Interested Parties, not Stakeholders

In response to my post on How to Solve Stakeholder Management Problems, a reader responded that the term stakeholder has negative connotations to many Indigenous Peoples. In her comment, Denise Tregear suggested replacing stakeholder with the terms “Interested Parties” or “Partners” instead. While it’s true that words have many meanings and I struggle to write … Read more

Stakeholder Management – A PM Tip

Stakeholder management is the biggest pain point experienced by project managers. In my survey of project professionals, 80% of respondents mentioned it as a challenge or problem that poses risks to the success of their projects. This resonated with the broader PM community. When I posted the list of common stakeholder management problems to the … Read more

What’s the #2, #3, and #4 biggest challenges project managers face?

You already know that the biggest pain point for PMs is stakeholder management. What comes after? In my survey of project managers, the #2 biggest pain point was mentioned by one in two respondents. It is resource management, and it sounds like:• it’s hard to get resources for projects; we’re always competing for resources because there … Read more

Project Managers Have This Biggest Pain Point

Over the past several weeks, I reached out to project managers in my network and asked them what their biggest project problems were. The top pain point was mentioned by twice as many people as the second. Make a guess. What’s your greatest project challenge? If your answer is stakeholder management, you are in good … 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

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