New project management articles published on the web during the week of February 15 – 21. And this week’s video: an all-star jam on Franklin’s Tower.

Must read!

• Cameron Conaway tells about the culture at FlexJobs, a job site for telecommuting and other non-traditional positions, where the staff lives exactly that style of work.
• Seth Godin explains how we should talk about our projects. Not in the marketing sense, but in the strategic sense. Fundamentally, all projects are business activities.
• Michael O’Brochta uses examples from the Flint, Michigan water scandal and the Titanic disaster to argue that ethical behavior contributes to project success.

Established Methods

• Cesar Abeid interviews former DeLorean Motor Cars executive Barrie Wills on the saga of the most innovative care of the 1980’s. Just over an hour, safe for work.
• Elizabeth Harrin interviews Lorraine Chapman as part of her series, Inspiring Women in Project Management.
• Glen Alleman points out the difference between user stories and requirements.
• Aaron Smith relates the top ten business analysis trends, as identified by TwentyEighty Strategy Execution.
• Harry Hall explains how to identify project risks using a structured holistic approach.

Agile Methods

• Johana Rothman delivered a three-part series on getting past command and control management on the way to Agile. Here’s part two and part three.
• Saad Ali Jan gets philosophical on automating software testing (and what not to automate).
• Donna Reed lists some of the common methods Agile teams use to measure and communicate progress.

Applied Leadership

• Ryan Ogilvie explores the Greek discipline of rhetoric, in an effort to improve our ability to persuade and influence.
• The Clever PM explains the finer points of leading through influence, when managing those above you in the org chart.
• Martin Webster lists the things strong leaders do in a crisis.
• Jesse Lynn Stoner explains the greatness of Abraham Lincoln, an ordinary man who saved a nation.
• Steven Levy extracts lessons learned from the failure of on-line magazines at Yahoo.
• Art Petty notes three lessons video game designers can teach us about implementing organizational change.
• Liane Davey tells how to lead your team through the turmoil usually associated with organizational change.
• Sarah Hood suggest that we deal with the “elephant in the room” head on, rather than let it remain an unspoken fear.
• Kerry Wills observes that the problem with superheroes is that they need villains to fight. Not productive in a collaborative environment!

Pot Pouri

• Bernard Marr reports on the Big Data technologies being leveraged to fight the Zika virus.
• Cal Newport, author of “Deep Work,” proposes an interesting way to limit the type and number of interruptions you agree to accept: the attention charter.
• Coert Visser calls our attention to recent research which found, “Winning a competition engenders subsequent unrelated unethical behavior.”
• Maria Popova extracts a lesson on developing resilience found in Seneca’s “Letters from a Stoic.”

Enjoy!