The Project Coach

There continues to be a lot of chatter and skepticism about the use of social media in general and on projects in particular.  Articles abound with viewpoints pro and con.  › Continue reading…

So often in advanced project management circles we talk about rigorous, complex tools, processes and methods which allow us to tackle the most difficult projects.  We acquire and train ourselves with the latest version of tools such as Project server or Primavera.  We become the champions of developing a myriad of rich artifacts from charters, scope statements, and work breakdown structures to schedules, budgets, communication plans, and risk registers.  We are prepared to employ sophisticated project management methods like qualitative and quantitative risk assessment and earned value.  So then what happens if suddenly some or all of those things don’t apply?  › Continue reading…

The Art of War Room

I just established a war room for the beginning of a new project.  In its simplest terms, a war room is a workspace dedicated to a collocated project team, enabling team members to work together to quickly create a solution to a business problem or address a business opportunity. 

 Over the years, I have been responsible for many war rooms and I have been collocated in war rooms run by other project managers.  I love a good war room.  When done well, I think a war room contributes to better work, shorter cycles and a really positive team experience.  When done poorly, a war room is just another meeting space.  › Continue reading…

All too often I hear about organizations that declare “We are now Agile…” or someone in management looks at the development team and says: “go forth and be Agile…”, and then throws them to the wolves to figure out how without any training. Some in the leadership may embrace it enthusiastically and say “we need to be more agile…”, while others are complete skeptics and believe that without all the usual documentation, no work of any quality could possibly be getting done. Indeed one of the biggest challenges in trying something new like agile practices in an organization is managing expectations of the leadership. › Continue reading…

I just established a war room for the beginning of a new project.  In its simplest terms, a war room is a workspace dedicated to a collocated project team, enabling team members to work together to quickly create a solution to a business problem or address a business opportunity. 

Over the years, I have been responsible for many war rooms and I have been collocated in war rooms run by other project managers.  I love a good war room.  When done well, I think a war room contributes to better work, shorter cycles and a really positive team experience.  When done poorly, a war room is just another meeting space. 

This got me thinking about my own personal “war room best practices”, which I will share here.  I would love to hear your best practices on this topic, if you have any you’d like to share.  › Continue reading…

Undoubtedly, the masters would agree hands down that the recommended approach for any project team practicing agile methods would be co-location. The benefit of this arrangement is all the casual conversation that team members naturally tend to engage in, or are forced to overhear from their co-workers, which in turn promotes collaboration on the project – or so the theory goes. Unfortunately with the fabric of today’s multi regional, global, or outsourced organizations, co-located teams are not always an option. › Continue reading…

In my last article I discussed characteristics and roles of the agile scrum methodology as compared to waterfall.  In this continuation article, I committed to examine the artifacts, meetings and processes involved and also discuss what they compare to in a waterfall context.  By design agile and the scrum methodology deliberately minimize processes, artifacts and meetings › Continue reading…

Let’s start with a definition of social media.  According to Wikipedia  (and that’s an obvious place to go for information about this topic) “Social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media use web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues.” The last part of that explanation is really powerful for project managers, as we strive to turn monologues into dialogues.  › Continue reading…

Since we are on the topic of troubled projects, I started thinking about what has now been branded the Deepwater Horizon Response Project.  This situation has similarities to many project calamities one might encounter in the course of dealing with internal or external customer organizations.  A customer organization messes up, BIG TIME, and you have to step in and turn it around. 

In this case, the project manager is retired U.S. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who is in charge of the federal government’s response to the oil spill resulting from the April 20^th explosion at one of British Petroleum’s (BP) offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.  › Continue reading…

In last week’s article, Susan discussed the emotions involved when a project is terminated, “back burnered” to death, or mercifully euthanized.  But what about those projects that don’t or can’t get cancelled when they should?  Whether due to mandatory regulatory requirements, or being beyond the point of no return some projects simply leave us no choice – they must be finished.  Managing a troubled project to prevent it from becoming a failed project, and then turning it around and steering it back to a successful project requires super star skills.  Typically project specialists at the highest end of the project management spectrum are brought in as an outsider for these jobs to function as a special recovery project manager.  › Continue reading…