Archive for the “Human Resources” Category

I admit to proselytizing for improved project management skills among court managers as one of the key survival skills of our time. With the financial crisis driving transformational process re-engineering in courts, it is becoming even more apparent that PM is the latest core competency that will ensure we make it through to the other end of this ordeal. So here is my primer on the subject in the form of Frequently Asked Questions:

WHAT IS A PROJECT?  - A project has a beginning and an end. It has deliverables and goals, and creates something that didn’t previously exist. It is not ongoing operations or maintenance. A project requires the direction of resources over a period of time to create a product or program, the quality of which will be determined by the amount of resources, amount of available time and how well the process is managed.

WHAT IS A PROJECT MANAGER? - The individual or groups of individuals that manage the deployment of resources and manage the time constraints to accomplish a project are project managers.

WHAT IS THE “TRIPLE CONSTRAINT?  - A project is affected by the amount of available resources and available time, and the quality of the output is affected accordingly. This concept is called the “triple constraint” and is depicted in the following graphic:

WHAT ARE THE REASONS FOR PROJECT FAILURE?  - The updated 2001 list of reasons why projects fail from the Standish Group study is ranked in the far left column, along with a survey of members of the National Association for Court Management, also conducted in 2001:

Standish Group 2001 Rank	NACM 2001 Rank	Reasons for project failure
1	2	Lack of executive support
2	10	Lack of user involvement
3	1	Inexperienced project manager or management
4	7	Unclear business objectives
5	6	Too complex scope of project
6	4	Lack of standard software infrastructure
7	5	Lack of firm basic requirements
8	9	Lack of formal methodology
9	3	Lack of reliable estimates
10	7	Other criteria

THE BOTTOM LINE

It is clear that the need for solid project management skills is of significant importance when it comes to the likelihood of project success. This was ranked #1 as the reason for project failure by the court management profession, and #3 by the Standish Group for projects in every other industry.

The above list of reasons for project failure also serves as a positive roadmap to show what is needed to improve the odds of success:

√ Make sure that management and court leadership support the project.

√ Make sure to involve the end users in your project development and execution.

√ Be clear about your objectives and take the time to develop a comprehensive scope of work.

√ For IT projects, make sure to have the right infrastructure in place, adequate user requirements, formal methodologies and accurate estimates.

… and for every project, make sure you apply solid project management skills

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Title graphic credit = Microsoft clip art

Triple Constraint graphic credit = Projections Consulting

With the tanking world, US and local economies, many people are shopping for jobs, which means updating the resume and circulating it to potential employers. TechRepublic.com posted this guide to words and phrases one should NOT use because they are meaningless, trite or downright painful to read.

Here is their list:

• Results-oriented professional
• Cross-functional teams
• More than [x] years of progressively responsible experience
• Superior (or excellent) communication skills
• Strong work ethic
• Met or exceeded expectations
• Proven track record of success
• Works well with all levels of staff
• Team player
• Bottom-line orientation

I’m not sure I agree with all of these, but I don’t feel strongly enough to defend them. I have posted in the past about the word police who seem hell-bent at times to slap us around for use of perfectly acceptable words and phrases.

Also, I won’t refrain from using some words purely for political correctness, and to this extent I would take issue … resumes should focus on past results, and not necessarily past positions. So what if you were Supreme Commander for Bovine Stall Sanitation? What I want to know is how effective you were at keeping the cow barn clean, and if so how you did it.

So, here’s the drill – write for clarity, and put yourself in the shoes of those who are hiring. Don’t force them to extract information out of your resume, and err on the side of telling them what you accomplished, not how many stripes you had on your sleeve.

Oh, and avoid double speak words such as paradigm, dynamic, diversity, sustainability and value-added. To me they are like fingernails on a chalkboard.

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Microsoft clip art

An Italian colleague I met through LinkedIn asked an interesting question … he was trying to put together a manual (or handbook or compendium) for court administrators and heads of court. This blog posting is part reply and part musing about what, exactly, one is looking for when they seek a court administrator.

WE’VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY

First, some history. Court administration as a profession is relatively young and began in earnest in 1968 when then US Chief Justice Warren Burger gave a State of the Judiciary speech to the American Bar Association in which he made two starting revelations – first, that judges should pay primary attention to being judges and leave the administration of courts to trained professional managers, and second, that there were more trained astronauts in the US at that time compared ot trained court administrators. This defining moment resulted in the creation of the Institute for Court Management and the National Center for State Courts, the two of which eventually merged into one organization.

GUIDELINES

For years, court administrators operated without formal rules or pronounced authority. Their power was largely negotiated and ad hoc, as it remains in many jurisdictions today. Over time, court rules and statutes were adopted setting forth sometimes general and sometimes specific duties and responsibilities. Samples of rule-and-statute-based duties include California (conduct a Google search with the phrase: California duties of court executive) and Utah. For sample guidelines for a court administrator’s duties, see Texas.

DOMESTIC

The two major organizations addressing these issues are the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) and National Association for Court Management (NACM). A must-visit resource for NCSC is the CourTopics information portal, where just about every topic relates to court and judicial administration. For NACM, the place to visit is their set of core competencies setting forth what a successful court administrator should be able to do.

INTERNATIONAL

To get a feel for the international implications of the court administrator position, the National Center for State Courts offers a high level view of where the court administration profession came from, and a set of suggested duties. Also, the fledgling International Association for Court Management has some, but not a lot of descriptive data on the topic. The Association of Canadian Court Administration has a lot more, including the adoption and occasional modification of NACM’s core competencies.

Finally, my colleague and former business partner, Alex Aikman, wrote The Art and Practice of Court Administration, an expensive but highly worthwhile read on the subject.

So did we answer the question what is a court administrator? I think not, mainly because the real answer is it all depends.

I serve as en elected director of our local fire protection district that is managed by a fire chief who does everything – hire, fire, train, manage personnel, develop the budget, acquire apparatus, oversee building of fire stations, and even manage the environmental remediation of a former underground fuel storage tank. Oh yeah, and he’s responsible for fire suppression and prevention. In the neighboring fire jurisdiction, the city fire chief only directs his attention to fire suppression and prevention, while the city handles budgets, procurement, human resource management and just about everything else. Outwardly, they look like the same job, but they are decidedly different and require widely different skill sets.

Court administrators fall into the same categories. Some US states are highly centralized where court administrators are caretakers of the local court with services and support provided by a statewide agency. Others are decentralized with court administrators doing everything in a self contained, autonomous agency. Again, outwardly similar, but really dramatically different responsibilities.

I encourage you to post comments and suggestions to help our Italian friend in his quest to define the court administrator position and its role.

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Etsy

I said it before, and I’ll say it again … I hate meetings. Most are poorly run, have little demonstrated purpose and are called too frequently. If you must subject others to this modern day torture, at least manage the meeting so it has a ghost of a chance of being productive.

Our good friends at Tech Republic published this timely blog posting entitled 10 things you can do to turn useless meetings into productive ones. I’ll recap their list and add a few flourishes of my own …

WHY

If you can’t answer the question of why a meeting is called, you’ve lost the first battle. It also begs the question of what the convener is trying to accomplish. Although it seems incredibly basic, please ask who, what, why, when and where before you call a meeting.

CREATE A MANIFESTO

Once you figure out what you are trying to accomplish by calling a meeting, why not share that with those you invite? Lay out in the invitation and agenda the purpose and proposed deliverables for this meeting.

PREPARE MINUTES

Prepare minutes of the meeting summarizing the actions and follow-up. I was taught early on that minutes should be brief, to the point and action oriented.

ENFORCE THE RULES

We are a nation of laws … meetings are run best when they are run by time tested rules of following the agenda, promoting wide participation by those in attendance and disallowing domination or sidetracking of the meeting. Keeping those in attendance on track means meetings are short and to the point. Just the second-best way I like ‘em … the first-best is not to call one in the first place.

ACTION

As soon as practical, call for the question … get to the point for the meeting and get consensus on the outcome. That also means getting commitments from those from whom action is needed.

UNPLUG

When the meeting is over, end it. If others wish to hand around and socialize, that’s an individual choice. Don’t make everyone stick around for the non-substantive chit chat that often surrounds a meeting.

I’ve got two additional tricks I use besides those tips covered above … first, use a consent calendar if you have ongoing meetings that require housekeeping items such as approval of minutes from previous meetings, approval of accounting reports, acceptance of correspondence, etc. If someone wishes to discuss a particular item or correct the minutes, require that he or she pull that item from the consent calendar for separate action. Otherwise, pass the consent calendar in one move.

My next trick is to err on the side of consensus rather than formalized Robert’s Rules of Order. Unless you are bound by these convoluted rules through bylaws or statute, use the American Bar Association Modern Rules of Order that I find a lot less formal and less restrictive.

Finally, if your meeting is mostly informational, audio or videotape it, or just write it in a report and send it out for others to read at their convenience. Don’t torture everyone through some power play by requiring that they attend a meeting in order to receive one-way communication.

With any luck, you can tame your meetings and not get bit like one half of the famed Siegfred and Roy team.

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Robert Scott Hopper

OK, I’m weird. Those of you who know me will not find this newsworthy. I even read weird stuff, like Quality Digest magazine that focuses on the quality assurance and process improvement needs of more than 64,000 manufacturing professionals. In their March 2009 edition, a regular columnist, H. James Harrington wrote that education and creativity are uneasy but useful allies. As May and June are traditional graduation months, this is a great topic for today’s blog entry …

So, do education and creativity work together? Does education stifle creativity? For certain, we need education in our lives, not just for enrichment but for standardization. It is important to study languages, math, science and English for no other reason than to learn what is and to have a common bond with the world. But does this standardization, of itself, devalue the creative solutions that aren’t necessarily accepted norm? To be sure, while we are busy gathering data we are not usually receptive to doing something with the knowledge, at least until our research is completed.

So is it the competing interests of education and creativity that is the root of the problem, or is it some other, deeper issue? Harrington suggests it’s about wisdom, which is a subset of education but answers to a higher calling in the form of search for truth. In seeking the truth, it may or may not conform to standardization or accepted norm, yet one must be wise indeed to seek and find it despite its nonconformity.

Harrington’s conclusion is that sometimes you have to get away from a problem before you can solve it. The reason is that problem solving often includes research (education), when at least the act of gathering information stifles creativity. The example he gave was the court jester of medieval times, whose job it was to shake conventional wisdom in order that others could consider the possibilities.

Hey, court jester … that’s the court connection. I knew I read those quality magazines for something !!

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Microsoft clip art

March has been an eventful month for me and for court management education in general. The Institute for Court Management is embarking on a bold initiative to educate a wider audience of court managers by partnering with several states and making ICM curriculum available for local trainers to deliver a set of courses that, combined, will certify a larger number of participants in the Court Management Program (CMP).

So why is this move so bold? For starters, it is a sort of “franchising” of the ICM product, which is a set of curricula developed over time in a wide variety of disciplines such as caseflow management, court performance standards/CourTools, human resource management, managing information technology and budget/financing. This curricula is refined and delivered by a core set of faculty conversant in the subject material and accomplished as adult educators.

The need to educate more court managers is obvious. The primary risk involved in rolling this curricula out to a wider set of trainers is the potential loss of quality control and a resulting diminishment of the value of the education and the CMP certification itself. In order to address this concern, ICM has planned a series of new faculty development seminars, the first of which took place in Williamsburg in January. Still, how many new local educators can be reliably trained in such a short period of time?

Enter one of the consortium state partners in Ohio where CMP certified programs have been ongoing for several years in partnership with ICM. Ohio also has a close relationship with the Ohio Channel for broadcast of Supreme and Appellate Court arguments … this relationship has now been extended to include the videotaping of selected CMP courses with added video footage describing the teaching methods for use as a train-the-trainer tool. I consider myself fortunate to serve as senior faculty for ICM and I consider myself doubly fortunate to have participated in the videotaping last month of the first two CMP courses for the consortium states.

Mary Sammon and I taught the caseflow management course in early March and David Slayton and I taught the court performance standards/CourTools in late March. It is such a joy to see professionals performing at the top of their craft, and to do so up close and personal as I have in Ohio is a rare treat. Hats off to Milt Nuzum, Margaret Allen, Kristopher Steele and the whole Ohio Judicial Education crew for stepping up to the plate in such a big way. Kudos, too, to Leisel Bonneau and her Ohio Channel film crew for such creative competence. And my gratitude and admiration to Mary Sammon, Ray Foster and the whole ICM team for their courage and willingness to take this challenge head on. Slayton, as usual, did a sterling job as my co-faculty for the second course.

There is still much left to do, including editing of raw footage and the videotaping of several future CMP sessions. The end result will be a solid training tool that will substantially improve the chances of successful rollout of the ICM curriculum to its consortium states.

Court managers of the future will point to this time as a turning point that produced a highly qualified and professional court management workforce for our nation’s courts. I’m pleased to be a small part of that history.

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Institute for Court Management

The saying the world is run by those who show up is attributed variously to anonymous sources or to an engineering expert, Robert B. Johnson, in an article in the Journal of Management in Engineering (Jan/Feb 1999 — Volume 15, Issue 1, pp. 90-92). It succinctly describes what most of us observe in our personal and work lives  …  that people tend to fall into two groups: those who are disengaged from the world around them or those who are active participants trying to shape the future.

Do you ever notice when someone gets an award, you often learn that they are also coaching their children’s Little League team, serving on the local food bank board of directors, and chair of a committee in their professional organization? Do you ever notice that there are a limited number of people you reliably can turn to when you need something done? Is it a surprise that these same people are usually in both categories?

So what’s the deal? We’re all busy, and many of us are fortunate to also have loving families that deserve our attention and limited free time. Why should we also be expected to provide community service and philanthropy? There are no easy answers, but here are some general tips  …

Charity begins at home
There is nothing more important in your life than taking care of your family and raising healthy children if you have them. Individuals should not feel pressured to take on more than they can reasonably be expected to accomplish, especially if the extracurricular activities significantly diminish one’s family life.

Acting as a role model
Notwithstanding the first tip, children need good role models and should learn early on that public service and caring for the community are not only good things, but should be expected. Balancing these priorities is the trick.

Shaping the future
Have you ever been bemused when someone complains about politicians, but then admits that they don’t vote? The same can be said of a lot of things including public policy, effective government, youth recreation and our profession. Decisions, policies, laws and programs are put into place by governing boards, citizen groups and professional organizations that rely heavily on volunteer leadership. It’s one thing to have a good idea, but it’s another thing entirely to manage, fund and determine how that idea is put into practice. Those who show up actually end up doing it.

Where you can participate
I can’t tell you where you can best serve in your community. That decision should be driven first by your interests and talents, and second by community needs. In your profession, start by joining and actively participating in your professional association, whether than is on a local, state or national level. Nationally, that would mean active participation in the National Association for Court Management. If you are a court technology specialist, look into the Court Information Technology Officer’s Consortium and the Forum on the Advancement of Court Technology.

And be sure to say hello if we meet at one of these NACM, FACT or CITOC gatherings.

Chris Crawford
www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Microsoft clip art

Is Christmas Eve too soon to begin thinking about New Year’s resolutions? Why not! My favorite tech publication, TechRepublic.com, had a great piece last week on the five reasons that organizations fail at project management. They’re worth a review.

As I noted in my What I want for Christmas posting, I believe that project management skills are an important ingredient to successful judicial administration. Yet even those courts that vow to improve their application of solid project management disciplines often stumble. Here are five reasons why …

PM ≠ MP

When I teach project management skills in various court-related classes, I stress that Project Management is not Microsoft Project. Those who think they can shortcut the project management learning curve by purchasing this evil software are sadly mistaken. Instead, I use simple, straightforward principles that together provide a solid understanding and appreciation for project management. These are:

• The need for a compelling project statement that serves as a scope of work to focus attention on the intent of the project.
• The necessity for a communication plan that spells out who the stakeholders are, which of these stakeholders are decision/policy makers and how you plan to keep them informed.
• A thoughtful risk management plan that identifies likely stumbling blocks and how to get around them.
• A list of tasks, who is responsible for each, when they will be accomplished and in what sequence (these are best displayed in a Gantt Chart).

TOO DIFFICULT TO TRAIN EVERYONE

Yes, in order to have court staff speaking the same project management lingo, they have to be trained in the PM discipline. They don’t have to be trained to the level of certification, but an investment of time and commitment is necessary to harness the strength of project management. As the old axiom goes (slightly twisted), you seem to find the time to do it over, why not use the time to do it right the first time?

WE TRIED IT ALREADY

This is an invidious phenomenon that fails to recognize that project management is a tool that should be used to the degree that each project warrants. A zealous project manager will easily fatigue court staff with mind numbing processes that are more suited to building something or developing software. Simply stated, a solid project management structure will significantly improve your chances of success.

LACK OF COMMITMENT

The failure of management and staff to engage in the actual development of a project statement, communication plan, risk management plan and work breakdown structure spells project defeat.

ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS

Imposing project management discipline on a court organization that is a low performer is an exercise in futility. Any discussion about instilling project management skills should take into consideration the organizational readiness of a court.

So make a resolution that 2009 will be the year that your court will invest the time, training and discipline to use project management techniques in court management. If you are willing to overcome the obstacles described above, the payoff will be significant.

Happy Holidays !!

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Microsoft clip art

I’m not looking for presents for me, as I have been blessed with a loving wife, a great family and all the resources I need. But I have a wish list for our courts this Christmas …

READING

Courts need to be more business-like in their administration. Therefore, I offer as my initial gift this suggested reading list from the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship. By whatever standard we measure success in courts, efficiency, customer service and financial integrity are keys to that success.

SKILLS

The National Association for Court Management really hit it out of the park when they developed a set of core competencies outlining the skill sets that every successful court leader should have. Although it is not named as a separate discipline, I believe that project management skills are an important ingredient to each of these competencies. A well trained court management and workforce is a substantial present that keeps on giving.

AN ACTIVELY ENGAGED COMMUNITY

Courts have as much power as is given to them by the community at large. Unless citizens have confidence in their courts, actively and willingly serve as jurors, and bring their disputes to the courthouse instead of trying to solve them in back alleys, justice is just some abstract concept instead of a living, breathing part of our lives. So my wishful present is an actively engaged community.

COMPASSION AND WISDOM

Like cops, judges and court personnel can get jaded over time and lose sight of the fact that our customers need our services very badly. Accordingly, they deserve individual and compassionate attention. I serve as a director of our local fire department and the Chief once told me, “we see people on the worst day of their lives, so it’s important that we remember and respect their traumatic state when we deal with them.” Whether it is prayer, meditation, psychotherapy or Chamomile Tea, we should regularly step back to contemplate our role and hone our bedside manners. If you were to receive this present, it would be of mutual benefit to the recipient and the customer.

My final wish for you this Christmas is for peace and happiness. May this season bless you with tidings of comfort and joy.

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Microsoft Clipart

Everyone seems to be interested in labeling people, ideas and groups, whether for convenience or to reinforce stereotypes. The latest fad in the blog world is a service called Typealyzer that takes your blog address and performs an almost instantaneous analysis of the author’s writing style using the Myer’s-Briggs temperament sorter.

While Myer’s-Briggs has solid credentials based in Jungian psychology, employers often use this test as a means to sort out the workforce into productive assignments best suited to individual strengths and weaknesses. The trouble with this application is multi-fold … first, the test should always be voluntary and not forced on anyone. Second, the results should be confidential and not shared with co-workers or put in a personnel file. Lastly, use of these personality sorters is not an appropriate selector for employment; there are no right or wrong types and most professions contain highly competent individuals of different types with complementary preferences.

My Typealyzer analysis sorted me as an INTJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking and Judging) personality type, or what they called the scientist. Their explanation is as follows:

The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it - often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be pshysically hesitant to try new things.

The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their communication they often have a problem communicating their visions to other people and need to learn patience and use concrete examples. Since they are extremely good at concentrating they often have no trouble working alone.

Hmm … this analysis does not fit my Myer’s-Briggs profile that I last took in the 1990’s. Does this mean that a person writes one way and acts another? Am I an extrovert in person but an introvert on paper? Am I an analytical “judging” type when I write, but “perceiving” in my non-writing personality?

These temperament sorters are highly useful for feedback and introspect. The more we know ourselves, the better we are able to deal with ourselves and others.

Serenity now!!

Chris Crawford

www.justiceserved.com

Photo credit = Typealyzer.com