Jeffery Fox in his book “How to Become CEO” recommends that you think daily for one hour. Not the unfocused, random thinking you might do in the shower or on your way to work (although these unstructured moments of thinking have their value), but focused, committed thinking: planning, brainstorming, writing down ideas, testing hypotheses, considering [...]
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
- Andrew Marvell
Amelia Bedelia is a children’s short story about a young woman trying to make her way in [...]
My uncle is a program manager for a software development company. Technically he’s the CTO, but his job function is to oversee all the software development projects. He reports directly to the CEO.
I once asked him what are the two or three most important things to remember as a project manager. He talked about how [...]
April 30, 2008 – 10:15 pm
The answer is you don’t. You can probably figure out if you have a good mechanic by how well your car stays in working order after a repair. But that is as dependent on the quality of the car as it is the mechanic who fixes the problems. Could you ever know that you have [...]
April 29, 2008 – 12:17 am
I’m a big fan of Manager Tools. The podcast provides practical management techniques that can be applied in any situation, including project management. One of the tools I like best is the DiSC profile. It is a personality model based on how someone prefers to communicate. By communicating based on someone’s DiSC profile, you can [...]
April 29, 2008 – 12:01 am
Last night, my wife was watching a recording of Oprah, where Marcus Buckingham was helping several women put their strengths to work. The stories were remarkable; some became more productive in their current jobs, some started transition plans from their current career to the next, others found more time for their family, and one almost [...]
April 28, 2008 – 11:49 pm
I’m a big fan of checklists, even if I don’t use them nearly as often as I could. My practice leader sent me a program readiness checklist that lists all the key things to look for in setting up a program. The intent of the checklist is to help us when auditing our client’s programs. [...]
April 28, 2008 – 11:42 pm
I was inspired by Penelope Trunk’s blog today about using Twitter. So I opened an account, and started using. I’m not famous, so I don’t expect many people to follow me (although I did invite my wife so she can see what I’m working on when I’m away from home). The biggest value is staying [...]
Last night my family took my sister and her family to Organ Stop Pizza. This is a pizza place that features one of the largest Wurlitzer organs in the world. There are two stories of pipes, bellows, chimes, drums, a piano, and many other instruments. For forty minutes we were entertained with a combination of [...]
April 16, 2008 – 12:19 am
As a consultant, I often wonder how my client measures the value I provide. I like to think that producing an organized project plan, implementing project processes to manage issues and risks, and tracking project progress are clear, stand-alone project manager deliverables. Therefore, that these suffice to demonstrating value.
On my current project, I came into [...]
