Alice Hill
C.S. Magor
Cat Miller
David Brumbaugh
David Chie
Dawn Kawamoto
Don Willmott
Elisabeth Greenbaum Kasson
Gayle Laakmann McDowell
Lekan Oguntoyinbo
Leslie Stevens-Huffman
M Noivad
Mark Feffer
nick kolakowski
Stephen Lahanas
Susan Hall
Vincent Chow
4 Steps to Effective Change Control
Change control is something that is inevitable even with the most successful projects. I’m not sure I’ve ever worked on a project that didn’t have at least one modification made along the way. What’s critical is that you know how to manage change and ensure the project remains on track — and ultimately successful — despite it. When you’re starting a project, it’s important to ensure there is a change control process available. If the company you work for doesn’t… continue…
Less Project Paper Can Make Your Life a Lot Simpler
One of the surprising discoveries made by early advocates of the “paperless office” was that very often emails, Word documents and the like resulted in more paper, not less. Nowadays, as more people get used to the idea of reading of a screen of one sort or another, my guess is that’s becoming less of an issue. Still, in some areas the need for paper is stubbornly hanging on. One of them is project management. Through experience I’ve learned that… continue…
How to Head Off a Project Failure
What happens when someone forgets to do the very thing that absolutely had to be done? You know, that thing you were counting on to push the project forward. And what if the guilty party is your client or a team member? In every project you’ll ever work on, there will typically be some element of failure. Nothing works perfectly and the second you think things are going well, you better look up and pay careful attention. I’m not being… continue…
Exiting Gracefully Now Can Land You a Job Later
Sometimes you and a client must part ways, maybe even before your projects are completed. If you’ve decided that you’re leaving, what do you do? How do you leave gracefully? First and foremost, you want to make sure that your reputation—a good one, if you’ve managed it right—will stay intact. This means you need to ensure that you depart on a positive note and remain a positive influence even after you’re gone. Here are some things that I do in… continue…
How to Plan for Your Next Consulting Gig
Life as a consultant is always interesting. We get to dodge some of the political issues, typically get better pay, and are seen as an industry expert. Despite those benefits, we also have to potentially deal with finding work on a more frequent basis. This is the time of year when contracts can end and the mad search for the next gig begins so that consultants don’t have too much of a break in their income stream. With the holidays… continue…
Are You Ready for Your Interview?
It seems like a silly question. Of course you are, right? Maybe not. Each time you schedule an interview, you need to do some prep work. 1) Research the company that is interviewing you Nothing is more annoying to the interviewer than the consultant knowing nothing about the company with which they’re interviewing. Make sure you know some of the more important things about the company. If they’ve been in the news, be up to date on those events. That… continue…
How to Make Project Retrospectives Work
Each place that I’ve worked, I have always seen a “Lessons Learned” step as a part of the standard process for projects. It’s always baked into the methodology with an expectation that it’ll get done. In reality, I’ve them to be a step that doesn’t produce much more than negative feelings across teams and a bunch of finger-pointing. Maybe that’s only my experience but as a project manager, I’m always looking for ways to focus on the positive and to… continue…
How Project and Program Management Compare
In my Project Management career I’ve been asked, why don’t I become a Program Manager? You could say it’s the same thing, just bigger. Let’s spend a little time defining and illustrating the difference. By the Project Management Institute’s standards, a project is: Temporary, in that it has a defined beginning and end in time, and therefore defined scope and resources. Unique, in that it is not a routine operation, but a specific set of operations designed to accomplish a… continue…
3 Steps to Creating an Agile Environment
I recently enrolled my child in a Montessori school where the emphasis is on independent thinking as well as students’ personal accountability for themselves and their environment. To the uninitiated, the classrooms appear chaotic and lacking in structure, though this isn’t the case. While some may question its free-for-all approach, the program uses Agile theory to educate and whether you’re four or 40, it’s an effective, intuitive way to get things done. As an Agile PM, I often hear that agile… continue…
How to Effectively Estimate Your Project’s Budget
Project sponsors typically want to keep a close eye on their budget. They want to know what’s been spent and what the expected total will be at completion. When you’re trying to estimate budget costs , you have two ways to look into the future: Estimate at Completion (EAC) and Estimate to Completion (ETC). So what do these really mean and how do you effectively use them? EAC is simply the forecasted cost of the project. There are a few… continue…
