At least acknowledge the “school solution”

“School solution” is a military-phrase for the standard way in which one would approach a problem or scenario.  While the phrase often is applied pejoratively, it doesn’t have to be so.  In fact, sometimes I wish I heard more folks at least make a gesture towards such standards. This concept came to mind when I [...]

More on bridging the PM/Executive communications gap

I hope I didn’t scare you off the latest PM Network (September 2009) with my recent lament about a column (my lament is here).  The piece assumed that we still needed to convince PMs that they had to be business savvy.  In fact, this issue is chock full of articles that assume PMs get that and want to get [...]

PM Quote of the Day — John Locke

What worries you, masters you.

Don’t PMs get that they’re “business” people yet?

I saw a somewhat depressing article in this month’s PM Network about the need for project managers to get business-savvy.  Not that there’s anything wrong with what Gary Heerkens writes (the article itself is here).  What saddens me is what this article implies about the mindset of project managers: Too many project managers don’t see “business understanding” [...]

PM Quote of the Day — Mike Judge

In order to have a plot, you have to have a conflict, something bad has to happen.

The unasked change control question

When evaluating change requests, I’ve seen many of the same questions asked: Do we have the needed budget? Do we have the right resources? Have all the business partners signed off on this change? More sophisticated approaches will also bring focus on the benefits, risks, and added complexities that the change will introduce.  However, I’ve [...]

PM Quote of the Day — Erma Bombeck

Car designers are just going to have to come up with an automobile that outlasts the payments. Erma Bombeck captures the essence of the planned obsolescence…

Why is “Dodge Caliber” my most popular search term?

The hottest Crossderry search term over the last few weeks has been “Dodge Caliber”, which brings folks to my “Benefits vs. Disbenefits” post. Probably not quite the take that most link followers expected, but the image does point them to Eric Beckinger’s cri de coeur. I guess I should opine briefly on why I empathized w/ [...]

PM Quote of the Day — F. Scott Fitzgerald

There are no second acts in American lives. 

Structuring that presentation story

My last full post — on effective presentations — highlighted the “Post-It” method for composing and arranging one’s story.  There are other techniques that help to structure one’s story line and its foundation. I’ve found affinity diagramming an essential tool for brainstorming.  The process is can be really just as simple as outlined in the affinity [...]

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