Archive for December 2006

At first I was disappointed in the quality of action plans prepared at the end of professional development short courses and seminars.  We’d covered the material.  I provided a template of key areas where action was required.  The assignment was to reflect on the material and describe what actions would be taken by each student [...]

Imagine an astronaut lands on Neptune and finds living creatures. What would they be called, aliens? There are no more “foreigners” in our global reality. As a project manager, you’d better have a global mindset because you are likely managing one of the most diverse teams on earth.

Technorati Tags: cruss-cultural, [...]

(Posted on behalf of Michele Jackman, PM Consultant extraordinaire) I recently gave a UCSC presentation on the “art and science” of making SENSIBLE decisions under pressure. The greatest challenge is not the rational/analytical process. That’s the easy part.

Technorati Tags: Bottleneck, decisions, Leadership, Risk, sponsor

Some parts of a project are just: slam dunk. They’re straightforward, sweet, smooth and easy. Everybody knows what to do, does it, and it works: with no blood left on the floor. Then there are the issues that make everyone roll their eyes: areas that are high risk. But not just [...]

It’s that time of year: the break room tables are piled with boxes of candy and littered with crumbs. Workplace nourishment is taken every hour from 9 am to 7 pm. Foods are served that might not see the light of day at any other time of year. Not only are the [...]

After leading a number of projects, you are asked to lead a major effort with multiple teams working somewhat independently but contributing to the same goal, a big budget, the company future depends on your results … you get the picture. Is this just a large, complex project or are a program, and what are [...]

A graduate course required a case study to be submitted every week. A grade was given, no comments were provided, and no discussion occurred in the classroom. Over the duration of the course, little noticeable improvement occurred in quality of the cases submitted or grade received. In another course,

Technorati Tags: communication, [...]

(Posted on hehalf of Dan Hartford.) Have you majorly screwed up a project? Don’t worry, you may be promoted for it! Several years ago I was working in California for a multinational company with head quarters in Europe that we’ll just call “The Firm”. To give you a sense [...]

I know it’s just a movie, and everybody has already COMPLETELY covered this subject, but can you believe the leadership qualities exhibited by Jack Black in “School of Rock”?

Technorati Tags: best-practices, Leadership, motivation, project-management, Risk, wisdom