PMcrunch

We never really arrive at the end of the road in our quest to become leaders. We may achieve leadership status in some way but it is always a moving target. Indeed, I believe it is our own movement on a continuous basis that can enable us to maintain ourselves as a leader. One way that we can do this is by continuously evaluating our own leadership capabilities.
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Oftentimes, as  project managers and leaders, we are called upon to compare a variety of potential solutions and to either recommend or choose the best one for our situation. There are a variety of ways to do this. It is important for us to recognize that the answer we come up with is very closely related to the questions we ask and how we do the comparison. Many times—perhaps even most of the time—we do this comparisons in a relatively informal way, putting together our own structure. In other cases however, there is a much formalized organizational structure with a formal name such as "analysis of alternatives" that is performed.
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Many professionals are either "knowledge seeking" or "problem solving" – but, to their detriment, not both.  You can create a one-two punch for professional effectiveness by combining "knowledge seeking" and "problem solving".  Let me show you what I mean by looking at some details of some popular bodies of knowledge today. [Read more →]

When we first build our project plan, we need to make many [tag-dir]assumptions. As part of our project plan, we need to document what these assumptions are. We also need to acknowledge the reality that many of those assumptions may not prove out as the project unfolds.
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As project managers, we are often called upon to present choices to our stake holdersWe are often called upon to present options for solutions, scenarios, and items for discussions, priorities and more. There is a well proven rule that when it comes to choices, less is better.

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What do you do when hopelessness seems on the horizon? What do you do when it appears you have tried everything and nothing is working? What do you do when it appears that you are at the end of the road?

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I just heard a discussion led by a Duke University economics professor (sorry, I didn’t get his name) who had some interesting points to make about things being for free or being for money. He draws some very interesting conclusions that might be helpful to many of us on our projects.

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Sustainability is a hot topic today. Many potential projects may have the appearance of socially responsible but in some cases are not sustainable. Sustainability in and of itself is a key aspect of social responsibility. The growing presence of living roof project is a good example of sustainability in action.

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One of the most important things we can do to kick off a successful project is to clearly define the vision for the end state that will exist upon completion of the project. This end state is the vision for the way things are to be upon successful completion of the project. This end vision should appeal to all aspects of the purpose for the project.

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There is a great deal written on the subject of building teams including, building project teams, however one thing that is very notable about this process is it is of a very personal nature. Two people that might build a project team or the same exact project might very likely to do it differently just as every person is different every project team that they build will be different.

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