New PM Articles for the Week of May 9 – 15

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New project management articles published on the web during the week of May 9 – 15. And this week’s video: how to display two different chart types in one chart in Excel. Just five minutes, safe for work.

Must read!

  • Art Petty provides guidance on how to recover from the damage a toxic employee does to both the team and the manager.
  • Cameron Conaway reports on the evidence that, despite advances in the last few years, sexism still limits opportunities for women in a business world dominated by men.
  • Narciss Popescu updates Tuckman’s model of group development – Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning – based on studies that reflect modern business.

Established Methods

  • Michel Dion describes decision management and related administrative tool, the Decision Log.
  • Harry Hall describes the benefits of conducting a risk audit, and provides an example.
  • Pat Weaver notes that the language we use to describe project risks can make it more difficult to communicate and manage them.
  • Henny Portman reviews Jan Postema’s new book, “The Effective Project Board.” Looks like an interesting read.
  • Mike Clayton points out the critical information in a project brief: the document that gets a project approved.
  • Jeff Collins makes the case for project dashboard reporting.
  • Dmitriy Nizhebeskiy concludes his two-part series on creating a work breakdown structure with twenty traits of the high-quality WBS.
  • Magnus Doll has compiled a list of the twenty “most interesting” project management blogs, including this one – thanks for the recognition!
  • Thor Olavsrud reports from Apache: Big Data North America, where keynote speaker Amy Gaskins explained the critical attributes of successful Big Data projects.

Agile Methods

  • John Goodpasture takes exception to Philippe Krutchen’s recent post expanding the definition of technical debt – it’s not just about design decisions.
  • Johanna Rothman provides an example of using a discovery project to improve both the quality of the cost and schedule estimates of a proposed project and get customer buy-in.
  • Tin Kadoic provides an overview of how Five and Shoutem approach product testing. Critical point: expose the product to the users early in the development process!
  • Thomas Carney notes the need to get user feedback in a structured manner, so it’s actionable.
  • Samir Goswami examines the challenge of making quality measurable in for a Scrum team.
  • Craig Smith interviews Marcus Hammarberg on his new book, “Kanban in Action.” Just 42 minutes, safe for work.

Applied Leadership and Collaboration

  • Elise Stevens interviews Alli Polin on leadership and the myths around personal growth and development. Just 19 minutes, safe for work.
  • Penelope Trunk extracts lessons on team building from working with the kids on the farm.
  • Scott Berkun concatenates five principles into a plan for solving problems – big problems.
  • Lisette Sutherland interviews freelance product manager Fernando Garrido Vaz on managing virtual teams with varying cultures and times zones. Just 35 minutes, safe for work.
  • Craig Smith recommends you upload your photo to the tools you use to collaborate with your globally dispersed team, to help them think of you as a person.
  • Carmine Gallo lists the public speaking tips that TED gives to its presenters.
  • Liane Davey vents: people who don’t read the pre-read material waste everyone else’s time when you have to cover it in the meeting.

Enjoy!