PMcrunch

There is no better dose of reality, than the power of pushback.  It occurs in every walk of life and, utilized properly, can be our friend in the project management process.  It comes in most handy when dealing with uncertainty.  It also keeps us honest about our prospects.

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Oftentimes, less experienced project managers and project teams wallow in uncertainty and lack of direction due to the lack of proper project management documentation. I have seen situations where there are lots of desperate sources of documentation but the specific project at hand is not well enough to find.

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Project and program managers today are in a position of needing to grapple with many tough choices. We need to assess and re-assess our options and, in an almost tortuous way, develop a positive way ahead to communicate with our stakeholders. For us, the process of going through that struggle is important. But to our stakeholders, what is important is the positive way ahead that we have developed.

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Uncertainty is part of the territory for effective leaders. Certainty simply does not exist for effective leadership, since if it did, leadership would not be needed! Whether in executive leadership or project leadership, it is the ability of the leader to manage uncertainties that most defines success.

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Thomas Edison was the quintessential mistake maker. He believed that the more mistakes he made, the more wrong answers and wrong solutions he could eliminate and, therefore, the closer he came to the correct solution to his problems. In management and on projects, on one hand, we seek to minimize mistakes but it is important to recognize when “mistakes” can actually be beneficial and produce positive outcomes. Indeed, we should not be afraid to make mistakes but rather should try to control and leverage the process. The project portfolio management process is an ideal place to formally do this.

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Engineering analysis is often an input to overall project management. However, in larger organizations, or in consulting firms that service a multitude of customers, the engineering analysis is a project unto itself. This brings to the surface the question, “What is the process for these types of projects, and how does it map to the PMBOK?”

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