The International Community for Project Managers (ICPM)

In past columns I explained some basic project management terms for people that don’t understand what they are doing. Explaining simple project management terms to dummies is one of the reasons I am such an effective coach. (Oh sorry, if you don’t like that I referred to you as “dummies”, perhaps you would prefer “moron” instead.)

Here are some additional terms that are important for project managers to know and understand. In the future perhaps I will compile all of this in a “dorktionary” for project managers.

Here are some interesting quotes from Sam over the past few years.

Agile project management. I like this new concept of “light” project management. This seems to fit my pattern of being light on planning and light on controlling the project. What I especially like is that because we cut down on project management, we have time left over when the actual work takes longer than estimated.

The importance of good people. Some people say that you should just pick good people for your project team and let them loose to get the job done. I tend to agree with this approach. Unfortunately, I usually find out that my project team is not exactly the cream-of-the-crop (if you know what I mean). So, when I turn them loose with little supervision and management, the typical result is a late project with lots of problems. I can then blame this on the staff by referring to them as "the dullest knives in the kitchen" (loose translation). 

Project management in healthcare revolves mainly around IT projects and information systems, biotechnology,and clinical trials of pharmaceutical agents. The latter is usually referred to clinical project management, with roles like clinical research manager in a clinical research organization (CRO) .

However, this kind of clinical project management doesn\'t really concern the way doctors and nurses totally manage their cases from A-Z .