So why take advantage of leadership theories? The word lead means ‘to guide on a way by going in advance’ (Longman New Universal Dictionary). So its safe to say that leading involves taking someone on a journey from their current position to somewhere else. The journey can be physical as when Moses led the Israelites…
Category: Featured
Organization Politics, How To Become The Puppet Master
Organization politics exist in every office and can have a significant influence on the portfolio management system when it comes to which projects receive funding and high priority. This is especially true when the criteria and process for selecting projects are ill-defined and not aligned with the mission of the firm. Project selection may be based…
The Mindset of a Manager: Self Infatuation, Weaknesses and Prejudice
You have to put forth your best image, but don’t be so successful at it that, like the movie star, you fall for your own publicity. Be willing to admit to yourself what your shortcomings are. You’d be surprised at how many managers can’t do that. They, of course, have shortcomings. They can’t be experts…
Risk Management Framework
As stated in the Risk Management Guide Contents article, this is the first part of the series and I will dive directly into the subject without much introduction. This figure presents a graphic model of the risk management framework challenge. The chances of a risk event occurring (e.g., an error in time estimates, cost estimates,…
Risk Management Guide
You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is. —-Will Rogers Every project manager understands risks are inherent in projects. No amount of planning can overcome risk, or the inability to control chance events. In the context of projects, risk is an uncertain event or condition that, if it…
Project Team Synergy: How to Deliver High Performance
There is positive and negative project team synergy. The magic and power of project teams is captured in the term “synergy,” which is derived from the Greek word sunergos: “working together.” The difference in productivity between an average project team synergy and a turned-on, high-performing project team is not 10 percent, 20 percent, or 30…
Network Building Methods
The first step to social network building is identifying those on whom the project depends for success — Mapping Dependencies. The project manager and his or her key assistants need to ask the following questions: Whose cooperation will we need? Whose agreement or approval will we need? Whose opposition would keep us from accomplishing the project?…
How To Be An Effective Project Manager in a World Full of Contradictions
An effective project manager has to be able to deal with the contradictory nature of his work. Why would I say that, well here is my view: Project management is, at first glance, a misleading discipline in that there is on inherent logic in the progression from formulating a project scope statement, creating a WBS,…
Organizational Structure: Do You Belong?
Once management approves a project then the question becomes, how will the project be implemented. This article examines three different organizational structure mechanics used by firms to implement projects: functional organization, dedicated project teams, and matrix structure. Although not exhaustive, these organizational structures and their variant forms represent the major approaches for organizing projects. The advantages…
PRINCE2 and Scrum, Integration
There are some papers out there that reference a possible integration between PRINCE2 and SCRUM. While I do agree and feel that it is possible and even recommended I feel that the subject has net been treated with sufficient depth. Most of the papers suggest that the PRINCE2 process ‘Managing Product Delivery’ is place where…