Tag Archives: Leadership

New PM Articles for the Week of August 21 – 27

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New project management articles published on the web during the week of August 21 – 27. And this week’s video: Excel wizard Steve Equals True (get it?) shows how to create a project status spectrum chart in Excel. Just 8 minutes, safe for work.

Must read (or Listen)!

  • Artur Kiulian explains why your next boss may be a robot. 7 minutes to read.
  • Kara Swisher leads a techie discussion panel on the potential for finding tech workers in coal country. Podcast, just over an hour.
  • Bertrand Duperrin recounts a fascinating conversation: “I did not go to school. I went to YouTube.” Peer-to-peer education has become a powerful force. 3 minutes to read.

Established Methods

  • Elizabeth Harrin describes her new book: “Communicating Change: How to talk about project change.” 3 minutes to read (the article, not the book).
  • Mike Clayton has curated a list of TED Talks for project managers. 24 outbound links, 5 minutes to browse, and hours of video content.
  • Glen Alleman describes the concept of operations and explains why it is so valuable to project success. 4 minutes to read.
  • Nick Pisano continues his examination of integrated project management, this time focusing on the economic aspects. 8 minutes to read.
  • Stuart Easton explains that PMO’s have super-powers. At least, in business terms. 5 minutes to read.
  • Allen Chilmeran describes key metrics that should be incorporated into project status reports. 10 minutes to read.
  • Peter Landau shares the ultimate project status reporting checklist. 5 minutes to read.

Agile Methods

  • Stefan Wolpers curates his weekly list of Agile content, from feature factories (bad) to Agile project management (bad?) to creating psychological safety (undeniably good). 12 outbound links, 3 minutes to scan.
  • Eli Woolery interviews Irene Au, one of the people who designed Netscape and continues to influence design at Google and beyond. Podcast, 32 minutes.
  • Toyota alumnus Glen Morris explains the notion of Jidoka and what he and his team expect to gain from implementing self-monitoring machines. 4 minutes to read.
  • The Clever PM interviews Jay Stansell of the Product Coalition on the start of the craft and applying design thinking to daily life. 6 minutes to read.

Applied Leadership

  • Harry Hall tutors us on the techniques that can be used for stakeholder analysis. 2 minutes to read.
  • Lynda Bourne describes a new metric for measuring the level of engagement that we need/want/expect/experience from our project stakeholders. 5 minutes to read.
  • Roy Naquin reviews the basic techniques we can use to influence our stakeholders. 4 minutes to read.
  • Art Petty tells us that we need to develop managers who lead—the behaviors of leadership are needed at all levels in the organization. 3 minutes to read.

Technology, Techniques, and Human Behavior

  • Rich Maltzman explains voltage optimization, and how organizations are saving money (and power) by changing their power supply to match their actual needs. 3 minutes to read.
  • John McIntyre describes Holly, the holiday-bot that queries their HR system for absences and uses Slack to tell the PMO lead which project managers are out of the office. 3 minutes to read.
  • Josh Wardini shared an extensive infographic on the history and current state of Poker-playing AI applications. 6 minutes to read.

Working and the Workplace

  • Leigh Espy tells why you need to determine the purpose of your next meeting in order to get the most out of everyone’s time. 3 minutes to read.
  • Michael Hyatt notes the point where delegation becomes an abdication of responsibility.
  • Lisette Sutherland curates comments from past interviews on the fine points of managing remote teams. Podcast, 20 minutes.
  • Michael Huber addresses overcoming isolation as a remote employee. 3 minutes to read.

Enjoy!

New PM Articles for the Week of August 14 – 20

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New project management articles published on the web during the week of August 14 – 20. And this week’s video: Erica Olsen gives us a fast tutorial on how to conduct a SWOT analysis. Just over 5 minutes, safe for work.

Must read (or Watch)!

  • Dave Prior interviews Mike Griffiths and Johanna Rothman on the soon-to-be-released PMI Agile Practice Guide. Johanna defines “Agile project manager” 14 minutes in and nails it. Video, 21 minutes to watch.
  • Jayanth Reddy and Pankaj Tiwari dig into the global changes disrupting India’s IT industry and ecosystem. A 15-minute read, but India is not a small country.

Established Methods

  • Elizabeth Harrin extracts 6 key principles from Louise Worsley’s new book, Stakeholder-led Project Management: Changing the way we manage projects. 2 minutes to read.
  • Harry Hall walks us through the process of creating a stakeholder register. 3 minutes to read; accompanying video is 4 minutes long, safe for work.
  • Elise Stevens interviews Catharine on managing diverse stakeholder groups. Podcast, 14 minutes.
  • Grace Windsor gives us a detailed class on how to work effectively with your project’s sponsor. 6 minutes to read.
  • John McIntyre points out half-dozen cognitive biases that PMO professionals should be aware of and be defending against. 6 minutes to read.
  • Barry Hodge tells us why our project will be canceled, and what we can do to prevent it. 3 minutes to read.

Agile Methods

  • Stefan Wolpers curates his weekly list of all things Agile, from “business Agile” (bad) to system resilience (good) and beyond. 12 outbound links, 3 minutes to scan.
  • Cornelius Fichtner interviews Joseph Flahiff, who claims that more projects are using Agile methods than ever before. Podcast, 29 minutes, safe for work.
  • Mike Cohn references the work of Richard Hackman on how authority can be distributed to teams, to support his definition of self-organizing teams. 3 minutes to read.
  • Kaysie Garza explains what to prioritize for a successful, scalable design process. 4 minutes to read.

Applied Leadership

  • Esther Derby shows why we need the virtue of patience when driving complex organizational behavior changes. 3 minutes to read.
  • Ron Rosenhead presents an anecdote that illustrates the need for self-awareness. You can’t change what you don’t realize needs changing. 3 minutes to read.
  • Mike Clayton provides a detailed overview of effective team communication. 10 minutes to read.

Technology, Techniques, and Human Behavior

  • Adrian Bowles presents a webinar on organizing data and knowledge using taxonomies and ontologies. 61 minutes, safe for work.
  • Kimberly Crawley interviews cybersecurity consultant Cheryl Biswas on the flawed state of readiness for cyber-attacks in small and medium-sized businesses. 10 minutes to read.
  • Karen Smith reflects on the power of questions. Is your question an invitation, a request, or a weapon? 4 minutes to read.

Working and the Workplace

  • Oliver Burkeman makes the case for the four-hour working day (like we needed to be convinced). 2 minutes to read, leaving you 238 minutes to work.
  • Patrick Allen suggests that your morning routine is just fine, but your unstructured afternoon needs work. 4 minutes to read.
  • Kat Boogaard reminds us what to do after meeting someone at a networking event. That’s why you went, right? 3 minutes to read.

Enjoy!

New PM Articles for the Week of August 7 – 13

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New project management articles published on the web during the week of August 7 – 13. And this week’s video: Harry Hall explains how to identify, evaluate, engage, and influence your project stakeholders. Just 9 minutes, safe for work.

Must read!

  • Suzanne Lucas recaps recent events at Google, following the outing and firing of James Damor. Not surprisingly, Googlers are now afraid of being outed and fired. 3 minutes to read.
  • Andreas Sandre rounds up some rankings and statistics on gender and racial diversity among large technology companies. 3 minutes to read and well worth the time.
  • John Goodpasture reacts to John Kao’s auteur model of innovation, pointing out that the most successful innovation auteur was the late Steve Jobs. 2 minutes to read.

Established Methods

  • Pat Weaver observes that there is more to project success than benefits realization and meeting initial cost and schedule targets. 4 minutes to read.
  • Elizabeth Harrin interviews William Davis, creator of Excel-based Statistical Pert, who explains the difference between predicting and forecasting. 4 minutes to read.
  • Leigh Espy describes the project sponsor role and explains what to do when you have a weak sponsor. 6 minutes to read.
  • Lew Sauder recounts an anecdote that illustrates the fine line between giving the project sponsor too much information and not enough. 3 minutes to read.
  • Elise Stevens interviews Sabina Janstrom on the importance of stakeholder engagement to project portfolio management. Podcast, 20 minutes, safe for work.
  • Nick Pisano examines the failures of project management that can only result in an inadequate form of project monitoring. 15 minutes or so to read.
  • John McIntyre advises PMO leaders to ignore Waterfall vs. Agile and other false dichotomies in favor of choosing the best methods and tools for each project. 4 minutes to read.

Agile Methods

  • Stefan Wolpers curates his weekly list of Agile content, from cultural revolutions to scaling autonomous teams, to high-performance teams. 11 outbound links, 3 minutes to browse.
  • Rich Mironov recommends we abandon the generic “user” and “customer” in favor of more specific role identities. And he goes off on a good rant, too. 5 minutes to read.
  • Johanna Rothman identifies progress measurements that can be effective at the program level.
  • Atul Sinha explores the parameters of a “definition of ready” for a user story. 2 minutes to read.
  • Henny Portman summarizes a new book by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden, “Lean UX – Designing Great Products with Agile Teams.” 3 minutes to read.

Applied Leadership

  • The Clever PM explains why silence works in facilitating communication, how to use it effectively, and how to combine it with active listening. 4 minutes to read.
  • Kara Swisher hosts “Built for Growth” authors Chris Kuenne and John Danner on becoming a great entrepreneur. Podcast, 56 minutes, mostly safe for work.
  • Bertrand Duperrin notes that successful transformation projects require that we expose the corporate culture to change. 3 minutes to read.

Technology, Techniques, and Human Behavior

  • Ryan Ogilvie points out the software asset management selling points that will appeal to executive decision makers. 3 minutes to read.
  • Russell Brandom reports on the current, weakened state of two-factor authentication. “In 2017, just having two-factor is no longer enough.” 8 minutes to read.
  • Conner Forrest reports that Bill Burr, who wrote the NIST guidelines for password standards, “regrets” that advice. Good news: there’s an update available. 2 minutes to read.
  • Kamesh Ganeson explains ISO 22301, a widely-used standard for business continuity management. 4 minutes to read.

Working and the Workplace

  • Rebecca Collins notes that 79% of knowledge workers work from home, and offers some suggestions on facilitating their success. 3 minutes to read.
  • Lisette Sutherland interviews Nenad Maljkovic on permaculture and designing sustainable remote systems. Podcast, 35 minutes, safe for work.
  • Thomas Oppong gives us a pep talk: stop managing your time and start owning it, through time boxing, the Pomodoro Technique, prioritizing, and just saying no. 5 minutes to read.

Enjoy!