Well, the season has wrapped up, and for project managers, there were plenty of lessons to learn. We saw failures in communication, planning, execution and risk management. We saw poor ideas that were well-executed and good ideas that suffered in implementation. We saw coalitions form and break apart.
Ultimately, it came down to Holly Robinson Peete and Bret Michaels, neither whom I would have predicted would be a finalist. › Continue reading…
This week’s episode was all about culling the herd down from 5 to the final 2. This is not entirely unlike what happens when corporations face downsizing. After rounds and rounds of cuts where the so called “easier” decisions are made, some rationale must be used to cut even more, to some magic predetermined number. Although I’m not claiming there is any similarity between how Donald makes his “ratings based” decisions and the way a real business operates, nor do I even profess to understand the logic behind how companies sometimes perform these things, there were some parallels nonetheless. › Continue reading…
Well, it finally happened. Cyndi Lauper was finally fired. She has been a terrible disappointment all season, and it finally caught up with her.
Cyndi served as project manager twice, losing once and winning once. In Episode 1, she led the women’s team, Tenacity, in their first loss in the diner challenge. I had expected her to be a really strong contender, and was very surprised by her miserable performance in that task. During that episode, she demonstrated that she was not able to manage the work of other people and I blogged about how she never really “got” the point of the challenge, which was to raise money for charity. She instead focused on running a diner, and did that badly as well. The men’s team, Rocksolid, focused on raising money and trounced the ladies. › Continue reading…
In this week’s episode of Celebrity Apprentice, the losing team fell into a common trap that often plagues presenters everywhere – TMI: too much information. This week was a tough one for the board room, as even Donald said he felt that both teams produced an excellent product and performed well. No one team member or project manager made any particular blunders. As usual, with the typical TV show diversion tactics, the audience was led to believe that one team – Rock Solid – was on a path to defeat, due to Bret’s blatant disregard for the sponsors request for levity, › Continue reading…
This week’s episode of Celebrity Apprentice offered a lesson for project managers the world over about recognizing the power of mixing up stagnant teams.
The guys had been doing pretty well as a team and had learned to play to each other’s strengths after the first six episodes. The women, not so much. Cyndi’s initial flakiness has progressed to outright boorishness. Holly continues to grate with her sledgehammer finesse. Maria takes things too personally and Summer is the classic peacekeeper. Sharon has been absent for the last few shows (tolerated because she is The Donald’s pet this season) so her brusqueness has been in short supply but still evident enough to ruffle a few feathers. › Continue reading…
After five episodes, the stress of the show is taking its toll on both teams. The ladies are not nearly as courteous as they were when they started, and are eager to comply when The Donald sets them up to throw each other under the bus in the Board Room. The guy’s team, no longer forming or storming, has moved on to norming, the stage where team members adjust their behaviors to the team dynamics. In this week’s episode, Curtis provided strong leadership for Rocksolid. After weeks of watching Bret dither, Curtis managed him well and led the men’s team to their first win after a string of losses to Tenacity. › Continue reading…
In week 4 of The Celebrity Apprentice, there were a couple of dominant themes. More important even than in past weeks, communication emerged early in the task as a vital discipline that set the stage as a differentiator. Also, I think we saw a poor execution of delegation which contributed to the downfall of the losing team.
As this week’s task assignment began, Donald called both teams to the boardroom, and asked each team to select a project manager without disclosing what the task was. › Continue reading…
This week’s Celebrity Apprentice was an object lesson for just how badly people can handle conflict. Women are particularly guilty of avoiding conflict so they won’t have to hurt anyone’s feelings.
Cyndi Lauper has consistently been a distraction to her team in the first three episodes of Celebrity Apprentice. Several of her team members on Tenacity, the women’s team, have whined about her in their camera confessionals. › Continue reading…
The premier of the third season of Celebrity Apprentice certainly provided lots of grist for the gristmill and the portent of intriguing things to come.
Several themes emerged during the first episode, which had the teams (divided by gender) run a New York diner for a few hours:
Sunday, March 14th marks the premier of the third season of Celebrity Apprentice on NBC at 8:00 PM CST. The only show on television, scripted or unscripted, about the discipline of project management, it is fascinating for those of us who toil in the trenches of the triple constraint. The celebrity quotient just makes it that much more addictive.
Because the show offers so many real-life lessons for project managers (despite the fact that the tasks are being carried out by decidedly surreal celebrity PMs), Cindy and I have decided to analyze each episode in our blog for the next several weeks. We will also be Twittering during the show each Sunday night. Join us on Twitter by searching for #celebrityPM if you’d like to chat with us about the drama as it unfolds! Then, each Wednesday, we’ll post a recap of the episode and blog about the lessons we can learn from the show. › Continue reading…