successful managers are like.  Again, I am about business but, I realize that being compassionate about your people and empowering them to do their best is most rewarding as a manager beyond just getting paid monetarily.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #6 & Week #7

How can management be innovative? Does it then become leadership? Where do the lines intersect between management and leadership?

Management can be innovative when they allow their team members to be empowered to make changes and accomplish tasks towards creativity and improvements of processes.  Stirring away from managing it all has to go.  When you empower people, you can generally expect great results and the best creativity of work.

Empowerment ties into the fact that management choosing to allow this to happen demonstrates the flexibility and trust he/she has for their team.  The key thing that management needs to remember is that allowing your team to shine will allow them to shine, as well.  "TEAM - Together Each Accomplishes More"

Management and Leadership intersect when integrity and trust of the team are put in place to ensure that objectives and expected outcomes are accomplished.  Leadership is a trait that can be demonstrated by any member on the team to drive a project to completion and each member on the team reaps the reward.  Management is in place to serve as an entity for approval and sponsorship of a project.  You do have leaders in this group but, the driving force of success doesn't have to be driven from them.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #5

How does motivation translate into technology design and success? Think of an example successful technology, and share how motivation was a factor in its success.

Motivation can be translated into technology towards the design and success by witnessing a problem/flaw in a product and making significant changes to show mass improvements compared to a previous version.  One of the best, personal examples that I can give to describe how the technology and motivation were meshed to become successful was when I was a Lead Supportability Program Manager for Internet Explorer 5.0 back in the mid-90s. Imagine browsing on the Internet with only Netscape 3.0/4.0 and competing (playing catch-up to compete in the browser space).  Being on this team was great because I was able to obtain feedback from customers on a regular basis to provide this feedback to the product group (key developers) and make changes within a matter of hours/days ahead of our scheduled release dates announced to the public.  IE 4.0 was okay and it placed a small dent into the share of the browser wars with Netscape but it wasn't acceptable.  As the IE team, we realized that our user experience had to better and that we had to be able to browse at least 95 to 100% of the web pages that were available faster than Netscape without crashing as well as make sure that the browser setup was smaller than our previous version (IE 4.0).

To make a long story short, our reviews for IE 5.0 were very promising and positive compared to Netscape because we were motivated to fix the issues that we saw with the previous version that were just "not good" for our customers.  The key feature that was requested by many users was to incorporate Print Preview and WYSIWYG support for web pages to print as it appeared on the screen.  Once this was incorporated for IE 5.0, we were "golden" and our customers and investors showed us a lot of love.  Again, the IE 5.0 team was motivated by making our customers happy by providing a great product and not worrying too much about just putting something out there to compete.  We actually fixed 98.9 percent of the issues that were reported/duplicated by our customers and we had lesser phone calls than any previously released web browser.  The key to success is to provide clear communication and goals to motivate others to do their best work.  Hey, the general manager providing us dinner and snacks helped alot on those long days/nights helped to motivate us, too. (smile)

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #4

What tools in the Drive Toolkit most interested you? How would you use these tools to motivate those around you? To be personally motivated?

"Understanding my sentence or purpose" and "My performance review" were a few tools that mostly interested me towards being a Type I.  Using these tools allows me to help motivate others by providing suggestions to do things differently to enhance my learning environment.

Personally, I honestly feel that we all can make improvements on the way we live our lives.  On a daily basis, I strive to be the best father for my sons, better husband for my wife, and better servant for God who has blessed me tremendously beyond finances.  I can only get better by asking for feedback from my peers and from making a self-assessment about my aspirations, goals, and purpose in life.  In my younger years in life, money drove me but, I now feel that being of service for others to help them succeed is more rewarding than self-promotion.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #3

Who is impacted by change? What are their characteristics and how do we use our understanding of them to best implement change?

Change impacts everyone. Changes affect the way we think about laws, the voting of a new President of the United States, a decision to make healthcare more affordable, or even as simple as rules of a game. These are some examples of a few things that are impacted by change.

Some key characteristics on why change occurs:

1. Consistency:  Your message (communication) has to be clear
2. Expectations with Evaluations:  Objectives/Goals are given and proper assessment is available to provide the results
3. Affirmation:  People want to feel wanted or more so rewarded.  Compensation is a way to help confirm this.
4. Timing:  Timing is everything.  You have to make sure that you have strategically planned for a change to occur in a timely fashion that is given through clear communication upon it being put in place.
5. Assumptions:  Please make sure people affected by a change(s) are aware of it occurring.  No one wants to be blind-sided by something that is going to cause major ripples in their livelihood.

Overall, we have to make sure that our communication is clear and our objectives of the change are clear.  Most importantly, it makes sense that all parties involved are informed in a timely manner to provide feedback and different perspectives.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #2

How do we know what learning is necessary within ourselves and those impacted by the change?

The learning necessary for us to obtain is:

• Understanding what actions need to take place
• Knowing how much time is needed
• Obtaining the resources available for implementation to occur

Learning is further obtained after setting a goal(s) and having a firm list of objectives to solidify that what is being taught is being assessed to ensure the learning. For example, a teacher can have a goal for his/her students but, if the objectives aren't given, the teacher may not know how to navigate through his lesson to reach the goal. Furthermore, the assessment given should "flow" with a consistent check alongside the objectives that should have been given to the students to ensure that they have learned.

Throughout the country, we are hearing more and more about teacher layoffs. This has to be the most challenging time to be a teacher. Let's say that the standards have increased to potentially keep the best ones around to help students improve student achievement. It just seems that the evaluations of teachers have changed to have them show proof based on artifacts than just facts. If you aren't used to documenting all that you have done as a teacher, it's a great time to refine your documentation to demonstrate your competency in this role as a teacher.

Change can either motivate or demoralize an individual from doing their best work.

EDC 668 Blog Post - Week #1

Identifying opportunities for change. How do you know when change is needed? How do people become passionate about change?

When I think about change, it seems that it can apply to many entities. In the sense of making a change in society, I am always asking myself "How am I going to be the best servant to make this world a better place?" Making this world a better place requires quite of bit of "change."

In order to make change in this world, we have to change ourselves which may require several minutes, hours, days, months, years of deep thoughts and reflection. How I am today is not always what I will be tomorrow or the near future but, I honestly feel that my past decisions that I didn't like help guide me now as a reminder of things not to do going forward. Each day of living is another way of looking at another blessing that God has given me to make a difference within myself, family, friends, and the world.

Change is needed when a repetitive action is ongoing and the results are the same whereas you're expecting something different. In the business world, processes may require change when productivity is down or overwhelming due to a demand that is greater than expected. When you want to lose weight, you may change your habits (i.e., eating, sleeping, exercising, etc.,) so you can work for a more healthier lifestyle and legacy.

People become passionate about change when they support an idea that may affect many moreso themselves. Change is inevitable and you always have to expect it to occur. Again, people are passionate about it more when they have a support system to rely on from others who believe in the same change. We can only hope that the change(s) made are positive and support wise, thought-out decisions for the best of all.