TenForce – Pragmatic Project Management

1. Your ears and their ears (plus everything in between!)

The biggest challenge is changing the mindset within the company. People do not like to be taken out of their comfort zone. It’s difficult to learn an old dog new tricks. What we (the visionaries) did was, talk a lot “around the water cooler” the first couple of weeks. We identified people (mostly on the technical side) we thought we needed to convince first. And after some time we heard them talk to the rest about this new thing, called web 2.0. It requires, however a shift. To tell your boss (who is really old school) that you will publish a kind of diary, and that it will support the sales activities, is a kind of a challenge; to put it mildly.

2. Read, read, read and r…

The internet is the best invention ever, really… We wanted to change the company, but did not really know what to do first. Use Google to find out what’s cooking and what’s not. Blogs, articles, forums,… are your sparring partner and help to shape your ideas.

3. Be persistent in the search for data to shape your ideas

If you do a good and persistent search, EVERYTHING (or at least 99%) is out there. Maybe not 100% complete, but if you search with a couple of people independently, it is possible to glue bits and pieces together and design your own strategy. But you must read… a lot.

4. Blink

Read the book Blink by Malcom Gladwell. He describes the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye. It is true; your gut is most of the times right. This point and your knowledge of our paragraph two and three, justify moving forward; without knowing everything 100%.

5. How to convince the rest of the world

One of the things we struggled with was on how to announce to you all , on what we were doing. So we started to blog. We left comments. We attended webinars. And gradually we started to convey the message to some people in our professional network and to web 2.0 affectionados in Germany, Turkey, USA, India,… And yes it is exciting! Our first blog post, or our first invite to a beta tester, or the first users (thanks Bora!), we love what we do. We will continue to do this faster, better and with increased vigor. Persistence is our middle name.