Monday, April 16, 2012

Discovering Myself Again ... Thoughts on Past Mistakes

Hi there,

It’s been a long time since I posted something in my blog. The reason for it is because I went through a rough experience at my job. And there are a few things I would like to share with you about it.

There is no doubt that when working in projects that are challenging we can become someone else. The long nights of work, hard deadlines, personality conflicts, and stress can suck the soul out of us before we can say “A monkey stole my banana”.

In addition, because we want our projects to be successful, and want the customer to get a high quality work from us, we take it personally and we are willing to do whatever it takes to make it work.

Now, let’s add a layer of difficulty to our willingness to make something work. What about if you have a PM does not know what he/she is doing? How do we make it work then? Further, what about if because of this PM your reputation is being put to the test? And, what about if the PM is not willing to see that he/she is not doing a logical and high quality work that is fair to the customer?

In our profession we are always going to deal with this kind of scenarios. Personally speaking, the way to overcome such turmoil and frustration is actually doing some soul searching and following some basic business rules.

Do some soul searching? What do I mean by this? Well, I got to a place where I felt I wasn’t really enjoying my job anymore. Wow! This was a hard realization as I do love what I do, AX is my passion and it was getting lost in dark and negative thoughts.

I decided to take what happened to me as an opportunity to grow. Yes, to grow in spirit and AX as well. I started reading some good literature about recognizing who we really are, to then accept other as who they are. Moreover, I also realize that instead of fighting and/or trying to prove someone wrong is a bad thing that will not take us anywhere, and that it is much more productive (and humane) to let-go and try to help.

Also, even though I have work in team environments for many years, I suddenly became aware of the importance of being a good, positive and caring team member. This is a key factor to a successful career and human relationships that I forgot. What how can we help someone that is stubborn and blind? The answer for me is patience and positive actions. If we make the choice to think positively, good things happen around us. For example, it is really easy to criticize someone’s work, but it really hard to help them do a better job. Why? Because helping someone do a better job is a real challenge that only a few can do well. Only the few that really care about the wellbeing of a team can make a positive impression. Personally, I lost that touch in between my latest success and my ego.  I have made the choice to be one those few.

So, I also mentioned that we can also follow some basic business rules. The biggest mistake I’ve made in my life has been to comment on the poor PM’s performance to a customer. Now, this is tricky, what about if the customer mentions that they think your PM sucks, and you agree? Well, this is dangerous as it can get you in a lot of trouble with your employer, PM and customer in the long run. So, always follow the chain of command and never, ever share your personal opinion about someone you work with to a customer.

I’m sorry if this post is not about something technical, or a new AX discovery, but I thought it would be good to share this experience with you as I truly think that a positive and caring attitude can make the difference between a great, clean and successful AX implementation, rather than a poor and unsuccessful one.

As AX Developer/Architects, we have a clear mission, which is to provide the best of us to our customers and help them achieve their vision on time, on budget and drama-free.

Take care!

10 comments:

  1. Its a tough profession as we know, so instead of making the work environment more stressful we could really work on bringing positive vibes.

    Great post, thanks for sharing.

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  2. Excellent post! Skilled Project Managers is really needed for a complex and large ERP project and a bad apple can destroy the whole project.

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  3. I have worked on many types of projects, and they ever share the same problem: project managers. PM that does not know what they are really managing. They dont know what they are doing.

    Criticise them to client is a primary error, but you learned something with this. That is a positive point of view. :)

    Regards.

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  4. Hi Dude,

    Great post and well said. I totally agree with you, there are some PM's who don't understand any part of technology or how AX works or its underlying architecture and how it integrates with Microsoft stack. I have come across such guys and I agree with some of the comments here that a bad PM can really ruin the project.

    Cheers

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  5. Appreciate you sharing and being brave enough to say "I learned something". I follow your posts and now have an appreciation for the personal side of you.

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  6. Valuable post, experience always cost us something, sometimes money, sometimes something more personal as this one. The probability to happen this kind of situation doing our job will always be present, do we always think we can make it better? I think so, important thing when you take a step back to understand the other, the situation and step inside again with that possitive attitude. I hope sometime in the future to have the chance to be a PM; as you, I found in AX consultancy something I love to do (I consider it as my vocation) and I wish to you and everybody else that really appreciate this blog a clear mind and a strong heart to success. Saludos!!

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  7. Gopala krishna BoyaApril 18, 2012 at 9:56 PM

    Dear Eduardo,

    First I would like to appreciate you for realising your mistakes and publishing it in your blog.It really need guts to admit mistake and let all know about it.Its a Valuable knowledge you transfered to your fellow men.Thanks for sharing and caring others.Wish you good luck in your future endeavors.

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  8. Thank you so much to all of you for you feedback on this. I see how this can become a status quo in our industry. But, we are here to go beyond ourselves and welcome new experiences that can help us grow and become better at what we do.

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  9. Good read, John. I feel the same, and have similar experience. Thanks for sharing!

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