project management

Top 10 blog posts for 2011, 10 to 6

Closing out 2011 I look back at the year’s most viewed posts as a chance to reflect on differences of what I topics I blog about and what people view most.  Why were some viewed over others:  topic, time-of-year, day-of-week? In descending order: 10. Competing values drives your organization out of business — A 2009 [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , ,

Project management is not a process, but a promise

A project introduces something new.  New requires change from what was to a promise of what will.   The project deliverable, or promise, undertaken without process is a leap in the dark.  No sane person will take a leap in the dark without some promise or rational premise of: what will be, what it will cost [...]

2 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

The final frontier of competitive advantage

Competitive advantage:  the final frontier. Today only 2 areas remain for competitive advantage: talent management and project management Put another way, an organization has 2 ways to beat their competition: their ability to motivate people and their ability to reliably deliver projects. Talent as a hard asset Hiring the right talent and keeping that talent [...]

6 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

Project management is useless without scale

Project management is a profession. Project management is a discipline. Project management is a skill. Project management is a function. Project management is a knowledge Project management is useless without scale and project management helps no one if it is not scaleable. Compare an accounting function of a Fortune 50 company to an accounting function in a 60-person organization.  The [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , ,

Motivation management is resource management

In this age of cheaper, faster, better, resource management is critical to organization survival.  The resource that is the  biggest organization challenge to manage is motivation.  To drive organization health both internal, employee, motivation as well as external, customer, motivation need alignment. Each day when the closing bell chimes, whether that bell chimes in your [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Quality communication in social media

As a professional statistician, I help doctoral students design quantitative research studies, and analyze and interpret their data, for their dissertation.  It occurred to me that some aspects of a doctoral dissertation could be applied to social media communications to make information and conversations more rigorous and tractable. If all you have is a hammer, [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Mergers and acquisitions failures are project management failures

Projects are how organizations realize their strategies.  To remain competitive organizations rely on successful project delivery.  Delivering on budget, on time, and within scope defines project success.  Using a project management hat to review mergers and acquisitions reframes the effort as a project to deliver on budget, within a certain time, and on expected synergies [...]

3 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Recap: Scope or how to manage projects for organization success

A recap on my series of 4 blogs around project scope.  Includes links to slide deck and customizable templates: 1. Scope or:  How to manage projects for organization success, part 1 The ability to deliver a project is the ability to compete. Scope kills projects and projects that are not delivered kill organizations. Scope is one [...]

5 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success; stakeholder analysis template

A stakeholder is anyone [or any group] who can positively or negatively affect the outcome of the project. Risk is anything that can positively or negatively affect the outcome of the project.  So, identifying and managing project stakeholders is an important step to identifying and managing project risk. Each project has a unique set of stakeholders, [...]

1 comment SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In review: A key to why so many companies blow it in social media?

August 2010 in review.  A roundup of blogs from the previous month: A key to why so many companies blow it in social media? — Do companies blow their social media efforts because they are afraid to fail, preferring to fall back on old marketing rules?  The comments section offers a chance for Jonathan Salem [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , ,

9 views into your organization with a project management lens

Project management offers a way to breathe new life into your organization’s competitive and operational advantage, but why is project management seemingly stuck in engineering or scientific theory? Project management may look like an engineering, top-down control process, but project management is less process and more a discipline:  like accounting.  Anyone familiar with accounting knows asset [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

2 priorities for competitive advantage

In addition to sales and finance, there are 2 complimentary organization priorities that leaders should focus on to achieve and sustain excellence: understand motivation deliver projects in a routine manner Organizations can stake out a competitive advantage by doing things cheaper or doing things better.  Motivation and project management are 2 ways an organization can [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , ,

Organizations don’t change, people change

Organizations are, quite simply, made up of social interactions:  groups of people.  Organizations will not change if people do not change.  There is no such thing as organization change, they don’t change, people change. All change:  transformation, business process reengineering, technology implementation, mergers & acquisitions, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma, strategic planning or, if you [...]

2 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success, part 2

The key for organizations to grow and to thrive relies on how to manage projects.  And how you and your organization manage projects for organization success is an industry competitive advantage.  But why do so many projects fail? Is it lack of preparation? Is it lack of communication? Is it lack of commitment? No, those [...]

1 comment SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success; impact analysis template

On my previous post, Scope or:  how to manage projects for organization success that included the eBook Scope – Kills Bad Breath and Kills Projects [link below] I introduced the importance of scope before a project launches.  The numbers on project failure are sobering:  90% of all projects fail and this post follows up both the blog [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Scope or: how to manage projects for organization success, part 1

Organizations rely on projects to remain competitive.  Projects are the way organizations deliver and realize their executive strategies.  The ability to deliver a project is the ability to compete.  Scope kills projects and projects that are not delivered kill organizations.  Scope is one of the most important ways to manage project success.  And when projects [...]

6 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , ,

Jane Stachowiak, Director, Student Wellness & Health Promotion-LiveWell, Berklee College of Music

Working with Toby Elwin in 2009 I was fortunate to reverse the role of mentor/mentee.  The mentor (me) received great advice and help from someone I have been mentoring over the past two decades. Toby Elwin played a major role at Berklee College of Music in transforming its student 8-page print newspaper into an electronic [...]

SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , ,

4 tips to use Twitter for project management

In my last post I presented a case to manage your projects as a business portfolio. The ability to deliver projects on time, on budget, and within scope directly impacts your organization’s ability to compete and stay alive and project failure is an organization-wide risk. In this post I want to introduce Twitter to manage [...]

7 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , ,

Why your business strategy is a project portfolio

It starts with an executive need: a new market evaluation; improve operating margins; a game-changing technology; your competition is eating your lunch. Whatever the reason, a project is how an organization translates an executive strategy. The ability to scope and deliver a project is a competitive advantage. The best organizations realize project management capability as [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

IT failure, too much information in Information Technology

Technology enables information, but why are so many information technology projects failing? 74% of all projects fail, come in over budget, or run past the original deadline* 90% of major Information Technology (IT) project initiatives fail to be completed on time and on budget* A survey by the international consulting firm KPMG finds that 56% [...]

2 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Change management, project management, and the intervention

Change Management is the Illness Overwhelmingly, organizations rely on process analysis to identify opportunity for savings. Process analysis is most commonly identified as change management. Change Management: Analyze and diagnose business and operations processes with a focus on the greatest areas of improvement in cost, schedule, and quality. Very few enjoy having themselves and their [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Change: this time let’s try something new

In today’s Boston Sunday Globe, Ideas Section, under the Uncommon Knowledge, Surprising insights from the Social Sciences, by Kevin Lewis, I read the following: A Time to Try Something New* Whenever you’ve experienced major changes in life, have you sought comfort in familiar things? If you’re like most people, your answer is yes. However, new [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , ,

Statistically, your strategy will fail

I recently ran across a statistics book and began to think about similarities to strategic planning. Statistics:  a mathematical science pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation or explanation, and presentation of data.  It also provides tools for prediction and forecasting based on data. Until this week, I had not thought statistics had as much in [...]

0 comments SELECT for full blog …

Tagged as: , , , , , , , , , ,