IBN Project Management & Help Desk Community

Learning Scrum – Staying up with the latest project techniques

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 14:32:32 GMT

The more I work within the Scrum project framework, the more I appreciate its practical and simple concepts. I am also interested in the expertise required to be a Scrum master. Like any skill you seek to master, the path may be harder than you want and take longer than you want. I am convinced [...] Read More......(read more)

How to Help Management Make a Better IT Decision

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:12:52 GMT

Decisions that directly affect Information Technology (IT) projects or IT services within an organization are not always made in the IT (or Engineering) department. That is not bad thing; it is just the way things are and how business runs. Like what? Management decides it is in the company’s strategic interest to form a partnership [...] Read More......(read more)

Project Manager Travel Guidance

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 22:08:06 GMT

I am sure there are people who enjoy traveling as part of their job, although I have not met any of them recently! Travel to current or potential customer sites, subcontractors, giving a conference presentation or receiving training is sometimes necessary for the project and the organization. Who knows, sometime you might even get a [...] Read More......(read more)

Cognitive Science Insights into Decision Making

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 18:39:01 GMT

Those of you who know me understand how my company relies on cognition principles and experts to make our projects successful. Dr. Karen McGraw, the founder of Cognitive Technologies, has said on many occasions that “Cognitive is the first word in our company name because if you don’t focus first on the way people think, [...] Read More......(read more)

Asking for Help

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 17:41:00 GMT

Do you ever ask for help or assistance? I don’t know why so many people (And organizations!) feel like they cannot go get help when they need to. Perhaps because people see asking for help as a sign of personal failure, they are reluctant to do it. Instead, they continue to struggle and hope for [...] Read More......(read more)

Reflections on Fear No Project PM Blog

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 07:35:50 GMT

I have been writing the Fear No Project blog for three years now — over 150 posts. When I began, I was not sure that I had all that much to say or that I would have the time to create the kind of blog I could be proud of and others would find useful. [...] Read More......(read more)

Defending the Project Management Profession

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:53:08 GMT

Project management is not just something you do when you cannot get a real job. Project management is a profession and project managers are professionals. I am probably preaching to the choir here, but having recently seen ads for fast, cheap and simple project management training and tools, I felt the need to state firmly [...] Read More......(read more)

Improving Productivity – Suggestions from PMI

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:30:04 GMT

If you have not wandered through the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) knowledge center, you have missed an excellent source of best-practice thinking on a variety of issues relevant to project and corporate management. Recently I reviewed an article by Pradeep Patra, PMP and Sunitha Bartaki, PMP of Tata Consultancy Services Limited that I thought was [...] Read More......(read more)

Finding a Content Management System Solution – Part 3

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 12:39:53 GMT

In part 2 of this series, I talked about selecting a content management system (CMS) and including the needs of people (stakeholders and users). I shared several great questions to ask when choosing a solution. So after you have done all the work of finding, selecting and implementing a CMS you can relax and take [...] Read More......(read more)

A Project Manager’s Thanksgiving Thoughts

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 23:34:06 GMT

Are you like me? I go to the store, watch TV, and read the paper – but all I am seeing is “Christmas themes.” So, What happened to Thanksgiving? I like the Thanksgiving holiday. It provides a chance to get together with people you care about without some of the stress that characterizes other [...] Read More......(read more)

Finding a Content Management System Solution – Part 2

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:49:16 GMT

Last week in part 1, I talked about selecting a content management system (CMS) (which has many names like records management or knowledge management) from a technical perspective. However, just as with any productivity-enhancing tool, the process does not end with getting the tool. Rather, the process begins by understanding the value of content management [...] Read More......(read more)

Finding a Content Management System solution – Part 1

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 18:50:15 GMT

I am having a lot of conversations with people about “content management”, “knowledge management”, and “records management” these days. Some of this is because of products like Microsoft SharePoint® and OpenText. If you are having these conversations, you may be wondering “why it is so hard to find a good solution?” Part of the problem [...] Read More......(read more)

Professional ScrumMaster Class Offered in Austin Texas

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 20:31:48 GMT

I have written and spoken in the past about agile and the incremental approaches to building solutions. I am learning more about SCRUM and how it can improve our ability to be successful in our projects. Scrum provides a framework for software development that is incremental and iterative. Scrum is based on agile principles that [...] Read More......(read more)

Happy International Project Management Day!

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 23:25:17 GMT

Just want to say Happy International Project Management Day to all of you! It is November 3rd this year and many organizations are trying to raise awareness of Project Management. For those of you who were not aware : The international project management day (IPM day) is intended to encourage project based organizations worldwide or organizations [...] Read More......(read more)

How is the PMBOK like Wikipedia?

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:33:26 GMT

When you are stuck in traffic, you have free time — just kidding — for random thoughts to bubble up into your conscious mind. On one such occasion, I found myself considering the similarities between the construction of articles on Wikipedia and PMI’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK). At first, these [...] Read More......(read more)

Personnel Issues in Project Management

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:08:58 GMT

As a project manager, there were times when I sincerely wondered if I would not be more successful if I just did not have to deal with people. People — my team, senior management, support staff and clients — can turn a simple task into a complex one or a straightforward decision into a need [...] Read More......(read more)

Project Management Software – Issues and Requirements

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:00:17 GMT

Though many businesses use project management software, a sentiment exists in some circles that successful project managers often achieve results in spite of their software tools, rather than because of them. The claim that project management tools provide an effective way to boost productivity is disputed by others, citing the large amount of money spent [...] Read More......(read more)

The Passing of a Visionary – Steve Jobs

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 21:44:39 GMT

I don’t often talk about specific people in posts, but one of my heroes passed away yesterday. Steve Jobs passed away on October 6, 2011 at the age of 56. I have written posts about leadership and mentoring for many years – and Steve was someone I would have loved as a mentor. While not everyone liked [...] Read More......(read more)

Applying knowledge management to projects

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:00:06 GMT

If you have followed Fear no Project for a while, you know that I believe knowledge management is a competitive discriminator, especially in the dynamic world of software development. (See: Knowledge Management is not an Oxymoron and SharePoint 2010 – It’s not just about the technology. Because I often speak with senior managers, industry groups and boards [...] Read More......(read more)

How to improve team communicators

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 19:38:38 GMT

I cannot count the number of times in Fear No Project that I have mentioned communication and the important role effective communication plays in project success – well actually I could count the number of times using search software, but that isn’t the point. As mentioned in “The Secret to Effective Management Communication – Practice, [...] Read More......(read more)

How is project management different in a nonprofit organization?

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 21:54:23 GMT

I do not want to mislead you with the title of this post. In my experience, effective IT project management is what it is, whether the project exists in a for-profit company or nonprofit organization. However, the culture surrounding the project and some of the challenges differ. To restate previous content, projects have a specified [...] Read More......(read more)

How to cancel a failing project gracefully

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:29:37 GMT

A couple weeks ago (August 21, 2011 to be exact), I was watching a “60 Minutes” interview on TV about whistle blowing and a NSA employee’s possible trial for espionage. Interesting stuff, I guess. However, what caught my attention was that the charges revolved around a software development project. (Here’s the full story, if [...] Read More......(read more)

Project Managers: The Trust Metric

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 21:04:51 GMT

Conventional “management” wisdom states that having trust among team members and between the team and management is critical to project success. I just finished a project to implement a new tool suite for an organization and the need for trust was very apparent. Trust however is neither simple to define or achieve. Trust is subjective. [...] Read More......(read more)

The Role of a Project’s Lead Technologist

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 20:47:55 GMT

Every project that I have looked at over the years involving computers, software or technology had three key staff on them — The PM, the sponsor and the lead technologist (or some call them the Subject Matter Expert- SME). Selected by the project manager, the Project Management Office, program manager or senior staff, the role [...] Read More......(read more)

Project Management – the Rest of the Story

Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 20:35:21 GMT

For those of you who have been reading this blog, you know that I have continued a series of posts on and about PMBOK and its codification of all the methods and tasks involved in managing a project. Today I want to mention a few tasks that PMBOK omits. As the renowned radio commentator, Paul [...] Read More......(read more)