An ad at the end of one of my workout videos caught my attention. A kitchen timer is ticking away. A voice says “It’s about time. Time. Time.” A trainer appears and says, “The number one reason people don’t work out is time.” A woman appears and says, “I can’t work out for an hour. […]
Originally published in PM Times on May 23, 2016. How would you solve this problem? The US VA has unacceptable wait times for veterans seeking medical assistance. The VA medical centers around the country are overbooked and understaffed. Some veterans have to wait months for appointments and treatment. There has been negative media attention on this
Last month, I was driving through a major highway construction project when my passenger commented how excited she was because she’d heard that the project was nearing completion and would be finished before year-end. I took a quick gander at the site and responded that I was sure whatever source she’d heard that from must
When I ask project managers what a baseline is and why it’s important, they tell me that it is an approved starting point against which project performance is measured. They are right, of course. But when I ask them if they use baselines, as often as not, I find that baselining is a fundamental project
No project should be initiated without a charter or some kind of project initiating document. While they may include various topics and information, the key purpose of a charter is two-fold: 1) It sanctions the project (or phase), and 2) It gives authority to the project manager to apply organizational resources to the project. I
When I ask students for their biggest challenges in managing projects, they usually tell me it’s the lack of people, time, or money. They just don’t have enough resources to get done what’s expected of them. I don’t doubt it. The relentless battle cry to reduce waste and increase productivity has many project managers feeling
At the conclusion of a recent project management class, a student sighed heavily and noted that, “If I did all of this stuff, my stakeholders would shoot me.” I hear this sentiment often from students who are new to project management or working in organizations that are new to project management. The good news is
I ran my first triathlon this past summer. My biggest concern going into the race was how I was going to hold up toward the end. Running is the last of the three events, and the one about which I was least confident. I wondered if I would be able to finish that last mile
Recently, a project management colleague was expressing frustration with her inability to get a project moving in a constructive direction. She commented that she knew the success of the project was her responsibility, but she felt hamstrung in her ability to get what she needed from people. Even simple requests for information from external stakeholders
On every project there are things we know and things we don’t know – Knowns and Unknowns. Organizing your thoughts around those concepts can be a constructive approach to understanding a project as shown in the matrix. The Known Knowns you handle via the plan, but what about those various flavors of Unknowns? How do
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New Horizons
Project Management Academy
Velopi
Six Sigma Online
Watermark Learning