Let me start with a story: the other day I was in a meeting where someone in a position of authority was banging the table (literally) to make a point. However, instead of being a really powerful moment, I observed that the reaction of most people in the room was to shut down, with eyes cast down and I wondered just how clearly his point had actually been made.

When I reflected on this, I recalled that there’s ample evidence that as primates we are exquisitely sensitive to emotion and perhaps this was why people had shut down. In fact we now know that fear can almost totally block our reasoning faculties due to the functioning of a key part of our brains called the amygdyla. It’s not clear WHY the amygdala works this way – perhaps it’s to do with speeding up our “flight or fight reflex” but you can be sure it plays out in the workplace as well as on the sports field. So shouting or banging a table may feel good but may be the worst possible way to get your point across.

As a total contrast, I was told a story many years ago about a very effective chairperson who had a saying: ”talk quietly but carry a big stick”.  In other words, make sure you have effective levers and let the potential threat of the stick (hopefully never used) work for you. This is also sometimes known as gunboat diplomacy – that’s a stick hopefully not used often at a country level.

So we know the “talk quietly, carry big stick approach” may work, but we don’t always have the big stick, and therefore may have to use more subtle approaches to be heard, to get our point of view across, to have our ideas acted on.

So here are my offerings of things that have worked for me, and some that I have learned from others:

1. Don’t worry about who gets the credit for an idea. This is tough particulary when you are trying to make your reputation, but ideas can be influential beyond measure if they are not tied up in your own ego.
2. Speak quietly but clearly and firmly. Learn whether you use an up inflexion at the end of sentences (as many younger Australian females seem to do) – and if that’s the case, do whatever you can to learn to down shift at the end of sentences. Your thoughts will be tagged as indecisive and tentative if you end them with an up inflexion I can assure you.
3. Find who is influential and try to get one on one time with them to get your point of view some air time.
4. Recognise that not everyone uses the same style of communication; I have blogged on this topic before. In particular you need to get comfortable with using pictures, words and most powerful of all: stories.
5. Choose your time carefully. There are usually key times when people are receptive to ideas and in loud crowded rooms with lots of testerone spraying about you can be sure that good ideas are likely to go unheard or under-appreciated.
6. Give credit to others who have helped inform your thinking. Gaining a reputation for fairness will do you more good than you might imagine.
7. Use simple diagrams to help encapsulate your thoughts but don’t make them so simple that they dumb down the idea.
8. Realise that most of us need to see/hear an idea more than once in order for it to stick or to be accepted. Don’t be disappointed if the idea doesn’t seem to gain initial traction. Try another channel as suggested above (e.g. raise the idea with another infuencer).
9. Consider that we are most influenced by people who are similar in some way to ourselves (see http://goo.gl/iLS9z which builds on the work of Robert Cialdini). Knowing this, try to identify who we most need to influence, and then identify the subgroup most aligned to that person by age, gender, cultural factors, even height! Yes – it is amazing but people will truly be influenced most by people they can most recognise and see as in their own ‘tribe’, so to speak.
10. Be persistent. If the idea is powerful then it may need some seeds to be sown before the growth is seen. Are there some ways to fertilise the ground?

I will sign off with my personal mantra “it is better to speak softly and have your thoughts acted upon, than to shout loudly and be ignored”.

Feel free to shout or quietly share your thoughts back!

Few things can kill a three-week development sprint more surely than a two-week approval process. How can anyone possibly do Agile development in an environment where every document has to be reviewed and approved, and every piece of development has to be accompanied by an analysis report, a detailed design document, unit test cases and results document, release notes and a code review? This is exactly what was required on Project X, with the design document being the most intensive, requiring three reviews followed by three approvals using the client’s formal online approval system.

The high-level answer is: Forget about being a purist when it comes to project methodology and focus on developing an agreed process with the client that makes use of effective techniques. And make sure all the right stakeholders are in the room when getting agreement on the process! Get agreements verbally, but always recap on email. Also useful when you can’t get everyone in a room – CC the stakeholders who couldn’t be there and ask that they respond within a specified time-frame.

For the ground-level answer, I’ll explain what we did on Project X. The initial agreed process was essentially that each piece of work would involve consultation with and approval by the appropriate client subject matter experts (SMEs) at each stage of development, and that approval would take no more than 24 hours. Reality check – This proved unrealistic due to client SMEs having multiple competing priorities, and SMS consultants were effectively blocked from doing any further work on their items until they received approval.

We dealt with this in two ways. We made sure that every portion of every day that was blocked was reported to the client. The response from the Product Owner (for those familiar with Agile terminology) or main client contact, when he saw the first week’s total of blocked days, was an immediate shock response of how much that equated in dollars … yes, it was in multiple thousands. This ensured support for immediate action. Too many troubled projects are a result of poor escalation, so don’t leave it till the end of the sprint to report blockages.

The second thing we did was organise an emergency stakeholder meeting and got agreement to an amended process that allowed verbal approval to be the trigger into the next stage of development, with the formal approval to follow at the client’s own pace. When multiple reviewers/approvers were required, we would organise a session to walk through the document and get verbal approval at that session. We developed email templates for each stage of the process, which we could tailor and send out as confirmation once they received verbal approval.

This process ensured blockages were minimised and the team could continue work, while ensuring that all the requisite approvals were completed. It was a highly effective approach and, by the end of the project, we delivered more than 80 pieces of development work over 16 weeks with all required documentation, reviews and approvals – an average of two development items delivered per team member each sprint. The client was pleased and I am happy to report that, by ensuring we stayed compliant with the client’s approval process, the defect count during the client’s acceptance testing phase has been correspondingly low.

Get agreements verbally, but always recap on email. Also useful when you can’t get everyone in a room – CC the stakeholders who couldn’t be there and ask that they respond within a specified time-frame.

Too many troubled projects are a result of poor escalation, so don’t leave it till the end of the sprint to report blockages.

Well there’s been enough learned and anecdotal commentary about the dangers of multi-tasking for me to change my ways!  And just today a colleague was sharing her story about the impact to productivity, and cause of her feeling tired was the frequent shifting of focus on multiple tasks.

Then I recalled that some studies suggest that multi-tasking e.g. talking on mobile phone while driving is equivalent to driving while drunk – or maybe that was Mythbusters?? Surely they must have blown the car up at the end?  I can’t recall… but I also read that there is concern that multi-tasking can even lower our IQ. Can we (I) afford that? I’m getting older as it is!

Anyway I’m sure it’s true that multi-tasking is not the great benefit that it is sometimes made out to be! As usual yesterday I got a flurry of emails riddled with mistakes, dates wrong on invitations, text with errors, no attachments.  It was enough to make me believe that many people in the workforce don’t have their whole mind on the job. My psychologist wife Jacqui refers to the idea of “mindfulness” when working on a task – and I reckon I have many times not had the whole mind on the job at hand (yes – my phone is on silent at present!)

And speaking of phones, multi-tasking is made pervasive by much of the technology that enables it (phones that go bling, emails that go ping, websites that kaching) – at the same time.  Plus our working lives demand more from us during our working days (not sure how scientific this point is, but it seems to be true from my experience and talking to peers).

So if multi-tasking is potentially leading to errors, if it can reduce our intelligence, if it can make us dangerous, what can we do to remain productive?

Well, I have been taking an approach over the past couple of years that has been a deliberate strategy – let me call it multi-purposing.  It won’t suit every occasion.  It won’t suit every person.  But I hope it may suit some of you, at least some of the time.

Here is what I have found helpful to my productivity:  when I need to produce something (recently it was on the topic of good governance in ICT), then I spend a little time up-front to think about how else the output requested might suit more than just the one stated purpose.  On this occasion, I was able to produce an output for a client, AND create a more generic document that was suitable for an industry whitepaper on the topic.  Of course, I ensured there were no conflicts of interests or problems with this approach.  By using social networking I was able to produce a better paper for the client (which had the benefit of peer industry input) and produce a better industry whitepaper than I could have generated purely from my own experience.  In this manner, I was able to ensure that one piece of work (which I could fully focus on) has at least two outcomes.

You may think this was a happy alignment of stars – and perhaps it was – but I have found that the social networking capabilities lends itself more to the concept of multi-purposing than you might think.  The key I have found is to think from the output required backwards to the inputs you need – and then to generate those, including those from your network.

But, you may ask, what do others in the social network get out of this?  Why would they want to help?  When I reach out to my network, I have a few rules:

1. I always let people know why I am seeking input and how their input might end up being used
2. I generate some ideas first and send those out as thought seeds.  It is MUCH easier for people to comment on ideas (when they are busy) than for them to respond to a blank sheet of paper request for input
3. I always acknowledge contributions from others when provided
4. I send finished work back to all contributors so they have the chance to edit/retract or whatever
5. Plus I never make people feel bad about not responding – always give people an out.  Everyone is busy doing stuff already

So as an example, this blog is going on our website, but I’m also putting it out there to our internal consulting Yammer network in the hope that others may find it helpful and may suggest even better ways than mine to squeeze a little more out of each day WITHOUT feeling squeezed in the process… and then hopefully they might share those ideas.  What goes around comes around…

Until next time…

How many coffees do you ‘need’ a week? Could you give up just one coffee a week for four weeks and donate $14 to help build a library for 200 orphaned children?

For many at SMS, the answer to this question is ‘yes’. Over the month of February, many SMSers signed up to give up that much-needed caffeine fix in aid of a great cause.  It all came about through a conversation with an SMS client over dinner one night. In the middle of last year, the client was about to depart for a three-month trip where she spent the majority of her time living and working at the East African Mission Orphanage (EAMO). On her return, she generously shared her experiences and some of the amazing stories of the children and staff. The Coffee Challenge was her idea to support EAMO with an additional fundraising capability and her vision to build a new library for the children she had come to know so well.

Over 100 SMSers signed up to the Challenge and donated almost $2500 towards the library. All of those that have contributed will be kept up to date with the progress of the library build and have the opportunity to stay involved with the organisation through our relationship EAMO. Recently Ralph Spinks, co-founder of EAMO visited our offices to thank us for the support we are providing to EAMO and to share more experiences and stories from the orphanage today.

In terms of caffeine, it’s not been so hard. The $14 that I would have spent on coffee I haven’t missed and I’m sure the reduction (albeit small) in my caffeine intake can only be a good thing!

Anyone wanting to donate or help out in other ways can find details on the EAMO website.

In recent times, organisations have become more interested in the Agile methodology and the possibilities of realising business value sooner than traditional waterfall methodologies.

What is Agile?

For the benefit of those new to the subject, Agile is a lightweight non-prescriptive framework that can be open to interpretation. Agile is described in the Manifesto which consists of four key value statements supported by twelve principles.

Values

In Agile, the four italicised values in the following list are recognised as being valued more than the items on the right:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Working software over comprehensive documentation
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

Principles

These values are supported by the following twelve principles:

1. The highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer’s competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity—the art of maximizing the amount of work not done—is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements and designs emerge from self-organising teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

Devised for software development

There are several Agile-flavoured software development methodologies, such as, Scrum, Crystal and Kanban, made up of a number of recommended techniques. An Agile project or environment is one that develops software using any combination of such techniques. One of the key advantages of the lightweight nature of the manifesto is that Agile enables flexibility and hybrid approaches when it comes to project delivery.

The Agile manifesto and delivery frameworks were devised by software developers specifically for software development. Agile is not about project delivery or project management. This presents an opportunity for pragmatic, delivery focussed Project Managers to bypass the zealous debates on the rigours of Agile application and concentrate instead on the Agile techniques that deliver the best outcome for their customer, bearing in mind the organisation’s operational environment.

In a large organisation like Telstra, which engages many vendors to develop, integrate and manage its many systems, some Agile techniques, such as, Continuous Integration, which involves producing a clean build of the system as often as required which may be many times a day, may be inappropriate and too difficult to apply.

Before choosing the most appropriate Agile approach to deliver a software solution, it is a good idea to explore the benefits and challenges of an Agile way of working and to understand the complexities and limitations of the various Agile techniques.

If you understand your customer’s organisation, the nature of the projects it delivers and the limitations of the culture and people, then you will be able to aptly tailor your Agile application to maximise delivery success.

At the start of my placement I was intimidated by the fact that I would be commencing full time work at an IT consulting firm as a second year university student.  However the special two week induction program really helped me overcome most of my intimidations regarding the transition from university to full time work. During the 2 weeks of Induction I learnt about SMS as an organisation, the expectations they had of me as well as the support available. I also met many SMSer’s and had the opportunity to go out for countless coffees! The highlight to my Induction was definitely the 2 day offsite corporate induction, which included a company induction day and a Consulting 101 workshop. The offsite induction was a great way to learn about the company and consulting, as well as meeting other new starters from across the country.

For me, one of the most beneficial and enjoyable aspects of my placement was being able to experience working as a consultant on 2 significant projects at the client site.  My first project was within the utilities sector with a large SMS team. The team were very supportive and welcoming and they made sure that I had no problems fitting in. During my time there I was involved with completing business analyst and testing tasks. It felt great receiving ‘real work’ and knowing that I was making a contribution to the project. My input was respected by the team and they were fantastic in supporting and mentoring me. I was acknowledged for my good work and encouraged to learn from any mistakes. The friendly team made my engagement very enjoyable and I was lucky to be involved in the many team activities/events. Team events which I participated in included the weekly bake offs, pink shirt Fridays, team lunches and monthly team drinks.

After a couple of months at the client I started my next engagement within the telecommunications sector.The project I was involved in was completely different to my previous exposure. This gave me an opportunity to experience working at two client organisations in completely different industries. I was given business analysis tasks which allowed me to improve my skills in requirements gathering and data analysis. I also experienced how the team operated and functioned in an agile environment. During both my engagements I was fortunate to have been able to work with very experienced and capable consultants and have a numerous client facing opportunities. This invaluable exposure allowed me to learn and refine my ‘business/soft skills’, something you can’t learn at University.

Another enjoyable aspect about working at SMS is being able to attend the frequent drinks and social gatherings, which is great for us University students! The monthly regional drinks and practice specific catch ups allow you to catch up with other SMSer’s and hear the latest news about SMS. During my placement I was very fortunate to have been able to attend the SMS Grand Final Footy Breakfast, which is an event held every year by SMS to say thanks to their clients. The breakfast included a scrumptious 3 course breakfast as well as entertainment from a guess panel of AFL greats Leigh Matthews, Brad Scott and Rodney Eade.

I thoroughly enjoyed my placement at SMS and have found it to be highly beneficial and enjoyable. I feel privileged having completed my first placement at an organisation like SMS and having the opportunity to be able to meet and work with great people. I would strongly recommend SMS to other IBL students/graduates and I would definitely seize the opportunity to work for SMS in the future.

At a time when organisations are working with diminishing budgets, an EPM solution can help organisations choose the right projects, reduce costs, drive efficiencies whilst promoting business growth.

SMS has an established and dedicated EPM Practice skilled in working with Project and Portfolio Management tools such as; Microsoft Project (Standard and Professional) Microsoft Project Server, Clarity, Primavera, HP PPM and more. Our consultants work with organisations requirements on the readiness, architectural design, business analysis, installation and implementation, training and support of Project and Portfolio Management solutions.

The current blog categories, entitled ‘EPM’ and ‘MS Project’  are dedicated to the Microsoft technologies, written by our Microsoft Project Management consultants.

Microsoft Solutions
Over the coming months, we will be posting a number of articles and tutorials on Microsoft Project 2010, one of the most commonly used Project tracking tools, as well as Microsoft Project Server, a leader in the market for Project and Portfolio Management.

Blog updates will be posted on both our Facebook and Twitter accounts so please make sure to like or follow us respectively.

For more information on our EPM capability including our range of services visit our website www.smsmt.com/epm. To view our free online Microsoft Project Server 2010 demo visit www.smsmt.com/epm_demo. In the meantime if you have any questions feel free to email us at epm@smsmt.com

As a Project Manager I have managed the delivery of projects in Agile environments since 2006 for organisations that vary in sector, size and culture. I have delivered Agile projects for the national broadcaster in the UK, for digital media agencies and for the largest telco in Australia. While there is no ‘one size fits all’ prescription of which techniques to apply, there are definitely some pitfalls that are common across all Agile-flavoured techniques and may be managed if identified early.

My Top 5 Tips to avoid these common pitfalls are:

Tip 1: Tread carefully with Agile, if your customer invested heavily in a requirements phase.

The lack of a requirements phase is crucial to the relationship with your customer on an Agile project. I have been on two different projects where the customers had previously invested in a requirements phase. On one project the customer had invested $1.2m in a requirements phase which defined their business need in order to produce a business case. The IT team which was then engaged to deliver the project wanted to ‘go Agile’ and collaborate on the requirements at the same time as building the product. They also selected an off-the-shelf product that would need to be highly customised to meet the vision that the customer had emotionally and financially invested in during Requirements. Once this investment has been made it is very difficult to get your customer to happily start again or abandon their investment.

Agile projects require a flexible outcome and a constant prioritisation of scope in order to be successful. Part of the success of this approach is taking your customer on a journey of defining and refining business value of the features and working with the team to create the best solution. This may result in a new view of the product and a refined scope. If you are entering an engagement where the customer has already gone through a significant scoping or requirements phase, you need to think very carefully about adopting Agile and how your customer’s previous investment and expectation will impact your Agile delivery.

Tip 2: Don’t forget that the Product Owner is very important on an Agile project.

Clearly the most valuable statement on the Agile manifesto relates to customer collaboration. The benefit of removing the divide between customer and supplier, or between IT and the Business, and moving towards a collaborative delivery is the single most important reason to adopt Agile. Many methodologies can deliver a project, but the collaborative approach advocated by Agile is what can make your experience vastly more enjoyable for your customer.

Your customer in an Agile team is represented by the ‘Product Owner’, a Scrum term with a corresponding variant in the other Agile techniques, and the success of this role can make or break your project. The role and its responsibilities, which include setting the priorities and owning the Product Backlog, must be clearly defined and understood by the Product Owner. This is to ensure that we are delivering the product that the customer wants, and not what the team thinks they should have or that the technical team thinks is necessary without customer agreement.

It is critical that the Product Owner is a decision maker in the organisation and not a ‘go-between’ as the person needs to make decisions on which features go into the product and be able to champion and defend these choices within the organisation. On the most successful projects I have had the Product Owner co-located with the team and being involved in all planning and development conversations. It is easier to negotiate scope with someone who is part of the team every day rather than someone who is removed and who you deal with only via a Project Plan.

Tip 3: Ensure that your customer understands their commitment to Agile.

If you are working for your customer as a consultant and, particularly, if you are managing a team with delivery responsibility, you need to ensure that the contract between you and the customer supports an Agile way of working.

Ideally Agile contracts need to recognise the flexible scope and should be Time and Materials. Your customer needs to understand the time commitment that will be required of their staff, particularly the Product Owner, as they will need to be part of the team and collaborating constantly.

Tip 4: Identify business benefit early and balance it with technical risk.

If you have not identified with your customer the specific benefits for using Agile to deliver projects or develop software, you will run into problems and mismatched expectations.

Showing your customer a potentially shippable increment of your product very early in the project can thrill them. However it is very important that you balance the planning and delivery of features that the business value with technical risk. This is a controversial area within Agile and there is a lot of debate around big upfront design and emerging design following the principle of ‘defer every decision until the last responsible moment’. The Agile camp is divided on this topic so the best approach is the pragmatic one.
Spend time with your customer defining the features that will deliver the most business value in the soonest amount of time. Ask your customer which features they would consider delivering post-launch and which features make up the bare minimum set of things they would need to have a basic product. Spend time with your team identifying features that introduce most technical risk and balance your plan to deliver both.

Tip 5: If you are asking whether you’re doing it right then you’re not asking the right question.

Agile inspires passionate debate. I have been to a number of Agile conferences and worked on Agile projects where I have witnessed or taken part in heated debate about what is or isn’t Agile or whether a project is Agile ‘enough’. The passion and debate around Agile implies that practitioners have a high level of engagement with their work. However it can also introduce a zealousness and a focus on ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ which can create a hothouse environment with more emphasis on ‘doing the things right’ than ‘doing the right things’.

The last of these elements (experience), only comes with time and on-the-job learning.

Personally I have worked with SMS for over a decade and a half, and in that time I have witnessed first hand the breadth and experience that SMS Management & Technology bring to client engagements. The team of professionals that work for SMS are among the most experienced project, program and portfolio practitioners in the region.

Through this blog, I will bring you perspectives of project delivery through the experience of a company squarely focused on implementation and benefits realisation.

Much of the content will consist of contributions from my colleagues with the support of the extended SMS team. So expect a broad range of informative and practical project leadership insights.

I invite you to subscribe to this blog and to also forward any comments or feedback on the posts.

Edwin Borg-Manché
LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/edwinbm
Twitter: @leadingprojects

My sister’s dog Banjo reminded me of some great life lessons this summer.  Banjo approaches his life with all the enthusiasm expected of a golden Labrador…and we were recently teaching him some new tricks (e.g. to hold 2 balls in his mouth and then to also retrieve a stick from the billabong at the same time – for a lab with a big mouth that didn’t prove too hard!) After we had lots of laughs about what he had learned from us, it got me thinking what I could learn from him and how that might be of relevance to the consulting work we do at SMS. Here are some observations and thoughts:

See the inner beauty….Banjo never judges people by externals.  Everyone is given a fair go for a friendly greeting regardless of age, race, appearance – they all get attention and a tail wag is at least offered.  After that, it’s up to the person to engage to at least a small degree with him to keep the relationship alive – but he always takes the first step of offering friendship and affection – great lesson! On a recent client engagement, a client team member had clearly come from the “school of hard knocks”, he was an older guy with great big tattoos on both arms and a gruff manner. Despite initial reservations, he turned out to be a most gentle and considerate fellow with respect to the team, and he really paid attention to the human touch.  He even organised thank you cards for all involved in the intensive engagement.  Banjo reminds us not to pre-judge people by their appearance, or vocabulary or lack of schooling opportunity…

Don’t make hardship into personal suffering.  This lesson was actually from Banjo’s dog mate Henry.  Henry suffers bad hips and it hurts him.  He occasionally yelps with pain when he runs too hard after the ball – but the thing is, it doesn’t stop him chasing the ball, playing or wagging his tail, or having fun.  He may be in pain at times, but he doesn’t seem to act as if it’s too personal.  It’s just stuff that happens.  My lesson from him is that pain and hardship affects us all, but how much we suffer is to some extent up to what our mind tells us – and that’s under our control to at least some degree.

Don’t bear a grudge.  OK, Banjo may not necessarily recall all of his negative interactions with folk, but he is certainly ready to forgive people and I reckon there’s a lesson there.  I know that I have had some tough interactions over the years, but like Banjo, I’ve found that reaching back out to people who have hurt me is just about always worthwhile – and sometimes builds the best relationships.  In fact there’s a story from Benjamin Franklin on this and how he built a great relationship with a political enemy by asking for their help – see more on this at my talk on the AB+C of persuasion at:  http://vimeo.com/10765584 or click through via: http://www.grassisgreener.com.au/blog/abc-of-persuasion-by-paul-cooper-sms-management-technology/

Let people know what you want/need.  Banjo gently reminds you if it’s dinner time (if you have overlooked the time) – he sits very neatly in from of his bowl at the right time and looks VERY expectantly at you. He doesn’t nag or growl, but you are never in any doubt about what he needs. Do we always have the same clarity on our needs and/or make that clear to others?  Or do we expect them to read our minds and then get hurt if they don’t give us what we want? Recently, we had a client engagement that was very confusing.  It got back on track by us finding some ways for the client to more clearly let us know what they really wanted without us making the wrong assumptions.  A low tech workshop using sticky notes on a wall is a great way to help get clarity. Don’t always shoot for the high tech – simple is best.

Be persistent…if you ever see a dog wanting to get a treat, then you will notice they are VERY persistent…Are we always so persistent when things don’t go our way? All worthwhile efforts require hard work/re-work….always…persistence is a MUST HAVE characteristic for all endeavours including consulting. Banjo shows us the way…

And my favourite:

Approach life with a sense of play and enthusiasm…self-evident if you ever watch a dog playing with kids or chasing a ball.  If we all keep that level of fun in our lives, think how happy we’ll all be. All engagements of any note have hard aspects and even challenging times.  But I try hard to make sure there is space for the team to share a laugh, or to share a story.  Someone told me once that it’s important to find a way to laugh out loud at least once a day – hopefully not AT someone, but to share some humour.  Speaking of which…have you seen this one?  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBluUZ4NnZg

Do your pets have other lessons for us mere humans that might help us approach our work with more grace and enjoyment and give our clients the best possible experience? If so…why not share them?  We promise not to bite…

PS if you don’t know about Banjo Patterson and billabongs, then check out: http://clatterymachinery.wordpress.com/2006/09/03/the-top-20-greatest-banjo-paterson-poems-of-all-time/