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…
Archive for 'Delegation'
Well, it finally happened. Cyndi Lauper was finally fired. She has been a terrible disappointment all season, and it finally caught up with her.
Cyndi served as project manager twice, losing once and winning once. In Episode 1, she led the women’s team, Tenacity, in their first loss in the diner challenge. I had expected her to be a really strong contender, and was very surprised by her miserable performance in that task. During that episode, she demonstrated that she was not able to manage the work of other people and I blogged about how she never really “got” the point of the challenge, which was to raise money for charity. She instead focused on running a diner, and did that badly as well. The men’s team, Rocksolid, focused on raising money and trounced the ladies. › Continue reading…
In week 4 of The Celebrity Apprentice, there were a couple of dominant themes. More important even than in past weeks, communication emerged early in the task as a vital discipline that set the stage as a differentiator. Also, I think we saw a poor execution of delegation which contributed to the downfall of the losing team.
As this week’s task assignment began, Donald called both teams to the boardroom, and asked each team to select a project manager without disclosing what the task was. › Continue reading…