Secret Sauce Ingredients: Judgement, Experience and Confidence
The website dictionary.com defines judgement as “the ability to judge, make a decision, or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, especially in matters affecting action”. I believe one of the most important attributes of a good PM is the ability to apply sound judgement at key times. (In fact, this is probably true of good managers in general.) Projects require thousands of decisions, small and large, over their life cycle. All participants are required to make them and...
Read MoreAre You Working Hard?
I’m mentioned in several prior posts that I love sports and the many lessons from the sporting world that can be applied to everyday life, including business. Recently, the Toronto Maple Leafs welcomed a former star back into the fold after several decades of estrangement. Dave Keon, a four-time Stanley Cup champion shared a comment with current Leaf coach Mike Babcock that someone had shared with him early in his career. “Are you working hard or do you think you are working...
Read MoreIn The Beginning, The Project Team
One aspect of project management that I really enjoy is my involvement in the creation and putting into motion of the core project team. By creation, I don’t mean working with resource managers and senior stakeholders to simply identify the key people the project will require and assigning roles in some document. While that is important, that is a prior step. No, when I say “the creation and putting into motion of the core project team” I am referring to the initial steps required to pull...
Read MorePeople Aren’t Resistant To Change…
I was thinking today of a seminar I attended several years ago by Tim Daniels of Knoll and Associates. It was really exceptional and I couldn’t remember if I blogged about it or not. As it happens, I did (you can read about it here) but this post was pretty light on detail and I thought I would expand on one of the more interesting tidbits I took from that seminar. Early on, Mr. Daniels asked the audience to raise their hands if they believed, in general, that people are resistant to...
Read MorePlaying With A Lead
Early last month, the Canadian National Junior Hockey team lost the gold medal game 5-3 to Russia at the annual world junior championship tournament held in Buffalo. There was much anguish across the land not so much because they lost, but because they had it won and then gave it away. You see, the Canuck lads led 3-0 at the end of the second period. That’s a decent lead and it was a lead they had built up by playing very well to that point in the game. The Russians scored twice in a...
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