“Success Has A Thousand Fathers But Failure Is An Orphan."

This article is a continuation of the series on why projects fail. Poor Coordination Of Effort Companies always try to save costs on projects by not going full bore on a project management group. They may have project managers but they are expected to work within a procurement and accounting system set up for buying toilet paper, selling widgets and delaying payments. When you, as a project manager, are in this type of system, your primary goal is to get the project up and running within budget and on schedule while the other players are interested in keeping the facility... Read More»

You will influence better if you understand people

As a project manager sometimes I could not understand all project stakeholder’s behaviors and reactions. However I am an observer and I found that understanding people better is a good mechanism to influence them. If you can understand people you will be able to influence them and impact their lives, work or professional career in a positive way, but also you will be able to influence them in benefit of the project you manage. I would like to share some of my observations with you about that. 1. Everybody wants to be somebody: I never found a person in the... Read More»

Project Management and the Art of Confrontation

I have been brushing up on my negotiation skills to ensure my sanity lately, and came across a fantastic presentation deck about confrontation that I am sure every Project Manager on the planet can benefit from. I have summarized in my own words the highlights below, including some personal thoughts regarding the conclusions and comments made. If you would like to review the entire deck, please access the following link: http://www.pmipr.org/html/presentaciones/confrontation%20skills.pdf In terms of background on this “tool”, there are a few different confrontational types of behavior: Aggressive; Non-Assertive & Assertive – the “preferred” method. Assertive behavior involves face-to-face, respectful... Read More»

The "Secret" Code: a Toolkit of Skills

Proman was at a crossroads. The large program had just concluded. What was next? He noticed how engaged he’d felt during the process. Each day he threw himself into the proceedings with renewed vigor. He seemed to know instinctively what to do. People looked to him for direction, even people smarter than he was and higher up in the organization. Sure, there were many moments when he felt like he wanted to strangle someone who would not cooperate. But even these moments challenged him to reach inside himself for an appropriate response that would elicit a positive reaction. He had... Read More»

What's Your Role - Umbrella or Funnel?

Hi, my name is Brian and I deliver no value! There, I said it. I'm glad I got that off my chest. Read that first sentence again and replace it with your own name. Now, go back and read it again. Take it in, contemplate it, and ponder it deeply. Read it carefully and think very hard about what you do each and every day as a project manager. Note that I did not say that I wasn't valuable or that I provide no value. I purposely stated that I deliver no value. Most project managers I know do not... Read More»

Do Templates Really Save Time?

Since ProjectConnections is in large part a template repository, that’s the sort of question that would normally raise eyebrows. But I couldn’t help asking it when this cartoon popped up in my Feedly feed last week. The joke here, of course, is the time that was spent compiling the chart. But at the same time, this is a great reminder about proportional effort in your process improvements. Read More»

Oh, By The Way...

With this article I will take a break from the project failure column I have been writing. I will continue with that in later articles. Figure 1 Figure 1 is a picture of a rail loading terminal at a remote refinery. The yellow pans on the rails are the spill containment system. Each pan has a drain outlet on it that feeds into an underground drainage system and into a sump. The refinery loaded fuel into the rail tank cars here and shipped the fuel to an ocean terminal about 150 miles away. There the tank cars were unloaded through... Read More»

Do you know if people like you as a project manager?

Are you a positive or a negative project manager? Do you believe that you have some room for improving your attitude managing projects? Do you need to grow professionally and personally? I am sure you want to grow as a project professional, so you need to invest in your professional development, and I really learned that one of the key points for your professional development success is to associate with positive people. I met some negative project management colleagues during my life and the outcome of my relationship with them was “frustration and demotivation”. On the other hand I had... Read More»

Do you want to be a Project Ninja?

I have been reviewing many Job Descriptions that are out there for Project Managers, and I realized the other day that if I was really graded solely on what was written in mine, I would really be failing in the eyes of the company. We are so much more than tasks, dates and Project Plans aren’t we? In many ways I am very lucky, the VP that I report to and I, see many things the same way and are more flexible in terms of allowing team members to bend the rules and do what makes sense, than to follow... Read More»

4 Steps to Managing Difficult Situations

I was teaching a facilitation class the other day, and a question kept coming up that I thought would be useful to Project Leaders as well: How can we get through difficult situations? The class was specifically asking “How can I learn to keep control of a conversation when things are getting tough?”, but for project management, the question is “How can I learn to keep control of the project when things get tough?”. And I think the same answers apply. Let's assume for just a moment that there are a couple of "basic plots" for difficult situations. There's the... Read More»