Monday
01Feb2010

The Right Way to Admit You've Done Wrong

Just a few days later, I got yet another letter signed by the Senior VP of Operations.  "We value every customer...high standards for customer service...very disappointing if we fall short" blah, blah, blah.  But surprise, surprise, the last sentence in the first paragraph...

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Sunday
24Jan2010

Communication - Staying in Touch with Outliers

I don't know about you, but I don't speak with every stakeholder or team member every day.  In fact, some are so far on the periphery of the project that I don't have any reason to speak to them for weeks at a time. To help address this problem of lack of communication, I'm making a conscious effort to speak with someone each day who I don't normally come into contact with.

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Tuesday
19Jan2010

The Future of Project Management circa 2025

Robert Burns said, "There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing." It's just my unofficial crystal ball, but I see four trends right now that will have a significant impact on project management in 2025.

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Friday
08Jan2010

Improve Your Performance (No, not Enzyte)

What is one thing you can do to improve every aspect of your job performance?  Don't worry.  I didn't know the answer either until it happened to me almost accidentally. I knew my end-of-year evaluation was coming up and someone tweeted an article about how you can take advantage of that review instead of just enduring it. Those two things combined at just the right time to motivate me to do my own self-assessment.

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Tuesday
05Jan2010

Walking on Water? Or Dog-Paddling?

I had never performed a serious self-assessment of my job performance before yesterday.  Sure, I'm always thinking about my job and trying to do the best I can.  And of course my wife always lets me know when I screw up.  So what happened yesterday?

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Wednesday
23Dec2009

Stakeholder Communications Management: The Christmas Letter

I tried to get out of writing the family Christmas letter again this year.  The entire conversation went kind of like this:

Wife: Have you written the Christmas letter yet?

Me: No.

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Sunday
20Dec2009

One Critical Resource: Avoiding the Single Point of Failure

It all makes me wonder about this one critical resource:  If this project had taken place at a time when the admin wasn't going on vacation, would this issue have come up?

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Friday
18Dec2009

5 Essential Traits for Blogging: ClearPM at 1 Year

I think I thought when I first started in Nov 2008 that this would be pretty easy.  I like to write.  What could possibly go wrong?  Well, life could interfere a little.

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Monday
14Dec2009

Project "Plan" vs Project "Schedule"

When someone asks for a "project plan" are they expecting to see a document detailing the plan for successful completion of the project?  Or do they just want to see the schedule?

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Sunday
12Apr2009

Observations on Team Motivation

So if it's not my job to tell my team members what to do, what is my job? Project managers make sure the work gets done.

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