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…
Tags:
Communications,
consensus,
group dynamics,
Planning,
project manager skills,
project team meetings,
stakeholders,
teambuilding
I am on vacation in Taos, New Mexico this week with my husband and 15-year-old nephew, Evan, who spends every summer with us. We are staying in a very nice condominium and having lots of adventures: a llama trek, river rafting trip, horseback ride, visits to the Taos Pueblo and various art galleries, restaurants, historic markers and other areas of interest. Like any good project manager, I spent a considerable amount of time planning for this trip. I did a lot of research on places to stay and restaurants to visit. I researched different vendors to determine who to book our activities with, and I reserved in advance. I also have a “standard packing list” of additional items that I bring whenever we stay in a condo: a good cutting knife, two good cooking pans, coffee, tea, extra kitchen towels, etc. My planning efforts paid off enough that › Continue reading…
Tags:
Controlling,
Executing,
Monitoring,
Planning
In her blog last week , Cindy Vandersleen talked about the challenges of gathering requirements and how the devil is always in the details. I think many people would agree with this assessment; I know I do. My best practice for gathering a comprehensive set of project requirements is to build a Requirements Template, and this week I’d like to share with you some tips for creating a model that your organization can use again and again to collect a comprehensive set of requirements and manage scope creep from the word “GO”. › Continue reading…
Tags:
Planning,
project manager skills,
Requirements,
templates
