Alan Tsuda

Know any control-freaks?

For many of them, control is an illusion. Paradoxically, by grasping for more control, they often get less.

The ability to influence people is a good skill for a project manager. Isn’t it?
Isn’t it our job as PMs to influence people on the project? To find ways to get our stakeholders onboard?

Could it be that one person’s influencing can be another’s political manipulation?

Teams.  It seems like such an obvious part of project life.
Or, is it?
Recently, I’ve been noticing some things about project teams that trouble me.
Here are some descriptions of a team:

A group of two or more people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose and approach for which the team holds its members [...]

I was recently working with some relatively young (well, pretty much everyone seems to be younger these days) software developers beginning to make a transition into project management.  As we were going over some of the PM responsibilities and tools, one of them asked, “A lot of this sounds like selling.  Don’t we want to [...]

One often-used lament I hear on projects and in project management classes is, “No one here wants to deal with realistic schedules and budgets.”   Interestingly, there seems to be two perspectives on this phenomenon…
First, from the “worker bee” perspective, there is a sense that “management” always “discounts” the estimates.
Second, from the “management” perspective, there is [...]

As I write this, the US is in a presidential transition.  President-Elect Obama won, at least in part, on a platform of hope and the rallying cry, “Yes We Can.”
Hope?  In the face of all the obvious difficulties?  Yes we can?  Really?  Aren’t they just fuzzy words?
As a project manager, part of me is [...]

   Global projects.  Teams in five different time zones.  Team members traveling.  “We will meet again on the telcon at 5 on Tuesday.”
When?  Tuesday your time?  my time?
Some of us may have a calendar system that automatically can communicate and translate date/time.  Wonderful (and horrible in other ways that we won’t go into here).
Unfortunately, [...]

While I’ve never encountered any significant resistance to the idea that a PM has to do a lot of communication in order to be effective, I’ve been hearing some discussion about the value of face to face communication in our “brave new world” of virtual teams and global projects.
There is, of course, the classic communication [...]

Why would anyone want to be a project manager (PM)?
It’s a lot of work. It’s been said, only partly jokingly, that a PM may spend about 80% of his or her time on communication tasks, and the remaining 80% on the other required tasks.
We get a lot of responsibility and hardly any true control. [...]

An increasing number of organizations are listing project management (PM) skills as a requirement for their managers. It’s no surprise that many people want to acquire/improve their PM skills. I’d like to start a discussion about the value of the various ways one learns.
First, a few disclosures: I consult on PM issues, [...]

I’ve been asked by many beginning project management students about the difference between general and project management. My simple answer has been that the things that make a good general manager (GM) help a project manager (PM), and that the PM does a few additional things specific to projects. That seems to satisfy [...]

I was recently showing this blog site to a friend. As he looked through it, he nodded and mumbled some (did it just seem to me a bit reluctant and slightly envious?) approvals. Then, he looked up and blurted, “Hey, what’s this art thing?” He was talking about the tag line: “The [...]

I’m looking for some insight from all of you on a point that’s been bothering me lately. On many recent projects, “time to market” has been defined, and rightly so, as the top priority (I still use the triple constraints as a key organizing/prioritization guide). Given the competitive pressures and the related shortened [...]

In the grand tradition of analytical thinking, the answer I start with is, “Maybe yes, maybe no.”
On the Yes side, there are a lot of “things” a good project manager needs to know and know how to do. There are the technical skills that can be taught – what might be referred to as [...]

A German colleague once commented (during a lager-filled post-project celebration) about how different German and US project management looked to her. She said, “We often wonder in Germany how you Americans successfully got to the moon.” As the Germans nodded, the Americans (being so articulate in our own language) retorted, “Whaaaat?”
Basically, she saw American managers [...]

When I ask project management students to list actions that are key to successful projects, the overwhelming majority of things on the list are related to planning.
We actually spend most of the time and energy in execution and control rather than planning. So, what’s going on? I think the students’ lists reflect frustrations – struggling [...]

Scope, Schedule, Cost – they are classics, but do they remain useful?. I’ve heard many practitioners call the Triple Constraints (TC) obsolete or, at least, inadequate.
Many PMs point out that we need to factor in quality. I don’t have a problem with this one. On the other hand, I didn’t know that Scope didn’t include [...]

I am, at heart, an analyst. There is nothing that would please me more than being able to shut my door and do some thinking and come up with plans and processes — then wait for the good results to come in. Of course, there is a major flaw: people. No, the people aren’t flawed [...]