Matthew Law is one of the few British archaeologists to have persevered with the blog format and is now partway through creating An Archaeologist's Guide to British Species, with a page describing each plant or animal and its archaeological relevance, accompanied by a photo.
This is a great resource for archaeologists trying to make sense of a palaeoenvironmental report, a hedgerow survey, or a landscape history. It'll keep him busy for a while as he's on entry #94 and still in the Cs.
Historic England has relaunched its online training resources and there are a ranges of short courses of interest to readers of this blog.
https://training.historicengland.org.uk/
It is free to register and undertake the courses; each takes 1-4 hours.
I would recommend:
Management of Research Projects in the Historic Environment - MoRPHE
This is a detailed walkthrough of Historic England's MoRPHE project management system and its manager's guide, which was developed as an application of PRINCE2 to replace MAP2. Organisations undertaking work for Historic England are required to use MoRPHE, and it is also used by some as standard practice regardless of funding. (and if this description is a baffling set of acronyms you should do this course!)
This is based on UKRI guidelines for (academic) research, and is focused on potential harm to living participants, although cultural heritage is also covered. It is interesting to compare and contrast with the CIFA Ethics workshop; I don't think either provide much of a handle for those facing the small everyday ethical dilemmas (am I knowledgeable/competent enough to make a judgment call on whether this bit of heritage can be destroyed?, my client wants me to ignore part of the impact - what can I do?).
Despite the label, this section has courses that are of interest to anyone involved in presenting heritage information to planning authorities, and cover Historic England's guidance on heritage values, e and setting.
There's an excellent course on Statements of Heritage Significance and NPPF4.
Disagree Neutral
Agree
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I am competent and professional in my role
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1 2 3 4
5
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I find my role satisfying and productive
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1 2 3 4
5
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I am passionate about being involved in excavation
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1 2 3 4
5
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I make a positive contribution to the success of projects
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1 2 3 4
5
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Project Manager
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Progress is behind schedule and completion is in doubt
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Supplier
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We need more time and/or resources to complete the work
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User
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We need to ensure that standards are maintained if we are
to achieve the intended aims
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Executive
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Providing more resources will reduce the profit generated
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Fairly quietly, and fairly uncontroversially, the IfA has just transformed the way that professional archaeologists must behave, by making it compulsory for their members to undertake 25 hours of CPD a year in line with a Personal Development Plan [templates for CPD log and PDP available on their site]. From a vague statement in the code of conduct that archaeologists have a duty to keep themselves well-trained and informed, identifying training needs and fulfilling them has become one of the key responsibilities of a professional worthy of the name. This is good news - I believe that those who claim to be unable to locate any skill gaps either are already in fact managing a lot of CPD or haven't thought about it enough, or at all. They should start with my Action Plan.
The impact of the rule change will vary - in organisations which are Investors In People , employees will already have PDPs which cover both employment-focused and personal development. For others, employers will probably have to accept that training their staff is something they will have to do, and possibly pay for.
But what if the employer can't or won't. Here are some suggestions for CPD activities that will cost little or nothing but will have a instant payoff:
* read the legislation and guidance - Planning Policy, the Copyright Designs and Patents Act, the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Araes Act, the Valetta Convention, Environmental Information Regulations. These are quite interesting once you get into them, and will equip you with a much better grasp of the overall context of your work.
* Time management - Read Getting Things Done and implement it; make an iGoogle homepage ; or just read some advice online.
* Read some journals. Medieval Archaeology, PPS, Britannia, and Post-Medieval Archaeology contain interesting book reviews and reports as well as excavation accounts - now reading them is work.
* Attend one or two day-schools or events. Maybe ones you wouldn't normally go to.
* Generic skills: negotiation, assertiveness, project management, team leadership, effective meetings, report writing.
* Presentation skills: Powerpoint, html, Word
* Master digital photography - find out what ll those buttons actually do, nd see if you can take some photos that show what they are supposed to
That should keep you busy for the first two or three years.
The worst of the recession appears to be over, at least for archaeology. The concern now (for the remaining members of the profession) is whether it can cope with a rise in demand for work, needing more staff, and in particular if the lack of specific skills will prevent or delay projects. I don't think it should.
There may be a pool of archaeologists, laid off in summer 2008, who would be available for recruitment. This may prove harder than expected; it is surprising how quickly people realise that archaeology may not in fact be the only way they want to spend their lives. Quite apart from the fact that they can probably earn more for doing less demanding work, the basic level benefits may prove hard to resist - the prospect of long hours in the van to be dropped in on some random site may appeal less to people who've got used to being paid from the moment they walk into the office.
But even so, that leaves a smallish gap. Even if the 600 or so posts which were lost were re-created, there have been 8,000 new graduates in archaeological subjects since September 2008 (based on the figures in Profiling the Profession). Doing some analysis of the figures for age profile and length of contract, there were 1,000 archaeologists in the age range 25-29 who responded, representing a cohort of about 600/year. (It's a shame that the websites advising would-be archaeologists on degree courses don't point out that 1 in 10 of graduates in normal conditions end up working in the profession.) So any shortfall in available existing diggers could be readily filled by new staff.
Of course, for many years now archaeologists have been unwilling to employ such people, leading to the dilemma that only those with experience will be employed. This makes life easier, since even new staff will be able to work from the start, but obscures the fact that someone somewhere must have provided some training. You hope so, anyway, although the fact that someone has been on lots of sites may not mean they have contributed much or learnt anything. Rather than rely on this informal apprenticeship, an employer would be better served by audited the skills of its new staff, identifying any gaps, and maybe, you know, provide some training. This need not be a series of lectures on the theory of stratigraphy - it could consist of being shown common local pottery types, or how to start a sludge pump.
Although it is hard to extract this directly from the report, it appears that most of these recent graduates working on commercial fieldwork projects up to the age of 29 then move on, either to other roles within archaeology, or leaving the profession. As a result, employers should expect that there will be turnover, so there will be new recruits, so there will be training needs. So plan for them.
But the other side of the concern is the loss of specific specialist skills, such as building survey. How can an organisation deliver a project without the necessary trained specialist staff? The answer is, the same way they used to, before 41% of staff had masters degrees, before Investors in People, before CPD. If you need someone to record a building, send them out with some drawing stuff and cameras, and tell them to get on with it. Archaeologists used to be good at devising, developing, and refining methodologies for new areas of work - so as soon as the Hedgerow Regulations 1997 defined the need to determine which hedgerows are historic, projects came in and were done. And desk-based assessments as a formal exercise were created overnight by PPG16- and again, they were done. Not perfectly. But archaeologists are capable flexible people with a strong grasp of recording and reporting. It may be that some silly errors are made, that buildings are misclassified or misunderstood. But a record will be made: possibly a different record, possibly a better record, than one that would have been made by a buildings expert with tunnel vision for a specific feature or type of building. It is interesting to note that East Lothian Council assumed that it would be archaeologists who would be dealing with recording buildings (see their excellent Historic Building Recording guidance (2006)), a view that would have been anathema to Conservation Officers in the 1990s who thought architectural historians should be relied upon.
And finally, it must be said that a break in continuity, and a return to first principles, might be a good thing. Commercial archaeology before the bubble burst had become a frantic, mechanical process yielding isolated factoids. OASIS now has 4000 grey literature reports for download. A random example is Wessex Arcaheology's report on The Wickets (the report is clear and detailed) (also available direct from Wessex). A planning condition, a written scheme of investigation, a specification, an evaluation, a report, an archive, to commemorate the fact that trenches were dug and nothing was found. Perhaps it was worthwhile. But for the planners to require developers to fund the excavation of 6% of the site area on the basis of: residual flints found in the general area (but not the site), residual Roman pottery and medieval found in the general area (but not the site), and the possibility that medieval tenement plots might run back 100m from the High Street (although there are no topographic grounds for expecting they might, or that they would yield significant archaeological remains if they did), seems bizarre. The report describing this evaluation says "No archaeological research, either desk based or intrusive has previously been
undertaken for this Site." Perhaps some map work might have been a simpler and better way to decide on the burgage plot question? Surely this 'dig a hole just in case' mentality should be rethought? How about assessing on some real basis the likelihood that archaeological remains might be affected before swinging into overkill mode?
(I should note that I have no particular issue about or knowledge of this development and its archaeology, but it does seem an exemplar of everbody working very hard to prove that nothing was there, when there seemed few grounds for thinking there would be).
It may seem a bad time for the IfA to be promoting CPD, when for once there really is a rational case for reducing expenditure on training. But much of the entrenched (ho ho) opposition to compulsory CPD schemes over the years has been the result of a misconception that CPD must mean training and training must mean formal expensive courses. For some topics that may be the case, but there is a great deal of value to the individuals and the organisation that can be done at little or no cost.
Sharing expertise
Do all your field staff recognise finds? If not, it would be well worthwile spending an afternoon looking at local pottery types, clay pipe, animal bone, glass. Many recent graduates may have had little opportunity to handle material and learn the diagnostic features.
Make sure everybody in the organisation takes decent photos: this may involve looking at the various cameras you use and what the options mean. Perhaps more importantly, it is a chance to discuss why we take photos and what use they are. It is depressing to think quite how many hours have been spent over the last two decades taking multiple poor photographs of uninteresting features which have each been carefully catalgued and archived.
Most organisations have people working in silos: they may have adjoining offices but have no idea at all what other people do or why. Get them to explain their role. Quite apart from anything else, it's good practice in giving presentations.
Talk about project costings. These shouldn't be mysterious: an understanding of how they are done, and what they eman, may well have an immediate pay-off in attitudes and behaviour, once they realise quite how much money goes on plant hire.
Also, it's easy for organisations to forget that new staff don't know the history: it would be useful for them to know a little about why it was set up, what its major projects have been.
And one thing you can't do enough of is discussing grammar and layout and the real nitty-gritty of report writing.
Goal-orientated learning
Arcaheologists have a long and honourable tradition of teaching themselves new stuff when they need to. This is particularly true of software. Over the last year I have picked up some html, xml, wiki formatting, Powerpoint design, and print-on-demand publishing, because, in each case, I needed or wanted to achive something and so had to work out how to do it. It's true that this reactive type of learning is hard to fit within the CPD framework, although it is possible to some extent to predict areas you might want to develop.
Updating knowledge
Unlike a lot of things for which training is expensive, gathering archaeological information, on developments in Mesolithic studies or Roman urban sites, is free or cheap. Read some books and journals; go to a talk or two. These are real and worthwhile learning activities and, who knows, may even make you better at your job.
With a little imiagination, it's possible to carry out a transfomative training porgramme across an organisation without ever having to write a hundred-pound cheque to an 'expert'.
Modesty and self-deprecation are instinctive and engrained, even in managers. This may be particularly true in Britain, where being proud of something is considered to run perilously close to being conceited or arrogant, but it probably universal. Less universal, though, is the inability to take a compliment. I think it is reasonable that when somebody has decided to praise you, you are allowed to say " thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed the talk", not "aw shucks, it was nothing". Reasonable, yes, but easy to do, no.
But perhaps social self-doubt has its role in preserving relationships; unfortunately it often is mirrored by internal self-doubt, the monologue that says "this meeting's going to be hard, you're never very good at this, see, what did I tell you?, it'll be worse next time ...". As a result, it's all too easy to lose sight of the things you can do well, and to miss the chance to bask for a while in the satisfaction of achievement. For a course I was on recently we had to spend five minutes writing in our journals about three things we were good at. It really was hard to break out of the bonds of modesty, and felt completely unnatural. It was very useful, though, to remind us that, yes, we were ok, we weren't necessarily in crisis mode all the time. I cannot remember the last time I had thought along these lines, looking at the positives; self-criticism is a hard habit to break (not that it doesn't have its place, but it's unhealthy as the only mode of thought).
My suggested adaptation is this: write down three headings:
* a skill you have, something you are good at
* your greatest achievement
* the event or person that has changed you most
Think for a minute, then write soemthing down for each heading. You're not deciding your answers for ever; maybe tomorrow you'd choose other examples. What you should be doing is 1, reminding yourself what is important to you and how you have been effective; and 2, practising positive self-analysis that should assist you in understanding your own motivation, values and goals.
It sound silly, but it works.
Coping with chaos without losing your way
Martin Locock
Title: Getting Things Done
How to achieve stress-free productivity
Author: David Allen
Publisher: Piatkus
Price: £10.99
ISBN: 978-0-7499-2264-1
Most management gurus sound a little detached from the reality of the modern workplace, at best providing some evangelical zeal to revive the fire of inspiration in their readers. David Allen isn't like that: he connects with managers' actual concerns: too many tasks and too little time, piles of papers awaiting action, and lists of thing to do that never get ticked off because of interruptions. He argues that your effectiveness as a decision-maker is undermined by the worry and guilt arising from these 'open loops' (incomplete commitments), and his solution is to transfer this load onto paper, where you can see it and manage it. It's a bit more complex than that, but in essence he says that skills of filing and listing lie at the heart of coping with a large and changing workload without stress.
It is refreshing to see a set of rules that embody instinctive truths: the two minute rule that says if it will take less than two minutes to deal with, do it now, and the 'waiting for' file for tasks which cannot progress until someone else has done something, and which can therefore be ignored for now. There are also refreshing hints like: don't just write in your diary 'phone Jean': write her number as well so you don't have to search for it.
This is an enjoyable and inspiring book for anybody who feels that constant change and competing demands for attention have left them lost and ineffective.
[This will appear in Catalyst, Summer 2008]
Buy the book from Amazon
In my Redesigning the pyramid paper I argued that the role of Project Officer was the hardest job in archaeology, owing to the punishing combination of archaeological, supervisory, administrative, legal, and managerial responsibilities, combined with stress, travel, isolation and weather. That is still true, and therefore the aim of the parent organisation should be provide all possible support to assist them.
You might think that somebody who can cope successfully with the Project Officer role would therefore be well-equipped to take on a managerial role with a significant office-based element to the work. It doesn't seem to work that way: often they find the role unrewarding, difficult, tedious, and even more stressful. Partly this may be because the Project Officer has been impelled upwards by a desire for job security, money or status, rather than a desire to become a manager as such. But partly it may be because being a Project Officer is an apprenticeship that teaches some unhelpful lessons.
The Myers-Briggs personality Type Indicator is a widely-used tool to identify the different approaches that people have towards life in general and work in particuler. It has been criticised but remains in use mainly because it is simple and is felt to reflect some real differences within the workforce.
I have devised the following exercise with a similar intent. below are listed a series of pairs of concepts, and you should choose one from each pair that you prefer on the grounds that it is important or easy or something you handle well.
List A < = > List B
Improvisation < = > Planning
Pragmatic < = > Principled
Short-term < = > Long-term
Completion < = > Sustainability
Risk tolerant < = > Risk averse
Innovation < = > Maintenance
Flexible < = > Programmed
If you have a background in successful project work, you are likely to have chosen answer A in most or all cases; the B answers sound at best irrelevant and sometimes actively negative. This is a natural result of the tunnel vision that project work encourages: focus on delivering the key targets to the exclusion of all else is (in that context) exactly what is required. But managers are expected to take a broader view: there are times when a project has to take a hit for the benefit of the organisation a a whole. Improvisational responses may, with the side-effect of exhaustion and panic, deliver successful management, but in the long term (aha!) a more structured and considered planned approach is needed. It is sometimes said that the job of managers is to tell their staff things they don't want to hear; there will be a tension between the managers' priorities and those of others. The conflict between 'site' and 'HQ' that seems an unavoidable part of archaeology reflects this: the Project Officer will want three more days to finish sampling, while being told to close the site so the team can move on to the next site and the invoices can go in.
So part of becoming a manager involves re-orientating your attitudes towards the interests of the organisation as a whole rather than your team and your projects. It is hardly surprising that this takes time: some senior managers never quite get there
A Manager's Guide to Self Development by Mike Pedler, John Burgoyne, and Tom Boydell
Buy it from Amazon
Primers on a wide range of activities and tools, framed within a programme of self assessment and review. Although the chapters contain example exercises, the further reading recommended will be needed to pursue a topic in earnest; it is an excellent way to get a feel for the issues as an introduction.
The Definitive Book of Body Language by Allan Pease and Barbara Pease
Buy it from Amazon
Although presented in a chatty and populist format, this contains a lot of interesting insights into non-verbal communication. Many of their explanations for the origins of behaviour are derived from simplistic evolutionary and sociobiological determinism, but this does not devalue their observation and analysis.
Getting Things Done by David Allen
Buy it from Amazon
Discussed elsewhere: but in summary, well worth buying. I have carried it around with me for months, telling anyone who'll listen about the almost magical powers of the Two Minute Rule (if something takes less than 2 minutes, do it straight away; if not, put it on the list), the Waiting For list (tasks which you can take no action on until someone else does something, and which, therefore, there is no point you thinking about), Next Actions (listing not a big nebulous project like 'buy a house' but the immediate next step, like 'go to an estate agent'), and Agendas (places to note down things you need to say to people when you think of them). It really will change your life, leaving your mind clear to think and your time free to do stuff, not organise stuff.
[fuller review here]
The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
Buy it from Amazon
Simple, painless to read advice intended mainly for people managers in offices. The three secrets of the One Minute Manager are setting and agreeing goals, praising good performance, and reprimanding poor performance, within the context of a one minute conversation. A good reminder that leaving people to get on with their work is not the best approach.
Managing Archaeology edited by M A Cooper, A Firth, J Carman and D Wheatley
Buy it from Amazon
Collected papers from sessions on management and archaeology from the TAG 1992 and IFA 1993 conferences. Includes case studies from English Heritage, MOLAS and GGAT, but half the volume is concerned with archaeological resource management and related issues, so there is less emphasis on project management than might be expected.
... and finally
10 simple steps to better archaeological management by Martin Locock
The book of the blog: details here.
The project management skills of your company’s staff are critical to its success. Improving them will have an immediate impact on project delivery and reliability as well as on motivation. Most generic management training is expensive and hard to apply to the specifics of the archaeological sector, and employers are sceptical of its direct benefits.
The one-day workshop, 10 simple steps to better archaeological management , is different. Aimed at senior and middle managers in archaeological organisations, it provides a mixture of practical tips, analysis of current practice, and opportunities for discussion and reflection, which will leave them ready to face the challenges of their work with a new enthusiasm and insight.
Issues covered include: communication, image, cost, risk, health and safety, and specific management tools.
If your company needs better results from its projects, you should invest in this course. It can be delivered at your workplace or in a nearby venue, at a cost of £400 for the event. Contact me at mlocockATgmailDOTcom to discuss this further.
So you've got past the reasons not to train and are about to go into the outisde world. How can you ensure that you benefit as much as possible from the opportunity?
One way you will benefit is by coming back inspired. This may not in fact because you have learnt a lot; time away from the office and its day-to-day crises is very refreshing in itself, and it is also a good chance to think about thorny long term issues. It is worth taking some reading or writing that you have been putting off delaing with 'until you get a chance': you may not in fact deal with it, but at least it's there if you feel like it. It is also worth reading the literarture about the event you're attending, so you are clear about arrangements, and can also think about which speakers you wish to hear, which attendees you might want to link up with. This is all 'train work', and needs doing, but it is also important to arrive fresh and energetic, so you needn't feel guilty if an early start has left you unable to do more than read the paper on the journey.
It is easy to forget that travel and training can be quite hard physical work. It's no surprise that by Day 3 of a conference many attendees are falling asleep. It's a good idea to take water and fruit to suuplment the coffee and biscuits which will no doubt be supplied as a staple. It's alos a good idea to get out into the fresh air: walk in the grounds or a local park rather than attend a session you're not interested in.
And while you will hope that speakers will be clear and interesting and organised, you certainly won't be completely enthralled all the time. Don't beat yourself up about this. Even the worst speaker will probably set off some train of thought (even if it's only "I must make sure my team learn to give talks properly"); I note down such ideas around the edges of the page, with action points marked with a *.
Then on the way back these notes can be reviewed to see whether they make any sense (both as legible text and as intellectual content), and back in the office you can easily work through the action points before filing them.
If you learned stuff, say so. There's nothing more likely to smooth the next application like the demonstrable effectiveness of the previous one.
Grid for Love/hate map
Now write onto the grid your ten tasks in the correct position.
Love/hate map showing tasks
This map by itself shouldn’t be telling you anything you don’t already know, but it may help you understand your strengths and weaknesses.
If the bottom left box is full and the top right box is empty, you are in the wrong job. You shouldn’t spend your time doing badly the tasks you hate.
You may be reassured about the tasks in the top left: you may worry about them but they are not damaging your performance.
The tasks in the lower half are the ones which need action. To prioritise them, you should now circle those tasks which are most central or frequent in your work.
While archaeologists have in general avoided management training, there has been a quiet revolution in the nature of that training. In the 1980s, it was about processes and structures, decision making and critical path analysis. As such it was essentially mechanistic: problems were defined as administrative, technical or organisational issues.
This was fine as far as it went, but rather lacked the human dimension. In response to the disjuncture between the difficulties managers faced in the workplace and the solutions being offered, there emerged a spate of books like Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson's The One Minute Manager (1982) and Mark McCormack's What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School: Notes From A Street-Smart Executive (1986) which addressed the reality of working better within a system that was effectively fixed.
The shift towards soft skills is now reflected in training. The key words now are empowerment, consensus building, and fostering creativity. The MBA course at Bath University includes ethics and action learning alongside its more conventional content. One result of this shift is a focus on the actor as agent, on how you personally influence outcomes. Therefore, rather than proposing the restructuring of organisations, the achievable objective is to change oneself. This may be defined very broadly, taking in improving personal effectiveness by using tools and promoting self-management, but also covers attitudes, beliefs and social skills.
It has been estimated that the balance between 'people work' and 'tasks' is something like:
Executives: 80% people; 20% tasks
Senior Managers: 65% people; 35% tasks
Middle Managers: 50% people; 50% tasks
Operatives: 15% people; 85% tasks
(Source: PSMW Leading for Wales Directory 07/08 [very large pdf])
Purely on this basis, middle managers who ignore the importance of interaction with people are going to fail.
It is interesting to see that the Archaeology Training Forum's Roles and Skills project (2002) identify core skills needed by archaeologists:
* Manage team (by talking to people)
* Manage projects (by talking to people)
* Manage and develop yourself
* Develop and promote the organisation (by talking to people)
* Resource and control finances
Thus personal development should not be seen as a matter of an individual's career progression: it lies at the centre of their professional performance.
I would recommend A manager’s guide to self-development by Mike Pedler, John Burgoyne and Tom Boydell, as an excellent place to start.
A short argument for training:
• New roles need new skills
• Learning by trial and error involves trials and errors
• Invest in training
• Prioritise training needs
You might think this hardly worth saying, but there are many reasons why people are hostile to the idea that they might benefit from training.
There are a lot of tools out there, ranging in cost from expensive to free, that could have immediate results in efficiency: see for example Prince2, Microsoft Project, Getting Things Done, iGoogle.
Invest in tools not systems
It's easy to be tempted by the prestigious, complex, formal training opportunities; deciding which to pursue requires thought.
• How much more would you achieve if you spent 50% less time dealing with emails?
So look at Getting Things Done
• How often will you use the knowledge gained from a Palaeolithic rock art conference in Australia?
So unless you are a full-time specialist in rock art, don't go.
• Is your organisation ready to adopt Prince2 throughout?
If not, don't get Prince2 accredited.
Step 4a: Do you know everything already? If not, get some training.
Step 4b: Start with the tasks you spend the most time doing, or the ones you do worst
In general, of course it is.
But as Voltaire says "le sens commun est fort rare" (Common sense is very rare) (Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764).
And in any case, there are some things which are counter-intuitive:
* if you have two tasks to do, start with the hard one
* if you are negotiating with two people, and one is argiung and the other is silent, it is the silent one that needs convincing
* do the most important thing not the most urgent
The arguments usually comes from those who would call themselves good managers, having learned the hard way. It's almost as if they think that telling people how to do it is cheating in some way.
The foundation of successful projects is management science, not rocket science.
I have never been a great fan of customisation. While others were merrily swapping their Windows wallpapers weekly, mine stayed default blue. The only gesture towards personalisation that I made was changing the homepage to Google, as soon as I realised that I visited it 10 times more often than any other. So when Google started to offer add-ons to their classic white screen by showing the small iGoogle option, I wasn't very interested at first: what could it deliver? I eventually had a look, in pursuit of an RSS feed reader (of which more later), and found a wealth of little tools which seemed useful and simple. Now I don't know how I coped before: I certainly wasted a lot more time, effort and nervous energy beforehand.
The process of signing up is straightforward: if you a Gmail.com or Googlemail.co.uk account you just need to log in, if not there's a minute's registration. You should be aware of the fact that you are giving Google even more information about your web activities. At present the worst they seem to threaten is showing you more targeted Google Ads, but it's worth thinking about.
You are then shown a list of possible features to add to your Google page, which could transform it into a virtual desktop.
Here's mine. You'll notice that I've left a fair amount of white space down the middle, but the content runs down further.
This is a deliberate trick; if you fill the screen with tools you will commit the fatal error of making the page slow to load. Similarly some tools are best kept rolled up to the taskbar if not needed. Here is my explanation of what I have chosen:
RSS feed
I don't read a lot of blogs, but spent a lot of time viisting them in turn to see whether anything new had been added, what RSS feeds are designed for. Although other feed utilities are available, Google Reader is the simplest I have found. Every time I use Google I can check to see which blogs have new posts. This can become a distraction; I have to be strict and say:
* use 'mark all as read' even if they're not (you can always go back to read them all at a quieter moment)
* exclude blogs which are updated more than a few times a week (otherwise the list will be overloaded): instead these are bookmarked and visited at leisure (if any)
* exclude blogs where comments are important (you don't see the comments in the feed)
Wikipedia search
One of the key benefits of Wikipedia is that it gives you infromation rather than trying to sell you things. I find Google searches for things like infromation about file formats frustrating because the first two npages of results are effectively commercials.
Gmail
Much the same applies to email: if this were your main email account it would be swamped too quickly to keep track of. Gmail is in any case clunky and prone to freezing and would drive you mad if you used it much. It can be used in clever ways, though: it is a good way of transferring files around as attachments (so that a Powerpoint can be sent to a Gmail address and will be availabel at any conference venue with Internet access); it is also possible to copy all your emails to Gmail to act as a back-up store.
Dilbert
What's that doing here? I thought we were working. Yes, but: if you were going to read the daily cartoon anyway, this is a quicker way of getting there than the rather clumsy website interface.
Personal calendar and planner
Google has its own Calendar system but for some reason I couldn't get it to work. This is a simple alternative, which I use to block out days with meetings on. Logically I should take the plunge and abandon my paper diary, but every few days the calendar can't be reached. Having this on the desktop means that I can access it remotely, a trick not easy to replicate with the diary.
To-do list
This is perhaps the single most powerful yet simplest tool. Create a task by typing it in (carefully: the edit text option doesn't work); then assign it high, medium or low priority. You can change priority at any time. Once a task is complet, click on the X to delete it. I haven't completely abandoned paper lists for very short-term tasks (finished that day), but it is a good way to see at a glance the things that need doing beyond your current task. At one point I found the list getting longer and longer and more and more urgent, until I was spurred into delegating as the only way to deliver; having handed out the jobs to the team it was managebale once more.
I use two lists at the moment, for work and non-work activities; it would be possible to use one per project.
Some negatives
The documentation provided for the tools is minimal and unhelpful; you have to explore how to use them yourself. Many of them are buggy and slightly unreliable; some are slow (the calendar should be kept rolled up for this reason).
But iGoogle is the closest that anyone has yet come to bringing together all the tools you need to operate effectively; once set up, it feels like a rational and effective utility.
David Allen has developed personal effectiveness and productivity into a business, under the slogan "Getting Things Done". He provides a range of timesaving tips for efficient working, focusing particularly on habits of filing and storing data and prioritisation. If followed in full, GTD is not so much good practice and more a way of life, but many people find that adopting some of his techniques can transform their workrate and makes them feel that they are in control of their work rather than the other way around. There are expensive options to pursue this but a cheap place to start is the Penguin book.
You may find the relentless enthusiasm and optimism a little wearing in large doses, but you are bound to learn something useful along the way.
[fuller review here]
Microsoft Project is a sophisticated Office application that can be used to plan, estimate, and monitor projects, tasks, and resources. It is fairly cheap for a piece of business software (£400 or so), although licensing may be an issue (there is a free Project Viewer to allow others on the network read-only access).
Inputting the data into Project takes some time, and this investment is best rewarded if the program is used for the whole life cycle of the project, rather than just planning or implementation. It is possible to use multiple installations across a network to share information about resource availability (so that allocating the same person to work on two projects at the same time would raise a conflict flag, alerting users that action was needed).
The usefulness of the program decreases if it is only employed on a single project; it should not be seen as way of drawing Gantt charts. It can do that, but if that's all you want there are simpler options.
On a final point, this application is unlike most Office programs in requiring professional training to make much use of: trying to teach yourself to use it is hard.
These are two separate questions, of course.
What is Prince2™?
Prince2 (Projects in Controlled Environments) was developed as a project management tool in UK government IT applications. It was then rolled out as a generic approach to project implementation, and has been taken up by many public bodies in the local government and HE sectors, as well as in business.
Prince2™ website
Essentially Prince2™ provides a structure and terminology to manage a project from initial identification through to completion with clearly defined stages and targets. There is an emphasis on explicit terms of reference and governance through Project Boards, intended to ensure that mission creep is prevented. As such it formalises good practice. Unfortunately its terminology is precise and counter-intuitive: a clear distinction is made, for example, between a task and a process. As a result, Prince2™-speak may be unintelligible to outsiders, although some phrases have gained wider currency, including:
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