PMcrunch

We heard it said many times that people skills are very important. However, we do see a great emphasis, whether it is in project management frameworks, or MBA programs, or Six Sigma, or any other approaches that there is a noticeable lack of people skill development embedded in the program.

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In these tight times, we are acutely aware of cutbacks, of scarcity, and of the need to streamline. However, really, these are indicative of management practices that should be occurring all the time. In portfolio management, especially, it is important to have a healthy balance between short term considerations and long term considerations. It is all a balancing act and the equation really only changes slightly during a downturn, such as we are currently experiencing.

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For many years now, the debate over global warming and environmental consciousness has raged. This debate has become deeply embedded into the political consciousness, especially in the United States, but also elsewhere in the world. One thing is for sure: this debate will continue for a long time to come, and it will be a long time before any claims are proven indisputably accurate. So, the question is, how can we incorporate environmental correctness into our projects and programs?

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Telecommuting is a great option today and many people opt for the lifestyle that it provides. Thus provide people with the opportunity to be closer to home, to avoid commutes, and to often avoid some of the office politics and inefficiencies that might exist by being on site in a group of other people. However, everything comes with a price; and it seems that everything is a two-edged sword. Let’s take a look.

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360 Degree Feedback is a popular mechanism for learning about performance. It is valuable for both the managers involved and for the individuals involved, as all can know more about each other in the process. However, as with all other performance review processes, there are some issues with 360 degree feedback. Let’s take a look.

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Networking, to me, is a fun thing to do. Over time I have gotten to meet many people, many different situations — and I love learning about what people do, how they think, what they have experienced, and what their perspective is. However, what I’ve also found is that the approach that you take to networking can bring about very different results from another approach. Let’s take a look at this topic.

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Project managers got to be project managers from a variety of career paths. Many of us have become specialists in certain areas, such as earned value, or scheduling, or critical path methods, or other such specialized techniques within the project management skill set. However, many others of us got here because it represented an opportunity to actually broaden skill sets and qualify us for other positions.

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The PMI virtual community project is a major initiative aimed at bringing together the many different facets of the overall PMI members. I am not sure whether non-members will gain access, but I understand that there is a membership fee to get into this virtual community. I have some thoughts, or more to the point, questions as my curiosity about this has been piqued. Let’s take a look.

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This may seem like a crazy question, but it is a valid one: “Does your project have some lunacy?” As project managers, we have been trained, for the most part, to be very rational about what we are doing. Of course, some of us may have a greater foundation in that than others; but nonetheless there is a firm rationality that exists within the profession. The question is, does that serve us well on our projects?

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As project and program managers, we are leaders within organizations. Indeed, we lead small, smaller, organizations that are subsets of the larger organizations. As such, we are responsible for making decisions, and in the process, we need to define ourselves. Let’s take a look at this concept.

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