Risk

I received the below great question a few days after my Art of War for Product Managers and High-Performing Professionals.  I thought you might be interested in the answer as well. What if two product manager colleagues disagree on something and can only agree to disagree and cannot come to a resolution, what do you [...]

By Laura Lee Rose, author of TimePeace: Making peace with time I had a vivid dream last night.  In this dream, a friend was very proud of her published article in a certain magazine.  She asked me to read it.  I was very excited and was looking forward to a pleasant and proud read, “Sure, [...]

I know this sounds strange, but I used a diet tip that I read from Micheal Thurmond’s “6 Day Body Makeover” – to accomplish career critical tasks.

Have you just said yes to taking over a big mess-in-the-making? Whether you’re a VP or new manager, whether the initiative is a global expansion or product redesign, you’re now on the hook for a project that’s failing. You have to herd cats who don’t actually work for you, separate the smoke from the fire [...]

What are some of the main causes behind estimating errors? And what specific steps can project managers can take to increase the accuracy of estimations?

We can study about risk management. We can take classes on steps for risk assessments. We can learn about using probability and impact to prioritize our hazard lists. But it’s experience that streamlines our risk assessment process. With experience we can quickly list only the relevant risks. Its experience that automatically eliminates the low probability and low impact items. The unnecessary items become invisible and therefore free time to focus on the more important items.

Stage 2 – A dream is just a dream until it’s written down, then it’s a plan! If you’ve done the exercises faithfully so far, by now you should have a pretty clear idea of your family’s fabulous future. Now it’s time to create a plan that will more than double your chances of achieving your [...]

A joint post from EarthPM and TenStep: Last time we introduced this series and outlined the focus for the topic of green project management using the Deepwater Horizon disaster as motivation. In this post, we’ll cover how we’d work ‘green’ project considerations into the Project Charter, Project Scope Management, Project Integration Management, Project Management Plan, [...]

A joint post from EarthPM and TenStep: Last time we introduced this series and outlined the focus for the topic of green project management using the Deepwater Horizon disaster as motivation. In this post, we’ll cover how we’d work ‘green’ project considerations into the Project Charter, Project Scope Management, Project Integration Management, Project Management Plan, [...]

A joint post from EarthPM and TenStep: There are many examples of projects undertaken to produce some deliverable with environmental implications. In fact, one may assert that in fact, any project, since it uses resources, has environmental implications. This varies tremendously, based on scale and the direct impact on the environment. One project that clearly [...]

Two of the keynote speakers at the PMI Risk Symposium provided insights into how different risks change in priority over a product lifecycle (Esteri Hinman) and how effective risk management encourages poor risk management (Payson Hall). Risks change over a product lifecycle Esteri Hinman PMP (from Intel) presented that there are different functional groups involved [...]

The approach to Risk Management can also be used for Opportunity Management by using a different point of view.

Another highlight (IMHO) of the Risk Symposium was Eldon F. Jones’ presentation on “Risk Register – What is it and How is it used?” What is a Risk Register? A Risk Register is a document that lists “all identified risks, including description, cause, probability of occurring, impact(s) on objectives, proposed responses, owners, and current status” [...]

Having just attended the well-attended PMI Risk Symposium a couple of weeks ago, this topic is so appropriate for our current economic environment.  Many of you are doing some type of Risk Management already.  What I hope to do is to provoke your thoughts that could help increase your project or program success. There were [...]

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, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

As Project Managers, I’m sure we’ve all seen the kind of scenario where there is a project team member who is generally uncooperative or can’t seem to get the tasks done on time – and the different approaches you can take in order to solve this problem. You can take the dictatorial “Do as I [...]

I’d like to start things off in this posting with a joke I heard on the US Television show, Two and a Half Men. Now keep in mind that the show is full of gratuitous innuendo and juvenile comedy, much of it not easily translatable in (nor suitable for) the context of project management.  In [...]

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 [...]

One often-used lament I hear on projects and in project management classes is, “No one here wants to deal with realistic schedules and budgets.”   Interestingly, there seems to be two perspectives on this phenomenon… First, from the “worker bee” perspective, there is a sense that “management” always “discounts” the estimates. Second, from the “management” perspective, [...]