New PM Articles for the Week of December 1 – 7

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

PM Best Practices

  • Dominika Chambon provides the “how-to” for preventing scope creep and other profitability failure modes on a fixed-price project.
  • Glen Alleman puts systems engineering the in the enterprise IT domain into context, with examples of capabilities that drive the effort.
  • Kathleen O’Connor explore the difference between a project and a strategic initiative.
  • Michael Lopp on why so many software bugs are discovered in the wild, rather than in the QA lab: “Humans do strange shit to software …” Still, the QA mentality has value.
  • Ron Rosenhead notes that lesson learned are only valuable to the extent that we actually do something to implement what we’ve learned.
  • Harry Hall illustrates the strategy of risk avoidance with an embarrassing story.
  • Ryan Ogilvie takes a lesson from Star Trek on managing the risk of exceeding your scheduled maintenance down time window.
  • Nick Pisano reviews our current state of fragmented digitized project information management tools and describes what the integrated future state should be.
  • Gus Lawson shares an anecdote about helping a team improve their ability to collaborate with others, and summarizes the lessons learned.
  • Robert Martinez outlines an approach for building effective teams.

Agile Methods

  • Mike Cohn makes the case for Scrum Master and Product Owner being two different people, not just different roles.
  • Johanna Rothman asks an interesting question: Who removes your obstacles?
  • John Goodpasture gets philosophical on the relationship between retrospection and management.
  • Sameer Patil reviews several alternative models for ordering your product backlog.
  • Sam Barnes provides the transcript of a Q&A he gave on managing digital projects.

Podcasts and Videos

  • Samad Aidane interviews Todd Williams on how to buy project management consulting service. Just 35 minutes, safe for work.
  • Dave Prior sits down with Personal Kanban guru Jim Benson to talk about matching work in progress (WIP) with capacity. Part 1 is just 11 minutes, all are safe for work.
  • Cornelius Fichtner interviews Joseph Flahiff on getting your team to be a rock band! Or at least, one that rocks. Just 28 minutes, safe for work.
  • Mark Phillipy and his two brothers compare notes on the practice of leadership in their respective industries. Just 54 minutes, safe for work.

Being Effective

  • Cheri Baker ditched her Outlook, Kanban board, Evernote, Toodledo, and Onenote for … uh, a paper planner. Hey, organization is about the skills, not the tools!
  • Peter Saddington shares an infographic on how set a daily routine that will improve your effectiveness.
  • Seth Godin clarifies the relationships between goals, strategies, and tactics.

Enjoy!