If your organization keeps good project history archives, you have the inside track on how to plan a new project and what to avoid. But what about the “Lessons Learned?” How are they different from project history? Project history and archives If you’ve got project history and archives available, they should contain all the documentation that was created for the completed project. Those documents include the […]
Building teams is a critical skill for any project manager. Once the team is built, it’s important to keep the team’s productivity high. Here are several suggestions for helping to increase your team’s productivity and manage their workflow. Keep meetings to a minimum Meetings are necessary and universally hated. But just because no one admits they like meetings doesn’t mean they don’t have a purpose. Ask […]
Here’s the next installment of my project manager profile series, “How did I get here?” I met Alex at the local Denver PMI meeting and he agreed to be the subject of this post. Thank you, Alex! When did you first decide to become a project manager? In 2013. What was your academic and/or corporate background before you became a project manager? I have a […]
Whenever I start a new project, my first question to the sponsor or client is “What does project success look like?” I can tell a great deal about how the project is going to go from the answer. Here are a few examples: “I’ll know it when I see it.” I’m immediately skeptical. If a sponsor or customer cannot articulate what exactly they want after […]
As project managers, our job is to deliver a defined set of deliverables. Those deliverables may be as small as relocating a team to another floor, or as large as a satellite that hovers over the earth. No matter what the deliverables, the members of the team are crucial to the success of the project. Team development In many companies, team development for projects […]
You’ve been in the organization for a year or two. Learning the business, trying to soak it all in, and noticing there is a definite lack of organization around projects and servicing your customers. This is not a secret from management, but they are not sure what to do about it. Finally, they see you trying to wrangle the alligators, and they decide to assign […]
Many of us in the project management field got our start before there was such a thing as a project manager. In fact, many folks today are probably working in the role of project manager, but don’t have that title. That may be just fine, or not. It all depends on where you want to go in your career and how you want to get […]
“The only way to make sense of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”—Alan Watts The one item that you will certainly have on any project is change. It always seems that as soon as the project is agreed upon, there is someone who has a better idea and wants a change. As project managers, managing change is the […]
Everyone is always interested in “How did you get here?” and what led me to a career in project management. To that end, I’m starting a new series on ProProjectManager.com. The “How did you get here?” interview. I’ve got lots of friends (at least now) that are project managers and got to that place in many different ways. Let’s get started! My first interview […]
Project management is a very popular topic today. Many individuals are considering it a career while others have the career and don’t realize it. Some just want to use the principles and aren’t very concerned with the title. For most of us becoming a project manager is a journey, not the destination. No matter how many projects you’ve done, the next project is always a […]
