building-executive-support

Recently, like all too many people these days, I found myself in the position of needing to find a new job.  Now before you give up on this blog I promise not to rant on about how bad things are; rather I’ll talk about a topic that came to mind while I was preparing for [...]

Phil Messina, a project manager at HP, volunteered to document the PMI Norcal Symposium 2008. Here is his report.
Randy Englund, Content and Program Director, www.englundpmc.com

On September 3rd and 4th, nearly 300 project management professionals settled into the Stanford University Faculty Club meeting room in Palo Alto, California, for the NorCal 2008 PMI Symposium. [...]

If you have not read Shampa’s post below I encourage all of you to read it.  I would like to point out a few newish developments on the software side.  First of all my information on outsourcing prices is from about two years ago.  As most of you know the dollar has taken a significant [...]

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. 

Technorati Tags: Books, Brain, building-executive-support, career-path, career-planning, communication, Crisis-Management, dysfuncitonal-corporate-culture, engineering-management, Getting-Things-Done, learned-helplessness, Project-success, traditional-project-managment

Much as he did earlier in his career, Proman was now at another crossroad. The large program had just concluded. What’s next? He noticed how engaged he’d felt during the process. Each day he threw himself into the proceedings with renewed vigor and seemed to know instinctively what to do. [...]

The applause was thundering as the magician completed his performance. Proman A. Jecgert had hired the magician to help celebrate the completion of what would come to be called Phase One. The party included all participants across the organization. The grove in the trees was a perfect setting, and the sun shone [...]

Proman looked over the agenda for the first meeting of the management team. It was phenomenal how the champion for resolving these issues got this cross organization group to convene. Toni personally went to each of the key stakeholders and discussed the problems, pointed out the consequences, identified the benefits to each person’s [...]

Proman A. Jecgert put the phone back in its cradle.  It was a distressing call.  The caller was very frustrated and negative about what was going on.  “The place is in a mess,” she said.  “People are doing their own thing, and managers aren’t stepping in to guide the development process or make crucial decisions.  [...]

In my examples this week, I’ve been writing about ways to convince those with the power to embrace some good software project management behavior.  I’d like to give some final advice for the week.  Think like a leader.
Don’t simply complain about your project management problems.  Try to do something about them.

Technorati Tags: best-practices, building-executive-support, change-management, [...]

I just loved the latest grievance from my students (see Monday/Tuesday/Thursday posts).  When being given more work than schedule to accomplish it, or additional tasks on top of their “primary” assignment, upon replying that they were going to have to slip something, that they couldn’t get it all done on schedule, they were told by [...]

One more complaint from my students (see Monday/Tuesday posts) is: “I’m given other jobs, in addition to my coding, and asked to do them without impacting the main project I’m working on.  Not just occasionally, in a crisis, but all the time.”
Some might say that this trait of trying to squeeze more out of Engineering [...]

I read sometime ago in some management publication (whose name I can’t recall) that project management will never be considered a profession, but rather, an inherent and necessary skill set. The premise is that most professional and non-professional people in any industry will require project management skills to do their jobs, be it CEO or pharmacist, but there will be no [...]

  Continuing on this week’s theme of Project Management Maturity, here is a piece provided by Larry Bull, PMI Manager, OPM3® Products and Services:
What is the measure of a successful project?  In days of old, the standard answer to this question was usually “on scope, on time and on budget” or some derivation of the tried and true [...]

Creating Excellence in/through Project Management means optimizing and achieving greater results from project-based work: realizing a competitive advantage by executing strategy through projects: significant advancements in maturity of people, processes, and the environment of a project-based organization.  It involves forming a picture of an ideal environment for implementing projects: and requires an honest assessment of [...]

  With two major milestones underway at the PMI-Silicon Valley Chapter, this week seemed like a good time to take stock and share thoughts along the theme of “Project Management Evolution.”  Joining me in blogging this week will be Harish Chinai, Chapter President, and Larry Bull, PMI’s Director of OPM3® product and services.
I left my Silicon [...]

 Brilliant adolescence is not a recipe for continued success in Silicon Valley, although it has been largely responsible for a great deal of momentum to date.
To address this concern in your organization, invite your sponsor to invigorate your organization at the Project Management Institute (PMI) Silicon Valley Maturity Forum 2007 Projects Programs and Portfolios in [...]

You can implement effective and efficient practices to align your projects with organizational strategic goals.  How?  Come to the PMI Silicon Valley Chapter evening meeting July 16th at Michaels at Shoreline in Mountain View.  Cutoff date for Advanced Registration online at www.pmisv.org is today, 07/11/2007.
Hints:  my talk on this subject with help you focus, break loops, [...]

Mark you calendar for Monday, July 16, 2007 to go to Michael’s at Shoreline in Mountain View, CA.  That evening I will present “Aligning Projects with Strategy” for the PMI Silicon Valley monthly chapter meeting  (www.pmisv.org).
This presentation is not meant to frustrate project managers with a high level approach that only those in upper managerment [...]

One of my issues with the PM Network magazine distributed by the Project Management Institute to all its members is that the stories provide only high level soundbites, failing to provide enough meaningful content about why, what, and how to implement project management.  Let me tell you the rest of the story behind quotes attributed [...]

In my role now as an executive consultant (since leaving HP in the year 2000), I note how difficult it is to work through the political environment in client organizations.  I’ve seen projects fail not because project managers were not enthusiastic about what they were doing but because they failed to get effective sponsorship support.  In contrast, [...]

Senior managers often insist on doing things their way, even though they are new to that position or portion of the business and do not understand project management. One time I was being pushed to become a technical expert on a project I was managing, because the senior manager thought that is how to earn [...]