Rack and Stack

Every company I've ever worked for has used stack ranking for performance appraisals. Each company had their own method, but there was always a bell curve and you were fit into it somehow. Although I never saw anyone fired because of poor rankings, a poor ranking generally meant you should start looking for another job.

This article makes a good point that what might have worked for GE in a given time doesn't mean it will work for every other company. It's really hard to objectively measure performance if there are no metrics to be measured by. Sure, utilization is a useful metric, but so much of your utilization is out of your control: at a lower level, you can't totally control the projects you're staffed on and the work you're assigned. The last thing you want to do is create more unnecessary internal politicking in an organization, and ranking employees against each other promotes exactly that.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/07/13/why-stack-ranking-worked-better-at-ge-than-microsoft/

Government Contracting at Year-End

The end of the fiscal year is always a busy time for proposals. But like this article states, it's usually the big companies that are most able to take advantage. Big companies are better able to pull together a proposal team quickly and respond with quality. However, 8(a)s and other special small business have a great opportunity to attach as sub-contractors to companies that need them to comply with contracting requirements.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-21/its-christmastime-for-big-government-contractors-dot-for-small-firms-not-so-much

I always seem to look forward to Shark Tank on NBC. There's something intriguing about a set of uber-investors vying to invest in regular people with great ideas. I think one great aspect of the show is that it gives potential and current entrepreneurs without business educations a view into how businesses are assessed and valued.

I had some background in valuation going into my private equity project in Afghanistan because it was covered in my MBA curriculum. But it always surprised me how traditional valuation translated to emerging (or rather, war-zone) markets, and the super high discount rates they required! It was generally my responsibility to explain this to Afghan entrepreneurs who had virtually no idea what I was talking about. But that was the fun, right?

Passed the PMP Exam

I passed the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam last Saturday. It was extremely long (200 questions) and took me the full four hours to complete. I studied for it for about 4 months during the evenings, which included the 35 hours of mandatory education that PMI requires. I crammed the content in rapidly during the last two weeks as I realized that the content of the exam included information that was not in the PMBOK. I used the PM Prepcast which featured the effusive Cornelius Fichtner as the narrator. It was a very thorough way to study for it, and I highly recommend it.

What I really liked about the exam was that I was able to go back to review questions. So if I was unsure of an answer in the initial part of the exam, but more sure of an answer to a similar concept in a later part of the exam, I could go back and change the previous answer I would say I probably changed 5-6 answers in this way. I was also able to go back and figure out some of the network diagram questions that confused me initially, until I was able to figure out the concept they were testing later in the exam.

Anyway, I'm happy the PMP exam is over and vert pleased that I passed. I feel very comfortable now with project management concepts. Now I just need to put this certification to good use.