#PMChat

Miss the live show?  Check out the recording on Youtube. Read More »

Project management TV (#PMTV) is a 30 minute show devoted to project management.  In this pilot show for the series I talk to Bernardo Tirado ( @thePMObox ) about industrial psychology and its relevance to project management.  Among other things, we also discuss how to deal with under-performing colleagues, and when it is appropriate to escalate issues to line managers. Bernardo is a Six Sigma Blackbelt, certified PMP, and Industrial Psychologist.  He’s the Founder and CEO of The Project Box where they provide the latest information on Project Management Leadership. If you’d like to appear on the show or have any feedback or suggestions, please drop me a line Read More »

As pm, you’ll encounter many different kinds of difficult people.  In this post I’ll focus on the person who is too busy and too important to do any real work on the project, but is very keen to critique the work of others.  There are two ways of looking at a person like this: 1) the person is dead weight on the project, dragging the team down with their criticisms 2) the person is providing a valuable project assurance service.  How you respond to that person will depend upon where they sit on your stakeholder matrix – how senior and influential are they within the organisation?  How interested are they in the project? How much damage could they do if you fall out with them?  Its never beneficial to make enemies within an organisation, so I’d recommend trying to view the person’s contribution in a positive light, especially if they are senior and influential! Read More »

If you read the definition for earth 2.0 , you’ll have noticed that it’s an ambitious programme.  Ambitious programmes require well thought out approaches.  I’ll outline the basics of the approach in this post.  The programme will be collaborative, open source, democratic and agile.  The programme ethos is ‘challenge everything’:  it’s not going to be an easy programme to deliver so we’re going to need some critical thought. The agile bit is really important as earth 2.0 will not be delivered over night.  We therefore need to beak it up into a series of sprints to start delivering real value early. A collaborative, democratic and crowd sourced approach is required because I do not possess all of the resources and expertise required to deliver the programme.  I also believe that the best programmes receive input, steer and participation from diverse stakeholder groups.  A one man/woman dictatorship will not deliver earth 2.0 Open source is important because of the need for transparency regarding motives, aims and methods.  Open source brings additional benefits around increased rates of innovation and participation. Finally we need some solid communication channels for the team.  Face to face meetings are ideal, and given that this is a global enterprise, web conferencing fits the bill.  We’ll therefore utilise Skype, Google hangouts and equivalents.  This will be complimented by twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media apps. Read More »

I want to scope out a new project.  Actually its going to be a programme as the scope is quite broad.  The vision statement expressed as succinctly as I can is that ‘Every man and woman is born equal’ – equality of opportunity, equality of quality of life, equality of security.  All of this irrespective of geographical location.  I’m not going to manage the entire programme definition in this post, but i’ll begin with some key aspects of the business case. The main driver for the programme is guilt. Let me explain. When I was a kid I spent my time playing with friends, at school, and with my family. I did not work in a sweatshop. I did not serve as a child soldier. Read More »