240 
Change management helps when implementing risk responses
Kiron Bondale
MARCH 3, 2019
A student in a project management class I taught shared the concern that it was very hard for her to get risk responses implemented.
Kiron Bondale
Early experimentation is key to reducing project risk
Kiron Bondale
DECEMBER 8, 2019
Inspection and adaptation are two of the pillars of the Scrum framework but all agile methods recognize the wisdom of Deming’s Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle.
Join
91,000+
INSIDERS
Sign Up for our Newsletter
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Do not compromise on knowledge when filling the Product Owner role
Kiron Bondale
MARCH 15, 2020
The product owner role is extremely challenging for most organizations to fill. It is also the role which has the greatest impact on achieving expected delivery outcomes.
Use uncertainty poker to increase alignment on delivery approaches
Kiron Bondale
MARCH 1, 2020
Part of tailoring our approach to delivering a project needs to consider its relative level of uncertainty. While it is not the only determinant of complexity, uncertainty is certainly a key contributing factor.
Building Healthy Innovation Ecosystems for Your Projects
Speaker: Nick Noreña, Innovation Coach and Advisor, Kromatic
In this webinar, Nick Noreña will walk through an Innovation Ecosystem Model that he and his team at Kromatic have developed to help investors, heads of product, teachers, and executives understand how they can best support innovation in their own ecosystem. He'll also go over metrics we can use to measure the health of our ecosystems as we build more resources for innovators.
How open are YOU to changing your launch plans?
Kiron Bondale
SEPTEMBER 1, 2019
During the last week PMI announced that, based on the feedback they had received from stakeholders, they would be delaying the significant changes to the Project Management Professional (PMP)® certification exam which had originally planned to be launched in mid-December 2019 to July 1, 2020.
|
Be the eye of the storm for your team members
Kiron Bondale
MARCH 8, 2020
I’ve written a few articles over the past weeks which have touched on the current COVID-19 global outbreak. Things are likely to get worse before they start getting better, so I felt this week’s article would serve as a keystone for the series.
Cultural transformations of high-performing teams
Kiron Bondale
DECEMBER 1, 2019
While I was delivering a course on agile fundamentals this week, one of the learners in the class asked me how the mindset and behaviors normally associated with agile teams might impact or be impacted by culture.
Handling complexity requires psychological safety
Kiron Bondale
JANUARY 19, 2020
I wrote two weeks back about Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and the benefit of models such as Cynefin and the Theory of Constraints for being able to understand them. What I didn’t focus on in that article was how important the people element is when dealing with CAS.
Go slow (to go fast later)
Kiron Bondale
FEBRUARY 16, 2020
The January 2020 issue of PM Network provide a case study for one of the 2019 PMI Project of the Year finalists, the Société de transport de Montréal’s (STM) eight-year project to modernize the underground Montréal rail system.
Task Management For Project Managers
Advertisement
How can project planning that stretches over months or years remain relevant and account for new ad-hoc activities that arrive every day?
|
|
I, for one, welcome our new PM AI overlords
Kiron Bondale
SEPTEMBER 29, 2019
A frequently asked question in the main ProjectManagement.com community discussion group is about the perceived impacts of machine learning on project delivery.
Influencing the eternal optimism of a delivery team
Kiron Bondale
MAY 26, 2019
When I teach agile fundamentals classes, I frequently emphasize the importance of inspection and adaptation. Teams which don’t use feedback loops with their products and their processes should not consider themselves to be very agile.
What’s the right sprint length for your team?
Kiron Bondale
MAY 5, 2019
The Scrum Guide calls sprints the “heart of Scrum” and also indicates that they should be one month or less.
Proactive dependency management with agile approaches
Kiron Bondale
APRIL 7, 2019
When we are managing projects using a predictive delivery approach, dependency identification and tracking is done as part of the BPUF (Big Planning Up Front) exercise using the activities from a work breakdown structure and the collective wisdom of our team members and key stakeholders.
Managing The Project Budget - Developing Your Project Management Skills
Advertisement
This eBook describes the process of managing the project budget and its associated costs.
Essentialism is agile
Kiron Bondale
OCTOBER 14, 2018
I’m reading Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and many of the lessons within it echo the tenth principle from the Manifesto for Agile Software Development which is “ Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential “ In the past, I’ve mostly considered this principle as it relates to how we deliver value to our customers. It provides a constant reminder that practices, ceremonies, tools and artifacts are just a means to an end, and shouldn’t be elevated as an end unto themselves. Minimal sufficiency should be our goal when expending effort on anything which doesn’t create business value for our stakeholders. But we can also this principle to our products. While Greg’s book provides a lot of insights, there’s one line which really resonates with me: “ If it isn’t a clear yes , then it’s a clear no.” Greg provides an example of the company Vitsoe which applies this filter when hiring new staff, but the same principle could be applied when deciding what to include in product backlogs. Let’s consider the example of the mice provided with the first Apple Macintosh computers. The design team at Apple could have added multiple buttons and scroll wheels the way future generations of PC mice were designed, but a single button sufficed to allow a user to effectively use the Macintosh graphical user interface. This principle is key when defining Minimum Viable Products (MVP). A good MVP should generate empirical evidence to support or refute a hypothesis and adding features which won’t directly support that learning is waste. But minimal sufficiency could be applied beyond MVPs to general releases. By doing so we can reap some of the following benefits: Reducing learning curve. One of the attributes of well designed products is that they can be used with minimal instruction. Reducing ongoing maintenance costs. To quote Scotty from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock – “ The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain “ Reducing ongoing regression testing efforts. As system complexity grows, the points of interdependence between seemingly unrelated components makes it almost impossible to avoid regression defects. Focusing development teams on core capabilities. To quote Greg, the next time you are considering whether or not to add a feature, ask yourself the question “ Is this exactly what I am looking for? ” Agile agile project management customer satisfaction project decision making
Helping functional managers through an agile transformation
Kiron Bondale
SEPTEMBER 16, 2018
A lot has been written about the challenges caused by functional managers when their company undergoes an agile transformation. But with this emphasis on what they shouldn’t be doing, not as much gets published about the specific activities we should be doing to help them through the change.
All knowledge areas are important but some are more important than others
Kiron Bondale
JUNE 2, 2019
I am occasionally asked by learners in my project management fundamental classes which is the most important knowledge area in the PMBOK® framework.
The perils of over proactivity
Kiron Bondale
JUNE 16, 2019
At the start of our vacation, we had one stop en route to our final destination. We were supposed to have a two hour layover, but after landing we learned that our outbound flight would be delayed by another hour.
Top 5 Project Management Report Templates
Advertisement
These FREE most popular templates will help you perform your role more efficiently.
PMI plus Disciplined Agile might be a marriage made in Heaven
Kiron Bondale
SEPTEMBER 8, 2019
The announcement of the acquisition of Disciplined Agile (DA) by PMI is almost a month old so I thought I would share my thoughts on it. There is no doubt that PMI has been flirting with agile progressively over the past decade.
The only thing we have to fear on projects is…
Kiron Bondale
FEBRUARY 1, 2020
“ … the only thing we have to fear is…fear itself. ” When FDR spoke those words as part of his presidential inaugural address in March 1933, it was meant to inspire a nation to recover from the depths of the Great Depression.
How effective are your agile ceremonies?
Kiron Bondale
DECEMBER 2, 2018
We hope that by conducting effective ceremonies we will achieve the agile trinity of improved value delivery, better quality and more fun. But these objectives might be reached via multiple paths so we might not be able to prove causality between our ceremonies and those objectives.
I may be a “Crazy Fool” but I consider the A-Team to be agile!
Kiron Bondale
NOVEMBER 3, 2019
When teaching agile classes, I’m occasionally asked if I could provide an example of an agile team from cinema or television. While the first Avengers movie does a good job of illustrating Bruce Tuckman’s stages of team development (especially storming!), they are far from being agile.
Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life with Nir Eyal
Speaker: Nir Eyal
Ever get the feeling the world is full of too many distractions? Research shows the ability to stay focused is a competitive advantage, in work and in life. However, in an age of ever-increasing demands on our attention how do we stay productive and stay sane? In this webinar, Nir provides research-backed, practical advice, and memorable strategies for managing distraction and our time. Nir Eyal shares findings of his five years of research into how to master what he calls, "the skill of the century," the power to be "Indistractable."
Thriving at the Edge of Chaos – a review
Kiron Bondale
JANUARY 5, 2020
Over the past couple of years I have regularly heard companies, their portfolios and even individual projects referred to as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS).
Want to reduce digital distraction for your team? Physician, heal thyself!
Kiron Bondale
JULY 14, 2019
Two articles caught my attention this morning so I thought I’d connect the dots between them in this week’s article. The first article indicates that the Microsoft Teams collaboration support tool has passed Slack in terms of daily users.
Do your performance evaluation and recognition systems support cross-functional teamwork?
Kiron Bondale
NOVEMBER 17, 2019
While it is usually Wally who openly expresses those thoughts which we normally keep to ourselves, Dilbert is letting his inner voice do the talking in today’s strip. Let’s imagine for a moment that Dilbert’s co-worker is part of a cross-functional team which Dilbert is part of.
Impacts of traditional project funding models on agile delivery
Kiron Bondale
JUNE 16, 2018
In one of my previous articles I’d written about the need for change across multiple areas of an organization when undertaking an agile transformation.
Beyond the Findings: The Case for UX Research in Digital Transformation
Speaker: Marina Foglietta-Tereo, Head of UX Research, AXA Insurance
People often think of UX research as a tactical approach to improve the usability or visual appeal of a digital product. While good research will certainly validate an existing design, using it for validation alone would be like using your iPhone solely to tell time! Join Marina Foglietta-Tereo, Head of UX Research at AXA Insurance, as she explores the unrecognized organizational, cultural, and strategic benefits of an in-house, central and mature UXR team.
What challenges do distributed teams pose to others?
Kiron Bondale
AUGUST 4, 2019
Face-to-face communication around a shared modeling surface such as a whiteboard is considered to be a highly effective method of creating shared understanding.
Justify yourself!
Kiron Bondale
DECEMBER 9, 2018
A project manager asked me this week whether I was aware of any studies which could be used to justify the assignment of a “real” project manager to manage a project as opposed to having this function performed by someone else within a team.
How do you handle unresponsive key project stakeholders?
Kiron Bondale
JANUARY 12, 2020
It is a common challenge for anyone who has managed projects for a meaningful amount of time. One or more of your key stakeholders who are integral to the successful completion of the project appears unwilling to engage as expected.
Small is beautiful for product backlog items
Kiron Bondale
NOVEMBER 24, 2019
One of the reasons for having small work items at the top of a product backlog is so the team is able to complete them within a short amount of time.
Before Transforming The Experience, You Need to Disrupt Yourself
Speaker: Vivek Bedi, Product Expert and Keynote Speaker
Every company is (soon to be) a technology company. Undergoing digital transformation is the key to succeeding in this digital era - but the process isn’t all innovation and shiny new tech. Join Vivek Bedi, a product expert with 18 years of experience across Fortune 100 companies and startups alike, as he shares his expertise on how to strike the right transformation balance and change your product mindset.
Personal development action planning starts with the “What?” and “Why?” before the “How?”
Kiron Bondale
OCTOBER 6, 2019
How many times have you been on a project where your customer or some other key stakeholder has prematurely tried to jump to a solution without having fully articulated their needs and wants?
Authentic agility avoids burnout
Kiron Bondale
JULY 7, 2019
Harvard Business Review published an article this week covering six causes of burnout and how we can reduce these. Let’s consider these through the lens of agility. Having an excessive workload over a prolonged period of time is one of the most common causes of burnout.
What are the tipping points for your agile transformation?
Kiron Bondale
NOVEMBER 4, 2018
I’ve frequently said that agile transformations are marathons and not sprints. But when someone runs a marathon there are mile markers to understand how far they’ve come and to help them get their second (or third or fourth) wind.
Transparency improves customer satisfaction
Kiron Bondale
JANUARY 26, 2020
The link between transparency and trust is well known. You are more likely to trust the quality of the food you are served when eating at a restaurant with an open concept kitchen than if the food preparation is done entirely out of sight.
Business Agile: A Roadmap for Transforming Your Management & Adapting to the VUCA Environment
Speaker: Peter Taylor, Speaker/Author, The Lazy Project Manager
Businesses everywhere are trying to “get business agile”—but it’s not easy to adapt to becoming this adaptive. How can conventional organizations succeed in this transformation? In this webinar, Peter Taylor will walk through the change process step by step, and look at a tried and tested transformation roadmap: benefits are outlined, solutions to common challenges offered, and tried and tested methods and tools provided. It will be a guide towards a decentralized and management style that offers more successful decision making through collaboration.
Let's personalize your content