The Project Coach

There have been many articles written about requirements development from many perspectives.  I happen to believe this is one of the hardest tasks of any project, and one of the key contributors to scope creep.  As the initial scope statement is defined, everyone believes they understand it.  But the devil is always in the details.  As detailed requirements are elaborated from the scope definition, the misunderstandings emerge and the estimates in time and resources get blown.  Now as project manager you are faced with the all too familiar triple constraint dance of getting permission to add more resources, or time, or reducing some of the requirements. › Continue reading…

We all know that developing the project team is a responsibility of the project manager.  In broad strokes, we know that “developing the project team improves the people skills, technical competencies, and overall team environment and project performance”. (Project Management Book of Knowledge, 4^th Ed., pg 230).  

We know that it’s important to put some effort into the team dynamics.  We plan team building activities, and can find a plethora of ideas on how to use team building events to improve communication, build trust and learn to solve problems and make decisions as a group.  If you have ever been lucky enough to engage is some high quality team-building exercises, you know that they really can provide some value.   And sometimes we hold team-building exercises as a way to reward the team for hard work and a job well done – just a chance to let people who have toiled together, through moments of panic and hours of boredom, kick back and have some fun. 

But in the heat of the battle, it’s easy to forget that the project manager actually has a responsibility to develop the individual project team members.  › Continue reading…