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Improving Productivity – Suggestions from PMI

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...

Published 12-09-2011 6:30 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, Project management, Best Practice, management, change management

The Passing of a Visionary – Steve Jobs

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...

Published 10-06-2011 4:44 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, Technology, Personal, visonary

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

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 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

Managing Managers Requires Good Leadership Skills

I have a question for all my readers – How many of you have a manager or supervisor? OK, so everyone has a boss. Now, how many of you manage people who manage people? Moving up the management career ladder often includes progressing from team leader, to project manager to portfolio or department manager or [...] Read More...

Published 05-12-2011 4:53 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, Project management, management, career planning

Staffing for Success – How to Interview

I am really getting lots of questions about staffing and it is seems to be really hot topic on the web these days. I wrote a white paper on the subject a few years ago (you are welcome to download a copy of Cognitive Technologies’ whitepaper, “Staffing for Success – Back to Basics” by registering [...] Read More...

Published 05-07-2011 9:15 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, Project management, Best Practice, project manager, management, resource management, staff, personnel, hiring

Stress and the Project Manager

Stress goes with the project manager territory and most of you have probably developed coping mechanisms or learned to live with it. I have been in the world of project management for over 20 years and have seen all kinds of stress. Budget stress, schedule stress, overdue assignments, and changes in management or requirements, customer [...] Read More...

Published 03-03-2011 3:26 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

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

The Project Manager as Boss

The words “THE BOSS” comes heavily burdened based on one’s experience and expectations. For an older generation, their first thought might be an association with the singer, Bruce Springsteen who in the late 1960s, acquired the nickname “The Boss” when he and his band played New Jersey clubs and Bruce was responsible for collecting and [...] Read More...

Published 10-09-2010 5:29 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

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

The Art of Verbal Communication

“I took myself down to the Tally Ho Tavern, To buy me a bottle of beer. I sat me down by a tender young maiden, Who’s eyes were as dark as her hair. And as I was searching from bottle to bottle, For something un-foolish to say. That silver tongued devil just slipped from the [...] Read More...

Published 07-08-2010 1:16 PM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, training, Best Practice, project manager, management, pm, communication, Professional Development

How to Grow Communities of Practice

Change is a constant in a project manager’s world (well really in everyone’s world!). People who fail to learn—to increase their understanding and skills—find adapting to changing conditions and requirements challenging, if not impossible. Just as individuals need constantly to learn, so do organizations. One of the most effective ways [...] Read More...

Published 02-26-2010 6:59 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: collaboration, leadership, learning, training, General Project Management, staff

What to do when everyone leaves town for the Holiday

There are disruptive technologies that completely throw businesses off track and then there are holidays that can be disruptive to project management. The time from Thanksgiving through New Years is a disruptive time when almost all workers will want time off to be with their families. In my experience, it is [...] Read More...

Published 11-27-2009 8:03 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

Filed under: leadership, Project management, General Project Management, project manager, management, pm, holiday, schedule, vacation time, HR, communication

Project Managers–What Does Your Team Want From You?

There are character traits that most of us would like to believe we possess and that we want to find in the people we work with and work for: trust, integrity, respect, and honesty—sort of like the mantra of the Boy Scouts. Good project managers have those traits and others that make [...]

Published 10-23-2009 8:10 AM by Fear No Project - A Project Management Blog

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

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