Once upon a time before the rise of the millennium, when the word Scrum wasn’t invented and the Agile Manifesto wasn’t written yet… Maybe then my today’s practice retrospective isn’t completely correct in saying “it recently happened”, but I had similar project situations over and over again in the recent
Keep close contact to project managers, even to the work floor. Do not only concentrate on communicating upwards! Your program marketing is better if you can tell stories of it. If you are not inside the program you will lose oversight, get unconfident with the status, start beating subordinates without reason,
When budget cuts risk forcing you to set your project on hold it is considerable to continue with reduced scope or speed rather than to roll off a good team. To save expenses part-time resources continuing on low effort may be preferable over a complete freeze and ramping up new
Many projects are sick before they even begin. The cause often is an improper, indistinct clarification of what has to be done. Particularly in many cases the translation from business requirements into technical specifications is a weak point. To understand the scope right you need to be clear about all
Project managers’ communication shouldn’t be honest only, but also clear and unmistakably. How often did I experience uncomfortable messages or tasks brought to colleagues or superiors ponderously and with nice, ornate words. In the end everybody had understood something different, later discussions ended up in finger pointing but not in solutions.
Going by the book each project should have one project lead superior to all other project functions. But I have seen many projects, especially in the technical area, where the project lead was mainly competently leading in professional matters but wasn’t sufficiently qualified as a project manager. Usually the consequence
There are most probably lots of situations where you as a PM would like to make the progress or status or forecast look a little nicer, especially if you’re an employee and with regard to your boss and your career. This is how I sometimes feel, too, but I meanwhile
I often see project managers in conflict in their job with the given frame conditions or expectations. For example that they are expected or even requested to achieve results or do things that in their opinion are not compatible with their convictions, judgements or sometimes just with good sanity and
