Project Management Dangerous to Mammals

I haven’t quite put my finger on it, but something I’ve noticed about the human condition that retards our ability to be successful project managers. When we see someone else fail we can easily assume that it’s because they’re stupid, but when we ourselves fail it’s an honest mistake or just bad luck. “They” should have seen it coming, but “we” were understandably taken by surprise. (more…)

Killer Code is not the first Silicon Valley Novel

I just learned of Keith Raffel’s novel, Dot Dead: A Silicon Valley Mystery. From what I understand Dot Dead was published last summer.

You can find out more information on Keith’s Dot Dead Library (http://keithraffel.typepad.com/dot_dead_diary/)

A Killer Project in Killer Code, the Novel

Has working on a project ever made you so mad that you wanted to commit murder? Has one demagogue in a power position seemed bent on sabotaging your project? Have you been forced to lead a project that you knew was destined to crash and burn? If so, you can relate to the protagonist in my new novel, Killer Code, a murder mystery set in a Silicon Valley networking company desperate to release its latest product. (more…)

The path to excellence

Recently I attended a Commonwealth Club lecture on Women in Business. Ilene Lang, President of Catalyst, was there and brought forth some sobering statistics about women in leadership positions.

I must admit, I tend to be very cautious when statistics are tossed out without adequate context, but looking around the web I was unable to find a comprehensive study that disputed her numbers.

Some of her findings:

• 16.4% of top positions are held by women
• Women are 46% of workforce, and 50% of management
• However, women comprise only 10 CEO’s in fortune 500 — 2% (more…)

Lessons from Harvard

As organizational leaders, we are continuously bombarded with conflicting guidance on how to excel. A great example of this confusion is found in the April issue of the Harvard Business Review. In the cover story, we find that a leader can discover that the pathway to profitability and sustainable growth is to centralize operations, the way Home Depot did. Allowing individual store managers to respond to local market demands is great, but makes the company as a whole inflexible, and unable to take advantage of efficiencies of scale. (more…)

Beyond Traditional Project Management

In his 2004 book, eXtreme Project Management, Doug DeCarlo declares that “the world of project management has changed radically, totally and irreversibly”. DeCarlo contends that traditional project management as outlined by the Project Management Institute’s Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge belongs to the past and is not effective or appropriate for most of today’s highly chaotic and high speed projects.

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The Trouble with Projects

In my many years of running projects I have often looked back and asked why it was always so difficult to get things done. Every time the answer came back, “It’s the stupid people from the top to the bottom.” Of course, I also made mistakes, but it was mostly their fault”. This reminds me of the mother who observed that her son was the only one not out of step in the parade.

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