This document provides an overview of program management from the perspective of Troy Ma. It covers a variety of topics related to successful program management, including the importance of communication skills, building consensus, confidence, and passion. It also discusses best practices for meetings, leadership, managing teams, and building a career in program management. The overall message is that program management is about managing people and relationships through strong communication, interpersonal skills, and a passion for the work.
Managing Your Relationship with Your BossRobert Orr
This document discusses how subordinates can be set up to fail by their bosses and provides strategies to avoid this. It notes that the "set-up-to-fail syndrome" is widespread, insidious, and based on common biases. Subordinates can contribute by recognizing cues that their boss is losing confidence in them, such as diminished contact or feedback. However, bosses' perceptions of performance often do not correlate with objective measures. The document recommends that subordinates take responsibility by increasing positive communication with their boss and accomplishing tasks to rebuild the relationship.
This toolkit provides guidance on creating a business case to justify attending a conference or training event to one's manager. It outlines key reasons for attending such as learning, networking, and motivation. The business case should emphasize return on investment for the employer by detailing specific sessions of interest, knowledge sharing plans, and costs. Sharing outcomes with colleagues through presentations, reports, blogs, newsletters, or social media ensures the wider organization benefits from the attendee's experience.
The document provides tips for effective networking, including being patient, accepting rejections, asking questions of others, and following up. It emphasizes focusing on learning about others rather than just getting a job, being confident, keeping an open schedule, and making connections through volunteer roles. Tips include customizing communications, introducing oneself positively, and physically engaging at events.
Nan-in, a Japanese Zen master, received a visit from a university professor who wanted to learn about Zen. To demonstrate his teaching method, Nan-in served tea to the professor. He poured the professor's cup full, and kept pouring until the tea overflowed. The professor watched until he could no longer restrain himself, saying "It is overfull, no more will go in!" Nan-in responded "Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions and cannot learn Zen until you first empty your cup."
I had a burning desire to motivate my staff into generating ideas that would RADICALLY improve my department and support the goals and mission of our agency.
From my experience, in a typical mind mapping session, usually many ideas are developed, some innovative, perhaps, but rarely “Radical.” I wanted to change that paradigm from an idea, which could make a difference to blowing the doors off the walls.
Everyone has doubts while they are in job search. Learn how to strengthen your self confidence in life and job search. The process begins with small steps and positive thinking that we will explore in the session. You can apply these principles throughout the days and weeks ahead to gain confidence from day to day.
The document provides advice for organizing an unconventional conference called a Barcamp. It emphasizes that disorganization takes significant planning to ensure everything runs smoothly. It also stresses the importance of keeping the event simple, delegating tasks to volunteers, meeting deadlines, and clearly communicating with participants. While it requires a major time commitment, organizing a Barcamp is ultimately worth it for bringing people together and benefiting the community.
Rainmaking through networking 05-30-2017douglaslyon
This document provides tips and strategies for effective networking. It begins by defining effective networking as having specific goals and follow up. Most people are not effective at networking because they don't set goals, follow up after events, or realize that everyday interactions are opportunities to network. The document then offers advice on various aspects of the networking process, including preparing for events by defining what makes you unique; practicing introductions; focusing conversations on the other person; and following up after through notes, calls, and repeated contact. The key takeaways are to become an expert networker by setting goals and being accountable for achieving them through relentless follow up.
The document provides guidance on developing an effective networking strategy. It defines networking as making connections and building alliances to share information. The summary explains that networking is important for attracting new work opportunities, accessing business opportunities, getting advice and introductions, gaining access to customers, investors, and talented people, and staying informed of industry trends. It advises developing goals and an action plan to network strategically by focusing on relationship building, giving value to others, and maintaining contacts over time.
f you’re looking to build bigger and better ideas, you need to get feedback.
To get effective feedback you need to be able to explain your ideas clearly, really listen (listening is not just hearing!), slow down to make sure you are on the right path and most importantly be ready to kill bad ideas.
Deliverable: Do people understand the idea, what do they think of the idea, are we making progress. If there is no good hope of progress, kill the idea
This document summarizes a presentation on mastering account management. It introduces the presenters, who have experience in account management, planning, and marketing roles. It then covers various tips and best practices for account managers, including meeting clients' needs, collaborating with creative teams, building trust, taking initiative, and prioritizing self-care. Attendees are encouraged to apply the ideas to their own roles and a Q&A session with the panel is planned.
Brainstorming is a group process used to generate ideas without criticism, where all participants contribute ideas on a given topic. It is meant to spur creativity rather than make decisions. Properly facilitated brainstorming leads to more creative ideas, involvement from all participants, and buy-in for the process. The document provides guidance on preparing for and conducting a brainstorming session, including deciding the topic, notifying participants, gathering materials, setting ground rules, recording all ideas generated, and following up after the session.
1) The document discusses common failures of knowledge management (KM) projects and provides recommendations to ensure KM project success.
2) It emphasizes that KM projects should be business-focused and solve real business problems, rather than just implementing KM initiatives.
3) Intrinsic motivation should be relied on rather than rewards, as rewards can undermine motivation and knowledge sharing in the long-run. Business outcomes rather than KM activities should be measured.
Discussing Design Without Losing your Mind [Code and Creativity 10/7]Aaron Irizarry
The document discusses various aspects of design critique including:
- There are two facets to critique: giving and receiving. When giving critique it is important to have the right intent, ask questions, and talk about strengths. When receiving critique it is important to have humility and understand the purpose is improvement.
- Some rules for critique include avoiding problem solving, treating everyone as equals, and having the designer responsible for next steps. Setting the right foundation with personas, goals, principles and scenarios is important.
- Facilitating critique well involves setting goals, using techniques like round robin and direct inquiry, and ensuring active listening from all participants. Critique is an important part of collaboration and design improvement.
Meetings get a bad rap for being inefficient due to the duration, the size of audience, the preparation, and the list goes on. But the problem is much simpler to solve and starts with recognizing that your meetings should be a productive endeavour geared towards solving a need.
Breaking the Code of Interview Implicit Bias to Value Different Gender Compet...Deanna Kosaraju
Breaking the Code of Interview Implicit Bias to Value Different Gender Competencies
Bonita Banducci, Banducci Consulting
Live at Santa Clara University - Room #330C located on the 3rd floor of the Learning Commons
Voices 2015 - www.globaltechwomen.com
Session Length: 1 hour
Implicit Bias Workshops and exercises are being shared widely on the internet. Some of the solutions are:
"Determine precisely what skills and attributes you are hiring for."
"Ask exactly the same questions to each candidate."
But what about the implicit bias in determining what skills you are valuing--beyond traditional management and leadership competencies?
How can interviewers recognize the often invisible, unarticulated, undervalued and often misinterpreted competencies of more "relational and collectivist" people--often women and men and women from different cultures?
Bonita Banducci teaches Gender and Engineering class in Santa Clara University's School of Engineering Graduate Program. In video and cartoon representation as well as in person, her students apply Gender Competence®--understanding and skills to work with gender (and cultural) differences as competencies--to job interviews both as the interviewer and the interviewee, as men and women. They show how to "mine the gold" of difference for the best candidate AND to get the job as the best candidate while establishing the value of relational competencies in the workplace and marketplace.
The document provides 10 guidelines for effective brainstorming:
1. Come prepared and invite others to do so as well.
2. Invite people from other departments to contribute different perspectives.
3. Reframe the problem statement to spark new ideas.
4. Record all ideas as they are generated.
5. Defer judgment and build on ideas without criticism.
6. Continuously generate ideas without stopping.
7. Set large quotas for the number of ideas to be generated.
8. Elaborate on and improve existing ideas.
9. Use visuals like drawings to connect and organize ideas.
10. Consider alternative problem framings by envisioning threats to spark
The document summarizes the content of a workshop on choosing a life you love. It discusses past workshops and concepts around defining one's purpose and future, utilizing the past to achieve goals in the present, and identifying destructive habits that may be preventing success and fulfillment. The agenda outlines discussions and activities around imagining one's future, using the past to achieve goals now, and how to overcome obstacles through support from others.
Collaborative Research The Conference by Media Evolution MalmöErika Hall
The document discusses collaborative research and user research methods. It provides an overview of stakeholder interviews, competitive analysis, usability testing, analyzing research findings, and creating models and reports. The key goals are to form good research questions, gather and analyze qualitative data, and create a shared understanding to inform decisions.
The document discusses creating an ideal workplace culture through establishing effective meeting norms and practices. It provides tips for planning meetings, giving and receiving feedback, setting cultural norms, and avoiding "collaborative overload". The agenda includes icebreakers, exercises on social styles, listening techniques, feedback models, creating meeting norms, and reflecting on productivity. The goal is to promote mutual support, learning, and effective collaboration through establishing shared expectations and communication best practices.
The document discusses the importance of storytelling skills for engaging with the business community. It provides tips for becoming a better storyteller such as focusing on positive stories about yourself that connect emotionally with the listener in under 5 minutes and avoiding gossip or jokes. It encourages the reader to practice storytelling to improve their career opportunities and relationships.
The document provides guidance on developing an effective networking strategy. It defines networking as making connections and building alliances to share information. The summary explains that networking is important for attracting new work opportunities, accessing business resources and advice, gaining customers and investors, and staying up-to-date on industry trends. It also notes that many people are afraid or unclear on how to network effectively. The document then outlines a four-step strategy for networking: reflection, planning, execution, and follow-up.
Managing projects effectively has become essential in every organisation large or small. The uncertainties of the world business economy, rapidly changing technology, and the intensifying focus on sustainability has driven many organisations to develop specific methods for managing projects and to seek highly qualified and competent people to manage those projects. These driving factors require today’s project managers to accept and adapt to change, lead diverse teams, act as ambassadors for their organisations and deal with a multitude of challenging project stakeholders.
It is clear that Project managers are placed in a unique position. They must balance their roles as leader and manager, interface with multiple types of stakeholders, are often the "face" of their organisation to its customers, and must deal with a seemingly unending stream of challenges to be successful. These challenges and the ability to address them require the project manager to maintain awareness of personal brand of and the impact it will have on project assignments, career opportunity, and the willingness of project teams to work for and support the project manager. As the profession of project management evolves and the demand for competent and value driven project managers increases, personal brand and reputation have become major factors in the criteria used to select and assign people to project leadership positions.
Indispensable Factors
The project manager must develop skills and competencies in several areas to be considered for an assign. In addition there are 4 major factors a project manager must address and continue to develop:
Accomplishability: your ability to achieve and deliver valued results.
Value/cost: the value delivered perception relative to the cost.
Supply/Demand: the market dynamics of your position, skills, etc.
Likeability: how others perceive you.
This presentation addresses the importance of the professional project manager in today’s business environment and the need for the project manager to continually enhance existing skills, adapt to a changing environment, and become a “go to” person in the organisation. Emphasis is placed on understanding the business needs of an organisation, clearly and visibly creating value from a client and supplier view point, and continually developing and managing personal brand.
This document provides an overview of networking, including what networking is, ways to connect through networking, common networking myths, and requirements for effective networking. It discusses interacting socially to make connections or for personal advancement, and creating and maintaining a group of interconnected people. The document emphasizes that networking is a process that requires being strategic, prepared, developing skills, physically meeting people, understanding resources, achieving results, follow through, and having a system to store networking data.
The document provides advice on how to gain influence and be taken seriously as a designer through people skills. It emphasizes understanding your network, knowing your value as a designer, articulating that value to others, proving your value through excellent work, advertising your successes, packaging yourself professionally, and using persuasion strategies like reciprocity, consistency, social proof, and scarcity when interacting with others. The document also provides tips for requirements gathering, design presentations, getting sign off, and holding onto decisions during launch.
Difficult Conversations in Creative Environments ~ IA Summit 2009Dan Brown
Information Architects work in environments that demand close collaboration with other people, primarily clients and colleagues. Design teams of any size need to manage the logistics of the design process, collaborate with each other to solve complex problems, and communicate those ideas effectively. Clients also exert pressure on the design team, presenting the design problem and vetting potential solutions. Successful senior designers and team managers must know how to navigate these waters delicately. Every one of these activities–from clarifying requirements to presenting design ideas to walking through revisions–requires working with other people. Every task on a design project has some element of communication and collaboration. And these infinite touchpoints within the team (designers, managers, stakeholders, and clients alike) represent risks to the project: one misstep and the project can come to a screeching halt.
This workshop is for information architects to help them understand and improve the core communications skills for working with teams and clients. Junior information architects seeking advancement will benefit from this opportunity to explore the crucial skills that separate them from senior designers.
You're smart. You deliver. What more could your company want from you? Why don’t they come to you for the big technical decisions? Why won’t they listen to your proposals? It seems like everyone has an agenda and they’re doing everything they can to kill your great ideas.
We focus on the soft skills that architects need to master. Learning these skills will boost your emotional intelligence and help you become a more professional, well rounded contributor. You’ll gain insight into the architect’s role as leader, influencer, and business professional and learn how to leverage your position to become a positive force within your organization.
Session 1: Mastering the Soft Skills
In this session, we’ll discuss key interpersonal skills and how they can affect your projects and career. We cover how to positively connect with humans, how to participate in and influence the business processes you support, and how to transcend your technical role and maximize your connections with all members of your organization.
Session 2: Organizational Dynamics
This session examines the dynamic nature of large organizations – their structures, decision making processes, and political landscapes. We’ll discuss the goals of key business and technical decision makers and their influence on architects and software projects. We’ll conclude with some strategies for maximizing the soft skills from Session 1 to ensure successful outcomes for your projects and career.
The document provides tips on conducting successful informational interviews and networking to further one's career. It emphasizes preparing for networking events and informational interviews by researching contacts and tailoring questions, following up professionally, and leveraging connections to build one's professional network and explore career opportunities. The overall goal is to make genuine connections and exchange value through networking and informational interviews.
The document advertises an upcoming MSDN Developer Conference that will cover Microsoft's cloud computing platform, Windows 7, and .NET skills. It will take place in multiple cities and early registration costs $99. The conference will include sessions on soft skills like managing your career, communication, and creativity as well as organizational dynamics, strategies for success, and a presentation by Philip Wheat from Microsoft.
The document discusses building team culture and relationships for remote teams. It addresses challenges like being left out of meetings and decisions as a remote employee and building trust with managers. Solutions proposed include overcommunicating, scheduling social meeting time, getting in-person face time occasionally, and using tools like Cloverleaf to gain insights into team members. The presenters advocate for clear goals, understanding strengths, and creating shared values, norms, and artifacts to develop cohesion for remote teams.
The document discusses effective communication techniques to influence others, build relationships, and manage performance. It provides tips for conveying information clearly, listening with compassion, developing personal power and trust, setting SMART goals, giving praise, and redirecting performance through gentle feedback rather than criticism. Specific strategies are outlined for each topic, with examples and exercises to apply the concepts to work, personal life, and family relationships.
The document outlines an agenda for a workshop on personal and professional development. It includes sessions on communication styles, preparing for the future of work, developing leadership skills, building trust in teams, and mindfulness/meditation. The workshop uses exercises and discussions to help participants understand their strengths and how they can best work with others. It emphasizes self-awareness, effective teamwork, and creating a supportive environment where all can contribute.
This document summarizes a presentation on collaborative research and user research. The presentation covers topics like understanding organizational stakeholders, conducting interviews and focus groups, analyzing user data, creating models and insights, and reporting research findings. It emphasizes that research should create a shared understanding, that asking questions is important but uncomfortable, and that clear goals and a collaborative approach are necessary for effective research. The presentation provides tips for different research activities and stresses selecting methods that answer key questions.
Overcoming corporate resistance to social mediaEmma Hamer
This document summarizes a workshop on overcoming resistance to social media within corporations. It begins by outlining common excuses and skepticism from employees. It then discusses developing a strategy and securing leadership support. Tactics discussed include educating employees, starting small with volunteers, and sharing success stories. The document argues that social media is an opportunity, not a threat, and that involving champions and measuring results can help overcome resistance to change.
VS Live 2021 Orlando - vst14 feedback skillsAngela Dugan
Feedback helps us to build stronger teams, supports more effective problem-solve and collaboration, and ultimately contributes to delivering better products. Without it, we can spend time focusing on the wrong things, solving the wrong problems, maybe not even knowing about problems in the first place!
So if feedback is critical to us growing and thriving, why aren't we all excitedly showering each other with feedback all the time, and BEGGING others to give it to us? In my experience, people are generally not enthusiastic or confident in their ability to give feedback. Feedback usually isn't happening because feedback feels risky, vulnerable, scary, even downright anxiety-inducing.
As a manager, leader, and coach of many teams over the last 20+ years, I can help you get a good foothold on where to start. Even better, I can tell you where the bodies are buried so you avoid some of the mistakes I've experienced over the years too.
In this session, we'll warm up with an overview of what feedback is and is not. We'll also review the qualities of high-quality feedback, as well as the other kinds of feedback so you know the difference. We'll finish off with a quick summary of some "tips and tricks" to getting comfortable with giving and receiving candid feedback that has worked really well for me. You'll be a feedback champion before you know it!
Fluttercon 2024: Showing that you care about security - OpenSSF Scorecards fo...Chris Swan
Have you noticed the OpenSSF Scorecard badges on the official Dart and Flutter repos? It's Google's way of showing that they care about security. Practices such as pinning dependencies, branch protection, required reviews, continuous integration tests etc. are measured to provide a score and accompanying badge.
You can do the same for your projects, and this presentation will show you how, with an emphasis on the unique challenges that come up when working with Dart and Flutter.
The session will provide a walkthrough of the steps involved in securing a first repository, and then what it takes to repeat that process across an organization with multiple repos. It will also look at the ongoing maintenance involved once scorecards have been implemented, and how aspects of that maintenance can be better automated to minimize toil.
How RPA Help in the Transportation and Logistics Industry.pptxSynapseIndia
Revolutionize your transportation processes with our cutting-edge RPA software. Automate repetitive tasks, reduce costs, and enhance efficiency in the logistics sector with our advanced solutions.
The Rise of Supernetwork Data Intensive ComputingLarry Smarr
Invited Remote Lecture to SC21
The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis
St. Louis, Missouri
November 18, 2021
Performance Budgets for the Real World by Tammy EvertsScyllaDB
Performance budgets have been around for more than ten years. Over those years, we’ve learned a lot about what works, what doesn’t, and what we need to improve. In this session, Tammy revisits old assumptions about performance budgets and offers some new best practices. Topics include:
• Understanding performance budgets vs. performance goals
• Aligning budgets with user experience
• Pros and cons of Core Web Vitals
• How to stay on top of your budgets to fight regressions
Scaling Connections in PostgreSQL Postgres Bangalore(PGBLR) Meetup-2 - MydbopsMydbops
This presentation, delivered at the Postgres Bangalore (PGBLR) Meetup-2 on June 29th, 2024, dives deep into connection pooling for PostgreSQL databases. Aakash M, a PostgreSQL Tech Lead at Mydbops, explores the challenges of managing numerous connections and explains how connection pooling optimizes performance and resource utilization.
Key Takeaways:
* Understand why connection pooling is essential for high-traffic applications
* Explore various connection poolers available for PostgreSQL, including pgbouncer
* Learn the configuration options and functionalities of pgbouncer
* Discover best practices for monitoring and troubleshooting connection pooling setups
* Gain insights into real-world use cases and considerations for production environments
This presentation is ideal for:
* Database administrators (DBAs)
* Developers working with PostgreSQL
* DevOps engineers
* Anyone interested in optimizing PostgreSQL performance
Contact info@mydbops.com for PostgreSQL Managed, Consulting and Remote DBA Services
Paradigm Shifts in User Modeling: A Journey from Historical Foundations to Em...Erasmo Purificato
Slide of the tutorial entitled "Paradigm Shifts in User Modeling: A Journey from Historical Foundations to Emerging Trends" held at UMAP'24: 32nd ACM Conference on User Modeling, Adaptation and Personalization (July 1, 2024 | Cagliari, Italy)
Video traffic on the Internet is constantly growing; networked multimedia applications consume a predominant share of the available Internet bandwidth. A major technical breakthrough and enabler in multimedia systems research and of industrial networked multimedia services certainly was the HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) technique. This resulted in the standardization of MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) which, together with HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), is widely used for multimedia delivery in today’s networks. Existing challenges in multimedia systems research deal with the trade-off between (i) the ever-increasing content complexity, (ii) various requirements with respect to time (most importantly, latency), and (iii) quality of experience (QoE). Optimizing towards one aspect usually negatively impacts at least one of the other two aspects if not both. This situation sets the stage for our research work in the ATHENA Christian Doppler (CD) Laboratory (Adaptive Streaming over HTTP and Emerging Networked Multimedia Services; https://athena.itec.aau.at/), jointly funded by public sources and industry. In this talk, we will present selected novel approaches and research results of the first year of the ATHENA CD Lab’s operation. We will highlight HAS-related research on (i) multimedia content provisioning (machine learning for video encoding); (ii) multimedia content delivery (support of edge processing and virtualized network functions for video networking); (iii) multimedia content consumption and end-to-end aspects (player-triggered segment retransmissions to improve video playout quality); and (iv) novel QoE investigations (adaptive point cloud streaming). We will also put the work into the context of international multimedia systems research.
Details of description part II: Describing images in practice - Tech Forum 2024BookNet Canada
This presentation explores the practical application of image description techniques. Familiar guidelines will be demonstrated in practice, and descriptions will be developed “live”! If you have learned a lot about the theory of image description techniques but want to feel more confident putting them into practice, this is the presentation for you. There will be useful, actionable information for everyone, whether you are working with authors, colleagues, alone, or leveraging AI as a collaborator.
Link to presentation recording and transcript: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/details-of-description-part-ii-describing-images-in-practice/
Presented by BookNet Canada on June 25, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
What's Next Web Development Trends to Watch.pdfSeasiaInfotech2
Explore the latest advancements and upcoming innovations in web development with our guide to the trends shaping the future of digital experiences. Read our article today for more information.
The DealBook is our annual overview of the Ukrainian tech investment industry. This edition comprehensively covers the full year 2023 and the first deals of 2024.
In this follow-up session on knowledge and prompt engineering, we will explore structured prompting, chain of thought prompting, iterative prompting, prompt optimization, emotional language prompts, and the inclusion of user signals and industry-specific data to enhance LLM performance.
Join EIS Founder & CEO Seth Earley and special guest Nick Usborne, Copywriter, Trainer, and Speaker, as they delve into these methodologies to improve AI-driven knowledge processes for employees and customers alike.
For the full video of this presentation, please visit: https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/2024/07/intels-approach-to-operationalizing-ai-in-the-manufacturing-sector-a-presentation-from-intel/
Tara Thimmanaik, AI Systems and Solutions Architect at Intel, presents the “Intel’s Approach to Operationalizing AI in the Manufacturing Sector,” tutorial at the May 2024 Embedded Vision Summit.
AI at the edge is powering a revolution in industrial IoT, from real-time processing and analytics that drive greater efficiency and learning to predictive maintenance. Intel is focused on developing tools and assets to help domain experts operationalize AI-based solutions in their fields of expertise.
In this talk, Thimmanaik explains how Intel’s software platforms simplify labor-intensive data upload, labeling, training, model optimization and retraining tasks. She shows how domain experts can quickly build vision models for a wide range of processes—detecting defective parts on a production line, reducing downtime on the factory floor, automating inventory management and other digitization and automation projects. And she introduces Intel-provided edge computing assets that empower faster localized insights and decisions, improving labor productivity through easy-to-use AI tools that democratize AI.
1. Program
Management
-- through the eyes of Troy Ma
email: troy4u@gmail.com
linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/troyma
chirrrrrrp: https://twitter.com/TroyMa4u
2. Warning
This deck may be complete B.S.
This is the world of program management as
seen by Troy Ma
3. Topics
Types of successful PMs
Fundamental rule of PM
Communication
Verbal
Written
Listening
Specs & project setup
Consensus & conviction
Confidence
Passion
Meetings
Interpersonal
Leadership
Managing
Building your career
4. Two types of successful PMs
Breadth Depth
Crowd pleasers (breadth) Super nerds (depth)
• Great at pulling large cross
team projects together
• Good at
People/Relationships
• Knows complicated system
design/architecture
• Can challenge/lead dev
system designs
“you really need some of both”
6. Have you studied “people” lately?
Quotes:
Don’t criticize, condemn or complain
Give honest and sincere appreciation
Arouse in the other person an eager want
Great reads:
How to win friends and influence people
What got you here won’t get you there
The definite book of body language
The art of speedreading people
Story time ;)
7. Verbal Communication
Can you speak clearly ?
Take pronunciation classes
Enroll in public speaking
Can you cut your words in half?
Write down your main point (no more than 2)
Think about how to convey just those 2 points
We don’t need to know every detail
got it why are you still talking? Shut it!
“Let me tell you more”
8. Written Communication
People generally have instant amnesia
Get stuff in writing
Remind people
Summarization
Call out key decisions & action items
Proper email titles
Once written, cut your text by 50%
9. Communicating Up
Feature Crew – details to get work done
• Issues & low level details
• Bugs
Middle Management – decisions
• Decisions & tradeoffs
• Major details summarized
Upper Management – key decisions
CEO –
Summarize & Simplify
10. Listening
Maintain eye contact
Let people get their words out don’t cut in
Acknowledge their thoughts
Repeat back what you heard to confirm
“Never miss a good opportunity to shut up” – Dr. Phil
11. Owning your spec
Credibility
Know your domain
Gather your metrics
Have consensus on the key decisions before your
spec review
Call out the gotcha’s and how to solve them
Follow up – no really, follow up
A spec is summary of the agreements you’ve made
13. Consensus Building
Identify:
Stakeholders
People with strong opinions
Basic process:
Research and think through your idea
Get a few people on your side as support
Think about what big players / opinionated ones will say
Dramatize your idea to the key players and try to settle
their opinions offline
Grab group meeting to “review” decisions
Send out summary to cement decisions
14. Consensus Ninja
80/20 rule: give up on the 20% to win the 80%
In group setting
Small issues:
Give in or squash it
Large issues:
Prep people before hand and have them “chime in”
Use data
If it’s not going your way ask to follow up “offline”
In person:
Settle large issues
Ask yourself if this battle is really worth “winning”
15. Problem in action
Problem: We are building image search and the backend team
wants you to highlight the image filters but you don’t think it is
the best user experience
They believe You believe
16. Understand each other
Understand:
You are dealing with tech zealots
This work is what they do for a living
Data alone won’t be enough
Your 80% – No ugly expanded filters
Your 20% – placement of filters i <3 starcraft
17. Start with 50%
50% is backed up with:
Data
Support from others
“After looking at data and consulting
with design, we think placing the
filters below with 1 color icon is best”
18. The rebuttal
But everyone is a design expert
And everyone “understands”
users
“users won’t be able to find what
they need. We should show all filters
and place it on top”
19. The 20% give
You already know what the
outcome will be
Congrats on being a ninja
“fine, the top has much higher
prominence, let’s compromise on
non expanded filters and run flights
for variations later”
20. Conviction
Social framing: people act based on accepted social norms
Start your conversation as a friend
Never say “you’re wrong”. This includes, “but, however”
Listen, understand and then guide their thoughts
Get data / others on your side
Know when it’s a losing battle and cut your thread
No PM has ever won an argument
21. Confidence
My state of mind
I am the best at my job
I can easily swap roles with any management and rock it – I just need the opportunity
Work on your core
Do you really believe in yourself?
Reflect back on your history of success
But I can’t do <insert b.s.> -- what if I told you:
You will lose the project, if you can’t do <insert b.s.>
You will lose your job, if you can’t do <insert b.s.>
You will lose your family, friends, life, if you can’t do <insert b.s.>
Set new expectations for yourself & readjust your social frame – force yourself to
live up to your own new expectations
Strong self belief mixed with a touch of ignorance and a dash of cockiness
22. This is my cat “Bella”
Youtube inspiration
She’s a kitty cat
Dance!
Dance!
Dance!
23. The art of story telling
Why storytelling?
Easier for people to follow
Easier for people to remember
Related Formats:
Tag lines – summarize your project into 1 memorable sentence
Elevator pitch – explain your idea in 30 sec
The journey
I need to sell the idea and have everyone see the same picture
24. The Journey – Building a toaster
Tada! Here’s my solution:
Step 1: I think I have a good idea of the solution and
need to get people on board
Step 2: let’s brainstorm together and I’ll guide them
through my thoughts
Step 3: let’s refine together
Step 4: Tada! Here’s our solution
OR
25. Does passion matter?
Without passion, it’s hard to put in the extra effort to succeed
love what you do or find something else
26. Meetings
Pre-meeting:
Have an agenda
Set the correct length
Bring the right people
Do the prep work
During meeting:
Know when to cut threads and when to let people waste a few minutes
Push for your goal
Assign names and time for follow ups
After meeting:
Send out notes
Follow up
Know your goal and your desired outcome
27. The “street-cred” of your crew
Respect (professionally):
Solid PM fundamentals: Solid specs, leadership, etc…
Consistency over time
Like:
Strong interpersonal relationships
A mix of how people respect and like you
28. How to get people to like you
Smile
Don’t be a little bitch: no one cares about your problems
Be positive and have a can-do attitude
Try to understand people’s interest and goals and appeal to those
Show appreciation for their work
Demonstrate how you have a team “family” mentality
Plan to spend time with people
29. Leadership
Prerequisite peer respect & self confidence
Actively lead the team into new projects, directions
No one will tell you what to do next, go freakin’ do it
When in doubt, go freakin’ do it
30. With your manager
Set clear expectations
Over communicate status
Understand what your lead wants and how to make his life easier
Know when to push back
Communication: call out big points and drive for decisions
31. With your dev/test peers
What value do you provide AND do your peers value this?
How you earned your credibility at the table?
Are you and your leads speaking the same language?
Communicate: Get down to the concrete issues and drive for
resolution
“my dev/test lead and I are joined at the hip!” – PM Ape
32. Managing
Less sugar coat and corporate talk – be straight up
Set up large areas of ownership
Reinforce good work
Give room for them to fail
Don’t be a stickler on vacation, expenses, etc…
Value people – what’s the best thing I can do for my reports?
33. Delegation
Too much
Lose touch of the
project/team
May lose respect of direct
reports
Too little
Suffocates direct reports
Overloads self burn out
34. Engineer yourself out of a job
Go relax on the beach Move up to bigger challenges
OR
35. Job vs Career
A career is a job with progression
What do you want to be when you grow up?
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and
expecting different results
How are you increasing your impact & influence?
36. Build your career
Remember the “don’t be a little bitch rule”?
Where do you stand when compared to your peers?
Set expectations for promotions and actively discuss it
You need more than just your lead’s support
37. Learning
What did you do in school when you knew
something was going to be on a test?
Why do you believe you will just learn everything
you need on the job?
Set out time and concrete goals for learning
Commit to always learn and grow
39. Building your Reputation
Do great work – ship awesome products
Consistency
Do people really like you and respect you?
Do people even know you exists?
No matter where you are, you are always selling yourself