New project management articles published on the web during the week of February 7 – 13, 2011.  We read all of this stuff so you don’t have to!  Recommended:

• Elizabeth Harrin continues her report on the “Maximizing IT/IS Team Effectiveness” course she’s taking through Villanova University.  Week two, and she’s already falling behind!
• Samad Aidane interviews Marisa Oldnall on ITIL and project management best practices.  She’ll be in Las Vegas later this month, presenting at the Pink Elephant’s 15^th Annual IT Project Management Conference and Exhibition.
• Brad Egeland cops to being a 25 / 8 project manager, and then asks: Is that a good thing?
• Mark Walker released a new white paper about planning and managing e-discovery projects.  Well worth the read, even if you don’t think you’ll ever be involved in “mining” for evidence in support of litigation.
• Nicole Bremer Nash writes about recognizing geeks by the way they talk.  Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, but the study of interpersonal communication is important if your livelihood depends on spending 80% of your working time communicating.
• Speaking of communicating, Sam Palani lists the top five project management “time suckers,” and (naturally) four of them involve communication.
• Derek Huether came away from one of Jeff Sutherland’s presentations with some lessons from the Toyota Production System, regarding identifying and eliminating waste.
• Meanwhile, Bas de Baar argues that a project is “just a bunch of people interacting together to achieve a certain goal,” with a diagram linking interaction and collaboration.
• Karen Stewartson reviews “Strategic Project Portfolio Management,” by Simon Moore.
• Michael Stanleigh identifies eight key trends in project management we should expect to see develop over the coming decade (I’m not buying #7 in his list).
• A report from the California State Auditor’s Office blames poor project management for not having the case management database network connecting their 58 county courts up and running.  Originally budgeted at $260M, the project now looks more like $2B.  Ouch!
• On a related note, Michelle LaBrosse uses Valentine’s Day as a metaphor for reviewing your “relationship” with your project, and signs you should consider “breaking up.”

Enjoy!