New PM Articles for the Week of December 9 – 15

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Windowshopping NewsboysNew project management articles published on the web during the week of December 9 – 15. We read all of this stuff so you don’t have to! By the way: I’d really like you take my reader survey, so I can tailor the blog and other content to your needs in the New Year. Recommended:

Get Ready for the New Year!

  • Elizabeth Harrin makes her predictions for how the practice of project management will continue to evolve in 2014.
  • Kevin Kern also looks out to 2014, and sees some key trends for business and IT project management.
  • Cheri Baker looks back at how her personal strategic plan for 2013 helped her manage herself, and shares her template for 2014. And check out her new website!

Leadership

  • Vincent McGevna weighs in on the sources of a project manager’s authority: (mostly) soft power and (rarely) hard power.
  • Jeff Stibel tells the story of how his organization changed their culture to properly deal with failure, by simply writing on the wall of the office.
  • Steven Levy analyzes two aircraft crash landings, and finds some interesting lessons for project managers.
  • Mike Myatt, author of “Hacking Leadership,” argues that courage is a learnable trait.
  • Dave Wakeman shares his thoughts on what it takes to build a strong team.
  • Kailash Awati notes that flexibility is a platitude, disguising trade-offs that we might not otherwise make.

PM Best Practices

  • John Goodpasture has distilled eight safety critical principles from a list posted by Matthew Squair. Save them for your next risk management meeting!
  • Rich Maltzman interviews Mel Bost, author of “Lessons Learned: Taking Project Management to a New Level.”
  • Marian Haus continues her series on scheduling in an environment where there are several related projects, but no over-arching program.
  • Mary Shacklett has a list of actions that will help keep your project execution on track.
  • Mike Tressler suggests some guidelines for determining the appropriate level of documentation for a project, by relative sizing.
  • Henny Portman reviews “A fully documented sample PRINCE2 project,” from Frank Turley and Nadar Rad.
  • Brett Beaubouef explains his method for troubleshooting ERP implementation projects.
  • Mike Clayton distills managing a great project down to eight steps, and then compares them to some of his other favorite frameworks.

Podcasts and Videos

  • Cesar Abeid interviews fellow blogger Francis Hooke, who left a good job to start his own consulting business. A whole 54 minutes, but safe for work.
  • Dave Prior interviews Sam Barnes, former project manager who evolved to a development team manager, about his struggles as a client. Just 24 minutes, safe for work.
  • Cornelius Fichtner interviews Dave Cornelius on social media, mobile devices, analytics, and cloud computing converging to a disruptive force.  Just 22 minutes, safe for work.

Agile Methods

  • Terry Bunio summarizes his approach to applying Agile methods on a recent data warehouse project. This one is a “saver!”
  • Andy Berner explains why constant velocity is a myth, and how you can still use velocity for planning and forecasting.

Pot Pouri

  • Anya Faingersh fields a question on how to act on our knowledge of the source of our biases, in our daily lives and professional interactions.
  • Michael Lopp thinks we can judge a conference by the badges they issue.
  •  Allen Ruddock shares his letter to Santa Claus. “A fully engaged, committed, and understanding sponsor.” Not sure I’d want to come downstairs and find one under my tree …

Enjoy!