Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans reading this newsletter in 16 States. And to those of you in the other 21 countries, I hope you are facing a relaxing and wonderful weekend ahead.
If you received this newsletter as a forward from someone, or you’ve arrived here via a social media link I hope you’ll subscribe!
This week I’m loving
Can you smell it?
No, it’s not your last pumpkin spice latte of the season.
It is the time of year where many businesses are conducting annual planning exercises for the upcoming year. Many project leaders are fighting with resource calendars and seeking budget allocations, a practice that I think wastes a lot of corporate time for no real benefit.
If you are working in a product based business you are probably being asked for a roadmap for 2024. And here my friends, I came across a great solution this week that I’m loving.
First, let’s throw away the idea that a roadmap is your feature plan. So many organizations make this mistake and it is misguided. The definition of roadmap is actually to schedule as a part of a lengthy or complex program. This has nothing to do with features but as pointed out by the talented Itamar Gilad in this week’s article deserving love, your roadmap is about outcomes - specifically - when you plan to achieve said outcomes.
What I loved about this article is the connection between strategy and execution. The roadmap shows the overarching goal; supported by the “work” which includes market research activities; product discovery; product delivery; and impressively the “effect delay”. This is the time after your product launch before your desired outcome is being realized or is measurable.
The article has a Miro template if you wanted to adopt the approach which produces, in my opinion, a “best of all worlds” artifact for annual planning.
Image credit: Itamar Gilad blog
Tool of the week
This week we are talking about some unique hacks (thanks to Jeremy Caplan who publishes Wonder Tools) for a tool you probably use every day: Google docs.
I consider myself pretty tech saavy, and I didn’t know these ones, so here you are:
Start a new doc by typing doc.new in your browser bar (Chrome, Firefox, Safari etc). It’s a secret, but this also works for sheets, slides and calendar! 😱
Go to the Tools menu and select “Voice Typing” or press hotkey Ctrl-Shift-S to activate this feature. 🤓
Try out the new “building blocks” feature to display other files and content within your Google doc. I love the email draft feature for collaborating on email content for important communications. 🤩
Image credit: Google docs templates
Check out Jeremy’s newsletter for more tips.
An interesting read
New from Generalist World this week is an article I’m curious to get your thoughts on. Here, we have been discussing the generalist project manager as an archetype within the project management profession. An archetype describes the generalizable characteristics that we typically see in a person or thing we are describing. The team at Generalist World was interested to figure out whether you could define archetypes for generalists. The article outlines the first draft their team has come up with.
Key highlights:
There’s a direct reference to a Program Manager in the Interdisciplinary Generalist archetype whose generalism comes from the intersection of one or more disciplines. This particular program manager is cross-disciplinary and specializes in integrating diverse areas of knowledge.
There’s a multi-sector Project Leader in the Cross-Industry Generalist archetype. This person manages projects that span sectors with adaptability and a broad understanding of various industry dynamics being their superpowers.
There’s an R & D Project Director in the Innovation Generalist archetype who uses a wide understanding of technology and market trends to support research and development projects.
There’s an Agile Coach/Scrum Master in the Skill-based Generalist archetype who applies a diverse set of skills to enhance team performance and project delivery.
I found these interesting because I have at one time or another essentially been in a role that allowed me to be each of these. But as you know, I wonder if that means they are actually just all part of the one archetype I think exists which is the Generalist Project Manager archetype period.
The article goes on to map out the career evolution of a generalist.
Image credit: Generalist World newsletter
I felt that this journey well-reflected the evolution of my career. For me I would almost say that the first part of my career was exploration of learning I was cut out for project management. Then I got my PMP, owned and refined my abilities as a project manager, and practiced the craft in a whole pile of settings. From there I stepped up into a larger management arena taking on people-management responsibilities and coordinating at the project management office level or in strategic programs. And now, I use all my experience and integrated knowledge across industries to coach companies to be better at all of it in my consulting practice.
Where are you on your journey? What resonated in this article for you? Anything you disagree with?
A tip
I saw this on LinkedIn this week and it reminded me of the journey of mastering the role of project manager. There can be a tendency to think that getting your PMP means you have mastered project management and I’ve seen many an eager young project manager think this magically makes them invincible.
I can tell you that it doesn’t. I can tell you that even at almost 20 years in the profession, I’m still learning and still making mistakes.
If you can adopt a growth mindset, you can level-up your ability to learn as a project manager by really examining your failures and mistakes because they are where you will have your most profound learning.
May this serve as a small reminder to you of the importance of taking every opportunity to examine what you can learn in a given situation.
Image credit: InspireMugs.com
A lesson
There have been many hot trends that we humans have obsessed over in the business world. Dot.com, crypto, and now Generative AI.
96% of CEOs say they will integrate Generative AI into their businesses today, but this reminds me of prevailing attitudes in 1995 when Amazon and eBay launched their ecommerce businesses and everyone was suddenly obsessed with ecommerce.
William Lauder, CEO of Estée Lauder launched one of the first ecommerce sites in cosmetics in 1996, convinced that it would transform his business. At the time the company had annual revenue of just over $3 billion.
The company didn’t roll out the ecommerce experience globally until 2009, 13 years later.
Today the ecommerce business line brings it $1 billion annually as part of a now $15 billion empire.
It is easy to assume that these hot trends will make waves, and they do… but the impacts from those waves, and more importantly the benefits they may bring, are much harder to realize than we might think.
This is a long game, not a short one.
Thanks for reading today’s newsletter! Just a reminder, I’d love to hear if you might be interested in the establishment of a community of practice for generalist project managers. Leave me a comment, or DM me on Twitter or LinkedIn to let me know! If you aren’t sure what this is about, read about it here.