Accountability

My esteemed colleague Natalie Udo’s post a few weeks ago, “What is a Project Manager?” started me thinking about what are the elements which make us successful in the business. And hopefully, I’m reinforcing Kimberly Wiefling’s recent posts on what are the keys to success as a project leader… and not being too redundant – Thanks, [...]

One of the reasons I got into Project Management in the first place is that I’ve always been interested in people – their personalities, where they are from, what makes them tick.
Growing up overseas in Japan, I attended an international school for foreigners, and there were kids from all over the world – kids whose [...]

Have you ever worked for someone who said ALL requirements are high priority ? Yeah ! We all have. Customers often are insistent upon the delivery of a certain feature set by a certain timeline that may seem impossible to meet. If everything is high priority, nothing is !

Project teams often bear of the brunt of this indecisiveness. Impossible targets, lack [...]

In the past, both here and in my own newsletters (Diamonds to You) I’ve written about the fact that although there is no I in teams, there certainly is a ME.  I want to continue with that theme.  I am quoting myself from my November Newsletter.
Here in the United States, we have a long history [...]

The accelerated pace of globalization has made the need for virtual teams essential. The list of benefits that corporate executives tout to stockholders and channel partners is accelerated time to market, customer intimacy, resource utilization, employee retention and cost efficiency, to name a few. The challenge lies at the feet of project managers around the [...]

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 [...]

I thought it would be fun to list some impressions of favorite and least favorite Project management books and methodologies.  I wrote none of these.  You too, can feel free to refute my oppinions or add your own replies or spam us with the latest project managment religion.  Why not?  Everyone else does. 

Technorati Tags: [...]

Over the last few days this week, I described three scenarios and the difficult decisions Project Managers made in each of the three.  In the first, the desire for more responsibility might bery well have led to less effectiveness.

Technorati Tags: Accountability, Career development, Commitment, decisions, Ethics

Patal Fray was Project Manager of a very big and important project for his firm.  He was very proud to have been given this assignment and assured his VP that he would bring it in successfully, on time, if not ahead of time.

Technorati Tags: Accountability, career-planning, critical-success-factors, decisions, Ethics, goals, goodwill, Leadership, management, over-extending, professionalism, [...]

Hi, this is ArLyne Diamond, Ph.D. again.  Here’s the second in my series of scenarios:
While conducting management training for a group of managers at XYZ Corp. they had a change in upper management and the new management was trying to trim costs.  One of the managers consulting with me, let’s call her Sandra, was scared.  [...]

And who says Project Managers do not know fashion couture? How does this tie to what we do daily you ask? PRADA is actually an acronym for a set of characteristics or values that I believe should be inherent in any successful project managers and I have encouraged my project managers to think [...]

Thanks for the comments on the original post.  For a wonderful discussion on what to give at the end of the project, scroll down and see the Strappy Sundresses and Thongs as Project Thank You Gifts post below.  If you want to know about how to ask for the secret and totally forbidden appreciation you [...]

After years and years of Project Management it finally became obvious to me there was someone or something I wasn’t addressing. No, I’m not talking about all the usual people project management challenges all those references mention, or even some they don’t mention.

Technorati Tags: Accountability, appreciation, best-practices, communication, Emotions, Environment, Leadership, [...]

A friend of mine once told me about a technique for keeping track of lessons learned.  She keeps a file labeled “DNDTA.”  That stands for “Do Not Do This Again.” 
The idea is to write a note to yourself describing something you did that would not be such a good idea to do ever again, then [...]

Some time ago I was managing a team at a small company, when I faced a challenge with a talented employee. “Don” had just been assigned to my team, and we were meeting to discuss next steps for his initial project. I wasn’t prepared for what came next.             
Within a couple of minutes, Don’s anger at [...]

So you need to put together a schedule, but are having trouble getting estimates from your team?  Believe it or not, that’s good news! 
Well, not great news: great news would be quick, accurate estimates, honed by years of experience and factoring in a reasonable amount of risk. 
But it’s not bad news, either.  Bad news [...]

Does this sound familiar?
Project Manager:  I thought I knew where we stood, but turns out we’re further behind than I thought.  This latest slip is going to have a domino effect.  I wish I had known earlier, when we could’ve done something about it!
Task Owner: I don’t want to make a big deal out of [...]

There are many aspects of project management that are important and worthy of comment.  In this post I will present my thoughts on the value of having a system perspective in managing projects and some tools and techniques that can be helpful.  Keeping the big picture system perspective is harder than it sounds.  There are [...]

   Continuing on thoughts around maturity and the evolution of project management…the PMI-Silicon Valley Chapter is hosting their 10th Anniversary Dinner next month, and joining the festivities will be Stanford Advanced Project Management’s Dr Christopher Meyer to share his insight on how the future of project management will play a role in delivering a good customer experience.  Chapter President Harish Chinai and I recently had a conversation on [...]

One of the things I’ve tried to do in this series is use some “word pictures”: ways of describing things that  hopefully bring an idea or  behavior to life so that it’s easier to apply in the real world.  I love the phrase “victim or vanquisher?” because it evokes for me VERY clear pictures of [...]

Welcome back everyone to blog # 4: your opportunity to look in the mirror to see what you see about having you lead, or work on, any project: and you had better see a leader or else you are going to see a follower and if you are follower, then you may be the one [...]