New project management articles published on the web during the week of January 7 – 13. And this week’s video: Microsoft program manager Verlebie Chan talks about overcoming bias, expectations, and self-doubt and taking risks on her way to establishing her career as a software developer. 13 minutes to watch.
Business Acumen and Strategy
- Mike Murphy reports from the Consumer Electronics Show 2019. “We’ve entered the post-smartphone era.” 8 minutes to read.
- The folks at ELIX list the core business values of Amazon, as articulated and evolved by Jeff Bezos. 8 minutes to read.
- Paul Rawlinson makes an elegant case for regulation as necessary to keep global trade from becoming a zero-sum game. 3 minutes to read.
Managing Projects
Mike Clayton recaps ten lessons he’s learned about project management over the years. Best line: “Stakeholder Engagement is Project Management for Sophisticated Adults.”8 minutes to read.
- The folks at PM Times join forces to point out trends in project management, business analysis, and agile methods during 2019. 6 minutes to read.
- Carolyn Smith shares lessons learned from two decades managing IT PMO organizations. 14 minutes to read but well worth it.
- Leigh Espy tutors us on affinity diagrams—what they are and how to use them. 6 minutes to read.
- Sandhya Gupta shares her checklist for sunsetting software products, from the vendor’s point of view. 7 minutes to read.
- Elise Stevens interviews Susanne Madsen on managing stress while managing projects. Podcast, 34 minutes, safe for work.
Managing Software Development
- Stefan Wolpers curates his list of Agile content, from the EPIQ model to product design principles to the Prime Directive. 7 outbound links, three minutes to read.
- John Demian gets deep into the economics of a serverless (in this case AWS Lambda) framework for operations. 12 minutes to read.
- Vladimir Fedak makes the argument against a switch to microservices. 4 minutes to read.
- Scott Shipp wants to put the “engineering” back in software engineering. Hear, hear! 5 minutes to read.
- Henny Portman name checks Agile frameworks, from well-known to obscure and a couple that I don’t think count as Agile frameworks. 12 minutes to read.
- Kristin Jackvony explains how the Automation Test Wheel, an alternative concept to the testing pyramid that she described here, works in practice. 5 minutes to read.
Applied Leadership
- Randy Conley gets a few leadership lessons from observing nature in action: one hawk and three crows. 5 minutes to read.
- Mary Jo Asmus helps reflexive problem-solvers keep the problems with their owners with one simple question. 2 minutes to read.
- Steve Keating explains the difference between a talker and a communicator. I’ll let you describe the transmitter. Here’s part 2. Each about 3 minutes to read.
Research and Insights
Marc Prosser asks whether facial recognition technology is still viable, now that 3D printed busts of people’s heads have been used to unlock 4 of 5 smartphones. 4 minutes to read.
- Bill Gates, the world’s second-richest man, reports from a Harvard University lab on new robots shaped like nothing Isaac Asimov ever imagined. 4 minutes to read.
- David Stringer and Kevin Buckland report on progress in getting to commercially viable solid-state battery technology, the key to faster charging. 6 minutes to read.
- Paramita Ghosh explains the decentralized data storage approach commonly known as blockchain and points out a few good use cases. 5 minutes to read.
Working and the Workplace.
- Steph Smith curated a list of ten 2019 conferences for women in technology and on the way identified a couple of diversity scholarships. 6 minutes to read.
- Alessandro Lulian makes the business case for hiring Millennials. For one thing, they outnumber us Boomers in the workforce. 4 minutes to read.
- Brian Wallace shares an infographic explaining how to robot-proof your career, in case you’re asking for a friend. 3 minutes or so to read.
Enjoy!
Title

Article Name
New PM Articles for the Week of January 7 – 13
Description
New project management articles published on the web during the week of January 7 – 13.
Author
Dave Gordon
The Practicing IT PM LLC

Curious to know which frameworks are not agile? and of course looking forward to not mentioned agile frameworks in my overview: https://hennyportman.wordpress.com/2019/01/09/a-birds-eye-view-on-the-agile-frameworks-forest/
Hi Henny,
Your slide and article are excellent. My only quibbles: I would describe Holacracy as a decentralized management model rather than an Agile framework. And as you note, the PMI Standard for Portfolio Management and the AXELOS Management of Portfolios guidance really only address implementing the business strategy during the selection of investment alternatives so I don’t see them as Agile frameworks. That said, all three have demonstrated value.
Hi Dave, thanks. Best regards, Henny