Dr. Constance Stillinger, PMP - UCSC Extension in Silicon Valley

There are two types of project managers in the profession — those who expect tools and methodology to automate their work for them, and those who leverage tools and methodology to help them do their work. Those in the first category are crank-turners, and those in the second category are goal-drivers. If you are simply [...]

One of our most basic tools for regaining control of a project that is at risk is the deliverables list or deliverables-based work breakdown structure.   Not a task list, but the most basic list of what the project is chartered to produce.   It starts with the product and then flows from there. With your deliverables [...]

I was mountain biking recently along a lovely canyon path when I rounded a curve and suddenly found myself on a tricky bit of trail.   I realized (or so my brain told me) that if I didn’t keep moving I would probably die.   But if I put a foot down and stopped moving, I would [...]

Nope. There’s just no way around it.  You are going to have to work with people. Even if you are a “technical project manager” buried in the bowels of a data center or focused on software projects or on enterprise application integration projects, the key to your success is how you work with people. Your [...]

Last time, I talked about status reporting, which is commonly required but whose power as a multitool is often overlooked. Today I am going to talk about a tool that is frequently overlooked altogether – the contingency management plan. Projects are initiated for a reason – in a business setting, to create something of business [...]

Status reports (or whatever your particular methodological school calls them) are frequently maligned – c.f. “TPS Reports” in the movie Office Space – and misused. They are the weekly report that you just have to grind out for your project or program that shows you have been doing something, that you suspect no one reads [...]

When you first start out as a professional project manager, you typically have had some informal project management experience as part of your other professional responsibilities. Then you take a serious PM course or two, maybe get a PMP and suddenly you find yourself equipped with a giant tool chest full of powerful and complex [...]