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Blog Recommendation – Dr. John A Estrella’s Blog

From time to time I tour the Internet, looking for things of interest. I found Dr. Estrella’s blog, of all things, via Twitter. It was part of a #FollowFriday recommendation.

I was not sure that would make a note of the blog here. It is interesting and concise but I was not sure how much new information it brought to me. Then I saw the entry labeled, How To Manage Bad News In Your Projects. It is a short entry, which I repeat here, linked to the original.

Three components precede bad news: target, trigger and tweak. By recognizing these components, you can easily manage most of the bad news in your projects.

If the monthly target is $10K and the expenses are trending toward $40K for the next three months, then the potential overrun is a trigger that should prompt you to tweak the situation. Inform the project stakeholders but be careful not to cry wolf.

If you’re able to steer the project towards a more favourable outcome, then you can report the good news. If not, then the bad news will not be a surprise to the parties involved.

Take a look at your current targets—budget, schedule or objective—and identity triggers that will give you adequate room to tweak the circumstances if needed. It is better to pre-empt than to be held in contempt.

I consistently preach transparency. Clients are never more angry than when bad news is delivered in the past tense. As the cliche says, forewarned is forearmed. It seems Estrella agrees, though I suspect we might have interesting discussions regarding actual use of trigger and tweak.

For that and other interesting entries, I suggest you check out his blog.

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