Heroic efforts sound like a good idea, but today’s teams more than ever are subject to self destruction due to the short life of the team hero. Continue reading “Team Killer: Heroics”
Category: Project Management
Use Context To Save The Project: Learn From NSA Missteps
The controversy surrounding the NSA has introduced a situation that we haven’t faced before, nationally, but there are similar situations and potential remedies that project managers can apply in day-to-day project management. When corporate warfare dips into a PM’s project he has two options: sit in silence or act to contain the damage. But how? Continue reading “Use Context To Save The Project: Learn From NSA Missteps”
The Bigger Picture, Context
Buried in a recent meeting, I looked around the room and imagined how much the meeting would change if everyone was wearing a clown head but saying the same things. All those facets would change even more dramatically if we were meeting in a burning building. A swimming pool. Had I been paying attention I wouldn’t have realized that I was thinking about context. Continue reading “The Bigger Picture, Context”
Are You A Cog Or A Saw Blade?
The metaphor of a cog in the machine is timeless and pretty much cliché. But it is also a generalization that remains because it is so right. Within project management the question applies to your planning, prioritization, but mostly to your strategization. To fulfill your project’s needs are you a cog that operates smoothly or do you slice through the organization’s resources and processes like a blade? Continue reading “Are You A Cog Or A Saw Blade?”
Finally a Moleskine for Project Management
A couple of questions always come to mind when I encounter Moleskine notebooks. 1) How could anybody be so arrogant as to think anything they would write needed to be captured in an overpriced notebook? 2) How could anyone be arrogant enough to buy that notebook? Then I met the Moleskine Professional Notebook. Continue reading “Finally a Moleskine for Project Management”
Closing a Project: The Archive
Red Light Cameras a Scam, Firm Takes Heat, and even more hot water over Ohio and New Jersey red light cameras in last week’s news. Given the trouble, do you think the PMs or their documentation might get pulled into the future court battle? With that question in mind, what would you like to see in your document archive?
Read on for a simple tool that can protect you as a PM. Continue reading “Closing a Project: The Archive”
A PM and a Programmer Lost in a Desert
Following a plane crash, a project manager and a programmer are lost in a desert with no civilization in sight. Continue reading “A PM and a Programmer Lost in a Desert”
Spring Cleaning or the Tyranny of Process
The application of process in projects and project management. It’s a subject that I’ve had come to my mind after talking to several people over the past two weeks. Consider the frequency that business changes. The statement that I was offered is that a PMO often doesn’t look at how process needs to change to meet those new needs in the business. Continue reading “Spring Cleaning or the Tyranny of Process”
The Geek Ritual: You Can’t Do That
Many IT managers have proposed an idea to their team and then had to suffer the challenge of an unwashed, video gaming, gearhead claiming that the manager’s proposal “Can’t be done?” Project managers face these contests in the trenches but usually find quickly that there is no real competition. Read on to leap past this obstacle. Continue reading “The Geek Ritual: You Can’t Do That”
Scope Check
What do immature PMs do early in their career? Create a template of the PMBOK activities within MS Project. Here is a tip for new project managers that want to be more relavent and plug into the second(and under-hyped)knowledge area–Scope. In the Monitor/Control process group there are two scope activities: verify scope and control scope. How does that work? Leap into the activities instead of mapping them.
For non-PMPs this post references the PMI knowledge areas and process groups found in the PMBOK v4. Look up Scope and Triple Constraint for some additional background. Continue reading “Scope Check”