Edward Hirsch’s Post

Yikes! For my Hyatt homies in digital :( https://lnkd.in/gNSQX2vs

Been having some conversations with some friends and colleagues like Jennifer Lindner on this for Project/Program management. Lots of thoughts on causes, symptoms, and problems caused by this- but one thing that sorta sticks out to me is how there’s a tension between credentializing bodies and companies. The credential orgs set (or try to set) standards not just for the professionals in the field, but also a framework for companies to engage with the field. But a lot of companies seem to engage with the former and drop the latter. This creates a lot of frustration both in the job hunt and after. If I was so motivated to get a surveymonkey (they still exist right??) account and try to survey people actively working as Project/Program Managers, I’d put $100 down that I could get a plurality of people to say their job seems to largely be looking at other people’s calendars to schedule meetings. Is that what they thought they were training for while earning their PMP? Is that worth a headcount? Anyways look forward to my new book- why PMs shouldn’t exist. At Barnes and Noble soon.

Counterpoint- yes you will.

One thing on my list this year, which I now have some free time for, was to try bouldering. I don’t love heights, but I do enough hiking that sometimes a bit of climbing is in order…and it’d be nice to not turn around on some of the trails I’ve tried. So I took a class about 2 weeks ago, and it went well. Certainly nothing challenging to real climbers, but to me it was a nice experience. And I promised myself I’d go back and try it a bit more just to see if I could maybe even improve a little bit. Yesterday I made good and went back. I found myself a little more intimidated trying these alone, and locking up a bit as I got further up the wall. I thought about the problem and said to myself “well maybe I need to practice falling a bit, and that will help me feel less concern about taking a risky step?” It seemed reasonable. I did probably 10-12 falls from a few feet up on to the very nice mats. And it sorta seemed to help me on 2 projects. And then I got home. And sat for a while. And then tried to stand up. And that’s when the back pain hit 🥵 So two lessons here, because LinkedIn is all about convenient lessons: -sometimes having a support team is helpful even in seemingly solo activities -sometimes you can even damage yourself in the proof of concept phase Happy Friday all

Been exploring some online courses to keep myself busy and I gotta say, ITIL instructors make even Agile guys seem downright practical and grounded. Trying to talk about Service Management like it somehow arises from first principles? You're not Descartes!! Come on!!

Happy to report the little goblin is moving and feeling much better after after a few stages, and she’s done a celebratory couch-obliteration as a little treat. Still need to get some stuff looked at, but at least for now she’s mostly moving and hoping as usual.