A Tale of Three Cities – London, Toronto, and Redwood Shores
It had all the earmarks of a disaster, a real career-sinker of a project. And here was my old friend and former colleague calling me up enthusiastically, on the phone: “Hey Lisa, we need a Technical Project Manager for this start-up I’m working for, in Redwood Shores… you’ll love the project and the team. It’s [...]
Sorry is not the final word, just the beginning
After years of managing online products and projects, you’d think it would become old hat… but never, not for this gal. There’s always something new to learn, and a different twist on old scenarios, if you’re open to them. People and team dynamics are endlessly fascinating, and you never know how it’s going to go [...]
Creating the Project Office
Participants in the UCSC Extension advanced course on the “Project Management Office” had ample opportunity to explore their environmental challenges, share questions with others, and prepare action plans on implementing a project office for organizational change. They came with real questions and left with renewed understandings about the potential for anything from a Project Office [...]
Risk? What Risk?
Every program manager has run into the same situation at some point in their career. You put together your program plan with lots of spreadsheets, Gantt charts, requirements documents, resource requirements, risk management plan, etc. You present the plan to management and everything goes reasonably well until you start to talk about risks and how [...]
Teams? Why not just have a meeting?
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 [...]
Money Doesn’t Inspire
Some people in the corporate world still believe that people work for money. But with a growing number of examples of people doing all kinds of work for free, it’s getting more difficult to adhere to that view. Take Wikipedia, for example. According to Wikinomics, by Tapscott & Williams, Wikipedia is the largest encyclopedia in [...]
Lessons in Being Proactive
Once again as an Incognito Project Manager, here are some observations on the Power of being Proactive…
Prior to my coming onto the team, our project manager had been hard at work preparing the way for our initiative. Many hours strategizing plus preparing and presenting the business case clearly made all the difference for our success. [...]
Lessons from an Incognito Project Manager
I recently changed hats from project team-builder to project team member. As the e-learning course developer on the team, it has been a very enlightening experience to watch and support our most excellent project manager in action.
This week I will share what this PM and others I have known have done that has made [...]
Change Leadership: What to Be and What to Do
To wrap-up this week on being a change leader, here’s my short list of what to be and what to do:
BE
- A person with character; leadership descends from character
- Visionary – Have a vision of the “changed” project
- Reliable and consistent to develop and maintain trust with your team
DO:
- Take a couple steps at a [...]
Change Leadership takes one step after the other
There’s one significant characteristic of a leader that I have not mentioned:
Be a model for those behaviors and traits that you are asking others to develop.
If this is done at the start of the project, it becomes part of the project “culture”. If your team sees collaboration and good listening habits, they usually will behave [...]
Change Leadership and Moving through the Fog…
So far I’ve covered the concepts that change leadership requires a vision and trust:
Vision to provide direction
Trust so that the team believes in the vision
I mentioned that the leadership begins by defining the “New End” (the vision). During the detailed “defining the new requirements and integrating with the progress to date, so we [...]
Change Leadership and Trust
Yesterday I covered 3 points for change leadership and project management:
1. You implement change everyday in your role as a project manager
2. You are in a leadership role
3. Major change requires strong leadership, starting with SEEING the “new” END
SEEING the “new” END becomes the VISION of what you and your team will be working to [...]
Change Leadership?
We’ve all experienced change. In fact, we lead and manage change everyday as project and program managers. Anita Wotiz did a terrific blog on Practical Change Management last week that provided a framework on planning and tracking to insure that the change is completed and successful.
Let’s consider what environment we are in right now: significant [...]
6 Leadership Tips for Project Managers
If you’re reading this, you are likely a project manager now or will be one soon. How well you do on actual projects depends as much on your leadership skills as your technical ones.
Here are six real-world keys which can help.
1. Provide Common Vision
What was your best work experience? If you’re like most people, it [...]
Project Management Panache
Courage is positioned as a pivotal issue for project management panache by Mike Levy. Courage is facing difficulties without fear. So what’s to fear in project-land? Plenty!
Let’s name a few fear factors:
• Potential loss of job
• Actual loss of team members
• Churn in project portfolio’s
• Confusion in corporate goals
• Lack of time for skill development
• [...]








