ProjectConnections Articles

Hawaii Uh-Oh by Kent McDonald

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 09:20:01 -0700

There is an inherent danger in writing about your job on a regular basis—you begin dissecting everything that happens in your life and try to apply it to a lessons learned in that particular field. Experiences on trips seem to be an exceptionally easy target for these lessons learned stories. I mention this downside because I am about to use my recent vacation to Hawaii to discuss risk management, and managing scope and schedule changes when things go bad... well, let's say, when things stray from the plan.

Checklist? Check! by Geof Lory

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 12:02:30 -0800

When it comes to simplifying a process, more often than not I have found that a simple checklist will fulfill 80% of the process governance requirements with a fraction of the effort and frustration. Checklists define the undone and done states through a simple binary process. It is either done, or not done. It tracks the process through examination of empirical evidence that something exists and can be visually verified. It can be checked off. You can't get much simpler than that.

Catalytic Events – Effortless Ways to Change Behavior for the Better by Kimberly Wiefling

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:14:07 -0800

A catalytic mechanism is a device, process, policy or structure that encourages, evokes, or even forces, a desired behavior. A simple example is an entrance gate at a parking garage. The gate won't let you drive into the garage until you take the parking ticket. What if we could create catalytic mechanisms that automatically, permanently, and effortlessly eliminated some or all of our recurring project problems? Suddenly the lives of project managers everywhere would brighten and a chorus of "hallelujah" would ascend from their collective voices around the world. Certainly worth a shot!

Falling in Love with GREAT Communications by Carl Pritchard

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 10:25:01 -0800

We all acknowledge that a significant amount of our success or failure is rooted in our abilities to communicate. And yet we don't invest a lot of time thinking about how to turn our mundane communications into opportunities for others to fall in love with us and our message. I raised this specter in a recent class and got an interesting array of responses from my students. Rather than simply share my insights, I offer theirs here with a simple suggestion. Pick two. Steel yourself to try them consistently. Make them a personal mission. You'll be surprised by the shift.

New Year's Resolutions for Your Project by Kent McDonald

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:42:47 -0800

It's that time of year where we all participate in the seemingly futile ritual of committing to improve ourselves by creating a list of self-betterment activities we refer to as resolutions. It may be worth a quick aside to ponder why we call them "resolutions" and not "commitments" or "promises." Perhaps it has something to do with our subconscious realization that we have no intent whatsoever to actually hold ourselves to them. If we associated some measure of success and a time frame with them instead of just stating we will do more of a certain activity, maybe, just maybe, they would have more staying power.

Lego My Schedule by Geof Lory

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:13:57 -0800

On a recent project, we were having numerous discussions regarding the complex scheduling of incrementally adding functionality to a new system. So like all good project managers we went to our tool of choice (Microsoft Project, right?) and built a beautiful representation of the proposed rollout and product development to communicate the plan. While this was a valuable exercise to understand dependencies and forecasted resource demands, the look on our stakeholders' eyes as they glanced at the Gantt chart said they needed something else: Legos.

Kollaboration Is Killing Me

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:38:24 -0800

Alas, after a year of what I'm now calling "the collective consciousness conspiracy experiment," I can honestly say, "Kollaboration is killing me!" If you are struggling to harness the hydra of the group genius in your project team, I'm sure you'll be able to relate to some of what I've experienced with these three wiki experiments. It's just a tad painful, but press on if you're curious.

Context in Communication by Carl Pritchard

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:59:51 -0800

What's compelling is that I have shared that story so many times, that I begin to believe that everyone has heard it. They haven't. But I often use the term "deer" in my conversations with others about risk to refer to some risk we have "hit" in our careers. I know what I mean. Those who have been in my classes or keynotes know what I mean. But the term "deer" is far from synonymous with "things that you have hit one time in your whole life, but which loom so large that you continually cite them as significant, even though it's a remote chance you will ever hit them again."

Fix It Fast vs. Fix It Right by Alan S. Koch

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 09:46:18 -0800

"Root Cause Analysis (RCA) will be our first Quality Improvement initiative." Carl told me. "It fits your definition of 'low-hanging fruit' (within reach and oh-so sweet). Besides, everyone agrees that we would really benefit from doing it right!"

A few months earlier, when I did their Quality Appraisal, RCA stood out as a big opportunity. They were already doing something (this put them light years ahead of most places), but for a number of reasons, they were failing to get any real benefit from it. This was our opportunity! Take an RCA process that was limping along, and turn it into a quality improvement powerhouse.

Titles and Accountabilities

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:33:00 -0700

At the risk of sounding like Inigo Montoya, accountability may not mean what you think it means. Accountability and responsibility mean two different things in the famous RACI chart, but it's not clear what Accountability adds other than a handy vowel. In fact, there is no clear agreement on the definition of accountability, or the distinction between accountability and responsibility, and several people seem to use them interchangeably. This does no one any good, especially since the distinction between accountable and responsible is quite important when talking about leading people through influence rather than through authority.

Packaged for Consumption by Geof Lory

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:09:06 -0700

Anyone who has every tried to explain or teach a complex subject they understand very well to someone who doesn't have their level of experience knows what I'm talking about. The student is looking for the recipe, but you know they need to understand all the variables and nuances because there is no recipe. To you, it really isn't that difficult once you understand how all the pieces fit together. But the reality is the student can't grasp the totality of the varying parameters or the nuances of their interaction, because they have little context in which to frame these new ideas. What they need and want are some basic rules to provide a framework for learning the skill.