This is the 500th and final roundup of new project management articles published on the web during the week of March 23 – 29. Thanks for sticking with me all these years! Over the next few weeks, I’ll publish a few articles that I wrote for other venues but never got around to posting here, and in November I’ll publish my annual list of public holidays for 2021.
And this week’s video: Camaroonian musician and composer Emmanuel N’Djoké “Manu” Dibango passed away on March 24th due to complications from COVID-19. He was 86. His 1972 hit, “Soul Makossa (I will dance),” was widely sampled and influenced generations of composers and performers around the world. 6 minutes, safe for work. “A true musician never dies; he just stops performing live.”
Ethics, Business Acumen and Strategy
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My wife made 39 disposable face masks for a local hospital
Fred Schmalz interviews Sunil Chopra on how companies can prepare their supply chain for the next disruption by balancing efficiency with resilience. 5 minutes to read.
- Thomas Choi and colleagues say that the COVID-19 global pandemic proves the value of supply chain mapping as a disruption response tool. 5 minutes to read.
- Greg Satell argues that we need to prepare for future crises—from artificial intelligence to climate change to the ballooning debt—like we would prepare for a war. 5 minutes to read.
- Randall McAdory analyzes Tesla’s diverse collection of core technical competencies, and asserts that their market advantage is essentially insurmountable. 9 minutes to read.
Managing Projects
Cornelius Fichtner talks with Karthik Ramamurthy on seven techniques for effective project scope management. Podcast, 30 minutes, safe for work. Plus an article, 3 minutes to read.
- Elizabeth Harrin announces the creation of a new professional community for project managers: #ThePMTribe. 5 minutes to read.
- Glen Alleman argues for capabilities-based planning—providing an outcome or effect without an a priori specification. 2 minutes to read.
- Mike Clayton tells us what to put in a project risk register, and how to maintain and use it. Video, 11 minutes, safe for work.
- Praveen Malik explains how to save a baseline in MS Project, and how to use it once you have. 5 minutes to read.
- The nice folks at ActiTIME suggest six ways to think of (and track) project costs. 6 minutes to read.
Managing Software Development
Stefan Wolpers curates his weekly list of Agile content, from the new future of remote work to the latest Cynefin iteration to enterprise agility. 7 outbound links, 3 minutes to read.
- Cesar Abeid interviews Johanna Rothman and Mark Kilby on their new book, remote project management, and distributed agile teams. Podcast, 48 minutes, safe for work.
- Nicole Segerer suggests that evolving software business models require new approaches to establishing and maintaining customer relationships. 4 minutes to read.
- Kristin Jackvony reviews Enterprise Continuous Testing, by Wolfgang Platz and Cynthia Dunlop. 4 minutes to read.
- Gojko Adzic did a comprehensive survey to see what’s changed since his classic book, Specification by Example, was published ten years ago. 22 minutes to read, but worth the time.
- Henny Portman recaps the 3rd edition of Agile NXT, a downloadable magazine from Xebia. 3 minutes to read.
Applied Leadership
Karolina Toth interviews Steven McCord, SVP of Technology at WhyHotel, on how to succeed in your first 100 days as a tech leader at a new company. Podcast, 30 minutes, safe for work, or read the notes in 11 minutes.
- Tom Cagely begins a series on toxic meeting cultures with diagnostics: how to recognize them. 3 minutes to read.
- Lisette Sutherland interviews Danny Page on socially responsible outsourcing and the finer points of working as a distributed team. Podcast or video, each about 40 minutes, safe for work.
Cybersecurity and Data Protection
Das Rush interviews Joel de la Garza on the transformations of information security practices and capacity as more of the workforce goes remote. Podcast, 22 minutes, safe for work.
- Erich Kron and James McQuiggan advise us what to do if we discover that someone is impersonating our company in a phishing campaign. 2 minutes to read.
- Ben Dickson shares some additional security precautions to take when connecting remotely to the company network. 4 minutes to read.
Pot Pourri
Pascal Papathemelis recaps his webinar on active listening. Great content, too bad I missed it, but this is almost as good. 7 minutes to read, plus a video, 52 minutes, safe for work.
- Francesco Marcatto makes the case for dot voting as a way for a team to converge on a limited set of alternatives. 4 minutes to read.
- Esther Derby gives us a cheat sheet for helping those who are new to remote work to conduct better meetings. 2 minutes to read.
Peace be with you!


Thank you for the mention again, Dave!! I’ve enjoyed these posts for the past few years. Thank you for the great work you do for the community.
Thanks, Cesar. I enjoyed contributing my little “must read” bits to your interviews, and I still enjoy listening to you interact with your guests. You’re a good PM, but more importantly, you’re a good person.
Thank you Dave, this means a lot to me. You’re not so bad yourself 🙂