Tag Archives: SaaS

New PM Articles for the Week of April 11 – 17

Posted on by

New project management articles published on the web during the week of April 11 – 17. And this week’s video: Crazy Russian Hacker explains that we’ve been splitting firewood wrong all these years. “Safety is number one priority.” Spasibo, moy drug …

Must read!

  • Donald Charles Wynes suggests an interesting way to identify risks: pretend the project is over, and you’re trying to analyze why it failed.
  • Mike Clayton recommends eight techniques for identifying risks. I especially like Brainwriting and Pre-Mortem.
  • Andy Jordan points out another source of risk: a change in leadership.

Established Methods

  • Harry Hall shares a checklist that should help you understand your project, which is the first step in managing it.
  • Glen Alleman presents the Project Breathalyzer: should your project even be on the road?
  • Women Testers has released the April edition of their quarterly online magazine.
  • John Goodpasture contemplates managing schedule slack, based on a TED talk by Tim Urban on procrastination. Just 14 minutes, safe for work.
  • Elizabeth Harrin reviews Simon Moore’s book, “Strategic Portfolio Management.”
  • Elise Stevens interviews Emma Arnaz-Pemberton on how PMO’s can become trusted partners to the business. Just 16 minutes, safe for work.

Agile Methods

  • Alistair Cockburn gives an excellent talk, “The Heart of Agile.” Just 50 minutes, safe for work.
  • Joshua Taylor makes a good point: designers shouldn’t focus on code – they should focus on the business.
  • Henny Portman returns from class with a nice summary of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) 4.0.
  • Emanuele Passera begins a series on Kanban, with a brief introduction to the terminology.
  • Angela Wick explains the difference between use cases and user stories, and why you should use one or the other but not both.
  • Sandeep Paudel posts a brief user story FAQ. Part one of two.

Applied Leadership

  • Cameron Conaway gets a few ideas about vision from Patti Sanchez, Chief Strategy Officer at Duarte, Inc, a “visual storytelling company” in Silicon Valley.
  • Suzanne Lucas, the Evil HR Lady, explains why hiring is so much more difficult than you might expect.
  • Liane Davey tells us how to deal with chronic complainers.
  • Art Petty explains how to succeed in high-pressure conversations.
  • Allen Ruddock contemplates the nature of motivation.

Pot Pouri

  • Bruce Harpham gives us a comprehensive approach to winning that next promotion.
  • Project Journal has rounded up 30 of the best interview questions to ask of applicants for a project management position.
  • Derek Huether explains how to triage meeting requests.
  • Thomas Carney summarizes six highly regarded productivity systems, and identifies roles that they might work best for (and not).
  • Seth Godin makes the (quality) case for not using free software.

Enjoy!

New PM Articles for the Week of March 7 – 13

Posted on by

New project management articles published on the web during the week of March 7 – 13. And this week’s video: David Letterman’s classic photo-identification quiz, “Trump or Monkey?” Four minutes, safe for work.

Must read!

  • Mike Griffiths expounds on whether certification should indicate a ceiling or a floor of professional learning, and illustrates his point with historical examples.
  • Seth Godin explains the difference between confidence and arrogance, when making the case for change.
  • Lynda Bourne continues her examination of Practical Ethics. “The ethical standards of an organization are set by the actionsof its leaders.”

Established Methods

  • Samad Aidane interviews Suzie Blaszkiewicz, market analyst at GetApp, on their new report: 2016’s Top Project Management Apps.
  • Elizabeth Harrin interviews CEO, project manager, and entrepreneur Monica Borrell.
  • Douglas Brown on making process changes stick: “Best practices are a destination, not a starting point.”
  • Susanne Madsen explains the importance of positive relationships with project stakeholders, and how to develop them.
  • Brad Egeland offers five ideas for making meetings more productive that probably run counter to other advice you’ve seen.
  • Harry Hall explains the difference between qualitative and quantitative risk analysis, and offers suggestions on how to improve your approach.

Agile Methods

  • Neil Killick looks for a patch of common ground between #Estimates and #NoEstimates.
  • Glen Alleman responds to Neil on that common ground between #Estimates and #NoEstimates.
  • Johanna Rothman posted a four-part series on how Agile approaches influence the way we test, from our expectations to our practices to metrics. Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
  • Mike Cohn recommends some alternatives approaches when developing reports that are too complex to deliver in one sprint.
  • Fernando Paloma Garcia explains how to stabilize quality and prepare to evolve the features of legacy applications by establishing a base of automated tests.
  • Shashank Sinha describes an example of how Agile methods were applied to the evolution of an enterprise legacy system.

Applied Leadership

  • Art Petty notes that good managers focus on what the people are doing, not just the tasks.
  • John Goodpasture considers un-delegation, based on the Principle of Subsidiarity.
  • Nancy Settle-Murphy addresses three questions from her Wall Street Journal interview, on dealing with issues between the remote worker and a problematic boss.
  • Dmitriy Nizhebetskiy explains how to develop a project management dream team.
  • Lisa Earle McLeod extols the virtues of Essentialism, “the disciplined pursuit of Less.”

Pot Pouri

  • Bruce Harpham offers some guidance for making remote work productive.
  • Brendan Toner shares an eclectic list of techniques for improving productivity.
  • Yanna Vogiazou gets us up to date on gestural interaction – think Kinect games – and our multi-modal future.
  • Bertrand Duperrin thinks that the speed of Saas deployment may already exceed the speed at which organizations can change to adopt them.
  • Dalton Hooper provides some post-interview feedback: why I didn’t hire you, even though you were the most qualified.

Enjoy!

New PM Articles for the Week of September 14 – 20

Posted on by

Orange CountyNew project management articles published on the web during the week of September 14 – 20. We give you a high-level view so you can read what interests you. Recommended:

Must read!

  • Kathleen O’Connor interviews Chris Krebs, a social science researcher, on an experiment in fostering innovation in higher education called “The Creative Disruptors.”
  • Adrian Fittolani details the Monte Carlo approach to prepare a distribution of likely project durations, based on a relatively small number of samples.
  • William Davis introduces us to Statistical PERT, a technique for creating estimates using Excel.

Established Methods

  • Glen Alleman notes that an understanding of system intangibles is required in order to decompose the work needed to create it.
  • Elizabeth Harrin interviews Christian Kotzbauer, Managing Director of Genius Project, on the future of project management software.
  • Bruce Harpham gives us the background and best practices for leading virtual teams.
  • John Goodpasture reviews General Stanley McChrystal’s new book, “Team of Teams.”
  • Gina Abudi lists three quick bullet points that can improve how you negotiate with others.
  • Kerry Wills explains the notion of “watermelon” status reporting: green on the outside, red on the inside.

Agile Methods

  • Johanna Rothman started a series on balancing resource utilization and workflow efficiency. Here are parts two and three; more are on the way.
  • Michael Smith shares some tips on scaling a software development team, gleaned from Forbes.com.
  • Bernd Schiffer arms us with 17 questions and 8 techniques for use in a Sprint review.
  • Pedro Gustavo Torres explains pair programming, and shares some best practices.

IT Management

  • Deloitte CIO Journal has an interesting article on preparing for crisis, as opposed to disaster. It’s not just about natural events, but “nefarious acts.”
  • Janice Blake details the key considerations when contracting for software as a service (SaaS) projects.
  • Ron Rosenhead recommends a UK government report from the National Audit Office with some interesting insights into what predicts project success.

Work Isn’t a Place You Go

  • Liane Davey reviews stress: being aware of the impact and dealing with the causes.
  • Emma Bracy give us the short science explanation for why we need to unplug from our hyper-connected routine.
  • Peter Saddington notes that we need manage the time we spend learning and experimenting, in light of our limitations.
  • Karina Keith rounds up three blog posts that make the business case for taking a nap. I’m elderly – I don’t need no stinkin’ business case …

Podcasts and Videos

  • Craig Smith interviews Jeff Patton, author of “User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product.” Just 43 minutes, safe for work.
  • Harry Hall reviews his recommendations for creating accurate project estimates. Just 2 minutes, safe for work.
  • Ruairi O’Donnellan shares a list of six TED Talks relevant for project managers. Excellent stuff!
  • Kamal Ahmed interviews Demis Hassabis, head of Google’s machine learning business. Just two minutes, safe for work, plus some text not included in the video.

Enjoy!