On occasions, I get to do some volunteer work in Prison. I visit a facility weekly in Massachusetts and have recently been running a Setting Goals program. There are always nuggets of wisdom that I come to expect come from these sessions; and this week I am running a workshop one improving our personal performance.
The exercise for improving personal performance has some interesting aspects that are applicable to BPM projects. Firstly, they are all about change, which is what we are usually trying to inflict on others, and secondly they are fully integrated in our behavior.
In this exercise we look for a couple of attributes that are already a part of our Ideals or our personality; for example are we reliable, honest, consistent, compassionate in dealing with others. A short of short term audit for “Two Things I Like About You”.
For the performance improvement aspect of this, even with skills or traits we already have, these can be continuously improved. So this movement can be called a move towards perfection. As the perfection of one of these traits would represent the Ideal.
In addition to improving what we already have, we also can then add a couple of more Ideals that we want to strive towards. This might being more patient, understanding, confident even being funny.
Looking at adding these Ideals to our baseline of skills, personality and traits will hone us further and make us a better project manager, as well as a better human being.
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