I think that communication and relationship management is THE NUMBER 1 driver of project success. Hands down. Scan the tags in my blog, and come across posts like Four Types of People: Know Your Audience and Managing Scope: It’s Really About Trust, Communication, and Delivery. I saw a quote and it reminded me just how [...]
Steve Jobs of Apple used this image to explain their approach to product development, saying: We’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts, to be able to get the best of both, to make extremely advanced products from a technology point of view, but also have them be intuitive, easy [...]
The recent recession has been a significant game changer for business in a lot of ways. There were the obvious changes, specific to the recession, such as a significant power shift to the employers. We all watched (and some of us, unfortunately, participated) as hordes of qualified candidates piled out of the workforce and into [...]
I was in a meeting last week discussing project management and client delivery and an executive made the point that the scope of the project is what the client thinks it is – period – and that as consultants it is our job to effectively manage expectations around scope continuously throughout an engagement. Nailing down [...]
First of all, I think that most of the time spent in meetings is a waste of time. I don’t think the actual meetings are a waste of time, since they are an enabler to face-to-face interaction, which is critical, but EVERY meeting should have a set duration, agenda, and a desired outcome before you [...]
If you know me, you know that I have a book buying addiction. The other day, I strolled in to Barnes and Noble and saw a career help section set up. I picked up a small book called The Job Survival Instruction Book, which is a book offering “400+ Tips, Tricks, and Techniques” on how [...]
I love the concept of this video – taking the best parts of the 25 hottest pop songs from 2009 and create an audio and video mashup that provides a collective output that no single song can by itself offer the listener. I’m a proponent of taking a similar approach to your personal development. If [...]
It was 2004, in a critical stretch of a major project, and the project team was spending the weekend holed up in a conference room in intense design sessions. The team was staring at magnified circuit boards, a small but immensely critical piece of a complex radar system and there was a serious problem: the [...]
My first job out of the Air Force Academy was simple: Manage the ‘task list’ of action items and have them ready for the Colonel’s stand-up staff meeting at 7 AM. The expectations were clear – Show up on time with a status for every task, and run through brick walls if needed to chase [...]