Projectmanagement411 had a fantastic February with lively discussion on a plethora of business project topics. Those who participate make me better for it- hopefully they feel the same as we all grapple with the thorny business issues of the day.
Here is what we talked about. Just click on the topics to gain immediate access to some of the most lively, and at times meaty, business conversation on the web:
Social Security- Tied to Financial Services Industry Failures? Privatization Is a Ruse?
Knowing Yourself and Communicating It
Green Business- Can Result in Green Anxiety, Green Anxiety? Apply Business Basics First, Green Hype Can Distract
Barriers …read more

The “Making Talent a Strategic Priority” article in The McKinsey Quarterly referred to applying customer segmentation principles to designing different talent management approaches for segments of the workforce. This starts with recognizing that it’s more than just “top talent” that needs this kind of attention:
“The impact of top talent on corporate performance hasn’t diminished, but what’s much clearer today-not least, as a result of the expansion of knowledge work-is that organizations can’t afford to neglect the contributions of other employees….Experience suggests that an exclusive focus on top players can damage the morale of the rest of the organization and, as …read more

The McKinsey Quarterly article on “Making Talent a Strategic Priority” has spawned a lot of reaction on my part. One statement seemed to lay the talent management function firmly in the lap of HR:
“Only HR can translate a business strategy into a detailed talent strategy: for instance, how many people does the company need in order to execute its business strategy, where does it need them, and what skills should they have?”
This got me thinking about how IT interacts with the organization on it’s projects. I’m not a fan of expanding the role of a CIO to be CEO-like. The …read more

The McKinsey Quarterly article on “Making Talent a Strategic Priority” conducted a survey of 98 business/HR leaders that yielded obstacles to effective talent management; it’s amazing how well these “obstacles” correlate with obstacles to any organization wide effort like project management and PMO processes- the top three were:
1. Senior managers don’t spend enough high-quality time on talent management
2. Organization is “siloed” and does not encourage constructive collaboration, sharing of resources
3. Line managers are not sufficiently committed to development of people’s capabilities and careers.
Often HR is given the “talent management” task. However, the “obstacles” point to talent management being a function …read more

A McKinsey Quarterly article on “Making Talent a Strategic Priority” dealt with lack of talent management especially when more knowledge workers are required:
“Companies like to promote the idea that employees are their biggest source of competitive advantage. Yet the astonishing reality is that most of them are as unprepared for the challenge of finding, motivating, and retaining capable workers as they were a decade ago.”
While reading this it dawned on me that talent strategies lead to talent tactics and talent projects just like any strategy-tactic-project link in the organization. They went on to describe how talent management is perceived by …read more