New PM Articles for the Week of April 14 – 20 | The Practicing IT Project Manager

New project management articles published on the web during the week of April 14 – 20. We read all of this stuff so you don’t have to! Recommended:

Disaster and Recovery

Steven Levy finds project management lessons in the heartbreaking Korean ferry disaster.
John Goodpasture examines the way small teams deal with sudden disasters.
Nick Pisano points out that much of the criticism of the Obamacare website misses the real lessons.

PM Best Practices

Duncan Haughey tells us how to be effective coaches for our project teams.
Martin Webster argues that “winning” is great for sports, but lousy for teams at work. A cooperative style gets more done.
Andrew Filev presents some strategies for establishing good habits in your teams’s group behavior.
Alina Vrabie tells how to facilitate creativity within your team, using those soft skills we all like to talk about.
Luis Seaba Coelho shares some amazing data on the affect the “default” has on the decisions we make.
Philip Smith notes that many projects get off on the wrong foot, failing in requirements gathering and engaging senior executives.
Kerry Wills explains why it’s so important for your project team to establish the right pace.
Mike Clayton finds some great insights in the origins and evolution of the term “stakeholder.”

Roman Pichler elegantly describes how we build a product that the users will actually want, using a Vision Board. Highly recommended!
Rich Karlgaard gives twelve reasons why your project team should be small enough to feed with two pizzas, and twelve tips for creating two-pizza teams.
Kevin Aguanno shares case studies of three Canadian banks that took different approaches to adopting Agile methods. Highly recommended!
Pawel Brodzinski says that if you want higher productivity metrics, just throw out the low numbers in your planning poker deck. I think that was humor …
Vijaya Kumar Bandaru has put together a great Scrum Master resource, for those who want to take servant leadership up a notch.

Glen Alleman finds himself explaining that yes, we can know the (approximate) value of what we’re building. Egad …
Kailash Awati tells a Holmes and Watson story of the PMO manager who was faced with a horrible truth – the dysfunctions of his organization.
Mike Donoghue proclaims the power of the user in guiding the evolution of technology.

Dave Prior interviews Kanban coach Frank Vega, who advocates for using workflow management for a variety of activities. Just 11 minutes, safe for work.
Cesar Abeid explains how to leverage the web to gain exposure and build your reputation. Just 50 minutes, safe for work.
Margaret Meloni tells us how project portfolio management fits into our working lives. Just 12 minutes, safe for work.

Enjoy!