Working in an office where leadership doesn’t communicate about the critical issues affecting the company is like wandering a desert without a canteen. You wander the office seeking to quench your thirst for information, but all you find are rumors. Everyone is gossiping about possible layoffs or project cancelations. These conversations happen when change and
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Ask a PM: How Do I Cancel a Struggling Project?
Dear Elizabeth: My project is struggling, but no one except me can see it. I don’t have the authority to cancel the project, but I don’t think it’s worth my team working on it. On top of that, my project sponsor has unrealistic expectations, and those demands keep changing. We can’t keep up with new
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How to Create and Energize a Fan Base
Building a Community of Engaged Customers, Stakeholders, and Employees with Tod Leiweke I was super excited to sit down with Tod Leiweke, the first CEO of NHL Seattle, just a week before Seattle was awarded its new NHL franchise today. As a former professional hockey player and an avid fan, hearing Tod’s plan on how he’s
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People Are Not Cogs: How to Manage a Project with People, not Resources
In a factory, people are managed like a piece of equipment, a resource that is applied to a well-described task. Anyone who has been trained in this task can be assigned and the same result is expected. If not, the fault is in the process or training, not in the person performing the task. The
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What Project Managers Need to Know about GDPR (Even If You Don’t Work in Europe)—Part Two
In the first part of this series on the General Data Protection Regulation, I discussed how GDPR provides for one set of data protection rules for companies operating within the European Union so people have more control over their personal data and what happens to it. I also discussed how GDPR affects businesses outside the
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Five Ways to Thank Your Team without Breaking the Bank
With Thanksgiving in a couple of days and the December holidays approaching, I’m reminded of the importance of taking the time to recognize the team. As managers, we should recognize teams frequently, but the end of the year usually provides us with the formal opportunity. Project teams work long hours to deliver seemingly never-ending projects,
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Stopping the Takeover: How to Manage Scope Creep
It lurks as though it’s coming from the shadows. Its insidious presence looms, threatening to take charge of everything we do. It. Is. Scope creep. Scope creep is the tendency for software projects to grow beyond their original bounds. It arises naturally. For instance, a client will want more functionality for the same price, and
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