Management

A few days ago I blogged about searching for a virtual assistant on Using a Virtual Assistant to Offload Noise. I said at the end of that post that I would update my blog with the status of the search as things progressed.

Some time ago I read The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich , and was intrigued by Tim Ferriss’ use of outsourcing for basic personal tasks. The term he used is Virtual Assistant (VA), and he uses them for everything from business tasks to booking his doctor’s appointments. He even challenges the reader to get a virtual assistant for a short time just to try it out and see how much you can extract from your life. I have decided to take this challenge.

I read a blog recently on the definition of project success and was surprised by the definition. The definition, based on Pier’s experience with agile development, is when the customer is happy and when the project team is happy and satisfied. I will probably be vilified for this, but I disagree. A project can be very successful and the project team miserable. I don’t recommend it, but it is true. The project is paid for by someone. That person or persons defines the success criteria. Whether they use that criteria or not is a different issue, but let us assume they do. If you meet those criteria, success; if not, failure. Further, depending on those criteria, it is possible for degrees of success or failure.

Yesterday Bill Gates announced his intention to leave all of his day to day activities at Microsoft within two years. The media heralded the news as the end of an era. The changing of the guard metaphor was used in numerous articles. The stock market reacted by pushing Microsoft stock up a grand total of $0.03. That’s three cents as in pennies. This left the media with no story. There was no reaction. The world yawned.

Late last year I stumbled over a podcast entitled Manager Tools. I listened to the first few podcasts and then for lack of time I stopped listening. Time passed and for reasons I don’t fully understand I remember Mark (one of the two podcasters) stating how poorly most managers manage their time. I realized he was right. I also realized that while I dedicated a tremendous learning effort into my technical skills, I put almost no effort into my management skills. After some reflection, I noticed that I used my management skills more often then I used my technical skills. I am not sure why I had not realized it prior to that, but sometime over my career I changed from a developer to a manager. I still needed my technical skills, but I needed my management skills more. This was like an epiphany to me. I decided to reallocate some of my time towards improving my management skills.