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 [...]

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 [...]

The Unspoken Additional Constraint of Project Management By Gary Hamilton, Gareth Byatt, and Jeff Hodgkinson Whether you are a novice just embarking upon your career in project management or a seasoned veteran, you are most likely familiar with the project management concept of the “triple constraint”. The triple constraint of quality, time and cost is perhaps as [...]

Performance Issues - Conflicts Outside the Project Team By Dave Nielsen Conflict that extends outside the project team brings an additional layer of complexity to the problem. Given that the conflict is negatively impacting project performance, or will impact it in the near future, you will still want to take some action to remedy the situation, but [...]

Project Management Screw-Up - We Didn’t Involve The Right People By Lonnie Pacelli Some years back I worked on a process re-engineering project at a large industrial manufacturer. The project went on for several months and it looked as if things were going quite well. Then, a person that I’ll call “Hack” showed up on the project [...]

Systems Thinking in Project Management By Michael D. Taylor Most project managers tend to think only conventionally when managing projects. This means that they begin from a given project goal, plan the project to meet the goal, then execute the plan in order to meet the project goal. Little thought is given to strategic thinking or systems [...]

10 Things Every Manager Should Know By Gina Abudi Although this article is targeted at managers in general, it easily applies for project managers… In working with clients over the years to develop programs for new supervisors/managers - there are some skills, knowledge and competencies that rise to the top of “must have’s” for someone in a management [...]

Value Is in the Eye of the Stakeholder By Lynda Bourne The only purpose of undertaking any business activity is to create value! If undertaking the work destroys value the activity should not be started. Any value proposition though is ‘in the eye of the stakeholder’ – this is rarely solely constrained by either time or cost. Effective [...]

Scope Management Does Not Mean Scope Stoppage By Vicki Wrona, PMP - Global Knowledge Instructor I would like to address what seems to be a common misunderstanding regarding the term “scope creep.” I read a recent question posted by a LinkedIn colleague titled “Why do so many project managers think scope management means scope oppression?” I like the [...]

Attitude vs Aptitude in Project Teams By Kerry Wills I have been on several projects now where there are project resources who are very talented in their particular field but who have a pessimistic and almost toxic impact on the team morale. These are the people who know a system or business area very well and therefore [...]

Project Management - Gather Requirements For Successful Execution By Brad Holt People that rely on a project that is being executed rely on the project manager and the business analysts to gather requirements that will produce a product or service that will help the users or stakeholders of the project. The project Management Institute defines a requirement [...]

When Should You Hire a Program Or Project Manager? By Corbin Links A frequent question when it comes to buying Enterprise IT Consulting Services, is “do we really need the vendor’s project management services when we have our own in-house staff?” This is a great question, and a crucial component of Strategic IT Program Planning. The short answer [...]

Five Critical Success Factors for Project Managers By Sonja Hughes I’m sure we’ve all been in situations where someone assigned us to manage a project whether or not we were called a “Project Manager”. Have you been in charge of setting up or moving an office? Have you been responsible for an event like a conference or [...]

Your Project Has Been Targeted for Termination - Now What? By Kiron D. Bondale Termination of a large active project is like undergoing root canal surgery – intellectually you may realize that you need to have it in order to avoid serious long term impacts but that does not help to reduce the trauma associated with the [...]

Ingredients For an Effective Project Proposal By Nigel Brooks The contents of an effective project proposal that gets results include: Understanding of the problem Situation - this is the “status” What complicates the situation in terms of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats - this is a further elaboration of the “status” Clear statement of the problem including needs and requirements - [...]

How to Handle Project Budget Cuts By Michael Stanleigh Dear Project Coach: My project sponsor just cut 30% of the funds and I am really confused and short of ideas at the moment. What is the best practice and how am I to resolve this issue? This my first project with this sponsor and I don’t want to lose [...]