Congratulations to the Central Michigan University Chippewas! Fire up Chips!
The Chippewas beat the Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders in the 2006 Motor City Bowl to claim the first Division I-A bowl victory in school history.
From the Chippewa side, the game was a pleasure to behold. Quarterback Dan LeFevour was in total sync with his receivers and had a great read of the field.
When Bryan Anderson was open, LeFevour sent him the ball.
When it was Justin Gardner with a shot at a run, the ball was there.
When the deep field was clogged, he’d see a path clear ahead and he’d go for it. He wouldn’t hesitate -he’d go for the run. And swiftly weave his was for yardage and a touchdown. He and the team were tight and the scoreboard showed it.
And the fans were tight. If you read the local Detroit papers, that made all the difference.
Sure, having a Michigan team helped break attendance records at the Motor City Bowl. And yeah, it was great to have a Michigan team to root for. But it was the energy of a charged team, the whole CMU team: from players to fans to friends, that made the game great.
In a stadium and city not always used to that kind of teamwork -it was indeed a beautiful thing to behold.
Speaking of teamwork, a special thank you to the players who gave their energy and time working hard on December 25th to feed those in need at the Salvation Army in Detroit.
Here’s Alan Mulally, the new CEO of Ford Motor Company, highlighting the value of visibility and consistent data in managing an enterprise, the quotes are excerpted from The Wall Street Journal of December 22, 2006.
To set the scene: Mr. Mulally recently took over as CEO of Ford and began implementing weekly Thursday meetings for senior management to get everyone focused on the same goals, track progress, reward success and to keep people accountable.
Visibility Brings Consistency
His first Thursday gathering at Ford went badly, underscoring the challenges he would face. After Mr. Mulally asked each business head to present his results and forecasts, he complained that the numbers didn’t make sense. “Why don’t all the pieces add up for the total corporate financials?” he recalls asking.
“We don’t share everything,” he says one manager replied, explaining that Ford executives ran their units without meshing with other divisions, occasionally holding back some information. Mr. Mulally was floored. The next week, executives came back with complete figures.
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The current space shuttle mission STS-116 is a great window on project management in action. On NASA TV you can hear the live management of an ongoing process –managing in real-time, on the fly, a complex operation that’s rife with opportunities to deviate from a sophisticated project plan.
While the scale might be different, it parallels, in a lot of ways, the activities that go on in any creative, engineering or scientific project. It provides a view on the types of information, visibility and project communication that make any project a success.
Here are some of the random clips we heard on NASA TV:
“Thanks for the great big picture words.”
“1:51 Central Time power down expected.”
“Good insight into the system.”
“I have the steps here.”
“Trouble shooting task procedures.”
“Blocks of activity.”
“Ready to proceed to step three – it is good to talk to you.”
“OK I’ll stand by, appreciate the help.”
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The Corporate edition of Copper 2006 (version 3.0) seems to be geared towards improving visibility of to-do lists. It is light on features that can help task management, manage schedules or give deeper visibility of projects.
A good example is the process of adding or editing tasks on a project. This is a fundamental activity not only in task management but also in planning projects, setting up schedules and managing on-going project activity.
Tasks can be added in two ways. One is through a single web page form which means that adding many tasks means going through many individual forms. The second is via an Adobe Flash based Gantt chart.
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Educational institutions, e-learning companies and providers of educational curriculum face specialized challenges in project management. A coherent project management strategy can increase the efficiency of developing educational product and educational programs. Project management software can be the foundation for this strategy.
Product development groups in these companies can work on upwards of 120 new projects at any given time. These projects are generally the development of new educational programs that will be offered to hundreds of thousands of students overtime –programs that are crucial in those students’ academic or professional development. The programs can range from vocational or technical programs to graduate and undergraduate courses.
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