Earned Work: Measuring Project Performance
Project Management Essentials
JANUARY 3, 2025
Earned Work Management is a new, lightweight, approach-agnostic project performance measurement system.
Project Management Essentials
Intentional Project Management
Project Management Essentials
DECEMBER 1, 2024
Meteorologists are better at predicting the weather than project managers are at delivering projects. About a third of projects are delivered on time, on budget, and with the desired scope. By contrast, a seven-day forecast is accurate about 80% of the time. So why is project success so elusive? Intentionality is lacking.
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Are We Aligned?
Project Management Essentials
OCTOBER 4, 2024
Stakeholder alignment—or lack thereof—can be the difference between project success and failure. In today’s dynamic business environment, projects face multiple stakeholders and constituencies. Often, these groups have competing or divergent interests. Project managers often focus on the “hard skills” to ensure adherence to the triple constraints of scope, schedule, and cost.
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Hybrid Project Management: Part 3, Picking the Practices
Project Management Essentials
SEPTEMBER 1, 2024
Hybrid projects are not constrained by a single methodology or well-defined framework. By definition, they are a melding melding of practices. A huge responsibility accompanies this unbounded freedom of choice. Project managers must clearly describe how the project will be executed to be successful. Shirking this responsibility is detrimental.
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Project Management: 10-Year Retrospective
Project Management Essentials
JUNE 30, 2024
I authored my first project management article 10 years ago. A mentor recommended I start writing to launch my transition from managing project organizations to teaching. Writing those early articles was challenging. Reducing complex ideas into writing is a skill requiring practice and discipline. I did not anticipate having so much to say.
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Hybrid Project Management: Part 2, What Changes?
Project Management Essentials
JUNE 1, 2024
We should view project management approaches as a palette of options. Predictive, Agile, and Lean/Kanban form the boundaries. Hybrid is the vast interior space. The first article in this series described the boundaries and color-mix of approaches: This article discusses how these approaches may be reflected in central project management domains.
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Hybrid Project Management: Part 1, What is Hybrid?
Project Management Essentials
APRIL 30, 2024
Hybrid project management just had its breakout moment! The Project Management Institute’s Pulse of the Profession® 2024 reported that hybrid (32%) is now the second most commonly used approach. Predictive (44%) still holds a commanding lead. And, agile (26%) use fell by 2 percentage points. Before we get too excited, the State of Agile Report shows different trends.
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Agile Essentials
Project Management Essentials
APRIL 9, 2024
Thank you Mr. Zucker the great class, I truly have a better understanding of Agile and the approaches used. I appreciate your enthusiasm and extensive knowledge on the subject – awesome job teaching us and encouraging participation. Look forward to seeing you in another class.
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Project Data Visualization
Project Management Essentials
APRIL 7, 2024
A picture is worth a thousand words. Projects can generate a lot of data. Large, mature organizations generally have the tools to capture, store, and analyze this information effectively. However, small and less mature organizations and those leading non-traditional efforts often lack the tools, practices, and experience.
Project Decision-Making
Project Management Essentials
MARCH 1, 2024
Making good decisions is a critical project management skill. The challenge is to create a fair, efficient, effective, and transparent process for our teams and stakeholders. In a McKinsey survey, only 20% of respondents stated their companies excelled in decision-making. The path to the answer is often as important as the solution.
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Shift-Left, Shift-Right, Keep Middle
Project Management Essentials
FEBRUARY 4, 2024
Shift-left is an Agile/DevOps call to action. It signaled the need to address quality sooner. As we adapt to the current dynamics, we should challenge standard paradigms and reevaluate when to execute project processes. Timing is crucial for successful project outcomes.
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Effective Time Management for Project Teams
Project Management Essentials
JANUARY 5, 2024
Time is our only finite resource. We cannot buy it or create it. Therefore, we must spend it wisely. Effective time management is a critical project management competency. Regrettably, many teams lack these skills or discipline and consequently fritter away their time. There is not a silver bullet to managing time more effectively.
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Project Management…Words Matter
Project Management Essentials
DECEMBER 1, 2023
Words matter. Even in project management. Words can carry meaning far beyond their formal definitions. Connotation and perception can have unintended consequences. Even basic project management terms can create misunderstandings that can disrupt or derail a project. In this article, I expose some linguistic pitfalls impacting the profession.
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Don’t Blame Agile for Bad Agile
Project Management Essentials
NOVEMBER 7, 2023
An agile backlash is underway. Some organizations have declared victory, fired their agile staff, and moved on. Others are agile in name only or are “doing” agile but have not fundamentally changed the way they work. We should not blame Agile for bad Agile. The problem is not with the values, principles, and practices. Instead, it is with organizations and their approach to agility.
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Project Management & AI: Bring It On
Project Management Essentials
OCTOBER 1, 2023
Artificial Intelligence (AI) will transform project management. Gartner estimated that AI may replace 80% of project management activities by 2030. A recent article in the Harvard Business Review described “How AI Will Transform Project Management.” I say, “Bring it on!” I look forward to the opportunity. AI is powerful, potentially disruptive, and will change what project managers do and how they.
The Transformative Impact of AI and Machine Learning on Project Management (AI Generated)
Project Management Essentials
SEPTEMBER 30, 2023
ChatGPT generated this article to demonstrate the difference between human and AI-generated content. The prompt was: “As a project manager, I want a 500-word description of how AI and machine learning will impact project management.” Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are revolutionizing industries across the board, and project management is no exception.
Managing Project Assumptions & Risks
Project Management Essentials
SEPTEMBER 4, 2023
We make hundreds of assumptions and take small risks daily. Without them, we would spend innumerable hours worrying about everything. We assume our car will start. Our air conditioner will work. The weather forecast is accurate. These daily assumptions are banal. Recovering from these risks may be inconvenient but not horribly impactful. Project assumptions and risks are not as casual.
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Project Success: Implementation AND Adoption
Project Management Essentials
AUGUST 1, 2023
Software projects have two measures of success. First, building and implementing working software. Second, having people use and adopt it. Project managers tend to focus their attention on delivering the application. But the project’s real success rests on user adoption. Once, I led a large project. The application was delivered on-time, on-budget, and with the documented scope.
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Agile & Waterfall: Fitting Round Pegs into Square Holes
Project Management Essentials
JUNE 30, 2023
Large enterprises and government agencies increasingly turn to Agile for their software projects. This is a difficult shift, with many struggling to fit their new round agile pegs into their existing square waterfall holes. Cultural, structural, and procedural impediments make “being agile” a challenge. Agilists may be critical and call this “fragile-agile” or “agile-fall.” We should commend these.
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Everyday Agile Practices
Project Management Essentials
JUNE 1, 2023
Agile seems like a mystery to many. It has an unfamiliar vocabulary and practices. To outsiders, it feels like an exclusive club. However, when we step back and inspect agile, we see that it follows common, recognizable patterns from our daily lives. Imagine it is Thursday evening. Your family is planning the upcoming weekend. There is a fixed amount of time and many things to do.
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Project Management: Principles, Practices & Context
Project Management Essentials
MAY 1, 2023
Einstein spent the last 30 years of his life searching in vain for a unifying theory of physics. The project management profession has had a similar quest—defining a methodology, set of practices, or principles that could successfully guide any project. Like physics and nature, project management is ubiquitous. Projects address simple, complicated, and complex problems.
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Adapt and Grow: The Complete Guide to Agile Project Management Workflows
Project Management Essentials
APRIL 21, 2023
An Agile workflow is a timeline of steps you need to start, work, and finish an Agile project. Agile workflows break projects into short, repeated phases. Teams use these cycles to seek customer feedback and add updates to the deliverable. Workflow phases or sprints last from one week to three months, during which time teams commit to finishing a limited set of tasks.
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The Project Charter Lays the Foundation
Project Management Essentials
APRIL 5, 2023
The project charter is a foundational deliverable created during the project’s initiation phase. The charter documents the project’s purpose, planned direction, and what is initially known. It may be called a charter, proposal, grant, or request. It may be a formal contract or a less formal document. Regardless of the format, articulating the project’s intent is invaluable and harder than expected.
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Milestone-Kanban: A Hybrid Project Scheduling Technique
Project Management Essentials
MARCH 2, 2023
The Milestone-Kanban Schedule (MKS) is a hybrid project scheduling and management technique that combines traditional and agile best practices. The technique is well-suited for simple and complicated projects where the required deliverables are clear, but the time and effort needed to create them are not. It embraces iterative planning, uses milestones to establish a project roadmap.
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Unlock the Power of the Project Management Plan
Project Management Essentials
FEBRUARY 1, 2023
The project management plan (Plan) is a powerful tool. It describes how the project will be executed. It should be tailored based on the project’s context and needs. A good Plan reduces the likelihood of misunderstanding, conflict, and disappointment. Unfortunately, in the rush to start a project, insufficient time is often devoted to creating the Plan.
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Taylorism: Then & Now
Project Management Essentials
JANUARY 3, 2023
Frederick Winslow Taylor shaped the field of management science. He believed systematic and scientific methods could be applied to managing operations and production. His work inspired the formation of the Harvard Business School and the modern assembly line. The Academy of Management named his Principles of Scientific Management as one of the 20th century’s most influential books.
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Disciplined Agile & SAFe
Project Management Essentials
DECEMBER 1, 2022
Disciplined Agile® (DA) and the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) are two popular, second-generation agile methodologies. They build on lean-agile thinking; and standard Scrum, Kanban, and DevOps practices. They offer practitioners tools to extend and mature their agility beyond the team to programs and the broader enterprise. They emerged about a decade after the Agile Manifesto.
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Simple Rules for High-Performing Agile Teams
Project Management Essentials
OCTOBER 31, 2022
Servant leadership and self-organizing teams are foundational Agile characteristics. However, defining these principles is like explaining gravity to a child—clear, tangible descriptions are elusive. The image of an English butler still comes to mind when I hear “servant leader.” We can use simple rules to deconstruct, visualize, and describe these abstract concepts.
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The Evolving Arc of Management
Project Management Essentials
OCTOBER 3, 2022
To successfully transform our organizations and adopt new ways of working, we need to understand how we got here. The study of management is a social science. It influences our thoughts, management practices, and organizational behaviors. Social sciences provide valuable insights. But they are not always testable, timeless, or universally applicable.
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Agile Beyond IT:Â Reinterpreting the Manifesto
Project Management Essentials
AUGUST 31, 2022
Agile was initially conceived to deliver software projects more quickly. We have now learned to apply these principles and practices well beyond technology. Leading enterprises are now focusing on business agility—building the organizational capability to respond more quickly to the ever-changing competitive landscape. Seventeen technology thought-leaders from around the world gathered at the.
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Agile Beyond IT: Lean Thinking
Project Management Essentials
AUGUST 6, 2022
Agile is a mindset described by a set of values and principles. It traces its roots to Lean, which is also foundational to other modern management theories. Lean’s primary focus is delivering value quickly and eliminating waste. Toyota was a Lean pioneer. Out of necessity, it needed to be very efficient to compete. It dramatically decreased the cost of rework by building quality into every process.
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Pick Your Battles Wisely
Project Management Essentials
JULY 3, 2022
Conflict exists. It is a natural part of being human. It occurs at home and at work. We disagree. We have different perspectives and opinions. We get upset by things that were said, or not said. These events arouse our emotions. We become angry or afraid. When there is conflict, we cannot control the other person’s behaviors. However, we own our response.
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Gantt 101: Building a Better Project Schedule
Project Management Essentials
JUNE 4, 2022
The Gantt Chart is the most widely used project scheduling tool. It visually depicts the project’s activities, when they will occur, and their interdependencies. When used correctly, it is powerful. Unfortunately, most Gantts are poorly constructed, stripping them of their value. Henry Gantt developed the tool a century ago. The original Chart was simply a horizontal bar chart showing the timing.
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Be Agile: Follow the Manifesto
Project Management Essentials
APRIL 30, 2022
Agile teams are described as “self-organizing” or “self-managing.” But what does that really mean? The terms are frequently used but not widely understood. For teams to “be” Agile, they need to know how to act. Behaviors describe actions. They are observable and universally evident to all team members. To “be” Agile, teams should identify and clearly label the desired actions and interactions.
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Economics 101 for Project Managers
Project Management Essentials
APRIL 1, 2022
Economics is the social science that studies making choices subject to constraints. Project, program, and portfolio managers make economic decisions daily. We try to maximize value delivery subject to the constraints of time, cost, quality, risk, and resource availability. Economics can help project managers make more informed decisions. It provides frameworks to evaluate different options and.
Better Project Communications
Project Management Essentials
MARCH 1, 2022
Excellent “soft skills” differentiate the great project managers. Since 90% of a project manager’s time is spent with others, it is no surprise that communications and emotional intelligence are vital traits. They are situationally aware, assess context, and communicate more effectively with their teams, customers, and stakeholders.
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Improve Your Project Schedule
Project Management Essentials
FEBRUARY 2, 2022
Let’s be honest, most project schedules disappoint. They are unrealistic, complicated, and do not help guide execution. For decades, Gantt charts, network diagrams, and the critical path method have been the standard practices. Even with these powerful tools, only about half of all projects are completed on time, as reported in the PMI Pulse of the Profession.
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Making Ethical Project Decisions
Project Management Essentials
JANUARY 2, 2022
Project managers rarely face ethical dilemmas. We generally do not make life-or-death decisions or need to choose between “right” and “wrong.” However, we need to be prepared and have a framework for confronting these circumstances when they arise. My career is probably more colorful than most: I managed the United States Treasury securities’ auctions when the fabled investment firm.
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Project Assumptions & Risks
Project Management Essentials
NOVEMBER 30, 2021
Assumptions and risks are embedded in our daily lives. We expect the day will unfold as planned, and risks will not materialize. Most of these assumptions are benign, like thinking the weather report will be accurate; or no major calamities will occur. Projects are built on assumptions. Without them, it would be impossible to proceed. But some may lead to unanticipated or even tragic consequences.
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Project Portfolio Management & The Theory of Constraints
Project Management Essentials
NOVEMBER 1, 2021
Large enterprises struggle to manage their project portfolios effectively. They fall prey to the fallacy of optimizing resource allocation. Or simply stated, they focus on making sure everyone is busy rather than getting things done. Team members are allocated at least 100% to project work, if not more. As a result, people are working on multiple projects—more than they can realistically juggle.
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Project Frameworks: Understand the Choices
Project Management Essentials
OCTOBER 4, 2021
Selecting a project management approach and framework is complicated. Not that long ago, it was like buying a Model-T Ford; you could have any color you wanted, as long as it was black—our only option was Waterfall. Today Waterfall is still a choice. There are also multiple Agile frameworks, or you can mix-and-match and go Hybrid. So many choices.
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Flipping the Triple Constraint
Project Management Essentials
SEPTEMBER 1, 2021
Project management theory established the Triple Constraint (aka, the Iron Triangle) as the key to project success. If the scope is known and fixed, then the schedule and cost must adjust to accommodate scope changes. The simplicity of this proposition is appealing. At the beginning of the project, all requirements are documented, the design is approved, and nothing should change.
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Busy, But Not Productive
Project Management Essentials
AUGUST 2, 2021
Everyone tells me they are busy. They are on video or conference calls from morning until evening. On average, workers receive over 100 emails per day and send at least 40. A common complaint is, “I spend my entire day meeting and doing email; and have no time for my ‘real’ work.” After listening to a podcast on remote work, I reflected on my experience working with distributed teams in the 1990s.
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Unlock Potential: Push Decision Making Down
Project Management Essentials
JULY 1, 2021
Modern management theory is built on the premise of trust. If management creates a values-based culture, employees will make the “right” decisions. Douglas McGregor described Theory X (not trusting) and Y (trusting)managers. The 1950s were an inflection point where the nature of work and management practices began to shift. In the era of industrialization and mass production.
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