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Go with your gut — cautiously

On the popular TV show NCIS, the team leader (Mark Harmon) is frequently heard exhorting his staff to “go with your gut” (for the women readers I guess you call this female intuition!). The lesson he is sharing with the team is that your intuition, as opposed to decisions based solely on analytics, may give [...] Read More...

Published 02-09-2012 5:16 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: Project management, project manager, management, communication

How to Help Management Make a Better IT Decision

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...

Published 01-26-2012 3:12 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: Project management, General Project Management, project manager, management, communication

Cognitive Science Insights into Decision Making

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...

Published 01-12-2012 12:39 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: Project management, Best Practice, project manager, management, communication

Asking for Help

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...

Published 01-06-2012 11:41 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: Project management, Best Practice, General Project Management, project manager, management, communication

How is the PMBOK like Wikipedia?

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...

Published 10-28-2011 12:33 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: collaboration, Project management, project manager, communication, Content Management

Personnel Issues in Project Management

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...

Published 10-21-2011 11:08 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: Project management, General Project Management, project manager, management, HR, communication, personnel

How to improve team communicators

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...

Published 09-22-2011 2:38 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, Project management, training, project manager, communication

Project Managers: The Trust Metric

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...

Published 09-01-2011 4:04 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, Project management, Best Practice, General Project Management, project manager, management, communication, building trust

Making a Project Manager’s Work-Life Miserable

You might have noticed in previous posts that I occasionally mention the entertaining and wise writings of Scott Berkun. His book, Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management (Theory in Practice) is an experience-based trip through managing a project. His other writings and presentations offer wisdom couched inside a great sense of humor and wrapped [...] Read More...

Published 07-29-2011 7:38 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: Project management, project manager, communication, humor

Dealing with Angry Clients

Recently, while sharing a quiet dinner at a nice restaurant (in lovely Regina Canada), I could not help but overhear the conversation at the next table. The patron was angry and demanding that the cook re-do the meat because it was not to his liking. I paid attention to this because the customer had already [...] Read More...

Published 07-07-2011 3:53 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: Project management, General Project Management, project manager, management, communication, anger, customers, clients

Does Your Organization Have Cognitive Biases that Influence Management Decisions?

The answer to the question in the titles is, “Yes, of course.” Now how many of you are scratching your heads and saying, “Bruce has gone off the deep end, I don’t even know what a cognitive bias is!” All human-centered organizations (I am assuming you don’t work with robots) have cognitive biases based on [...] Read More...

Published 06-24-2011 8:43 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, management, communication, cognitive biases

Planning Your Organizational Change

Last week, I talked about the inevitability of change and why project and senior managers face challenges in successful change execution. (Don’t Take Organizational Change for Granted – Manage it) I know that you cannot overcome all problems associated with change. However, planning and communication minimize the discomfort. The first planning step is deciding where [...] Read More...

Published 06-16-2011 3:58 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, Project management, General Project Management, communication, change management, planning

The Importance of Social Networking – How and Why

How many of you thought this post was going to be about Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, and BLOGS?? Wrong! My thoughts today are about the value of old-fashioned social networking, as opposed to tweeting and posting to online services like LinkedIn and Facebook. Building a network of professional contacts involves personal contact – putting a face, [...] Read More...

Published 06-02-2011 4:19 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: collaboration, Project management, management, communication, Professional Development, networking

The Secret to Effective Management Communication – Practice, Practice, Practice

Few skills rival the importance of effective communication for project and senior managers. The ability to communicate ideas clearly to a diverse group of stakeholders gets you noticed as an individual contributor or team leader. The inability to communicate, either verbally or in writing, can stall your career. The Wisconsin Business Alumni Association estimates that [...] Read More...

Published 05-20-2011 7:39 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, Project management, General Project Management, project manager, management, communication

Guide to Effective Brainstorming (with a remote team)

“Let’s get together and brainstorm that.” “We need to schedule a brainstorming session.” “I want you to brainstorm some solutions.” It is a noun. It is a verb. It is a gerund (my mother would be proud I remembered). For a project manager, brainstorming is more than a part of speech, it is a process [...] Read More...

Published 03-17-2011 4:29 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: Project management, General Project Management, project manager, management, pm, communication, virtual team, remote team

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