”Cooperation in the 21st Century” and „Wisdom and Intuition of the Multitude“
Those are the two focal points of the Berlin PM Camp between June, 20th and June, 22nd, 2014 – which means from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon.
Doesn’t that sound exciting!
Consequently, late in the evening of my birthday, I will board the sleeping compartment of the night-train from Munich to Berlin and leave it to said train to bring me to my destination. And I already look forward to meeting many friends and in particular Heiko (Heiko Bartlog).
Heiko is a member of the organization team of Berlin PM Camp and put enormous energy into preparing for this event. He asked me if I would like to supervise a session about the two exciting topics of the Berlin PM Camp. Isn’t that nice of him?
Well, I would certainly always like to do just that. Consequently, I now start thinking about it. There are certainly a lot of topics. Here is a list of what comes to mind:
- Target Agreements
In 30 years as “The Boss” of InterFace AG (and even before that in my more passive role as employee at Siemens AG and Softlab GmbH) I made a lot of surprising experiences with goals and target agreements. I learned that target agreements are very problematic in many respects. Consequently, I believe it is quite possible that more and more of these “control mechanisms for humans by material rewards” will be abolished in the future.
For instance, I could tell my life story, including paying models and target agreement design as an entrepreneur and in projects.
- The Change in Management
In the early 1980ies, Hans Ulrich, perhaps the founder of the St. Gallen Management Model, wrote a wonderful essay on “8 Theses on Change” in management. By now, we already have the Version V4.0 of the St. Gallen Management Model. We did a review of this model with Professor Dr. Johannes Rüegg-Stürm and many Swiss enterprises. In the process, we discovered how unique and modern Hans Ulrich’s theses are still today.
- Leadership – Principles and Values
Being an active participant in a Blog Parade initiated by Bernd Geropp, I have recently been made aware of how diverse the answers to the simple question: “What are your three relevant leadership principles?” are. I took quite some time thinking about it, and then suddenly, it was very clear to me: I am an ALO man (agile, lean, open). But how does this translate into daily practice? Or why will this often not be possible? And what could we do in order to use this principle more frequently?
- Leadership is Communication!
Another topic is communication. Communication has always been a difficult issue. But here, too, humans and their values, expectations, interests and needs changed. And I mean radically. Similar to “basic beliefs” and “basic behaviour”. Except that some bosses, project managers, managing directors and superiors did not notice. And consequently, many of them communicate like in times long past – which is true in several respects. There is really a lot you could improve – and in fact, you have to improve on these things if you wish to make the “future” a success.
- “The Future Cannot be Predicted”
and all decisions will always have an “uncertainty factor”.Well, this is just how it is. And in managerial circles, the awareness that this is how it is now also is being heard. So this would be another exciting session topic.
I think a team cooperating at eye-level is better equipped to distinguish between “good” and “evil”, for instance when it comes to a project. And this is how, with a shared effort, more “right” than “wrong” decisions can be made than, for instance, if an isolated project manager has to make them.
- Discovering Collective Constructs!
Projects or enterprises are social systems, mostly with a decided goal. Social systems, however, tend to develop collective constructs which increase by themselves in a very special way, often also when those who are normatively and strategically responsible become system agents. Social systems can then easily make themselves independent and de-personalize.
The only way to prevent this phenomenon is to have a culture of civil courage lived by the majority in the enterprise or project, thus making it possible to fight back against a perversion of collective system constructs in constructive disobedience. In other words, an immunity guaranteed by a “Crowd” inhibits the social system.
These are all topics I find extremely fascinating. I also have lots of personal experience with these topics and learned much from my mentors. It is my pleasure to share my experiences. However, this kind of thing always has to be in harmony with the barcamp and consequently, with the PM Camp. That is why I always wish to decide at short notice what exactly I will talk about. For instance after having digested the impulse presentation and the feedback in the discussion. Or maybe after the first PM Camp day.
Besides, I am quite ready to let others do the speaking, only getting active when I notice that there seems to be a shortage of volunteers for session. Except if I find something really incentive :-).
So I look forward to being in Berlin. And as to the rest: let us wait and see. In other words: instead of planning, I just let things develop.
There is no doubt that the Berlin PM Camp will be a first-class event. I can promise!
RMD
(Translated by EG)
P.S.
At this time, I would also like to inform you about the next two PM Camps:
The PM Camp Rhein-Main is all about “project communication” It will be from the evening of June, 26th, until the afternoon of June, 28, in Bad Homburg #pmcamprm and #pmcamp14rm. Unfortunately, I cannot be there, because on June, 27th, we have our big 30-year-party – all PM Camp fans are invited.
In July, Munich will host an event between the 24th and the 26th (again Thursday evening through Saturday afternoon). The motto of the PM-Camp München is: “sharing knowledge – increasing knowledge”. And that certainly also sounds familiar: #pmcampmuc or #pmcamp14muc. Of course, I will again be one of the participants at the PM Camp in my home town!
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