New PM Articles for the Week of September 1 – 7

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Over My HouseNew project management articles published on the web during the week of September 1 – 7. We give you a high-level view so you can read what interests you. Recommended:

PM Best Practices

  • John Goodpasture educates us on the art and science of preparing a request for proposal, or RFP. Must reading!
  • Paul Glen explains why one person can’t be a project manager and a programmer, at the same time.
  • Michel Dion walks us through the process of taking over a project from a departing project manager.
  • Glen Alleman recounts the development of multi-criteria decision analysis.
  • Bruce Benson shares a lesson learned from Little Caeser’s Pizza restaurants: small changes are sometimes enough to get big results.
  • Elizabeth Harrin summarizes a presentation to the Ireland Chapter of PMI, delivered by Mike Hughes, Office Business Group Lead for Microsoft Ireland.
  • Gina Abudi reveals her secrets of evaluating the culture of a client organization.
  • Nick Pisano tells why measuring technical achievement matters and how fits in with other progress metrics.
  • Kenneth Darter lists the attributes of an effective project sponsor.

Agile Methods

  • Mike Cohn defends the notion that story points are about time and level of effort, rather than just complexity.
  • Bart Gerardi looks at Agile anti-patterns, starting with translating story points to effort hours.
  • David Baker explores how the business analyst fits into the Scrum framework.
  • David Anderson explains how risk affects work in progress, using a real life example: the number of shirts he should keep in his closet.
  • Tobias Mayer gives a tongue-in-cheek explanation of how to scale Agile, the same way you would scale a fish. Excellent!

Following the Trends

  • Nick Heath reports that IT outsourcing firms in India are automating many of their technical jobs. Salaries are skyrocketing due to competition for engineers!
  • Mike Frandsen reflects on how the move to continuous development at Workday has benefitted their customers and increased the pace of innovation.
  • Jelani Harper gives us the background on data governance programs.
  • Suzanne Lucas gives us Boomers and Gen-X types a few cultural insights (OK, warnings) on how these recent graduates will change our workplace.

Professional Development

  • Lindsay Scott uses a cautionary anecdote to lead up to the question: What was the last conscious thing you did to benefit your PM career?
  • Andrea Brockmeier shares her thoughts on preparing for the PMI-ACP exam.
  • Michael Lopp describes your elusive but hyper-effective colleague, The Wolf.
  • Susanne Madsen offers three critical questions that you can use to solicit feedback.

Podcasts and Videos

  • Cesar Abeid interviews Patrick Coffin and Dustin Kahia on their upcoming film, “Call of the Void,” and movie project management. Just 57 minutes, safe for work.
  • Cornelius Fichtner interviews author Mark Phillips on his new book, “Reinventing Communication.” Just 30 minutes, safe for work.
  • Margaret Meloni defines strategic reserve time, in the context of teams for whom the project is not their sole responsibility.

Enjoy!