New PM Articles for the Week of February 1 – 7

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New project management articles published on the web during the week of February 1 – 7. And this week’s video is Survivorman Les Stroud and his buddy Bob with a deep woods harmonica duet.

Must read!

  • Suzanne Lucas summarizes recent research into what make us appear to be stupid. Three behaviors dominated – and you can change your behavior!
  • John Goodpasture gets us back to the numerical basics of counting, measuring, and positioning. Elegant + simple = profound.
  • Michael Wood provides a comprehensive introduction to ethics, as it applies to project management. With lots of links to excellent topical content!

Established Methods

  • Mark Langley, CEO of the Project Management Institute, advises CFO’s on how to optimize project portfolio management in their organization.
  • Glen Alleman notes that the first step in estimating work to be done is simple research: has this been done before?
  • Harry Hall describes the Nominal Group Technique for risk identification.
  • Steven Levy reminds us that optimizing our designs for use is more important than optimizing them to prevent abuse.
  • Bob Tarne presents another idea from Change by Design: experimenting.
  • Nick Pisoni attacks some lingering false assumptions related to use of hard data to assess project performance.

Agile Methods

  • Johanna Rothman contrasts the Burndown and Burnup charts, to make the point that what matter is what action the data drives you to take.
  • Richard DeFrancesco adds flow and Cycle Time charts from Lean to Burn Up charts, to help his team better visualize work completed and in progress.
  • Bernd Schiffer wants us to view retrospectives as an investment, that pays off over time.
  • Derek Huether promotes his three favorite Agile apps for the iPhone.
  • Nilesh Shah enumerates the Seven Sins of Scrum.

Applied Leadership

  • Cameron Conaway notes that silos have a function; eliminating them altogether might be counter-productive.
  • Susanne Madsen shares some advice for forming and managing geographically distributed teams.
  • Liane Davey offers some ideas for moving from argument and confrontation to collaboration.
  • Art Petty recommends we widen our field of view, especially when developing strategy.
  • The Clever PM opines that the true test of our values comes when face adversity.
  • Deb Schaffer recaps the steps to putting together a project team.

Pot Pouri

  • Danielle Kohler begins an interview series with IT recruiter extraordinaire, Gail Rolls on how to success in a job interview.
  • Elizabeth Harrin advises new folks – especially young women – what behaviors will help them be taken seriously at work.
  • Shikha Menwal observes the inverse relationship between “busy” and “productive.”
  • Mathieu Noiville points us toward five excellent project management blogs.
  • Bruce Harpham recommends 16(!) podcasts for career development, project management, and more.

Enjoy!