New project management articles published on the web during the week of September 12 – 18, 2011.  We read all of this stuff so you don’t have to!  Recommended:

• Matthew Ferguson is arguing for putting people at the forefront of process design, and uses his friend’s new luxury commuter vehicle as a metaphor for what not to do.
• And Hajar Hamid argues for using process improvement as a learning and coaching opportunity.
• Meanwhile, Derek Huether describes a user-hostile self-service gas pump that takes ten seconds to respond to input and never quite provides the response he was expecting.
• In part two of his series on the five questions PM’s must ask, Glen Alleman addresses the question, “What does done look like?”
• Meanwhile, Ted Hardy is extolling “the Cult of Done,” although he’s having problems spelling “manifesto.”
• Peter Saddington reports on anti-lean, anti-Agile startup Yottaa (pronounced like the Jedi Master), which is started as global organization.  Intriguing …
• Even Johanna Rothman is saying that Agile is not a silver bullet.  Egad – is a giant asteroid heading this way?
• Todd Williams says a project manager’s job is to deliver value.  He even has a formula for “value,” although one variable is labeled “inquantifiables.”
• George Huhn is advocating use of Monte Carlo estimating techniques to predict project portfolio value.  The hard part is getting your stakeholders to accept probability distributions as an improvement over a single number that won’t be correct.
• Elizabeth Harrin explores (and debunks) the seven reasons project managers fail to use agendas.
• Leadership coach Glenn Gutek says, “All leadership begins with ‘self-leadership.”  Or as Grace Slick put it, “Lead yourself – you deserve it.”
• John Reiling sees the possibility for unity in the recent 9/11 commemoration ceremonies, and asks how diverse (and unified) are your project teams?
• Bruce Benson shares an anecdote on communication, compliance, and inadvertent clicks to porn sites.

Enjoy!