Rain, Flight Delays, and Risk Management
It was almost midnight. Our 3-hour trip from Budapest through Frankfurt to Milan was now a 10-hour adventure. Our bags were coming off the luggage carousel completely soaked. My eyes […]
Agile Transformation—It’s About the People
The Agile Manifesto declared independence from constraining, process-centric software development methodologies. The Manifesto advocated for a product-focused, team-centric approach. As Agile has moved mainstream, it has spawned its own industry […]
Planning is a Process, Not an Outcome
The project schedule is the most recognized project management artifact. Stakeholders embrace the schedule as a sacred covenant with the team. In reality, project plans are just the best approximation […]
Decision Making: 6 Ways to be More Effective
Projects sometimes feel like the movie “Ground Hog Day”—endlessly revisiting the same decision hoping to get them right. This cycle is frustrating, time consuming and unproductive. Instituting structured decision-making processes […]
Project Status is Subjective: Status Metrics
Project management relies on metrics to chart and manage performance. Good metrics are valuable. They measure the right things and provide the project manager, team, and stakeholders with actionable information. […]
Project Status is Subjective: Linguistic and Cognitive Bias
Status reporting is one of the most important functions performed by project managers. The profession strives for objective reporting and metrics. However, by its very nature, status reporting is subjective. […]
Project Leadership: What Gets Measured, Gets Done
Leadership is the holy grail of project management. According to CEB Global, project managers that possess entrepreneurial (leadership) skills are 40% more likely to deliver project outcomes, but only 30% […]
Projects are About People: 7 Ways to Put People First
Projects are about people! People, process, and technology are the essential components of any organizational analysis. When it comes to software development, people are more important than either process or […]
Project Management for Ordinary People
Most people don’t understand what project managers do! When people ask my wife what I do, she shows them my LinkedIn® profile. After “Bring Your Children to Work Day”, my […]
The Project Box—Evolving Beyond the Triple Constraint
Traditionally, project managers are told to optimize scope subject to constraints on time, cost, and quality. This is embodied in the expression, “better, faster, cheaper—choose two.” The phrase has become […]