Practical Project Management – Page 3

What’s Wrong With Why?

Project managers are taught to ask why and encouraged to ask it many times. Remove it from your vocabulary! “It’s not an excuse, it’s a reason” Why is a confrontation. Why asks for motives. Motives justify. We are saints and all others are psychopaths (Actor-observer asymmetry). We are getting a lot of biased information withContinue reading “What’s Wrong With Why?”

Use Pick and Mix To Manage Your Project

Every project is unique. A project manager needs to recognize what is unique about the project they are managing and adapt their project management to the uniqueness of the effort. The wheel exists. A project manager should have a selection of wheels to choose from and the tools to adjust them. Pick your project managementContinue reading “Use Pick and Mix To Manage Your Project”

The Best Plans Are Incomplete Plans

Use rolling wave planning and plan your near term activities in detail while approximating the activities that are further out. The project manager is not a fortune teller. Immediate next steps are easy to see and schedule. The further out you look, the blurrier the view. It is almost impossible to plan and schedule in detail activitiesContinue reading “The Best Plans Are Incomplete Plans”

What Does Success Look Like?

You cannot achieve success if you do not know what it looks like. Paint a picture of how things will be when the project is delivered. Define specifically what you expect the project to deliver. What are the goals the project is aiming to achieve? What are the benefits if these goals are achieved? WhatContinue reading “What Does Success Look Like?”

How To Plan A Project With One Question

“What’s next?” is a question to ask others and a question to ask yourself when planning a project. Ask it and keep on asking it after every answer. String the next actions together and you have a complete project. What’s next? If you cannot identify a next action, the problem is not correctly or completely defined. If youContinue reading “How To Plan A Project With One Question”