Blogs

Today’s Scott Adams Dilbert contribution struck a strong project management chord. Unfortunately, in the real world your stakeholders will rarely be as open about their lack of enthusiasm or alignment as Alice, Wally & Asok. read more

As with any other behavior change, convincing functional managers that it is a good idea for them to do their regular team planning in a centralized, consistent fashion can be a hard sell. read more

There was an interesting article in this month’s (April 2012) issue of PMI’s PM Journal which detailed a study researching the differences in risk management focus between project managers and project owners (the role of the project owner goes beyond the typical project funding or authorization role that is played by project sponsors). read more

Agile continues to be a hot topic in mainstream project management publications and events and most organizations have shifted from debating whether or not to explore agile practices to evaluating the success they’ve had with their use. read more

I always found the narrative in the tape scenes in the Mission: Impossible TV movies amusing: “Your mission SHOULD you choose to accept it…”  The word “should” implies a choice that IMF team leaders and project managers rarely are able to take advantage of. read more

When communicating, we sometimes forget that having the recipient correctly understand the message is more important than the content or structure of the message itself. read more

As I wrote in an earlier post, trust is a critical environmental hygiene factor for project success.  We expect a certain level of distrust between organizations that are partnering on a project which provides the rationale for contracts, penalty clauses, service level agreements and other legally binding documentation. read more

For the uneducated or the unbelievers in the value of project management, it is hard to imagine how a project manager can fill the working hours of a day. read more

On traditional projects, a project change management plan is supposed to provide guidance to project teams on the criteria that make a change significant enough to manage through formal change control. read more

Good project managers are usually in high demand so it can be difficult to convince senior management of the benefits of building in some downtime between project assignments. read more