Top 10 (Bad) Incentive Assumptions

This post from @IncentIntel is timely as we head into silly season: performance and rewards time. I especially liked the two below; communications about incentives are too often treated as a ”once and done” event: 3. If the award is valuable enough you don’t need to communicate and remind them of the award opportunity. … 5. [...]

Own your project’s story (HT @MelanieDuzyj and @mkrigsman)

We all should know how critical project communication is to project success.   A compelling story can build strong sponsorship and sustain stakeholder commitment, even in the most challenging of circumstances (also see Michael Krigsman’s project success checklist) .  However, many project managers assume that their audiences — or even worse, key influencers and “re-communicators” — understand the story [...]

Stakeholder management matrix in pictures

Sometimes it’s useful to see how we’re seen… (HT DamnLOL.com via @ahorvet link).

More best and worst project names

My post on best and worst project names remains one of my most popular.  As a follow up, here’s a few more good and not-so-good names: Sunrise was the name of the project that separated our IT systems and infrastructure from our former corporate parent.  IMO it was an excellent name because a sunrise is [...]

The cost of control

I saw a great post by Ron Ashkenas on how controls create complexity.  We’ve been struggling with this issue in our transformation program.  We have put stronger controls and more frequent communications in place.  However, these controls and communications shouldn’t create double or triple work. Askkenas captures what drives these issues in his opening paragraph: [...]

Sound and fury, signifying nothing

Communications practices are a gold mine for the troubled project prospector. Another sign that a project is headed for trouble is another communication quirk: discussions aren’t reflected in any documented issue, action, risk, deliverable, etc.  The most familiar example is a colleague who can always “fill in the details” on a topic during the discussion, but [...]

Best and Worst Project Names

The name of an initiative is an oft-overlooked aspect of communications.  You’ll get a decent name if you work with an experienced OCM crew.  However, the most effective names I’ve seen weren’t focus-group tested so to speak.  Here they are: Everest: Used for a SAP project that was challenging with a tight time line; however, [...]

Portents of Impending Doom

How do you know if a project or program is going off the rails?  IMO, the first signs show up where you might expect, in communications.  Remember that the core of project communications consists of presenting the progress, status, and forecast for the various elements the project is supposed to deliver. Perhaps that is the [...]