New project management articles published on the web during the week of May 26 – June 1. We read all of this stuff so you don’t have to! Recommended:
Portfolio Management
- Pawel Brodzinski offers some thoughts on why portfolio management usually fails to find the optimal mix of investments, and how to improve our approach.
- Emanuele Passera continues his series on a financial approach to portfolio management.
- Luis Seabra Coelho considers the impact that the scale (linear or logarithmic) we use to portray our data influences the way we react to it.
The Future
- Mary Meeker of Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers shares her annual report on internet trends. Highly recommended.
- Bertrand Duperrin: “We’ve been saying for long that machines were good at doing what humans were bad at. Today we’re on our way to use machines to do what humans are good at.”
- Gary Drenik looks at the problems with Big Data and sees a solution: Little Data.
PM Best Practices
- Glen Alleman elegantly dismisses the underpinnings of a new eBook, “Dealing with Complexity in Software Projects.”
- Don Beckett expounds on the details of setting a software project up for success.
- Alan Garvey shares some best practices for communicating with senior executives.
- Julia Tang Peters leverages results of a recent leadership survey to recommend avoiding three behaviors.
- Martin Webster continues his series on leadership models with a review of transactional leadership.
- Margaret Meloni recounts an anecdote that illustrates the way trust should work.
- Bruce Benson suggests that we sometimes get resistance, not because of what we ask of people, but how they perceive the request. And the requestor!
- Todd Williams deconstructs the problems facing the public sector in executing on projects.
- Kenneth Darter notes the principle similarity between managing a project and writing a book: getting stuck in the middle, without a way to continue.
- Michiko Diby makes the case for a minimum viable RACI chart.
- Elizabeth Harrin posts her first Carnival of Project Management roundup of 2014.
Agile Methods
- Bob Tarne is starting an ambitious series on the principles of Agile.
- John Goodpasture explains the difference between traditional planning and Agile planning.
- Johanna Rothman shares a great insight on scaling Agile: Scale out.
- Mike Cohn addresses a common question: what is the best way to be Agile?
- Adrian Fittolani explores the ways in which values drive ideas, which drive practices.
Professional Development
- Michael Greer shares his thoughts on how to get your first job in project management.
- Ron Rosenhead advises us to emulate the project managers we think did a great job.
- Cassie Boorn gets mugged, and finds a lesson about managing your career.
Enjoy!