PMcrunch

Few weeks ago, I wrote a post about leadership in a virtual world in which I stated the limitations to achieve top leadership when not being directly engaged on site. The idea was that if a manager is not on site with regular phase time with subordinates, customers, associates, colleagues, and other stakeholders, he or she is not at all being positioned for increased leadership responsibility.

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Project Communications plans provide project managers with the opportunity to think through how the various stakeholders and the project team will communicate with one another. I think a case can be made for thinking a little more broadly about this in today’s Web 2.0 world.

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Without Instant Messaging, the use of the internet and broadband technology would be greatly under valued. Thanks to this method of communication, contact between individuals using the internet may be conducted in real time, regardless of their location. Without Instant Messaging, it wouldn’t be impossible for someone in Calcutta to communicate with someone in Prague and talk business, close deals, handle project management issues, discuss personal issues, even gossip.

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Modes of communication are important for a project manager to understand.  This post, part of our continuing series on modes of communication, presents some thoughts about the cell phone. A cellular phone was once the largest communication device on the planet. It was bulky, with a long, conspicuous antenna that made the user look […]

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Can you think a little out of the box for more effective communications to your stakeholders? Today we have many available means of communications, and this post lists 23. Sometimes project managers have unique communication needs for their projects. Try repurposing some old ideas and build some novel and effective solutions!

Here is a quick but growing list common means of communications on projects today and when you should consider using them. If you are used to working within a confined niche, these might help you to think outside the box a bit for some new and effective possibilities:

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I recently read a forum entry where someone was looking for advice on PM tools and PM software used across the globe for IT needs. The person mentioned that their company had some general tools like Critical Path, PERT etc., and various models for Estimation. The question was “What would be best software to support all these tools + models and standards like CMMI or ITIL, then support for SEI - indicator template for measurement analysis, Risk Management alerting + Alerting on Change management etc. Also requested were opinions on using lines of code as a metric.

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Personal management is often a limting factor for projects managers.  This can help: 1. I sometimes have trouble remembering which subfolder I put something into, or have trouble deciding which folder to put something into.  That’s a signal for at least some reorganization required! 2. I try to think of the # […]

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