Why it’s so hard to follow schedules?

Posted on February 12, 2014 by AnyaWorkSmart

There is nothing new in the fact that timelines established for the projects are rarely met. Actually, we got so used to this part of workplace reality that we consider it a problem only in the most outrageous cases – when the project’s cost exceeded every budgeting expectation or when it outlived its usefulness by becoming irrelevant.

Is there a way to improve this situation? Before we are able to answer this question, we need to understand what prevents us from following the schedule in the first place. Continue reading →

“Can a Non-Expert manage Experts?” – From Ask Anya mails

Posted on December 3, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Following post : An Eternal Argument: Can a non-Expert manage Experts?

“I read your post carefully and I have to say that I completely disagree. In my experience, any attempt to manage IT developers without also being a technical expert is doomed to failure for several reasons. For one, the developers have no one to talk to if they encounter serious technical problems and need further guidance – non-technical manager cannot provide this guidance by definition. Continue reading →

More on Delegation: Micro-management and “Hands-On” Management Style

Posted on November 26, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

After talking to people about my post on Delegation I decided to expand the discussion to other related issues in Management that everybody knows about, but the general understanding remains vague, preventing fruitful actions. Today I would like to talk about the most frequent complaint of employees about their Managers – them being Micromanagers. Continue reading →

When to delegate and when to do it yourself

Posted on November 12, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Delegation is such an integrative part of Management that it seems everything has already been said about it. We all understand its benefits for grooming potential Leads and know how to redistribute the load of responsibility according to people’s natural tendencies. However, in real world we sometimes find it hard to apply our knowledge for the simple reason that delegation basically means trusting people with important things, and having some actual experience in dealing with employees sometimes makes trust a very rare resource. Continue reading →

An Eternal Argument: Can a Non-Expert manage Experts?

Posted on November 6, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Can you put a non-engineer to lead an IT development team? How effective would be a financial product development team when managed by someone who has no previous experience with financial systems? When looking for someone to fill an executive position in an aviation sales department, should you be looking for someone who has more experience with aviation, a better salesman or A BETTER MANAGER?

I think it’s easy to understand what I’m getting at: there is an eternal argument going on in every possible industry – when looking for Managers, should you prefer people from the same industry or people with good managerial skills but without any previous knowledge of the industry. Continue reading →

Lessons Learned: How to Deal with Failure

Posted on October 29, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

A few weeks ago a friend sent me an amazing piece of memorabilia – a journal article from the year 1905. It made such an impression on me that I immediately decided to share its wisdom on the ever discussed question of what is success and what is failure and how can we influence their relationship by learning the lessons our life experience provides us with. Continue reading →

Your own PM style: Do You Have It?

Posted on October 22, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

How did we come to know what we know? Obviously, our first answer would be that we learned things in schools and universities and later acquired some practical experience in the job market. After that, we did our best to keep ourselves updated about the state of the art, visiting trainings and reading articles.

But I’m not talking about that. What I’m asking is how did you come to acquire your style of working, your working patterns, the certain way you do things – they didn’t teach you those things in the university. Continue reading →

Can Managers ask questions?

Posted on October 15, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

You can sometimes hear people complain about their Managers asking too much questions. It somehow seems to them that as Managers are supposed to be experts on what’s going on in the department, they should know everything without asking. The same perception problem arises when Managers interact with each other during meetings, talking only in statements, fearing that asking a question would somehow make them look less competent in the eyes of others. Continue reading →

Manager’s Expertise: what skills should we know?

Posted on October 8, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

Theoretically, an Expert is someone who mastered all the needed skills of his or her domain. So, basically, an Expert Manager is someone who mastered all the skills of Management.

But what are those skills? Continue reading →

The Other Top Ten posts of AnyaWorkSmart

Posted on October 1, 2013 by AnyaWorkSmart

After the warm reception that my previous Top Ten post received, I decided to add another one, but this time a little different. As most people do not have the patience to look through archives of the blog for posts that do not contain the easily recognizable keywords for topics of interest, I thought to remind my readers of several posts I published in the past that to my opinion are very important for everyone to know. Continue reading →