The Problem with Performance Reviews

Probably everyone accepts that a business rarely has the same priorities during an extended period when performance objectives apply, whether it’s 6 months, 12 months, or some other duration, right? Unless you’re in a very long-established business (and even then, departmental priorities can change focus over such durations), it’s likely that what priorities you understood (and negotiated with your manager) at the start of a performance period will morph over the course of that review period, and be out of date at the end of the review period.

This is all common sense. We know this. Yet we all seem to “live the lie” and pretend this is OK and fair for performance evaluation & review.

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The Role of the Project Coordinator

Most project managers find that they when they complete the planning of a project they become inundated in the following execution phase. This is primarily because of the need for overall project coordination, routine schedule management, integrated change control, and project status tracking. In most cases, there is more work than can be accomplished by the project manager, even when working overtime. For this reason, many corporations are realizing the need for a project coordinator also called called a project expediter.

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Indian Tailors and Project Management

Perhaps a few of you will frown upon this entry. It is not academic or pedagogical but I think project management should apply to all aspects of life. I recently returned from a trip to India my home country. And like many Indians and a lot of Silicon Valley VCs, I feel that I should get as much done with cheap labor during these visits. No, I was not getting software written for cheap but simply getting a few blouses stitched. These are special kind of blouses to be worn with the Indian garment Saree. There is a store in Mt. View that actually stitch these blouses but they charge around $50 a piece. Thus it made complete sense for me to get it stitched in India for approx. $1.50 a piece. (more…)

Project Management For Dummies Horror Story

Wow, I guess they’ve got a for dummies book on everything now.  Awesome.  There is also of course the 10 minute project manager book in case you find yourself dubbed project manager 10 minutes before the kick off meeting.  (more…)

SCRUM Concepts in Traditional PM

I wrote earlier about a potential method of using Critical Chain-stype “mini-buffers” within an element of a traditional project management approach. Now I would like to revisit multi-tasking and how having some experience with the Agile software development methodology called SCRUM has helped me formulate some guidelines. Some of these ideas come straight from Critical Chain too, and a myriad of other methodologies all pointing to the same conclusions.