KM that works — ASAP for Implementation roadmap updates

A quick KM win anecdote and kudos to my team.  The director who leads our methodology and enablement team drove a simple, but effective, effort to incorporate the conversation from our internal social media into our external-facing methodologies.  A new set of accelerators - samples, templates, and white papers - was published based on frequency analysis of [...]

New Poll — Corner Cutting in Project Management

Inspired by a post on Sharp End Training’s blog (here), my post (here), and a comment by PM Hut…
FYI, moved to right sidebar

Updated ASAP for Implementation Roadmap — WBS features

Back to business after a few less-than-serious posts….  The latest ASAP for Implementation roadmap (overview page here, NOTE: requires registration to service.sap.com) was recently updated to include consistent alignment and presentation of WBS elements.  The latest version of the roadmap is the culmination of several years of effort to harmonize the ASAP methodology’s treatment of [...]

Cheering up a gloomy project or initiative

I’m curious whether folks have any good stories about humor…I’ve found that a little bit of insanity always helps keep a project or an initiative fun (or at least bearable).  Also, showing that I can laugh at myself is a great way to loosen up the team.
I was on a busy team supporting the wave of [...]

Acknowledging fear when leading change

Wow, the latest PM Blog Carnival (here) sure had some blogworthy entries in this edition…this must be my fifth post inspired by it.  Louise Manning at The Human Imprint had a set of key change management steps (here), the foundation of which is her riff on the well-known Gandhi quote:
“You must be the change you [...]

Corner-cutting in Project Management

Elizabeth included this post from Sharp End Training’s blog (here).  I agree with her assessment of the post.  It is a good question but I would have like to seen a take on which corners are typically cut, not why corners were cut.  FWIW, here are my top ten corners typically cut:

Stakeholder management planning
Executing planned [...]

Delivering Global Projects

Craig Borysowich’s post on special considerations for international projects (here) IDs some important factors.   Also, I have to like a guy who went for the Modigliani image (see here).  Here is his list and my comments:
Impact of Distance — The extreme distance between “home base” and the customer site can be extremely costly to the project.  Make [...]

Mis-using Management by Exception

Mike Chitty’s post on “Whack a Mole Management” (here) prompted me to think about how I position and coach on management by exception.
Whack-a-mole is an arcade game in which you try to hit ‘moles’ that pop up randomly on a board using a rubber mallet….  Whack-a-mole management is based on the same principles.  The challenges [...]

Improving Trust

Extending my earlier post (here) on Charles Green’s Trust Quotient test (here), improving my strength in Credibility is related to my weakness: “Work on the “softer” sides of credibility—truthfulness, being more open, sharing more truth—about the emotional as well as the rational side of things.”
As you might guess, my primary weakness is in Intimacy, which [...]

A couple of “beyond-the-basics” meeting tips

Kevin Eikenberry (here) passes along a few strong thoughts on effective meetings from an e-mail thread w/ Susan Otto (her blog here).  The first item — not considering the true cost of meetings — is one that is influencing our approach to face-to-face interactions these days.  Especially when we need to pull colleagues from around [...]