Boundaryless project management

February 28, 2008

The term “boundaryless” has become a buzzword in business for working across department and division boundaries. It is challenging to get people to work this way within a company, but more and more projects cross significant boundaries and require boundaryless project managers. Here’s a common scenario. You are put in charge of a project that [...]

Read more...

Motivating project team members: personal recognition.

February 27, 2008

For project managers who do not have the authority to provide financial recognition to outstanding accomplishments of individual project team members, there’s still opportunity to reward and motivate. There are plenty of inexpensive and even free ways to reward your top performers. Top performers are a rare find. If you have a star performer on [...]

Read more...

Do you need PMP certification?

February 1, 2008

When it comes to professional certification, there are those who strive to obtain as many certifications as possible and others who strive to attain the highest certification possible. Still others see little value in certification, but rely on experience and formal education. If you are a project manager and are unsure about professional certification, this [...]

Read more...

Project management degree programs.

If you are preparing for a full-time career in project management or want to improve your marketability, consider a degree that specializes in project management. But how do you select a program that provides you with the most opportunity? Undergraduate vs. Graduate Start by looking at where you are in your education. If you have [...]

Read more...

Four steps to a basic project schedule.

Whether you are leading a church picnic committee or a $500 thousand project, a basic project schedule is a must for effective leadership. For professional project managers, this may be second nature, but for the new project manager or for someone thrust into leadership for the first time, there are four basic steps to creating [...]

Read more...

Essential project management dashboards.

You are fully equipped for your project. You have your project schedule, your risk assessment, your issues list, project budget, and communication plan. But what do you communicate to your project sponsor or other stakeholders? Many project managers will communicate only the project schedule, but there are so many other perspectives to present to your [...]

Read more...

Roles, ownership, and accountability.

One of the most important factors for a successful project is clear roles and responsibilities.This is important for all projects, but especially for those in which your team has a dotted line relationship to you. The Confused Project Team Imagine you are assigned as a member of a project team, and you are not given [...]

Read more...

Getting started with the project life cycle.

Congratulations! You’ve been assigned as a project manager for an important project in your company. You are accountable for the success or the failure of a team of people in achieving a goal, delivering a product, or implementing a new system. So where do you begin? There are a lot of tools that you can [...]

Read more...

Managing project issues.

Issues come up in all projects. Some projects seem to attract more than others because of complexity, skill sets, and expectations of project sponsors. Knowing this, it is especially important that you manage issues before they manage you. Issue management is an important part of any project. If you manage issues well, your projects are [...]

Read more...