The Post-Project Lessons Learned Session - Who and What By Kathlika Thomas Let’s expand on the “who” and the “what” of presenting your post-deployment analysis. First, the “who”: You’ll find that those who are most interested in attending a post-project lessons learned session will fall into three main categories: sponsors, project team members, and clients. The “what” [...]

Senior managers rank among the most under-acknowledged people in the workplace. Part... Judy Umlas, International Institute for Learning (IIL)

Nurturing Trust By Ron Taylor “If you fail to honor your people, they will fail to honor you.” - Lao Tzu In my father’s generation, leaders were expected to give orders and workers were expected to take them. You did what you were told to do or you were fired. In my generation, leaders are expected, in style if [...]

Four Early Warning Signs of a Project in Trouble By Ty Kiisel Underground mining is a dangerous occupation. What’s more, before the advent of sophisticated breathing apparatus, methane and carbon monoxide made it even more dangerous for the men working in the mines. In the early days of underground mining, because their metabolism was susceptible to methane [...]

Project Post Mortem Review Questions By Michael Greer Overview It’s important for project managers and team members to take stock at the end of a project and develop a list of lessons learned so that they don’t repeat their mistakes in the next project. Typically such reviews are called post-project reviews or “post mortems.” I recommend a [...]

In my last post, I used The Lord of the Rings to... Roger Chou, PgMP

Crack or Chasm Between Project Management and Change Management? By Gail Severini Recently there seems to be an increase job ads that bundle some Change Management capabilities in with Project Management. Many experienced Change Management specialists have expressed concern that a combination could detract from the value of both. The drivers are different and there is a [...]

What Is The PMP Certification Test Like? By Keith Mathis - PM Expert Live Your PMP® certification test will cost $405.00 if you are a PMI® member and $525.00 if you are not. You will actually save $25.00 by joining PMI® and then signing up for the test. All fees for the PMP® certification will be paid [...]

Saturday Humor for Project Managers: Newton’s Unpublished Laws By John Maver and Dr. Margery Mayer Everyone is working very hard these days and the pressure is intense. Take a moment and appreciate some humor. Studies show that if you can find a laugh each day, not only will you live longer, but you will enjoy your life [...]

8 Golden Rules for Effective Project Management Meetings By Ron Rosenhead My company has been collecting statistics for several years. One of the questions is quite revealing: ‘Project meetings are collaborative events which look at achievements not past failures’. The percentages are shown below: Strongly agree: 1.3% Agree: 25.6% Disagree: 57.3% Strongly Disagree 12.6% Don’t know 3.2% Not very good stats are they? [...]

I'm linking the procurement and human resources chapters of A Guide to... Michael Hatfield, PMP,

Scheduling Project Management Tasks By Kathlika Thomas A detailed schedule is one of the best tools that a project manager can have. By scheduling yourself in advance to do all of the necessary management tasks, you stay much more organized throughout your project. You know exactly what you need to do to get started, what you need [...]

Project Manager vs. Product Marketer - Who Is Going To Win? By Anna Korlyakova Marketing and project management have as always been seen as separate disciplines, each having developed separately from the other. Project Managers typically are seen to have a keen grasp of the skills that involve scheduling, record keeping, and budgets. Until recently creative skills were [...]

Outsourcing Key Projects: Bringing Companies One Step Closer to Business Virtualization By Bill Balcezak The success of a company depends on providing the highest level of service to its clients. Yet when times are tough, reduced budgets and smaller staffs make it harder to deliver. Outsourcing key projects can help you to provide a higher level of [...]

This video presents how to surpass the limitations of some Kanban systems based on a sequence of phases by introducing work cells which involves using simultaneous phases grouped in two queues: what you are doing and what you are going to do. http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Single-Piece-Flow-Kanban Related article: Aspects of Kanban

Nowadays project managers more and more frequently choose agile methodologies while conducting sophisticated projects. It is mainly because it increases effectiveness of the team and customer satisfaction. Unfortunately as in other methodologies problems with human resources occurs quite frequently. Most of the problems are connected with (lack of!) communication. What can be done to avoid [...]

Finding the “Silver Lining” By Susan Peterson Often a project manager and his/her team only hear and read criticism about the level of effectiveness of their work. It’s always easy to criticize. There are media personalities who make quite comfortable salaries filling the air waves with nasty remarks, sarcasm and cynicism. Seldom, if ever, do these same [...]

Three Tips for Project Tracking By Andrea Brockmeier What do your team members do when you ask them the question, “Where are you at on the project?” Ignore you? Stare blankly? Look confused? Cower? What makes tracking and reporting so difficult? After all, “Where are you at?” is a completely reasonable and fair question. In fact, without [...]

Only Connect - The Key to Good Project Management By Rosana Francescato Recently, I’ve been meeting with other project managers around my company to discuss project management, with the aim of improving my knowledge and skills. I often start out asking them what they think the most important skills are for a project manager and what project [...]

Project Management Skills: Making Change Stick By Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, Founder, Cheetah Learning Are you tired of hearing people say the only constant is change? I think we all need to keep saying it to remind ourselves we have to always be ready to keep changing. Here’s the rub: how do we make change stick? How can [...]