New PM Articles for the Week of August 15 – 21

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New project management articles published on the web during the week of August 15 – 21. And this week’s video: a tutorial on conducting a Monte Carlo analysis using Excel. Just 11 minutes, safe for work.

Must read!

  • Michael O’Brochta looks at the cultural, experiential, and situational drivers of how we perceive behavior as ethical, or not. Including our own.
  • Kayleigh Töyrä explains how we can apply Finnish culture and values to project management.
  • Hope Reese reports on a life saved when Tesla Autopilot drove a man to the hospital. Ethical dilemmas, minimum acceptable reliability, and other social risk considerations will make future projects even more complicated.

Established Methods

  • Harry Hall describes seven simple actions to take that will make your risk management efforts more productive.
  • Andy Jordan explores the risk management techniques applicable to protecting project benefits.
  • Nick Pisano makes the case for incorporating measures of technical performance in earned value management.
  • Glen Alleman lists units of measure meaningful to expressing value.
  • Kenneth Ashe gives us a refresher course on the basics of project budgets and ROI.
  • Elizabeth Harrin shares a PM tool evaluation matrix for download.
  • Kerry Wills proposes a new Olympic event: the project management decathlon.

Agile Methods

  • The Clever PM shares the keys to driving a group of people to a decision. Actually, it’s about influence, not control.
  • John Goodpasture points out a few “problems” (which might be opportunities) with a project team made up mostly of “gig” workers.
  • Meghana Bendre is an engineer, and she doesn’t despise Agile. Far from it.
  • Jessie Chen reveals how Netflix does A/B testing.
  • Sandeep Khaira goes into the details of pair programming – when it’s a fit, what are the benefits, and how it’s done.

Applied Leadership

  • Peter Landau interviews Management Excellence blogger and speaker Art Petty.
  • Lisette Sutherland interviews Spencer Coon of hibox.co on how his 15-person company, distributed among three continents, uses their own product to collaborate. Just 36 minutes, safe for work.
  • Alison DeNisco reports on an Everest Group survey that describes a new trend: on-shoring contact centers. Cost savings and customer satisfaction are both trending down, so …
  • Bertrand Duperrin identifies the difference between your external-facing web site and your intranet: managers want content and employees want relevance.
  • Gina Abudi presents a five-step plan for controlling your anger with a co-worker.

Working and the Workplace

  • Bruce Harpham summarizes Cal Newport’s new book, “Deep Work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world.” It’s time to move past productivity!
  • Brendan Toner reviews ToDoist for Windows, as an alternative to bulky list managers with complex interfaces. Android, IOS, and web variants are also available.
  • Beth Spriggs assembles four tactics that can help you more effectively “single-task.”
  • Project Journal describes the new Holy Grail: Inbox Zero.
  • Elissa Gilbert surveys the broad mix of university and non-traditional programs in data science education.

Enjoy!