Cat Herder or Project Manager?
Are you a project manager
Or a professional cat herder?
Do you sometimes feel
Like a project babysitter?
Project Management
You can’t squeeze your project into greatness – expand it!
As project managers, sometimes you are handed a poorly designed project that spells failure from day one. You immediately fall back on the triple constraints of scope, time, and cost. Then, if all you think about is how to cut costs and limit scope in order to deliver on time, you are squeezing your project. … Read more
Return to the Office or Quit
Last week, Elon Musk mandated a return to the office policy for Tesla workers, “Anyone who wishes to do remote work must be in the office for a minimum (and I mean *minimum*) of 40 hours per week or depart Tesla.” What problem is Elon trying to solve? Those who refuse, “should pretend to work … Read more
Don’t Have Time? Delete One App
Apps eat your time! How many notifications do you receive about offers and deals you don’t need? Each time you receive one of these, you expend mental energy to digest that offer and make a decision. Then you may delete that offer. Over time, I have added many apps to my phone which I no … Read more
What’s the most challenging part of on-boarding a new project management tool?
Recently I got asked, what was the most challenging part of onboarding a new project management tool? Contrary to popular belief, technology is not the biggest problem. The success or failure to adopt the new PM tool depends on how the choice was made. Were users included in the selection process and broadly consulted? Or … Read more
Just back from vacation and overwhelmed by messages and to-dos?
It can be overwhelming to return from even a short vacation to an overflowing inbox. I brace myself before checking my email. How do you deal with the overflow upon your return? Do you stem the flood by checking and responding to messages during the holiday? First off, you have already set an out of … Read more
PMI’s Talent Triangle is Evolving
PMI’s Talent Triangle is Evolving: Is this merely a change in nomenclature or is there more to it? In my humble opinion, this transition reflects the takeaways from PMI’s Pulse of the Profession 2021. (I took a deeper dive with four posts based on the Pulse.) Based on my coaching work, technical PM is a … Read more
Driving Your Project With the Brakes On?
Are you Driving Your Project with the Brakes On? “Driving with the brakes on … swimming with your boots on,” these lyrics from Del Amitri’s song remind me of some projects I worked on. Getting work done was like stepping on the accelerator. Decision-making, on the other foot, felt like stepping on the brakes. The … Read more
The Pain of Project Managers
As a project manager, you scan the future for problems. You foresee the pitfalls, You warn your stakeholders about them, And you give them options to avoid the risks. But they don’t decide early.They take a wait and see approach.They want to keep their options open.The longer they wait, the fewer the optionsAnd the more … Read more
Gymnastic Project Management
Last month, I published a post emphasizing that project managers should focus on delivering the project goal instead of the project plan. PMI’s 2021 Pulse of the Profession calls this the gymnastic approach: where all available PM methodologies were used to deliver the outcome. Traditional corporations only rely on proven methods, retaining process rigidity and … Read more