I haven't started, but I have

It is very interesting to watch myself at work as I consider, contemplate, and reflect on my ARP ideas. I know that the ARP is now firmly rooted in the back of my head and is definitely having an effect much of what I do at work. I'm starting to bring up project management ideas during our design discussions and even during our casual discussions. I'm not calling them "project management" ideas but that is in fact what they are. I wonder, am I trying to prepare my teammates for participating in my ARP? Is this a fair thing to do? Hmmmm.. I guess if it was for purely selfish (OMET and ARP related) purposes... maybe it wouldn’t be... but I honestly believe that the ideas I'm putting out there have value for our group and, more importantly, they are timely ideas and I shouldn't wait until my ARP "officially" begins to bring them up. Plus - the ideas were always there to some extent... we just haven't been as diligent as we might have been about incorporating them in our daily routine.

Even more interesting though - is that I'm no longer jumping to do everything for everyone else (be the first to answer every question, look up every resource, find every document, etc.). I'm actually encouraging others to contribute and then supporting them in their effort to contribute - I don't think I actually realized that I wasn't doing that before (or wasn't doing it as much as I could). An example of this would be the recent search for industry standards on timelines for the kind of development that we do. I knew where to look that stuff up. I could have just looked it up and then emailed it to everyone else... but instead I encouraged those asking the most questions (and stressing the most over how they perceived our management judges things) to look up the information, compile it, analyze it, distribute it to the team, and then encourage discussion about it. I didn't tell them they had to do it, I didn't say that I wouldn't (or couldn't do it), rather, I suggested that having real data to back up our position would be a very positive thing and then I gave them a nudge in the right direction and continued to encourage them in their search and analysis.

It was very cool to be part of that process AND watch myself from the outside. What is most interesting to me is that I think I felt more satisfied about their achievement than I would have if I had simply looked up all the data myself and presented it. Nice lesson. Must endeavor to remember it as this year progresses.