Introduction

Dear Fissure Friends,

 

Expectations. We know how critical they are in managing projects and leading people, but we don’t always do a good job setting them. I wonder why? Is it because we forget? Or don’t have enough time? Those I believe are excuses. I think most of the time it is a “soft” issue – we are afraid to ask people for their expectations and hold all parties to those expectations. We are afraid we will uncover an expectation we can’t meet, or worse yet, don’t want to meet. We are afraid we won’t be able to come to an agreement on what the expectations are. This is true in our personal lives as well. We don’t set expectations because without them we can’t be held accountable. We don’t set expectations because we are afraid of conflict or disappointment.

 

Like all skills, we will only get better if we practice. If it is uncomfortable to sit down before a family vacation and ask for everyone’s (Mom and Dad too) expectations, you can choose to skip this important part of the vacation, or you can move past your discomfort and sit everyone down and collect and address their expectations. You will get more comfortable with every success, and you will get better with every “setting expectations” challenge that you experience. We ask for and get agreement on every student’s expectations before starting each of our workshops. If the workshop is not designed to meet a particular expectation, we agree that the expectation will not be met. Since starting this practice we have significantly decreased the number of “end of workshop” complaints related to expectations. This works not only with our students, but with our buyers as well. Don’t be afraid to ask for, share and get agreement on expectations before starting any project, including those at home.

 

Geof Lory deals with expectations, schedules and identifying process deliverables for a project this month. Of course he uses his family and a classroom project to help us understand and relate to the topic.

 

Joel Way shares an article this month based on an experience where he was challenged to come up with the 3 most important things a company should do concerning the improvement of project management. Of course those 3 most important things are expectation related.

 

Our third article in this issue has to do with “threads”, or what I like to call relationships. It is a poem by James A. Autry. His poem reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: “If you care it shows, and if you don’t care it shows.”

 

Our upcoming public workshops are in the left hand panel - our computer simulation based workshops are an effective and fun way to learn AND EARN PDUs. Make sure you also check out what’s happening at Fissure (Fissure News).

 

Thanks for reading and have a great summer,

 

Jesse Freese

Fissure, President