New PM Articles for the Week of October 24 – 30

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New project management articles published on the web during the week of October 24 – 30, 2011.  We read all of this stuff so you don’t have to!  Recommended:

  • Eric Willeke starts a four-part series on applying Kanban to software development projects.
  • Craig Brown shares a video of Jim Benson, the author of “Personal Kanban,” talking about why Kanban works.  Excellent, and safe for work.
  • Peter Saddington shares a video on Kanban, as practiced at your local Starbucks, and how it’s applied to Scrum.  Safe for work.
  • Also from Peter: a development process flow, with zombies.
  • Elizabeth Harrin had a chance to chat with Dave Shirley, co-author of “Green Project Management” and winner of the Cleland Award for PM Literature.
  • Terry Bunio thinks we need to be more specific: are we talking about Agile product management, or Agile project management?
  • Mike Griffiths talks about using Actor Network Theory to measure project success, and illustrates with two different dome construction projects.
  • Eddie Williams is concerned that the IT industry is accepting failure as the norm, and he has some recommendations.
  • Bruce Benson talks about eagles, sparrows, and turkeys, and why you should spend more of your time on the turkeys.
  • Kerry Willis talks about why escalation should be a last resort.
  • Jason Hiner shares the key points from a presentation by Gartner Group analyst Ken McGee.  It’s a somewhat radical assessment of where IT needs to go, and what need to stop, right now!
  • Chip Camden wants to remind us that computer systems are deterministic in nature, and we need to get to the root cause, not just offer “explanations.”
  • Glen Alleman says a good work breakdown structure should be “mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive.”
  • Cyndee Miller has some of the details behind the “Watson” project that beat the two greatest Jeopardy champions in history at their own game.
  • Mike Beard shares a simple self-rating test for leadership, using the characteristics considered for selecting the Chief Executive of the Year by Chief Executive magazine.
  • Nucleus Research released its report on the top ten tech trends for 2012.
  • The Association for Project Management held their project management awards banquet last week, and chairman Mike Nichols shared an uncompromising vision: “All projects succeed.”
  • Mike Inman shares his thoughts on where procurement can improve – by trusting suppliers.
  • Bruce McGraw says the PMBOK is like Wikipedia.  Well, the part about it being developed by volunteers who each contributed their expertise.
  • Geoff Crane relates hostage negotiation to project management.  Well, the part about influencing behavior.

Enjoy!