ICPM

My first tip for those of you on the road to the PMP is to read the PMI Credentials Handbook.

The PMI has published a Credentials Handbook, which you can find at the following URL: http://www.pmi.org/info/PDC_PMPHandbook.pdf. The Credentials Handbook explains everything that you want to know about the process of taking the PMP® exam and becoming PMP® certified. It discusses the following topics and questions:

Anyone who has teenagers or has had to deal with them will inevitably run in to one with a bad attitude.  Their whole attitude says “SO WHAT?”   As project managers we deal with a lot of issues, risks, problems and people.  Some times it makes you want to throw your hands up and say, “So what?!?!”  Actually, that might not be a bad idea.  How would that look for issues, risks, budget or schedule problems and politics? 

Finding the right balance of documentation and methodology can be challenging on small projects.  Here are some tips. 

I have been managing small projects for some time now.  Some of my project are really tiny, I'm talking about 8 hours of work max.  Others can be 2 week or month-long projects.  Some span several months, and then you get up into the 6 month and year plus undertakings.

Petra Goltz, PMP asks: How do you see the role of a project or program manager changing to keep pace with today's fast moving commercial environments?

I say: That's an very interesting question. Without giving it too much thought, I can see the following trends taking place:

In the April 2007 edition of PM Network, there is an article titled "Master Plan: IT executives need to develop an eye for project managers" that I would like to comment on.

The article is mostly based off a study done by Gartner Inc., in Stamford CT, USA. One sad but true statistic stated that 20-30% of IT executives "have a 'dismissive attitude' toward project management". Those are the same execs that suffer "from poor quality, late delivery and unrealistic project costs." I can related to this information from my personal experience, and would venture a guess that when you move into executives in operational areas, the dismissive attitude towards proper project management increases. The majority of IT execs seem to have seen the light and made the realization that there really is value to be delivered by well run projects by individuals who have the right skills to do so in a formal manner. 

Ever have a Manager in your PMO who wants to give you the authority and autonomy to do your job, but can't resist checking in on you and commenting on what could be better or done differently?

Management guru Ken Blanchard popularized the term 'seagull management' in his bestseller, The One Minute Manager. Seagull managers are not exactly known for contributing positively to an operation. One popular definition is 'The seagull manager flies in, makes a lot of noise, craps on everything then flies off again leaving a big mess behind'. And guess who gets to clean up? According to Scott Clark author if 'the Miracle of Morale-Building' notes, "When operating in (seagull) mode, leaders focus on finding people to criticise but never balance their efforts with finding an equal number of employees to praise.

Growing up in rural western New York we had cold, long winters.  Natural gas wasn’t cheap even then.  With 4 sons and a chain saw, my dad would cut enough firewood to heat a big, four-bedroom, 2-story home from October to April. 

As I child I had a lot of experience with both of these.  I assume everyone is familiar with band-aids, the merry-go-round I’m referring to is the kind you find on a playground.  These are basically a large dish parallel to the ground mounted on a central axis with some handle bars to hold on to - here is a picture of one.  Aside from a trip down memory lane, what do these two things have to do with managing a PMO or even project management or even work?   I’m glad you asked – both of these items and their lessons from childhood give us insight into change.  First, I want to look at each type of change and then talk about which is better (or not)?  

Multi-tasking is a subject I'm passionate about. Passionate about NOT doing actually, whenever possible. Let me start by identifying two types of multi-tasking, bad and required. 

Bad multi-tasking is working on two things simultaneously, or switching between things because something else is suddenly urgent, but not important enough to justify dropping everything you are working on. Many of us never stop to think about it though, we automatically equate urgency to priority. Just because something seems urgent doesn't mean you should drop everything. Remember Mr. Covey's 4 quadrants:

One week after the very bumpy implementation of the new sales management system, all implementation team members were invited to a lessons learned session. In the invitation from the Director of Project Management was an assurance that the purpose of the meeting was truly to capture lessons learned for future implementations. In spite of this, most attendees were apprehensive.