Off the Beaten Path
Any project manager that has managed (or worked on) even a single project knows that every project will veer off of the planned route in some way. For many projects, this initial deviation is the start of a cascading effect of chaos and reactive decisions that results in delays, dropped scope or reduced quality. Rather than fight it, we should be preparing ourselves to deal with the inevitable unplanned events as best as possible. Read more
Practicing Safe PM
Inevitably, if we build our project schedule based on reasonable expectations of how long it will take to do the work and an initial cut at dependencies between activities, the resulting overall duration will be well beyond our hopes, goals, and promises. This is a challenge that will not go away, and there are different ways to deal with the issue. Read more
Fostering a Project Along
I was working with a team in a technology company this week, going over some of the soft skills and hard practices of project management. This is a team from a variety of disciplines that works together on projects. They had recently completed a project that people in the organization characterized as a ‘train wreck’. On the surface, one would think there would be opportunities to improve on their performance. Read more
Getting In the Groove
These days, we are hammered with more information than ever, and expected to get more done in less time. For most of us, this drives up the pressure to juggle a number of tasks simultaneously, in a frail attempt to meet expectations. We are busier than ever, and there is no end in sight. Read more
