human-factors

I was recently working with some relatively young (well, pretty much everyone seems to be younger these days) software developers beginning to make a transition into project management.  As we were going over some of the PM responsibilities and tools, one of them asked, “A lot of this sounds like selling.  Don’t we want to [...]

Halloween Bonus:
What Do These 3 Tales Have in Common?

PM Horror Stories 5, 6, and 7

The Incompetent Estimator

The Messy Contributor

The “Gotcha!” Boss

Technorati Tags: case-studies, Difficult-people;-timelines, Dysfunctions, human-factors, Interpersonal, Managing-stakeholders, people, Project-Horror-Stories, Risk

Five Whys provides a structured yet simple approach to solving problems as they occur during a project and can provide a framework for a team to work through complex problems. It is a simple process at its core. 

Technorati Tags: best-practices, Career development, communication, human-factors, people, problem-solving

In a recent project team meeting we were reviewing an Ishikawa diagram and root cause analysis as a means to determine the next appropriate steps on an issue we were addressing as a project team when a forgotten data point was brought forward be me of all people, the project manager.

Technorati Tags: human-factors, improvement, Personal-empowerment

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. [...]

Thanksgiving at our house is a family affair.  Everyone from the youngsters to the elders all come together under a single roof to enjoy the holiday feast.
Now that’s not to say we all come to this occasion with the same perspective.  There are many differences in how we approach the event.
For the elders, it’s a [...]

Does your team seem to be allergic to process?  Have you been trying to implement project management best practices and meeting resistance? 
If so, have you addressed your team’s inherent questions, like “How will this make my life better?” and “Is that improvement enough to merit the hassle of changing?”  Have you explained how this will [...]

Quick: what’s the biggest challenge in cross-functional collaboration?  Bing!  Yes, “building trusting, open relationships” is correct!  Does that sound too Oprah-esque?  Let’s think about it for a minute.  How do you build trusting, open relationships in your cross-functional team, and why does it matter?
Let’s start with why it matters.  How successful will your collaboration be if each [...]

A German colleague once commented (during a lager-filled post-project celebration) about how different German and US project management looked to her. She said, “We often wonder in Germany how you Americans successfully got to the moon.” As the Germans nodded, the Americans (being so articulate in our own language) retorted, “Whaaaat?”
Basically, she saw American managers [...]

efficiency, stated Peter Drucker, is doing the thing right, but effectiveness is doing the right thing – through enabling others to reach their potential – both thire personal potential and their corporate or institutional potential.  (quoted in DePree, 1989, pp.19(2).
Here are some typical oversight areas:

Technorati Tags: community, focusing-plans, funding, goodwill, human-factors, organization, other-variables, political-issues, Priorities, [...]