“Facts” continue to dribble out regarding what went wrong with the Iowa Caucus. Depending on your newsfeed, you’ve seen plenty of blame tossed about. It’s fairly easy to adopt a “blame them all, and let God sort it out” perspective. My experiences lead me to a different, very specific, conclusion. You see, I have these…
Popular Mechanics regularly publishes brain-teasers. One of those captured my fancy the other day, a classic about a fox, a hen and a bag of corn. I experienced a Eureka moment while figuring it out. This riddle provides a vital lesson on one of the most important aspects of organizing project work: a lesson in…
It’s time again to update the boss on that project. Here’s how to stand out as a star! First, include three main sections: A Look Back, a Look Forward and Action Needed. The look back should be brief and tie to the look forward section of the last report. Spend most of your energy on…
The Problem By far, the most common project management “methodology” I come across is the “pick a date and we’ll figure it out” approach. Practitioners of this approach create lists of tasks and pin those tasks to dates. This is a project “worst practice.” This is a dartboard approach. When relatively simple practices can dramatically…
“You cannot predict the future, but you can prepare for it.” A recent post on LinkedIn posed this question “Why do 70% of projects fail to meet either cost, schedule or technical performance?” As of this writing there were 23 comments. They included such things as: Not using iterative methods Too much planning, not enough…
When I took this picture I was immediately reminded of an old joke popularized by Ronald Reagan. The story varies, but typically ends up with a little boy receiving a giant pile of horse manure as a gift. Confronting the smelly pile, the boy dives in, scratching and digging about. When asked to explain his…
Try out this adage: “A project worth doing is worth doing faster.” Not sure what it takes to make something an “adage” but given the wisdom of years, I fully buy in to those words. I have yet to be part of a project where anyone said “let’s slow this down.” IT projects are always…
The weather was sunny and dry in New Mexico, but the seemingly daily storm clouds were already forming over the mountain peaks to the west. The teenager apprehensively looked up from the map and compass laying on the ground. “Isn’t there an app for this?” A crew of 10 youth and adults were preparing to…
How exactly does one change an organization? Projects involve change. While our firm uses analogies to GPS systems to describe how we succeed, we also understand change management – very deeply. I recently ran across a puff piece from Forbes that alleged to share “Three Key Principles of Change Management.” To give you an idea of how “puffy”…
The USS Arizona Memorial is the #1 visitor attraction in Hawaii. Alas, the memorial closed on May 6, 2018 because the moorings under the unloading platform had begun to shift, creating a significant safety issue. On Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 2018, the National Park Service announced good news – they had a repair plan…