7 Questions to Build Your Team’s Resilience

We are in the final two months of the year and it’s peak time for your team to deliver their projects. At this point in time, it’s not only their technical skills and experience that matters, but also their resilience. How can you give your team a boost in resilience? Get them together (virtually perhaps) … Read more

From Full-Code to Low-Code to No-Code

As someone who learnt how to code in high school and spent years coding for work, from programming EEPROMS to developing web applications, I am hesitant to “dumb-down” and explore low-code and no-code platforms. Not surprisingly, it’s a non-coder who introduced me to this movement. I haven’t yet done a deep dive into any one … Read more

Build Trust to Boost Project Performance

Project managers are trusted to deliver on time, within budget and scope. The longer your track record of successful deliveries, the more executives trust you to deliver the next big, hairy, audacious project. In turn, you need to trust your project team members to complete their action items on time, raise risks before they become … Read more

From Minimum Viable Product to Minimum Business Increment

For many years, agile teams have focused on delivering the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). Project managers transitioned from traditional or predictive approaches to adopting an agile mindset with sprints and pivots. However, building a product or delivering a service is not enough. It is of limited scope. To truly deliver value to the enterprise, project … Read more

Risk Mitigation and the Art of Putting out Fires with Coke

What does project risk mitigation have to do with putting out fires with coke? Well, firstly there is the risk of fire breaking out at home, in a vehicle, at the office, wherever you are. The typical way to mitigate that risk is to have a fire extinguisher nearby. However, fire extinguishers cost more than … Read more

Develop Your Leadership: Do the Deep, Hidden Work

Leadership is about observable results and performance. However, like an Olympic athlete, the performance you see in a few minutes is the result of years of training. What is the training arena for leaders? It is what others don’t see, at least not physically. It’s what lies beneath the surface, your thoughts, feelings and emotions. … Read more

How to Add Due Dates to JIRA

Looking for how to configure the Due Date or other fields in JIRA is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Here’s the step-by-step instructions: 1.Click Project Settings on the left sidebar 2.Click Fields in the left sidebar 3.Click the Edit icon (it’s the pencil in the red box highlighted in the screenshot above) … Read more

How to Make Better Project Decisions

By now, the result of the Canadian Federal Election held on September 20 would be known. Was it a good decision by the people of Canada? I believe James Surowiecki thinks so. After all, what is a general election if not a decision made following “The Wisdom of Crowds”? There are some basic assumptions though, … Read more

Program Manager: Operations or Projects?

The role of Program Manager exists in many organizations but there is some ambiguity around whether this is an operational-type role or a project-based role. What is the difference? In my experience, operational Program Managers are more widespread than project-based ones. There is no end date to operational programs. The Program Manager is expected to … Read more

What is the value add of a project manager?

The value add of a project manager tends to be missed if you do a good job and everything goes smoothly. If a project was a one-year international road trip, the project manager: Maps out the entire journey Foresees problems along the way e.g. forest fires resulting in road closures, bad weather necessitating slower speeds, … Read more