New project management articles published on the web during the week of November 17 – 23. We give you a high-level view so you can read what interests you. Recommended:

PM Best Practices

• Seth Godin considers how the project scope is a bit like a bushel of apples. I guess Forrest Gump already did the “box of chocolates” routine.
• Adriana Beal explores the Peter Drucker notion that, if you keep doing what made you successful, you will eventually fail.
• Don Kim explains the relationship between Kaizen, an operations management incremental improvement process, and Kaikaku, a project delivering radical change.
• Bruce Benson notes that groups get better over time, only by learning from their experience – including the negative experiences.
• Ron Rosenhead recounts an anecdote that illustrates how stakeholder engagement can lead to real improvements.
• Nick Pisano points out the pivotal role of the integrated master plan in complex programs and project portfolios.
• Kenneth Darter shares his checklist for preparing to begin a really big project.
  
• Pat Weaver summarizes an article he contributed to, on the topic of governance versus management.
• Harry Hall recommends an approach to selecting and initiating projects.
• Elizabeth Harrin reports from the Synergy 2014 conference, summarizing three presentations and some audience participation music-making.
• Ryan Ogilvie looks at the details of implementing that IT department holiday tradition: the production change freeze.

Agile Methods

• Pallavi Kelapure and Vikas Gupta detail their approach to applying rapid deployment principles in an ERP implementation.
• Johanna Rothman offers some practical approaches to breaking your near-epics into smaller stories.
• Deepak Joshi walks us through a simple example of user role modeling, to show why the technique is so useful.
• Derek Huether proposes an innovation in backlog grooming: Progression Workshops, using a subset of the team, referred to as the Product Owner Team.

Measuring

• Glen Alleman provides links to eight resources for methods to estimate non-trivial software projects, based on historical metrics.
• Mike Cohn disputes the dissing of so-called “vanity metrics.”
• John Goodpasture explains what a “figure of merit” is, and how it can be useful.
• Rich Maltzman leverages an old post by Mounir Ajam to show that project success includes things you can’t measure until well after the project is complete.

Podcasts and Videos

• Cornelius Fichtner interviews Jack Ferraro on the competencies required to drive strategic initiatives. Just 30 minutes, safe for work.
• Paul Ritchie contemplates how the way we name our projects influences the way our stakeholders and team feel about them. Just 16 minutes, safe for work.

Human Behavior in Groups

• Lynda Bourne summarizes the Cohen-Bradford “Influence without Authority” model.
• Pawel Brodzinski provides a leader’s view of the movement to reduce the role of management, and shares Lunar Logic’s two rules that govern their approach.
• Peter Saddington notes the holes in the “personality testing” model of candidate selection.
• Bruce Harpham lists some proactive methods to manage project conflict, and your reactions to it.

Enjoy!