The 10 simple steps

Note: This post is a sticky: new posts appear below.

Introduction
10 simple steps: the talk the book the workshop


Step 1: Identity

Step 2: Labels (job titles)

Step 3: Image

Step 4: Invest in training
Ignore the excuses to avoid training. Get the most from external training
Prince2 Microsoft Project Getting Things Done summary [review]
iGoogle Excel

Step 5: Communication
Good and bad Powerpoint presentations
Client meetings

Step 6: Costs and risks
Coping with the crunch

Step 7: Don't overperform the spec

Step 8: Archaeology isn't just excavation

Step 9: Take Health and Safety seriously

Step 10: Look after junior staff


Background
History lessons: Changes in management training Bad habits of archaeological managers Redesigning the pyramid

Why do good Project Officers make bad Project Managers?

Isn't good management just common sense?

Delegation and succession planning

Good enough is good enough

About this blog


Toolbox
Drawing up a Personal Development Plan
How to save a failing project Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Law for archaeologists: Contracts Copyright
Annotated book list

Buy 10 simple steps the book

Transform your business with a 10 simple steps workshop.

Guide for new readers

This website started out as the developing contents of a talk at the 2008 IFA Conference, 10 simple steps to better archaeological management, also available as a book and powerpoint.

Since then I have gone on adding material on how to deal with failing projects , the law and ethics and identity.

More recently I have covered questions arising from the impact of the downturn on archaeological organisations:

* hard times economics
* marketing in a recession
* downsizing
* what it means for organisations and individuals
* Bridging the skills gap

These expand on many of the themes raised in the paper I wrote with Kenny Aitchison, "Hard times: archaeology and the recession", The Archaeologist 71 (Spring 2009), 10-11.

I am now looking at various management gurus and related  topics to identify the lessons for archaeology in  the five things series.

Buy 10 simple steps: the book


Transform your business with a 10 simple steps workshop.

Changes in management training

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.

Introduction

A bold title like '10 simple steps' demand some credibility from the speaker, if the audience is to believe, firstly, that these are the steps that are needed and, secondly, that they are indeed simple (they may be simpler to identify than to take, but that's another issue). So it is pertinent to review my experience, which will also explain the focus of my remarks on, specifically, evaluations. My pre-PPG16 career at Stanwick Roman villa, Dudley Castle, and Castle Bromwich Hall Gardens was conventionally archaeological; in 1991 I joined GGAT as a Project Officer, concentrating on desk-tops and evaluations, and in 1992 became Project Manager, responsible for costing and managing developer-funded work in an increasingly competitive marketplace. In 2003 I moved out of archaeological project management into generic project management, and have since delivered a series of projects for the National Library of Wales, including Archives Network Wales. I recognised at an early stage that project management wasn't archaeology, needing a different set of skills and attitudes, and I have sought out techniques and learning opportunities to equip me for the role including, most recently, the
Institute of Leadership and Management's Introductory Certificate in First Line Management and Public Service Management Wales Connect4Cymru leadership development course.

Not that this makes me an expert. I have undertaken no formal analysis or research; I have sent no questionnaires, conducted no surveys. What I present here are observations and anecdotes based on what I have encountered, at first, second or third-hand.

But I am not intending to lay down a set of rules that you should follow: I am hoping to ask some interesting questions for you to consider. Some may resonate with you, some may not.

Finally I should say that these are my individual opinions; others are available. It is not my intention to criticise or condemn (although sometimes it may sound like it is); I am aiming for dispassionate narrative. I should emphasise that my current and former employers and any other body with which I have been associated do not endorse my views.

Isn't good management just common sense?

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.