PM Blog: Project Practitioners

The "Secret" Code: a Toolkit of Skills

2013-05-16T16:02:54-07:00

Proman was at a crossroads. The large program had just concluded. What was next? He noticed how engaged he’d felt during the process. Each day he threw himself into the proceedings with renewed vigor. He seemed to know instinctively what to do. People looked to him for direction, even people smarter than he was and higher up in the organization. Sure, there were many moments when he felt like he wanted to strangle someone who would not cooperate. But even these moments challenged him to reach inside himself for an appropriate response that would elicit a positive reaction. He had...

What's Your Role - Umbrella or Funnel?

2013-05-03T13:28:28-07:00

Hi, my name is Brian and I deliver no value! There, I said it. I'm glad I got that off my chest. Read that first sentence again and replace it with your own name. Now, go back and read it again. Take it in, contemplate it, and ponder it deeply. Read it carefully and think very hard about what you do each and every day as a project manager. Note that I did not say that I wasn't valuable or that I provide no value. I purposely stated that I deliver no value. Most project managers I know do not...

Do Templates Really Save Time?

2013-05-03T12:57:33-07:00

Since ProjectConnections is in large part a template repository, that’s the sort of question that would normally raise eyebrows. But I couldn’t help asking it when this cartoon popped up in my Feedly feed last week. The joke here, of course, is the time that was spent compiling the chart. But at the same time, this is a great reminder about proportional effort in your process improvements.

Oh, By The Way...

2013-04-29T09:40:35-07:00

With this article I will take a break from the project failure column I have been writing. I will continue with that in later articles. Figure 1 Figure 1 is a picture of a rail loading terminal at a remote refinery. The yellow pans on the rails are the spill containment system. Each pan has a drain outlet on it that feeds into an underground drainage system and into a sump. The refinery loaded fuel into the rail tank cars here and shipped the fuel to an ocean terminal about 150 miles away. There the tank cars were unloaded through...

Do you know if people like you as a project manager?

2013-04-25T06:57:51-07:00

Are you a positive or a negative project manager? Do you believe that you have some room for improving your attitude managing projects? Do you need to grow professionally and personally? I am sure you want to grow as a project professional, so you need to invest in your professional development, and I really learned that one of the key points for your professional development success is to associate with positive people. I met some negative project management colleagues during my life and the outcome of my relationship with them was “frustration and demotivation”. On the other hand I had...

Do you want to be a Project Ninja?

2013-04-21T19:55:37-07:00

I have been reviewing many Job Descriptions that are out there for Project Managers, and I realized the other day that if I was really graded solely on what was written in mine, I would really be failing in the eyes of the company. We are so much more than tasks, dates and Project Plans aren’t we? In many ways I am very lucky, the VP that I report to and I, see many things the same way and are more flexible in terms of allowing team members to bend the rules and do what makes sense, than to follow...

4 Steps to Managing Difficult Situations

2013-04-21T09:00:44-07:00

I was teaching a facilitation class the other day, and a question kept coming up that I thought would be useful to Project Leaders as well: How can we get through difficult situations? The class was specifically asking “How can I learn to keep control of a conversation when things are getting tough?”, but for project management, the question is “How can I learn to keep control of the project when things get tough?”. And I think the same answers apply. Let's assume for just a moment that there are a couple of "basic plots" for difficult situations. There's the...

It's All Negotiable

2013-04-12T15:22:09-07:00

In our lives, we continually negotiate, knowingly or not. Where will we go out to eat? What will you give me for my used car? Who will pay for this scope change? And then there’s the big one: With whose family will we spend the holidays? Negotiation is as much a part of project management as a Gantt chart and the words, “over budget”. Many think that negotiation applies to major deals and the associated formal give and take, and that is certainly true. However, we often negotiate on a daily basis on matters big and small. It is helpful...

The Project Manager and Agile

2013-04-03T14:57:33-07:00

As more organizations transition from traditional waterfall to agile methodologies, confusion often abounds around the role of project manager. What happens to the project manager and the project management role during an agile transformation? Like most questions in life, the correct answer is—it depends, and is very contextual. Initially, there may be very little, if any, change in the project manager role. Project managers will largely find themselves doing a lot of the same work they always have. However, this is a very low maturity level indicator. If the expectations of traditional project management aren’t updated and managed to align...

Reasons For Project Failure

2013-03-31T13:21:46-07:00

This is a continuation of the article on reasons for project failure. Here I will look at some of the project management issues that can lead to project failure. Insufficient stakeholder consultation One of the success factors for a project is integrated teams, i.e. you have all the stakeholders on board at the beginning of the project. You need all the stakeholders to get agreement and consensus around the project objectives. If you are the Owner, then you should be looking for the stakeholders on your side. Sometimes it’s easy and other times it is hard to find the stakeholders....