New project management articles published on the web during the week of May 8 – 14. And this week’s video: TED’s Chris Anderson interviews Elon Musk on his projects, from boring tunnels under Los Angeles to a permanent colony on Mars. Just 41 minutes, safe for work. The future is a work in progress.
Must read (or Hear)!
- Chad Rigetti and Chris Dixon discuss the physical limits that apply to Moore’s Law and prospects for quantum computing in machine learning. New term: “neuromorphic processor.” Just 27 minutes, safe for work.
- Yuval Noah Harari looks out to 2050 when most jobs that exist today will have disappeared, and the “useless” class will be a far greater challenge than the working class.
- Bertrand Duperrin updates on the end of search (as we know it) and the rise of non-benevolent assistance (“Let me help you select a product from our sponsors.”).
Established Methods
- Harry Hall identifies five actions we can take to improve project communication
- Charmaine Karunaratne suggests strategies and tactics for managing a project team distributed around the globe.
- Colin Ellis catalogs a few ways to really suck at project management.
- Geraldine O’Reilly steps us through the creation of a RACI matrix, and points out a few other variations, like CAIRO and RACI-VS.
- Dmitriy Nizhebetskiy suggests a relatively simple project risk management plan.
- John Goodpasture addresses the definition and handling of extreme risks.
- Rich Maltzman notes the risk management implications of a recent discovery that climate change is releasing long-frozen viruses and bacteria into the water supply.
- Glen Alleman recommends “The Death of Expertise,” by Tom Nichols. The Age of Enlightenment is but a dim memory …
Agile Methods
- Stefan Wolpers curates his weekly list of all things Agile, from refactoring Agile to schizophrenic dichotomies in Agile frameworks to dual track development.
- Leigh Espy delivers an excellent summary of Agile principles and philosophy, and a short overview of the leading methods. Highly recommended for project managers looking for a point of entry.
- Dave Prior interviews John Le Drew, host of The Agile Path on his approach to the craft of podcasting. Just 46 minutes, safe for work.
- The Clever PM presents a product manager’s guide to technical debt.
- Bart Gerardi introduces voting using the Fist of Five. It only sounds like a Kung Fu movie.
Applied Leadership
- Art Petty provides some guidance for managers on dealing with a toxic employee.
- Mike Clayton provides action plans for dealing with each of six different types of difficult project sponsors.
- Coert Visser notes that positive stereotypes are just as depersonalizing as negative stereotypes and thus should not be used as a compliment.
Technology, Techniques, and Human Behavior
- Thomas Fox-Brewster reports on the quick action by a malware researcher which shut down Friday’s WannaCry ransomware. Still running XP on some device? You’ll surely get another opportunity to regret it.
- Jennifer Zaino catches us up on recent attempts to develop standards for the Internet of Things, notably a new W3C working group and services based on Linked Data.
- Nir Eyal shares an excerpt from Nathalie Nahai’s new book, “Webs of Influence: The psychology of online persuasion.” Specifically, this excerpt is about persuasive video.
Working and the Workplace
- Michael Lopp describes his daily morning calendar scrub. “If unscheduled time is zero, die a little inside.”
- My Nguyen outlines what we need to know about ergonomics to stay healthy while riding a desk all day. Desk, monitor, keyboard, mouse, chair, and regular movement – all important!
- Sara McCord considers the pros and cons of deleting LinkedIn connections you don’t actually know.
Enjoy!
Title

Article Name
New PM Articles for the Week of May 8 – 14
Description
New project management articles published on the web during the week of May 8 – 14
Author
Dave Gordon
The Practicing IT Project Manager LLC
